We are approaching the final hurrah for Sega’s consoles.
Cover
Sega’s last console hurrah, the Dreamcast, is coming.
Intelligence
No industry interview kicking off the issue this time. Instead we’re talking about industry efforts against software piracy, particularly for-profit piracy for systems that are currently for sale. On the one hand, I can’t be too mad in the mindset of the time. On the other, this fight directly leads to the barriers faced by the Right to Repair movement, so with hindsight, I have every reason to be annoyed with NextGen toeing the industry line.
We also get our last Movers and Shakers column this issue, which is basically a big run down of what’s wrong with the Game industry. And this month (September) in history, we have the launch of the Genesis, SNES, Windows 95, Playstation, N64.
We get a new section called “Big in Japan”, which focuses on what’s going on in the Japanese game industry, including the Game Boy Color, and Namco’s new arcade board.
Alphas – Previews
We start off with Redguard, the next Elder Scrolls game. There’s Turok 2 for the N64 and PC. Sid Meier is back with Alpha Centauri. Square also has Final Fantasy VIII. Blizzard has Diablo 2 in development, and Eidos has Tomb Raider 3.
Dreamcast
In 2 months after this issue came out, the Dreamcast will launch in Japan, and the following year it will come out in the US, so it’s time for a preview of the system. We start with an interview with Sega’s Shoichiro Irimajiri, along with Mark Rein of Epic, and Kenji Eno, the lead designer of the only confirmed game right now, D2.
Kelly Flock Interview
We have an interview with Kelly Flock of Sony ImageSoft. Kelly has a very aggro, smash-mouth interview response style, talking a lot of smack about the competition.
Finals – Reviews
Parasite Eve gets a middle of the pack review due narrative presentation and issues with combat. We’ve also got Descent: Freespace: The Great War and Kartia among the stronger titles.
Letters
Doug Lowenstein of the IDSA writes in to say that all Emulation is illegal and will get you sent to Double Secret Jail. This is I remind you the current form of the IDSA is the ESA, and when the VGHF and other academic institutions filed for exemptions from the DMCA for institutions to stream games they own over the internet, the ESA argued against that because of the chance that people might have fun playing games. The ESA can fuck off into the sun, and Doug Lowenstein, who is now a lobbyist for private equity firms (the kind which killed Toys R Us, and are fucking over the real estate market) can take point.
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays
