Check out our new review score cards!

Check out our review cards. These cards will now go on the bottom of our reviews to display scores. I hope you guys like the art. The artwork for the Amigo heads was done by our forum member, Radrappy. Thanks for submitting!

As for the design of the card, that credit goes to our lovely staff member, Barry The Nomad. Tell us what you think! See the rest after the break.

Shinobi 3DS Producer explains why they kept the scarf

Stephen Frost, producer for the upcoming Shinobi 3DS video game explains what they took from past Shinobi games and put it into the new reboot. Like, why did they keep Hotsuma’s scarf from Shinobi PS2?

“We liked things like the [PS2 version’s] scarf…Hotsuma’s scarf. The way it moves, it’s very memorable. It’s very artistic. And we knew from the get-go that we wanted to have a very unique style for this game, and so we brought the scarf from the PS2. But fundamentally, most of the moves, enemies and bosses…ideas for certain things…a lot more of that came from Shinobis 12 and 3, and we went from there.” – Stephen White, Producer Shinobi 3DS

In the article, done up by the guys over at Siliconera, he also explains why they have combos and parrying. So if you are interested, head over!

[Source: Siliconera]

Puyo Puyo gets its own racing car


SEGA-Sammy are putting in some big bucks to advertise Puyo Puyo. They are sponsoring a KONDO Racing Team. This will mean that there will be big Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary billboards in the racing track and that the franchise will have its own sponsored car.

It feels good seeing SEGA give big props to the Puyo Puyo franchise. I thought it was going to be overshadowed by the Sonic hype, but it’s getting some big bucks and love in Japan. Don’t hold your breath for a western version of this title.

PS+ users get 50% discount on SEGA Rally Online Arcade


Next week, Playstation Plus users will be able to pick up SEGA Rally Online Arcade for 50% off. So the game will come costing you $5. That means if you buy it for the discounted price, its yours forever.

Sadly we have not gotten a SEGA Rally Online Arcade review up yet. I’m working on it, but have been busy. But let me say this, if you liked SEGA Rally on Saturn, you can’t go wrong, especially at a 50% discount.

[Source: Playstation.Blog]

SEGA Reveals Classic Tails, Chemical Plant and Stardust Speedway Screens

No longer are blurry scans the only way to see Sonic Generations Metal Sonic and Chemical Plant zone. SEGA of America has just updated their Flickr account and added a load of screens including new CG renders of Modern and Classic Tails as well as new shots of Chemical Plant and the Metal Sonic race taking place in Stardust Speedway. Oh, and they’ve also added the 3DS package art, though it isn’t very exciting. To see all the images, head on over to SEGA’s Sonic Generations Flickr page.

Sonic Anniversary Trailer – Through the Ages

A trailer which shows some of Sonics greatest highlights through the 20 years since his creation, most of the worst offenders in the series were tastefully left off of this video although Sonic 06 managed to sneak its way in there. Interestingly Sonic 4 was not included but thankfully Sonic Colours was, awesome!

Very excited for Sonic Generations, do us proud Sega!

Project Diva 2.5 changes title to Project Diva Extend

If you were looking forward to Hatsune Miku Project Diva 2.5, you won’t have to worry, it’s still coming out. The only thing that has changed now is the title. The official title for the release is Hatsune Miku Project Diva Extend. Which to me sounds way better than 2.5, would have made more sense if it was “extended” and not extend.
Famitsu revealed that the game will be coming out November 10th, exclusively on PSP.  Also revealed is the first pre-order bonus. If you pre-order the game, you get an audio CD with Hatsune Miku singing classic SEGA songs. Which songs? We will post them when we find out.

[Source: AndriaSang]

Yuji Naka talks about his cancelled Wii game Haunted Tower

[Yuji Naka shows his troll face to Nintendo]

Nintendo had one of their ‘Iwata Asks developer round table’ things, where Iwata asks all the hard hitting questions to developers. This week they had other developers from companies that worked on Wii Play: Motion. This included Yuji Naka who represented Prope. Oh yeah, Naoto Ohshima from Arzest is also there in the picture.

