I got in touch with Braze, the fellow who created the Propeller Arena box set that I found a few weeks ago, and I wound up buying a Prop Arena disc set from him (not the entire cardboard box with microphone set, just the disc and all associated art+manual with the CD case). I'm very happy with it, and wanted to give some details for anyone else who might be curious about it.
Propeller Arena was one of the games I was looking forward to back circa September 2001 and it was a big disappointment when it was canceled. Even when the GDR was found and released online, as someone who likes to look at the packaging and collect the retail items, just having a CDr with "Prop Arena" written on it in Sharpie didn't really seem like it was "part of my collection." Likewise, printing out a low resolution insert on normal office printer paper didn't really do it for me -I'm just not a graphic artist and I don't have the software, equipment, or knowhow to make a good product on my own.
Enter Braze's Propeller Arena package. This thing is definitely a labor of love. It's really impressive the attention to detail on this thing, as for the packaging - it's almost indistinguishable from a retail game. Let me give an overview:
Here it is in the shrinkwrap (before I tore it off). It looked just like a brand new DC game would. The shrinkwrap was tight and folded just like it would normally be on a CD case. The CD case underneath looked clean and spotless. I certainly don't get the sense that this a used CD case Blaze had lying around.
Here it is outside the shrinkwrap, in between two other retail games for comparison. I'll talk more about the manual in a bit. For the next few pics I'll keep the other retail games in the picture for illustration.
Here are the cases opened up. Just like many other retail games, there is an advertisement for an upcoming game on the rear side of the manual. In this case it is PSOv2 which is presented with the text "Coming soon". Initially I thought this might be a gaffe in that PSOv2 was already out by the time Prop Arena was to be released, but a quick check online shows PSOv2 came out around Sep 24th 2001, which would have been slightly after Propeller Arena's US release date. Great attention to detail! Especially since this would have been a likely game advertised on the back of the manual (it was upcoming, it was another online title, and another Sega title as opposed to third party)
The CD graphics look great. This is not a paper label affixed to a CDr, this is a verbatim printable CDr. The printable CDr is comparable to some of the DC games that had printed graphics on the disc top such as the picture of Kasumi on DOA2 LE. The graphics are high resolution and look great. My low resolution camera can't show it too well, but all the small print you would expect to see on the CD about patents and trademarks and the sega tip line is all there. Due to the construction of verbatim discs, around the opening where you put the disc on the spindle, it does say "Verbatim CD-R 52x" in small non-obtrusive writing, but that's what you gotta deal with ;)
It is indeed a CDr.
The back looks good. I didn't think to take a closer shot but it is more of the high resolution graphics you would expect which imo are 99% at the level of a retail DC game. All the boxes listing the features (modem, microphone, 1-4 player, etc) which you would expect for this game are there and are in the correct order. ESRB rating info and barcode are all there (the rating is T for teen, instead of RP for rating pending, which I saw on a few other custom Prop Arena covers where this detail had been overlooked). All other small print and patent/trademark info is there. The text on the back reads professionally with a blurb taken from some Sega promo info I remember for the game ("The year is 2045. Who thought of this? Who Knows! But it's a crazy tournament of cool battles in the sky" etc). Other features are listed with professional sounding writing "real-time voice chat - command your squadron and ridicule your enemies" / "Up to 6 players online or 4 players off, Propeller Arena soars as an action-packed multi-player!" No misspellings anywhere, no grammar foul ups, everything looks like American English spellings ;)
Next up, the manual!
The manual is printed on very high quality thick paper. The paper feels smooth like a retail printed manual feels. The paper is different in that it is slightly thicker and stiffer imo, but this feels like a high quality retail piece and is definitely not something printed out on normal office paper. The staples are in place on the spine and the manual cover and pages look fresh and new. The cover and pages are all cut as they would appear in a retail manual - they all seem to match up and have 90 degree angles in each corner. The pages likewise fit inside the cover.
