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Propeller Arena - Sega's Lost Dreamcast Title?
Thanks to TNL for their new feature exploring the unreleased Dreamcast online-enabled flight title, Propeller Arena, which was cancelled in 2001 "at the last moment in the wake of the September 11th tragedy." The article points out: "Initially, Sega's pulling the plug on Propeller Arena might have seemed a bit of an overreaction to the events of 9/11. After all, what did a fantastical WWII-style arcade game have in common with modern day events?" However, the writer has had a chance to play a near-final Beta of the title, and suggests that "...once one actually plays the game Sega's decision seems much more understandable. One level is called 'Airport,' while another, 'Tower City,' is apparently patterned after Manhattan, the anchoring feature of the stage's city skyline being huge replicas of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers." But he finishes by praising it as "one of the most graphically pleasing ganes for the console", and arguing that the "fun factor of the online mode would have been through the roof."
(Use a disposable account from a disposable IP before moderating this up. Editors generally watch and see who moderates controversial things like this up.)
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Your UID is being tracked, it's not Anonymous. Lots of people post lots of things to Slashdot as AC only because they believe it is really anonymous - it isn't. They hunt "trolls" (non-karma whores and non-group thinking bots) down.
This is true. I used to be a bit more freestyle and witty AC and be a nice guy logged in [basically a karma whore]. After a short while, I could no longer moderate. Slashdot does brand AC posts with IP and then map them back to users. They lie about AC, AC doesn't exist if you re-use ip addresses.
Big brother is watching. So while I might be a "troll" a lot of the AC things I said were to protect myself from Slash-bot groupthink. They punished me for voicing my opinion freestyle.
They also revoke moderation FOREVER - $rtbl it is called, for any moderations of any post that have been secretly flagged annoying [Slashcode has hidden flags viewable by editors]. If you *EVER* mod up something an editor secretly marked annoying you NEVER moderate again, ever - ever even if your karma is capped.
Also, Slashdot uses the friends system to track "trolls." Mark a troll you find funny as a friend *bang* $rtbl never to moderate ever again. My real account had many many good friends who had good karma, and a few funny trolls later, no more moderation for that account. Again, Slashdot is spying on its users to make the people who find certain things funny uneligible to moderate. You will never moderate again if you are a friend of a "foe or freak" of an editor.
FACT: This is in Slashcode CVS
Revision 1.7.2.5 / (download) - annotate - [select for diffs] , Thu Feb 8 13:12:32 2001 UTC (2 years, 9 months ago) by pudge
Branch: bender
CVS Tags: v1_1_3_0
Changes since 1.7.2.4: +18 -7 lines
Diff to previous 1.7.2.4 to branchpoint 1.7
log more AC info
So AC is a scam here. Hitler-Malda screws AC posts in the caboose. So now all you can do is go 100% AC, or , as they expect you to, KARMA WHORE. And it is so lame and unfair and probably illegal as they lie about anonymity.
Also, sometimes when certain information becomes an active thread, they bitchslap the thread much later so that people think its "safe" to participate and the whole thing gets slapped.
There is a presumption anonymous means something. They lie like rugs to the posting public by using the word anonymous. It is not. They brazenly lie though and the un-assuming poster is having everything he says correlated with him and stored in a computer just waiting to be subpoenaed by the people that Slashdot claims to hate but works for. They work for the fascist forces and components of the US government. I like the US and other Western governments but they have good and bad components - there are things you need to do to protect yourself from the bad components. Basically "covering your ass" so to speak. At Slashdot, in lying about AC, un-protects its posting public (seeding a de-anonymizing privacy stripping pandemic in their own "little" way). This makes Slashdot a very dangerous target for you the posters to have your "anonymous" information subpoenaed and you to be chased down and persecuted for speaking your mind. I think that it is a joke Slashdot editors post about SCO, MSFT, RIAA, MPAA, TIA, FBI, etc. They do the same fascist big-brotherly things that those companies do the public at large as they do to the Slashdot posting public.
Protect yourself. Try and use proxies or a super good second browser with proxies that you never log into such as Opera (which makes it very easy to delete all private data). Thank you.
The WTC attacks happened over two years ago, and while it may have been a very large shock to those whose lives were directly touched by the tragedy, there seems to have been a swing towards not mentioning the attack at all in anything but the most rose colored speech.
A bad thing happened and we are all trying to 'get over it'. However, I fail to see how a game based on a propeller plane flying around a big city in any way defames those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks.
There is a time to be somber and thoughtful, but there is also a time to realize that not everything revolves around you and your personal tragedies.
I have been pwned because my
The Dreamcast was great system that just couldn't make inroads against the Sony marketing behemoth. And now, with the Sammy acquisition in play, it looks like Sega is going the way of Atari.
Oh, how the great ones have fallen...
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
That is a shame that game was cancelled. The online multiplayer aspect sounds a lot like Crimson Skies for Xbox. Crimson Skies is (IMHO) turning out to be the best Xbox Live "destroy stuff" game.
what's a 'gane'?
the terrorists have already won. Let the dreamcast game come to market (in a PS2, XBOX update) and let freedom ring. or something like that.
-Dipster
Obecity - 30,000 dead EVERY YEAR.
Do people shed a tear when they drive past McDonalds?
He did rip it for us, didn't he?
Is it just me or does this game look a lot like the Xbox version of Crimson Skies? 3rd person, dogfighting over cities, online play..
Probably just a coincedence..
I was working at Sega during the development of Propeller Arena.
At the time, the game was in its last stage of development. The game was debugged and on its way to being mass produced. The packaging had also been completed in the early days of September in 2001. It was simply days away from being released.
During the game, there was a powerup you could collect that would allow you to release a huge bomb. The explosion from the bomb created a large, mushroom cloud looking graphic. If your plane was destroyed in any way while carrying one of those bombs, the bomb would explode. The camera would zoom back to show a distant shot of the explosion. If your plane crashed into one of the buildings, it would do the same. The image was eerily similar to those we saw on 9/11.
To complicate the matter further, the packaging for Propeller Arena showed the City level on the cover. It also showed a plane crashing into one of the large buildings while carrying one of those big bombs.
With this in mind, Sega management decided to pull the game. I can't say I blame them at all. It was a shame that we all worked so hard on such a fun game but at the same time, the sinister acts that had occurred were on everyone's minds. Releasing such a game could easily reflect negatively on the company. It would have been real easy for a critic to say something like, "Sega is trying to capitalize on a national tragedy." So, the game was quietly put away.
It's ok if they didn't release the game in USA, but why has the rest of the world suffer because of the simple minded people of USA? Why not release it in Europe and Japan?
us DC loyalists want to play it
Is this something Sega is releasing into the public domain? If this website got a hold of it perhaps they could do the community a nice favor and release it for download.
www.lonseidman.com
I'm sure it'll get released on the internet eventually like how Half Life was.
The only thing is, I wish sega would release server software for their discontinued games... I miss playing chu chu rocket online =(
yes this game looked great i had really wanted it, its too bad that it had to be canceled... hopefully someday the almight belokk or someone else will get the ability to rip this hes looking for it now if anyone has it and wants to realese it or any other unrealesed games hes always looking for them... well i can pray something happens... nice to see info about this get slashdotted...