Do I really need to say anything? It’s E3, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is on show, in less than an hour a secret will be revealed at SEGA’s booth and a ton of new screens arrived showing off racers and tracks. Only real let down, no Joe in the latest screens. But at least we know he’s in the game. After the break, check out the other screens.
Update 2: Sumo Digital producer S0L has said the following over at The Sonic Stadium forums:
You know, when they (SEGA) pitched us the idea we went ‘The fans will go wild…’ I think they didn’t get what we meant from that though
End of the day she hasn’t replaced any SEGA characters, she’s an extra and we’re very happy with the vehicle design we’ve done for her, which incidentally isn’t the one you might think it is
UPDATE: Game Trailers just revealed that Nascar driver Danica Patrick will be in All-Stars Racing Transformed. Remember her from that one SEGA game? Wait, she’s not a SEGA character. But she is racing in a SEGA branded racer which will be revealed at SEGA’s E3 booth. Danica and her SEGA branded Nascar will, in turn, be in the game. I’ll admit, it’s really freakin’ weird, but it does feel very much like when Pepsiman appeared in AM2’s Fighting Vipers. Which is a good, if not odd, thing.
SEGA Blog has posted up some booth pics, including a massive car shaped thing right in the center of the Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed booth. Doesn’t appear to be Sonic’s car, I can only imagine a custom made Speed Star would cost a load. But it could very well be the Hornet. Daytona USA’s star racer joining the All-Star roster? What do you think is under there? We’ll know in one hour. There is a small chance that Segata Sanshiro can take the form of a car, and he’s silently waiting to burst out from beneath the sheet to put the Wii U in a headlock.
To celebrate Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed’s E3 appearance, and perhaps today’s mystery announcement, SEGA has temporarily marked the iOS version of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing down to free. If you have an iOS device, or you just have an App Store account, you can download the game for free right now. I highly recommend it, as it is the best racer on the iOS platform in my opinion. And like I said, even if you don’t have an iOS device, download it now and the free download will forever be linked to your account, assuring you a free download whenever you get an iOS device.
According to gonintendo, an email from SEGA arrived stating the following:
This Tuesday at the SEGA E3 Booth, SEGA will be making a major announcement for their upcoming title Sonic & All-stars Racing Transformed. There will be a large reveal, celebrity appearance and photo/video opportunities. We hope you or someone from your team can make it to cover the big news and please let us know if you have any questions.
Some speculate that the celebrity will be a fictional character, such as a man in a Mario suit announcing the Wii U version and Mario as a guest character. But I think otherwise. Mario isn’t a celebrity, he’s a fictional character. But you know who is a celebrity, has a connection to SEGA and has been mentioned in the past as being a possible racer in the first All-Stars Racing title? That’s right, Hiroshi Fujioka also known as Segata Sanshiro. If SEGA pulls a Segata reveal tomorrow, they will have won E3 without even holding a press briefing. Another possibility is Toshihiro Nagoshi, who is heading to E3. Could Nagoshi be revealing Kazuma Kiryu as a racer?
I’ll come right out and say it: I’m not too excited for this year’s E3. Why? Well, for starters, no SEGA press show. Of course, there has been no SEGA press show for many years so that’s an old complaint. But as the years have passed, it feels like SEGA has done less and less in terms of spectacle at E3. No press shows, as mentioned, no big reveals and most importantly: no awesome floor shows. That’s why this week’s Monday Memories article exists, to take you back to 2000 when SEGA had a floor show worthy of Disneyland.
SEGAbits forum member and EB Games employee Randroid reported a bit of good news in our forums regarding the elusive Anarchy Reigns. While SEGA West has said nothing of the game since April’s restructuring, Randroid says that the latest DVD containing the trailers that play non-stop on the store’s televisions arrived and on that disc is an English trailer for Anarchy Reigns! Randroid says that these in-store trailers advertise games coming out within the next two months, and buying a spot on the EB Games in-store televisions does not come cheap and that SEGA probably made the buy recently. Our tipster says that the store’s computers still list the early July release date, which as we know has been changed to “TBC” on most sites, so nothing new on that. But the fact that an ad has popped up is a good sign, and possibly means that we’ll be seeing the game later in July or early August if the original release date is to be changed. Fingers crossed!
Thanks for the tip, Randroid.
Leave Sonic alone! Oh wait, it’s Sonic ’06 you’re kicking in the ribs? Please, continue.
Former Mystery Science Theater 3000 stars and current RiffTrax riffers Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett applied their brand of making witty comments while watching movies to a slew of video game cutscenes over at Joystiq. One of their subjects was none other than 2006’s Sonic the Hedgehog. Just what nice things do the guys have to say about Sonic getting some love from Princess Elise? Well, see for yourself here. Sonic’s scene starts at the 1:11 mark, but you might as well watch the full thing.