The manual is in color. The opening page has the standard warnings about epilepsy, health hazards, etc. And a nice attention to detail here is that in a normal DC manual, on this page, the manual frequently refers to the game as the "gd-rom" - but in this manual, Blaze has changed each occurrence of the word "gd-rom" to read as "cd-rom." Is that attention to detail or what!
The manual seems like a retail game manual, talking about the game modes and features in brief. Like the back insert, the text in the manual reads like a retail game would, and not like an exuberant 13 year old wrote it. Didn't see any misspellings or anything to mar it.
Game credits are all included. For a 10 or 12 page manual, it is pretty thorough. If 10 pages sounds short to you, TD Le Mans has a 16 page manual with larger print. One thing that I didn't see in this manual compared to other retail game manuals was a blurb on the inside of the back cover about warranty information, or a page that advertises customer and technical support information. I personally don't miss that though ;) Instead the Prop Arena manual ends with two pages for "notes" just as most manuals have a few pages in the back for notes.
Insides of the cases - the CD case has a transparent tray just like all US DC games had. As a result, you can see the art which sits underneath the disc, in this case a nice picture of the sky, which is in keeping with the airplane theme of the game.
It looks pretty good sitting on the shelf. If you want to get nitpicky and say that the DC swirl and "sega" logo on the spine of Prop Arena appear to be raised slightly higher than the other US game spines - keep in mind that this height differs slightly between different games anyway so it's not really abnormal.
Looks pretty normal sitting in with a pile of games...
...And looks pretty cool sitting inside my DC. (Yes the disc boots)
All in all, the quality and attention to detail of the packaging and manual satisfy my desire to have what feels like a retail copy of Prop Arena. Unlike a random CDr, it feels like it belongs with my collection, and it feels like a part of my collection. There are two extremely insignificant details that would probably make this 100%. 1) The fine print on the back insert says "copyright 2000" whereas the disc, manual, and other places say copyright 2001. 2) The DC swirl, wherever it appears on the manual or inserts is red, but on my retail games it appears as deep orange. The shade of red vs the shade of orange are pretty close together and you wouldn't notice it unless you're a crazy collector like me. It's really not a big deal though.
In closing, this is a great professionally done package with high resolution graphics and retail quality paper and printing. Thanks Braze! You did a great job!
Propeller Arena was one of the games I was looking forward to back circa September 2001 and it was a big disappointment when it was canceled. Even when the GDR was found and released online, as someone who likes to look at the packaging and collect the retail items, just having a CDr with "Prop Arena" written on it in Sharpie didn't really seem like it was "part of my collection." Likewise, printing out a low resolution insert on normal office printer paper didn't really do it for me -I'm just not a graphic artist and I don't have the software, equipment, or knowhow to make a good product on my own.
Enter Braze's Propeller Arena package. This thing is definitely a labor of love. It's really impressive the attention to detail on this thing, as for the packaging - it's almost indistinguishable from a retail game. Let me give an overview:
Here it is in the shrinkwrap (before I tore it off). It looked just like a brand new DC game would. The shrinkwrap was tight and folded just like it would normally be on a CD case. The CD case underneath looked clean and spotless. I certainly don't get the sense that this a used CD case Blaze had lying around.
Here it is outside the shrinkwrap, in between two other retail games for comparison. I'll talk more about the manual in a bit. For the next few pics I'll keep the other retail games in the picture for illustration.
Here are the cases opened up. Just like many other retail games, there is an advertisement for an upcoming game on the rear side of the manual. In this case it is PSOv2 which is presented with the text "Coming soon". Initially I thought this might be a gaffe in that PSOv2 was already out by the time Prop Arena was to be released, but a quick check online shows PSOv2 came out around Sep 24th 2001, which would have been slightly after Propeller Arena's US release date. Great attention to detail! Especially since this would have been a likely game advertised on the back of the manual (it was upcoming, it was another online title, and another Sega title as opposed to third party)
The CD graphics look great. This is not a paper label affixed to a CDr, this is a verbatim printable CDr. The printable CDr is comparable to some of the DC games that had printed graphics on the disc top such as the picture of Kasumi on DOA2 LE. The graphics are high resolution and look great. My low resolution camera can't show it too well, but all the small print you would expect to see on the CD about patents and trademarks and the sega tip line is all there. Due to the construction of verbatim discs, around the opening where you put the disc on the spindle, it does say "Verbatim CD-R 52x" in small non-obtrusive writing, but that's what you gotta deal with ;)
It is indeed a CDr.
