Suddenly a new Ecco doesn’t seem so crazy now that SEGA has announced a sequel to an arcade and Master System classic. Zaxxon Escape, coming soon to iPhone, iPad, and Google Play devices, will be the fifth title in SEGA’s shooter series. The first Zaxxon originated in the arcade, but soon was ported to nearly every gaming console and home computer in the early 80’s. Zaxxon was revolutionary for its time, as it was the first game to feature isometric projection (pixel art that gave the illusion of 3D gameplay). Zaxxon was also one of the first games to display shadows, to show the relation of the ship to the surface of the levels, and was the first arcade game to be advertised on television. An arcade sequel, Super Zaxxon, was released as well as a third title aptly named Zaxxon 3-D, which took advantage of the Master System’s 3D glasses. A fourth, and until now, final sequel was released to the 32X by the name of Zaxxon’s Motherbase 2000. If you want to learn more about that game, check out the My Life With SEGA review.
So with all that history in mind, Zaxxon Escape is quite a big deal. So far, SEGA has only announced the game, released the above video, and a few screens which can be seen after the break. So until more information is given, I say celebrate the return of a SEGA classic. Does it hurt that the title is, at the moment, a smartphone game? Hell no! Having played a number of great space shooters on my iPad, including Space Invaders Infinity Gene and Shogun, I feel that with the right developers behind it, this could be a great game.
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Looking at the screenshots, it doesn’t really look like a shooter and more of a “rotate your ship so it fits in this hole” kind of game where you have to rotate your smartphone to rotate your ship. Just look at the UI, it’s rotated at the same angle as the ship in each screen.
Yeah, we’ll have to wait and see. My guess is part shooter, part dodging obstacles. Maybe that is their equivalent of weaving through the landscape in the original. All I ask for is a good game, in the end.
It’s great to see SEGA now support their true games, this is more like what Sega is about, not all these cheap crappy Marvel license shit – though I know they only did them to maximise profits, probably.
SEGA’s also just brought out the launch trailer to Sonic Adventure 2 today, about 20 minutes ago on Youtube, Sonic Adventure 2 and Nights, one of which is supposed to come out today, the other on the 5th of October, just 3 days away, I think it’s Sonic Adventure 2 that comes out today.
I don’t see it on XBLA yet, and they usually have the latest updates just after 12 in the afternoon.
I don’t care about these crappy phone games.
Zaxxon and Sega deserve better.
All smartphone games suck.
Oh wait, that is complete bullshit. Smartphone games can be awesome, all it takes is a competent development team and a great idea.
I am getting sick and tired of constantly reading comments of people assuming “smartphone game = shit”. Go play Space Invaders Infinity Gene, Shogun, Sword & Sworcery and Infinity Blade. If you play those, and still think smartphone games=crap then you are just lying to yourself. Even ports like Sonic CD and Street Fighter IV are excellent.
Sure there is a lot of junk out there, but stop assuming that if it is a smartphone game then it must be awful. That is just nonsense.
You’re lying to yourself too dude, when you try to convince us that Sega’s history leading to smartphone business is a logical process and that fans should be okay with this obvious decline. No, they can’t.
Lying to myself? No.
I merely think that a part of SEGA’s business has to be in smartphone games. Note I never said all of it, nor did I say something as grand as “their history is leading to it” or some nonsense.
If they end up losing money in the smartphone business, then it is a decline. But at the moment, they’re doing well and are exen upping their game in terms of quality.
True, I think Smart phones games used to be shit, but nowadays they’ve kind of gotten much better as developers have learned to make better use of them.
This looks familiar and sounds….not based on my post is it?
But i agree with the dude that said ZAXXON deserves better. This isn’t something im excited for. Is this it from now on? I mean apart from cheap ios games that won’t live up to the name of the franchise,a regular high end Sega game is going to be a download game made for the vita like Samurai and dragons or PSO 2? Not all of us are particularly intrested in playing games on mobiles. I hope there will be some traditional stuff.
I spotted this on SEGA blog before your post, I own Motherbase and knew of the 3D version, thus the note I made about this not being the only sequel.