Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed guest characters Danica Patrick and Wreck-It Ralph have their vehicles on display in two new promo photos. Danica’s images are the most interesting, as up until now we have yet to see anything of her in-game self. Danica’s car might look familiar, as it is based off the design of a fictional car she designed with Hot Wheels for a toy car. Ralph remains unchanged from when we saw him last at the Sonic Boom event. After the break, check out Ralph’s image.
That was fast! Just this past Tuesday, Zaxxon Escape was announced for smartphone devices, and only two days later the game has released! This has to be a world record in game announcing and releasing. SEGA has put together a launch trailer showing off the gameplay, and released some screens. You can download the game on iPad and iPhone here or download the game for Google Play devices here. I’ve just downloaded it and will share my thoughts on it in an eventual review.
What a day it has been for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed reveals! First we learned about Sky Sanctuary being a track, then a batch of new screens release confirming the return of Ulala to the racer roster as well as what appears to be a The House of the Dead Curien Mansion track. Also, a new trailer entitled “Ways to Race” shows off the many game modes including world tour, multiplayer and missions, as well as our first look at what I assume is the Shinobi track. Great news for The House of the Dead fans: the franchise is also represented as a battle arena. Also, Sonic’s Starlight Carnival, Jet Set Radio and After Burner will have their own arenas.
After the break, screens featuring Ulala and the NiGHTS track!
The micro site for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed has updated, and with the update comes confirmation of a new track: Sky Sanctuary! Sky Sanctuary is, of course, the popular yet brief stage from Sonic & Knuckles in which the player raced towards the Death Egg through floating ruins. Given Transformed relying on flight, this choice makes perfect sense. The Sonic franchise now has four tracks appearing in the game: Death Egg, Seaside Hill, Starlight Carnival and Sky Sanctuary. No word on if we can expect more. Personally, I think four is a good number and the variety is excellent. If they had to add a fifth, I say give us a track from one of the Sonic Adventure games. Red Mountain, Ice Cap or Pyramid Cave would all be great picks. Now I just can’t wait to hear what Richard Jacques has up his sleeve for Sky Sanctuary stage music.
AJ celebrates Halloween month by showing off creepy games all through October!
Okay, it’s October. It’s high-time My Life with SEGA got down with some thrills and chills.
First up; Alien Trilogy for the SEGA Saturn, based on the Alien film franchise. It doesn’t matter how many shitty sequels or spin-offs this bitch lays, nothing can tarnish Ridley Scott’s original or it’s amazing action-heavy follow-up written and directed by James Cameron….
But what about this game? Can I honestly recommend this one to fellow gamers without regrets, or will I be shouting GET AWAY FROM IT, YOU BITCH?! Let’s find out.
According to the LinkedIn account of a former SEGA employee, a giant Sonic can be expected to float through New York for another two years in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. As a part of his accomplishments at SEGA, former Senior Director Of Marketing Darren Williams writes:
Since 2009 my team delivered 5 new company benchmarks for product reservations and retail sell in as well as eye catching mass market promotions such as securing three year videogame category exclusive rights at the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Given that Sonic debuted in the parade last year, this means we’ll be seeing him for at least another two years. Perhaps even more if SEGA manages to renew or extend the contract. Another possibility is that SEGA could debut a different balloon, given that Darren didn’t specifically state “Sonic”, but rather exclusive rights in the videogame category. However, given Sonic’s popularity, I can’t see them replacing him with another character. In any case, kudos to Darren for securing that three year deal!
SEGA has released a launch trailer to celebrate the release of two more SEGA Heritage collection releases: Sonic Adventure 2 and NiGHTS Into Dreams. Both titles hit PSN today, and XBLA gets them on October 5th. Also available at launch will be Battle Mode DLC for Sonic Adventure 2, while NiGHTS will have Christmas NiGHTS content included at no extra cost. Those who buy a copy on PSN will receive a free exclusive NiGHTS or Sonic Adventure 2 theme for their PS3. As for the PC versions, SEGA says to stay tuned for more info and that they should arrive in the coming months.
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.
