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."

Comments

Everyone may be just a little too sensitive

[ObviousGuy]

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.

Re:Everyone may be just a little too sensitive

[SuperMo0]

The problem is, though, that people aren't really willing to see ANY form of imagery that reminds them of what they saw.

As a reminder, remember when the DC (District of Columbia, not Dreamcast) sniper was running loose? Around the DC area (which I happen to live in) people were throwing a fit over the game Silent Scope. Even though you were sniping criminals, and you were a police officer (or bounty hunter, can't remember which), the fact of the matter was you were sniping people who half of the time were 100 or so yards away, which was exactly the situation that the sniper used to his advantage. People just didn't want to be reminded of it, and so threw a fit over it.

The same holds for 9/11, at the time. People simply did not want to be reminded of the trauma that they all experienced, especially the people that were there when it happened. It would have been a nightmare for Sega if they had released that game, and probably would have sunk the Dreamcast faster.

Re:Everyone may be just a little too sensitive

[SamSim]

I don't know about anybody else, but after over two years, I'm done mourning.

Now before you mod me down, hear me out. I still wish it had never happened. I'm still unhappy that 2,000 people died unnecessarily. But I'm finished with being unable to look at anything resembling two towers, complaining about any movie which shows the WTC in the skyline of New York. I was finished a long time ago. I'm mature, I can tell the difference between bad taste and geographical accuracy.

Re:Everyone may be just a little too sensitive

[SuperMo0]

But the game was ALSO shelved two years ago. I'm not saying that it's wrong to bring it out NOW, I'm saying that they were justified not bringing out the game THEN. But how many people do you think would keep a straight face at Sega releasing a Dreamcast game close to 2 years after they announced it was dead?

Re:Everyone may be just a little too sensitive

[bjb]

Hey, I agree that flying a propeller plane around a big city doesn't defame the lives of the 9/11 attacks, but at the same time, I would get slight hee-bee-jee-bees doing certain things in the game. Basically, because I was in tower 1 when it was hit (see this if you want). To this day, I can't quite watch people doing any kind of free fall (amusement park, cliff diving, bungee jumping, etc) and if I saw someone fly even a computer plane into a building, it hits a nerve with me.

Yeah, I'm more or less over the event, I've talked about it 1000s of times (literally, not figuratively), but there are some images I will have trouble with for years to come.

Regardless, I want to see this game get released some day :-)

Re:Everyone may be just a little too sensitive

[Artifex]

No kidding. I decided that I'd had enough when I heard how they cut up Spiderman to remove the long WTC sequence. Far from being insensitive, it would have been a damn good tribute.

For those who haven't seen the one trailer of the scene that exists, some bad guys try to escape from a scene via helicopter, and suddenly they get stuck in the air... in a giant web Spidey put between the towers.

They should have left the scene in the picture. Instead of being upset, I think most people would cheer in the theater, if not give a standing ovation at seeing the WTC standing firm against the bad guys, if only in our imagination.

Propeller Arena

[Propeller Arena]

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.