"Hardcore Gaming" sucks at Rayxanber

[jperryss]

So yeah, his opinion on Rayxanber is now totally his opinion.

Fixed.

Opinions...how do they work?

[SuperDeadite]

So yeah, his opinion on Rayxanber is now totally his opinion.

Fixed.

Opinions...how do they work?

Once you start making stuff up, any credibility you have trying to look like a professional writer is lost.

[Arkhan]

"I'm a veteran of dozens and dozens and dozens of shmups, both vertical and hori, dating all the way back to arcade Galaxian. It is my preferred gaming genre, the perfect test of reactionary skill to easily digested visual information. While people drifted away from them, I continued to import shmups from Japan. Where possible I prefer to play on actual hardware, and I still believe in the worthiness of the 1CC (score attacking doesn't appeal to me so much, but I can respect it). Try to understand the difference between playing for personal satisfaction and playing to collect screens for an article.

GUYZ, AM VET OF SHEWTOR.  WHAT I SAY IS LEJIT.

Having said all that, I still think Rayxanber II is absolute crap. And a quick Google brought up a few other sites echoing the same sentiment. In fact on the Shmups forum, one poster even commented that he had never bothered to open his factory sealed Rayxanber III, because the second game was so awful.

I stand by what I've written."

What happened to the 20 kajillionbillion hits on Japanese sites about the game.

and, what about this

http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/2009/09/rayxanber-ii.html

Duomazov WHUT.

[spenoza]

I dunno, the "response" he asked apachacha to post is a bit defense and heavy on justification. I don't have issue with the author's opinions in the article, but his factual analysis is what is a little lacking. If he doesn't like a game he doesn't like it, but what he wrote as description really doesn't seem a good match for the actual game. It really does read like a rush job.

[Arkhan]

lets not forget how he called the PCE CD an underdog

[kamiboy]

Whenever I see screens of arcade shooters on that site I just stare at the amazing pixel art and wish I liked the genre better.

Out of all genres I think arcade shooters had some of the best artists. They were always good at making a boss look amazing at a glance. Of course it helps that on 101 they post pixel perfect shots without any scaling which look gorgeous in their postage stamp sized glory.

Rayxanber II and III especially feature outstanding designs in that article. This is the problem with most Youtube videos of 2D games, the uploaders use blurry footage and too much compression so the games end up looking rubbish even though on a CRT they are a sight to behold.

[SuperDeadite]

lets not forget how he called the PCE CD an underdog

Exactly, he just makes stuff up.  He's been called out on it before in other topics on the forums there, and I only looked at the first page.

[Black Tiger]

I read this article when it came out and considered posting a thread with a few comments. But this is really just another typical softcoregaming101 write up. I enjoy browsing the site because I understand how biased and uninformed most of the authors are. What I don't like is that it presents itself as an information resource and the name of the site implies that basing your knowledge of games on their articles makes you more hardcore, when in fact you'd just adopting a bunch of flawed opinions based on misconceptions.

It's cool when people only state what they know about a subject, but too many hardcoregaming101 articles over reach and explain to readers why some ports are the way they are. Depending on the author, you'll learn how the PCE is just an NES with a few extra colors, or that the SNES is just an NES with a few extra colors... or how the Genesis can only do shitty games.

[Arkhan]

I just go there for screenshots, lol

[Joe Redifer]

But remember the first game runs in VGA 640x480.  Meaning it has double the pixels that the PC-Engine games do.

More than quadruple, actually.

The Rayxanber series is basically R-Type perfected.

No way!  I don't get any of the comparisons to R-Type, that series is way different.  In R-Type you need to use your unit thingymabob strategically.  There is no unit thingymabob in Rayxanber.  The only thing they really have in common is that they are horizontal shooters.  Ikaruga is basically Truxton perfected.  I mean they both scroll up!

[Arkhan]

its got more than quadruple, really.

256x240 is 5 times less pixels than 640x480

but it depends on the screen resolution the PCE game is in.   If you get super-technical, 512x240 is what the one slideshow demo is in, and thats roughly 3 times less.


edit: Oh, I see you corrected yourself while I was posting.  Good job.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

We had a similar discussion before, but it concerned that crappy Fall of the Arcades video:
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=1350.msg51620#msg51620

[Arkhan]

Profprof, your pictures with the names of the cast made me lol, especially the Seth Green one.

ffs, I was born in 1988, and arcades were on their way out basically by the time I got around on bike to places.

There were 2 at my mall (one was all arcade games and one was all ticket games, AKA: Keep the 5 year olds away from the SF2 crowd), and one down the street.

during midterms in highschool we would go there and play shit til we had minutes to spare to get back to our next midterm.

Now, the one in the mall is gone, and the one down the street is basically a pool hall with DDR machines.  They have a broken Raiden and Strikers 1945.

and I think they still have Galaga... but its all sticky.

The closest thing now, is 1.5 hrs away at an amusement park, and it's pretty beat up these days.


What killed them around here, if you ask me, is fat lazy kids that didn't want to ride their bikes to the arcade.  Mommy bought them pizza and SNES games instead.

Anyone that says Neo Geo games are boring deserves a sledgehammer to the dick.  Even at the spastic age of like, 8, I knew Neo Geo was badass.   The rollerrink had WindJammers and Bust a Move.  Half the time I'd go skating, 3 hours would go by before I knew it and it'd be time to go home.

f*ck those retards

[ProfessorProfessorson]

You know what, since the HG article author decided to reference the shmups forum as a defense, I'd like to point out that at least at one point in time that forum as a whole also shat on dodgy journalism concerning opinion versus fact.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15826

Lest he decides to retort with a referral to the Neo forums for moar of his defense, http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?169673-quot-Arcades-died-for-us-so-we-could-have-artistic-games-like-Warcraft-quot

I read articles on Hardcore from time to time, and some have been decent to great, and in the process I have come across older titles covered on there that I was unaware of prior. Regardless of this, the issues pointed out here about the Rayxanber article are 100 percent legit. The article was sloppy, and gave off the impression that the author was not ready to invest the time needed to really enjoy two of the three titles he covered in the series, and in the process he presented a unfair review. To compensate for what would have obviously been a clear lack of content in the article, since he was clearly not interested in going for a honest and fair play-through, he just cheated his way through the games. Then he tried to pass off his opinion, based on said quick session of cheating and emu play, as well known and widely accepted fact.

Granted, I am not expecting journalistic perfection here, or Pulitzer Prize winning efforts on game reviews, but, I think if you are going to review a game, regardless of the game being perceived as good or bad by a supposed generally nameless forum audience, the game does deserve a fair shake from the reviewer themselves. In this case one was clearly not given and reads off more like"Hey man you ever hear about those Rayxanber games? Like I heard 1 and 2 were really hard man, and like, you have tiny shots and stuff, and like bosses are hard, and like you have to use save states to even beat the games, and like pt 3 was cool because it had great visuals and stuff." (Note: he never even seems to link to anything he references in his defense, what happened to providing proof so your argument has a foot to stand on? Makes him sound like hes just making shit up on the fly)

I await the authors review of Legion for Pce, I'm sure it will be excellent.....

[PunkicCyborg]

I think SuperD should write a new article for HG101