So, Shenmue Online has just been announced. It’s being co-produced by Sega and some Korean outfit, and beta testing starts later this fall. For fans of Shenmue, this is amazing news, especially since most had assumed the series to be dead. The pessimists on the other hand have pointed out that it’s simply ridiculous to launch two new MMORPGs (this and Matrix Online) at more or less at once. Gotta say, I have to agree with that camp.
I, like many others, was pretty excited by the anticipation for the first game, and not because I’m a diehard Sega fan, but because I’m an AM2 fanboy as well. But once I got the chance to play it, I was almost immediately bored. If the game emulated real life events, and my father was killed in real life, I’m afraid I’d be too busy playing Space Harrier, collecting capsule toys, or chitchatting with the hot dog vendor instead of tracking down his killer.
Its one of those games which I really wanted to like, but no matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t get into it. Even when I heard that the second game was infinitely better, I worked my ass off to make some progress, but after a while, I just couldn’t take it anymore.
But I did pick up the European import version of Shenmue 2 anyways, and it was indeed a technical masterpiece, more so than the first one, and definitely pushed the Dreamcast to the max. And I have no doubt it was indeed a better, more action packed, and all around more satisfying experience, but I played it for maybe… five minutes before putting it down and was never compelled to play it again.
Around that point I was rather poor and ended up selling the game without hesitation (too bad I can’t say that for Radiant Silvergun or my entire SNES collection). Years later, I picked the game up again, this time for the Xbox, even though I still don’t have one yet, though I know I will eventually. The game came with a second disc: all of part 1, at least all the cinematics and pivotal action sequences, condensed into a movie (which they actually played in theaters in Japan). I watched the film, which was more or less the entire game, and I couldn’t believe how unbelievably stupid it was. Granted, watching the cinemas from a game does not paint a full picture, but it just completely killed any remaining interest or time I was willing to give the series, so I immediately traded the game in (though I still have Jet Set Radio Future and Panzer Dragoon Orta, of course).
So now we get to see Shenmue rise from the ashes, and as a massively multiplayer online role play gaming, a genre which anyone knows, I have zero interest in getting involved with. Just the very thought of thousands of idiots asking where they can find sailors is simply frightening.
Sega did promise some “ground breaking news” at E3. Well I guess better late than never…
In other news, the contents for the Sonic Mega Collection Plus for PS2 has finally been revealed, and Sonic CD is still not included. So what exactly is new? Just the Comix Zone (really good game), the Ooze (could have been a good game, but it’s not), and a small handful of Sonic related Game Gear (and not all of them, which were all available on Sonic Adventure DX). That’s it. I know many (such as myself) were hoping for maybe Knuckles Chaotix, or maybe even Sonic the Fighters, but everyone expected Sonic CD, and it’s absence is beyond belief.
The “official word” is that Sega CD emulation is still not perfect, hence the omission, but that is total bullshit. Sonic Team or whoever can’t get a 16-bit based game to work in a 128-bit environment? Sounds like laziness to me. Sega sure is on a roll these days…
