Ah, the ever poetic mumblings of Gehn.
How is it that the idea of “mechs” is stupid? Or that they are copying each other? That’s like saying all science fiction that features spaceships are stupid because they copy each other.
And mechs, robots, whatever. That’s what they’re called. In all the games mentioned, you pilot a giant robot. What’s wrong with that?
And how is that “copying” other people???
Because everyone feutres a piloted robot.Such specific content should not be used by so many games.I mean some guy had the idea of pilotting a humanoid machine once.He will never get the credit for it…
Huh? Wow… I’d never realized that Sonic was a robot!!! 
(just messing with you)
I don’t see what the problem is. We refer to military games as such because they share a similar theme, regardless of the gameplay. What’s wrong with referring to games by theme? If I’m talking about mech games, I’m including, for example, Front Mission. Yet, if I were to talk about turn-based strategy games, I’d still include Front Mission. It’s not like the fact that it’s a mech game excludes it from being anything else.
And what’s the comment about the “creator” of the mech genre got to do with anything??
<-- Don’t understand what be goin’ on.
What I wa strying to say in the first place is that the concept of a “mech” is too specific a cretion to be bluntly copied to other stories/games.It’s just like Super Sonic copying the “stiff blonde air” concept from Dragon Ball Z.It’s not right…
How is the concept of a mech too specific? It’s no more specific than an airplane, or a tank. You’d have no problem talking about airplane games.
Humans have always wanted to create robots. Anything from Frankenstein’s monster to Gundam, speaks of our desire to “create life in our own image.” It’s something we’ve dreamed about for centuries and is reflected in our literature and our pop culture.
The idea of a giant robot that you control? Well, that’s just an extrapolation of that desire. To be a superman, of sorts, encased in a giant projection of your own power. The use/design of mechs varies greatly from culture to culture, but is mostly influenced by our obsession with warfare.
So, like Bluefoot said, there really ain’t that big 'o difference between talking about mechs and talking about tanks.
Someone created the tank, right? Do you get upset that Starcraft features Siege Tanks, which aren’t really real, but are called tanks?
Mechs are different tho.Mechs are almost exclusive to the gaming world.
But anyways nevermind.The barrier between copy and non-copy is thin and I don’t really accept this…
Mechs are exclusive to the game world? Not quite.
Ever hear of Tetsujin 28 (1953)? Mazinger Z (1972)? Gundam (1979)? That’s all well before you see any mechs in videogames.
And that’s just giant robots. Nevermind normal, human-sized ones.
I said “almost” and I was refering to the present day too.
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]It’s not that I can’t move on - it’s that I won’t allow anyone to defend the mistakes that almost killed Sega.
Weren’t all those Saturn RPGs I mentioned before worth localizing? Other than them, western gamers never enjoyed Radiant Silvergun, Metal Slug, Thunderforce V among a few other games.
When Sega launched the Saturn ahead of schedule in America people were still in the middle of learning how to program games for it. Sega of Japan never released any official graphics engines to any potential third party developers, whereas Sony was all too willing to distribute software libraries for its newest console. As a result, most of the third party developers that actually did support the Saturn only managed to utilize one of the Saturn’s dual processors.
Camelot, Labotomy, Team Andromeda and Travellers’ Tales and Treasure were among the few who managed to realise the Saturn’s full potential.
You can read the complete history of Sega here: eidolons-inn.net/segabase/
Interestly enough, Tom Kalinskie left along with most of his staff because Sega of Japan wouldn’t listen to him and kept over-ruling his decisions (in the end he was convinced that Sega of Japan had to learn their lesson the hard way), and David Rosen (one of Sega’s founders for crying out loud) left with him in a show of support. Sega of Japan had the last say in almost everything.
Also, Sonic X-treme was cancelled because Yuji Naka wouldn’t let Sega of America use the Nights graphics engine. Of course, I doubt that a 3D Sonic game was possible on the Saturn anyway.[/quote]
That was just as refreshing reading, the whole Sega history as it was when i first read it back in my second year in uni back in 2000. It was down to this that changed my mind about Naka san. Well written.
I wish someone would write a book about Sega similar to the Marvel book
by les daniels when it tells you the warts and all stories behind Marvel comics juxposed with all the imagery of the comics and merchandise.
Can you imagine all that Sega art, merchandise, and hardware imagry on the same page detailing how Yuji Naka set about halting any rival development on a Sonic game for the Saturn. It will be a best seller.
To give a direct answer to Abadds post, and at the risk of sounding shallow - I absolutely love anything that has any form of robot, be it giant or small, sentient or used as armour.
I dunno why exactly it is I like them. I suppose I first started loving robots when I first saw Transformers (which I managed to get to see about 10 years after it was big, on it’s last ever run the whole way through on British TV).
Since Transformers, i’ll play/watch anything with robots in it, even if it’s crap (ie, Mechwarrior or Gun Metal), decent (ie, Gundam) or good (ie Virtual On, Bangai-O or Phantom Crash). It doesn’t mean I’ll automatically (pun intended) like it, just that I’ll give in more of a chance than I would if it didn’t contain robots.
So you’re lucky, Abadd, you managed to stumble into exactly one of the rabid mech fans you were refering to. Hell I didn’t even like Gundam all that much, but I have pictures of Gundams up in my room :anjou_embarassed:
EDIT - Oops. I obviously can’t spell today. I must be tired from the party last night. But when all is said and done ightj erhgis uuwsbgvruie.
So, the question is: What is it you like about them? What do you expect from a robot game?
Since when was when was Mechwarrior crap? 
I’ve always loved the Mechwarrior games and Universe!
But Gun Metal, yes very crappy!
I’m in agreement with fma, here… The original MechWarrior was kick ass.
Haven’t played much after MechWarrior 2, so I can’t talk about the later ones, but man… I loved zooming in and sniping heads off with a PPC (and you maximize your scavange by doing that!).
Best Battletech game evar? Cresecent Hawks’ Revenge.
I’ve only played Crescent Hawk way past it’s prime, since that game came out before I was even introduced to the series.
Well, there was Crescent Hawks’ Inception, then the sequel, Revenge. The first game was interesting for its time, but Revenge was awesome. Hard as hell, but man, it kicked 7 kinds of arse.
Robots.
Does anyone think that VIRTUAL ON: ORATORIO TANGRAM will appear on the Xbox under that dreamcast remake/port deal that Sega and cool net
announced some time back? I hope so but i’ve yet to see any of the other remade DC games appear on xbox even though i know RENT A HERO #1
came out ages ago.
[quote=“Arcie”]
Robots.[/quote]
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! 
Btw the example I was tlaking abotu was Blinx.You know the whole VCR tech?
Copied by PoP:Sands of Time.
THAT’S the kind of thing I meant when I talked about “mechs”.Doesn’t that get on your nerves?**