What does Sonic, The Simpsons, the Chicago Bulls, Heinz tomato ketchup and John Wayne all have in common? They all have their own Monopoly games. While we’ve known of Sonic Monopoly for quite a while, it wasn’t until just this weekend that the game has become available to purchase online, and in the coming weeks the game will start to arrive on store shelves. The game can be found on a number of toy and game sites, as well as Amazon, for $39.99. I’ve bought myself one and expect to receive it tomorrow, so stay tuned to SEGAbits for an unboxing and review of the game.
About two weeks ago I found myself standing outside a movie theater, looking up at all the films listed under “Now Playing”. I had the choice to see any one of the many new movies, and yet in the end I went with “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. Despite owning the film on DVD and on blu-ray, and having seen it a number of times, I still enjoyed it as much (if not more than) any new release. About a week later I found myself downloading Jet Set Radio on XBLA, and feeling the same sense of excitement as I did with “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. It wasn’t so much the game itself, I’ve already played through it about eight times on the Dreamcast. It was the promise that I was about to see a crisp, clean, widescreen, HD, enhanced port of one of my favorite games. Sure SEGA promised this with the Dreamcast Collection, but they largely failed to deliver. Games were lacking crucial content, such as soundtracks or fishing controllers, or failed to offer up widescreen support. So how does Jet Set Radio fare, does SEGA’s Heritage Collection promise a bright future for HD SEGA ports? Find out after the break in our review of Jet Set Radiooooo!
Never would have thought that SEGA of Japan would be the ones to give us our first real footage of Sonic Adventure 2 HD in action, but here it is! The footage shows off single player, split screen, CG cutscenes (which are their original 4:3 aspect ratio, thankfully not stretched or cropped) as well as Chao, Battle DLC and footage from the bonus documentary. Having seen the Jet Set Radio doc, I am now really looking forward to the ones included with Sonic Adventure 2 and NiGHTS. And is it just me, or is everything better with a bunch of Japanese words superimposed over it?
This week, AJ looks back on a SEGA classic: Virtua Fighter for the 32X.
Virtua Fighter; an arcade smash in 1993, thanks to its incredible 3D polygon-based fighters – incredible in 1993, that is – and realistic gameplay. It has spawned numerous sequels, spin-offs, not to mention an animated series….
This week, I’m reviewing the game that started it all. Does this sucker have enough fight left in it? Get in the ring and find out, bitch!
SEGA has released an epic trailer for Total War: ROME II showing some pretty amazing in-game footage. Ships! Shouting! Giant statue heads! Elephants!
For the first in-game look at the next title in the award-winning series, The Creative Assembly present a glimpse of the epic warfare and phenomenal detail players can expect when Total War™: ROME II arrives in 2013.
The year is 146BC, brilliant tactician Scipio Aemilianus is dispatched by Rome to break the three-year-long siege of Carthage, an unforgivable blight on the glory of the growing Empire. Ruthless determination and an almost suicidal amphibious assault is required, but the young consul is uncomfortably aware that the price of victory may be much higher than the senate realizes.
While it isn’t making its way to Western gamers (yet), SEGA has announced that the free-to-play browser-based card-battling strategy game Valkyria Duel is heading to Android and iOS. The game has been playable on PC’s for a while, but SEGA and developer NHN Japan promise that the iOS and Android versions will allow players to play the game both at home and on-the-go, with data shared between platforms. Those aren’t lofty promises, so I could see the game delivering on that. Hopefully with the shift to mobile devices, SEGA West will localize the game and give it a release. We’ll have to wait and see.
Thanks to Aki At for the heads up. After the break, screens of the game in action.
From the Tokyo Game Show comes a crazy bit of crossover news. While showing off the iOS Border Break game, Gun Front Gale, and the arcade game Border Break Union (version 3.0 of the game), SEGA announced that a number of Yakuza characters will cameo in the arcade version of the game. It seems, however, that it has yet to be revealed just how the characters will be worked in. Only illustrations and the promise of cameos were revealed. As for version 3.0, 10 player co-op will be possible and the game will hit Japanese arcades on October 11th. Click here for more photos from the event.