Naka revealed that when Nintendo first showed MotionPlus two years ago, he pitched a game to them called Haunted Tower. The point of the game was defeating monsters, only that they would not just be on your TV screen, but also “outside the screen”.

The project was cancelled and Prope instead helped work on Wii Play: Motion. They did the mini-game called “Trigger Twist“.  How far along the game was in production is unknown, though most likely it was just in planning stages.

[Source: Siliconera]

Shinobi 3DS game pitched to SEGA on Assassins Creed game engine

Did you know that Shinobi 3DS is not being developed by in-house SEGA team? It is being done by Griptonite Games, the team who worked on Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Assassins Creed: Bloodlines on the PSP. But did you know that it was Griptonite Games who pitched the idea to SEGA of bringing back Shinobi?

“There’s a group of guys there who were very excited about Shinobi as a franchise. They had worked on Assassin’s Creed [Bloodlines] for PSP and Web of Shadows, which had a great combat system, and things like that, and we started to talk about bringing back Shinobi but in a classical sense,” he revealed. “If we were to put together a spiritual successor to the old classic Shinobi games, what would that be like?”

Crush3D & Shinobi 3DS delayed due to 3DS not selling as expected

Update: Confirmed by SEGA on Twitter

Release Dates Confirmed for CRUSH3D and SHINOBI ON 3DS – Shinobi will be released on 11/11/11, while CRUSH3D will be released on 17/2/12

Original Story Below:

The 3DS isn’t selling horribly, but it isn’t setting the world on fire for a Nintendo handheld. 3rd parties are starting to notice and one of these publishers is SEGA, who delayed Crush 3D.

“…now we’re finding that everyone is not knowing what platform is going to succeed – we did our first 3DS title – we got Crush onto that, but we had to delay the release of that because of the success of the platform.” – Zoe Mode’s studio head Paul Mottram

Zoe Mode is getting another chance to make Crush a success after it failed to gain an audience on the PSP. I think they should worry about advertising their title more than they should worry about the adoption rate on the 3DS.

[Source: GoNintendo]
[Source: SEGA Twitter]

SEGA declared Japan’s #1 publisher for June

Famitsu, with data from Gamespot Asia, has announced that SEGA’s video game sales accounted for 20.9% of all Japanese publisher revenue for the month of June, making SEGA June’s #1 publisher in Japan. This was accomplished mostly due to their recent hit Yakuza: Of the End, the zombie-shooting iteration of the popular (over there) Yakuza franchise, which has sold 376,000 copies so far.

The rankings are as follows:

1. Sega – 20.9
2. Nintendo – 14.8
3. Level-5 – 9.1
4. Namco Bandai Games – 8.6
5. Gust – 5.5
6. Capcom
7. Konami
8. Kadokawa Shoten
9. 5pb.
10. Tecmo Koei

[Source; Famitsu via VGchartz.com]

Binary Domain – Weapons Trailer

Yet another trailer for Binary Domain, the new IP from Toshihiro Nagoshi (of Yakuza fame). This trailer highlights some of the weapons you will be armed with to take down those pesky robots! The trailer doesn’t really show off any unique weapons; indeed, most of them are a shoe-in in pretty much every shooter going. However the way they are used and the enemies they are used on looks far more exciting and really made the trailer quite awesome to behold.

I’m excited about Binary Domain, I think they should make a bigger deal of the ‘trust system’ they have in the game because that’s one of the things that really sets this one apart from the other 3rd person shooters out there!

[Special thanks Suzuki Yu]

Signed Copy of Mega Drive Tetris On Sale For One MILLION Dollars!!

…Or best offer. Source

Ebay seller shinsnk is selling his rare Mega Drive copy of Tetris signed by it’s creator Alekséi Pázhitnov for as much as he can get. “This is truly a rare, exclusive, elusive, obscure and desirable centerpiece grial for any collection, it has all: great franchise (Tetris), great history (Sega vs Nintendo, you can google that), scarcity (very few copies) and exclusivity (signed by Alexei). You can expect no more.”

I dunno. For a million dollars, I’d expect quite a bit more myself. I wish him luck though.