The back looks good. I didn't think to take a closer shot but it is more of the high resolution graphics you would expect which imo are 99% at the level of a retail DC game. All the boxes listing the features (modem, microphone, 1-4 player, etc) which you would expect for this game are there and are in the correct order. ESRB rating info and barcode are all there (the rating is T for teen, instead of RP for rating pending, which I saw on a few other custom Prop Arena covers where this detail had been overlooked). All other small print and patent/trademark info is there. The text on the back reads professionally with a blurb taken from some Sega promo info I remember for the game ("The year is 2045. Who thought of this? Who Knows! But it's a crazy tournament of cool battles in the sky" etc). Other features are listed with professional sounding writing "real-time voice chat - command your squadron and ridicule your enemies" / "Up to 6 players online or 4 players off, Propeller Arena soars as an action-packed multi-player!" No misspellings anywhere, no grammar foul ups, everything looks like American English spellings ;)
Next up, the manual!
The manual is printed on very high quality thick paper. The paper feels smooth like a retail printed manual feels. The paper is different in that it is slightly thicker and stiffer imo, but this feels like a high quality retail piece and is definitely not something printed out on normal office paper. The staples are in place on the spine and the manual cover and pages look fresh and new. The cover and pages are all cut as they would appear in a retail manual - they all seem to match up and have 90 degree angles in each corner. The pages likewise fit inside the cover.
The manual is in color. The opening page has the standard warnings about epilepsy, health hazards, etc. And a nice attention to detail here is that in a normal DC manual, on this page, the manual frequently refers to the game as the "gd-rom" - but in this manual, Blaze has changed each occurrence of the word "gd-rom" to read as "cd-rom." Is that attention to detail or what!
The manual seems like a retail game manual, talking about the game modes and features in brief. Like the back insert, the text in the manual reads like a retail game would, and not like an exuberant 13 year old wrote it. Didn't see any misspellings or anything to mar it.
Game credits are all included. For a 10 or 12 page manual, it is pretty thorough. If 10 pages sounds short to you, TD Le Mans has a 16 page manual with larger print. One thing that I didn't see in this manual compared to other retail game manuals was a blurb on the inside of the back cover about warranty information, or a page that advertises customer and technical support information. I personally don't miss that though ;) Instead the Prop Arena manual ends with two pages for "notes" just as most manuals have a few pages in the back for notes.
Insides of the cases - the CD case has a transparent tray just like all US DC games had. As a result, you can see the art which sits underneath the disc, in this case a nice picture of the sky, which is in keeping with the airplane theme of the game.
It looks pretty good sitting on the shelf. If you want to get nitpicky and say that the DC swirl and "sega" logo on the spine of Prop Arena appear to be raised slightly higher than the other US game spines - keep in mind that this height differs slightly between different games anyway so it's not really abnormal.
Looks pretty normal sitting in with a pile of games...
...And looks pretty cool sitting inside my DC. (Yes the disc boots)
All in all, the quality and attention to detail of the packaging and manual satisfy my desire to have what feels like a retail copy of Prop Arena. Unlike a random CDr, it feels like it belongs with my collection, and it feels like a part of my collection. There are two extremely insignificant details that would probably make this 100%. 1) The fine print on the back insert says "copyright 2000" whereas the disc, manual, and other places say copyright 2001. 2) The DC swirl, wherever it appears on the manual or inserts is red, but on my retail games it appears as deep orange. The shade of red vs the shade of orange are pretty close together and you wouldn't notice it unless you're a crazy collector like me. It's really not a big deal though.
In closing, this is a great professionally done package with high resolution graphics and retail quality paper and printing. Thanks Braze! You did a great job!