Since the announcement of Jet Set Radio’s HD rerelease, the biggest gray area has been the game’s soundtrack. Like most games filled with licensed tunes, getting a complete or near complete track list is very difficult. Hell, look at Crazy Taxi. Great game, but just not the same with the entire soundtrack ripped out and replaced with new music. Thankfully, SEGA done good. Real good. After the break, check the full track list as well as learn which two tunes did not make the cut.
Leave it to IGN to spoil SEGA’s fun. A recent post over at the site revealed a hell of a lot of new Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed details. The BIGGEST is that, yes Shinobi fans, Joe Musashi himself is a confirmed racer! IGN has also revealed that Adder’s Lair from Golden Axe is a new track. Also appearing is Jet Set Radio’s Tokyo-to which features a gang war playing out in the background which affects the racers. Previously revealed Gilius Thunderhead finally gets his public showing, and the expected return of Shadow is confirmed. After the break, another tasty screen and the trailer!
SEGA’s latest wave of Vintage Collection titles have arrived, and they have deservingly been very well received by fans. Initially, the collections were nothing more than single titles released to XBLA and PSN. Nothing more than ports of Genesis and SEGA arcade titles with the same basic menus for each release. Not to say that they weren’t good fun, but there was no real personality to the titles aside from the games themselves. Thankfully, SEGA and developer M2 made the latest Vintage Collections as true “collections” filled with the fun expected from classic SEGA titles. On XBLA, each collection touts three games and features a fully 3D menu with recreations of arcade cabinets and game consoles. Other features include a juke box where every sound and song can be played as well as a bevy of screen settings. This week’s Weekly Five will look ahead to future waves and what we hope to see from future Vintage Collections.
As of today, two more SEGA Vintage Collection releases have hit XBLA: a Streets of Rage collection and a Golden Axe collection. Each are 800 msp and include the complete Genesis trilogies from each franchise. Unlike last week’s collections, these collections appeared in full in the disc release of Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection. However, this time out M2 handled the port, so the quality may be better than the UGC versions. There are also the 3D menus, the slick opening animations, online play and achievements. Those are all good reasons to buy the games again. After the break, a gallery of images from the collections as well as a video preview of the trials. Check out the video for the awesome Vintage Collection opening titles.
… that can only mean Sonic Adventure 2 will be revealed for XBLA and PSN at E3! The Sonic Stadium is reporting that XBLA’s Major Nelson has just posted the latest Xbox Live Marketplace release schedule of all the games and items being released over the next few weeks. Among these new goodies are Sonic Adventure 2 Avatar items with a release date of June 5th. Hey, that’s when E3 begins. This wouldn’t be the first time a Sonic Adventure 2 announcement was made at E3. Back in 2000, we were wowed by the trailer posted above. And last year, we were given the great City Escape trailer for Sonic Generations. If you want to see that, check it out after the break. As for E3 2012, stay tuned to SEGAbits for the impending trailer, assuming there is one.
Well this is a nice surprise, arriving on the App Store today worldwide is Virtua Tennis Challenge! Back in March, the game was released to Android devices. Today, the game expands its availability with iOS capable devices. Virtua Tennis Challenge promises 50 players, 18 stadiums, and Exhibition, World Tour, and Multiplayer modes. The game is out now in New Zealand and it should be out in the US at 11PM EST and Europe at around 12AM UK time. Price of the app is $4.99 and size of the app is 289 MB. Sonic 4 last week, Vintage Collections and Virtua Tennis Challenge this week. SEGA is really spoiling us.
SEGA’s Twitter has recently posted a mystery image on Flickr, seen here, of a forest setting with a chunk missing from the image and a question mark. Clearly they are teasing a new game, but what game could it be? Well, we shared the initial image on our Facebook page, and a kind reader by the name of Marius Theßeling speculated that the art matched the style of Ron Gilbert’s unannounced upcoming game from Double Fine Productions. And sure enough, it matches up! We simply grabbed the image from SEGA’s flicker, and dropped in all the character art from Gilbert’s blog onto the image. Just like a puzzle, an image came together and you can see the completed image above. So it’s official: SEGA is teaming with Double Fine to publish a game! Sorry if we ruined the surprise, SEGA. But all the pieces were there.
Meatbun have some crazy talent designing their gaming related tees, and I get the feeling they may have a bit of a Sega fan streak in them judging by how 3 out 4 of their latest designs are Sega inspired. Many are quite surprising mash ups too! First up, Passing Breeze. This looks like it could have come directly out of a mid to late 80s Japanese indie fan magazine, right down to the manga like toning. A gorgeous illustration that nails the vibe of the classic Outrun.