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This reporter is by no means an elite member of the
emulation scene as it stands, but more of an
interested observer with a keen and intrepid eye for
the absurd, nonsensical and downright bullshit that
seems to be prevalent within our favourite hobby. So
without further ado, I will start this meandering rant
into the weird world of CPS2 emulation, Razoola,
donations and the apparent disregard for common
sense and honesty. 1) Old School Arcade Gamers - This camp is mainly made up of ancient gamers who believe that the true arcade experience died in the mid-eighties and will never be reclaimed. This camp was of the opinion that CPS2 was graphically nice but just fighting games rehashed over and over and over again. This camp generally wasn't overly concerned about playing the games but wanted them preserved because of the insidious suicide problem. 2) The Street Fighter Junkies - This camp is made up of the younger generation of arcade gamers who cut their teeth on endlessly repetitive rounds of Street Fighter and its ilk. Generally too young to appreciate the older games and hopelessly immersed in 20 control combo's. This crowd can usually tell you the bio of all SF characters and define the minute differences between each generation of game like it's an Academy Award winning documentary or a summation of the complete works of Tolstoy! Can you guess which camp I'm in =) 3) The Collectors - This crowd just wanted completion, though that is still a long way off. Any and all games must be assimilated into the collection. While they can appreciate most games and have a few favourites, they will generally play a little of everything. 4) General Gamer - This camp probably has the most members in that they just like to play all games regardless. They can appreciate something in just about all of the games. Regardless of which camp you were in, everyone talked about the eventual decryption of CPS2 so that all could eventually enjoy. Predictions were wild with some even predicting the end of the scene as we know it. Another popular passtime that has been rehashed more than once! Then along came CPS2 Shock the site who proclaimed this as their first news post! "27/09/1999 Before you say it... Yes our aim is to break the encryption so that CPS-2 games can be emulated. But we are also going to show you our findings (and failures) along the way. This site will become a knowledge base of Capcom's Play System 2." This was back in the dim dark days before Retrogames offered hosting and CPS2 Shock was maintained by more than Razoola. |
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For anyone interested, CPS2 Shock was originally hosted at GeoShock. What was amusing was the second post made a few days later. " 02/10/1999 This is an open project. Our Finding will be posted here and shared for you all to see. We are running the project this way so in the event of our efforts being unsuccessful, someone else may just find this information useful especially if they own CPS-2 boards." Of course this tune has since been changed hasn't it? From the very start this project was largely based on donations. In fact if you troll through the news archive you'll note items being donated, mainly in the way of content from the very early days. The main question that I and increasingly others ask is what exactly are the donations made up of. There does not seem to be any form of reconciliation or balance that is offered to the donators or scene in general. This leaves a lot of room for accusation and speculation on behalf of not only the emulation scene itself but also the long list of people who have not only donated boards but also cash. Where does this money go? Is it poured back into the project? Is it banked? Is it used to purchase boards that so far are actually donated? Is it used to purchase boards that are post 97? So many possibilities and yet, no one has come forth to explain exactly whats happening and still we get requests for yet more donations! Well we have this statement on the CPS2 Shock donation page. Lets do the math, shall we? The current list of donators are maintained at CPS2 Shock (albeit minus any dollar values), so we will factor in a small value as an average and see what we can come up with. I'll divide the donation scheme up into its relevant sections. Cash Donations We currently have a list of 151 cash donators. Lets assume that this page is up to date and accurate. We'll use an average of $20.00 per donation as a nice average figure. Any more would be a large presumption and any less would make the bulk of the donations little more than a joke. This gives us a total of $3020.00 Not bad so far, particularly when all the boards so far are donated free of charge. Subtotal: $3020.00 Boards Donated & Sold This is where someone will purchase a CPS2 board privately and donate it to the cause free of charge. This item is usually shipped to them as well. Once the board is dumped and Xor'ed, it's then sold off, according to the donations page to enable further purchases. Mind you I haven't seen any purchases mentioned so far, particularly as everything but time has been donated. This category of donation has eight listed entries. Whats the average market value of a CPS2 board. Anywhere between $50-$300? Using an average of lets say $150, we get a value of $1200.00 Subtotal: $4220.00 |
