Author Archives: Barry

Rumor: Rise of Nightmares is “STAMACSTA” in Australia

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Rise of Nightmares: It’s a pretty creepy title. It makes sense in the context of the game, the nightmares are rising and it is up to you to keep them down and defeat them.

STAMACSTA: What?!

According to the Australian Classification Board, a game developed by SEGA’s CS3 team containing “strong horror violence, blood and gore” will be released in Australia. This describes Rise of Nightmares to a T, however the title does not match up. In the classification, this game is titled “STAMACSTA”. Either SEGA’s CS3 team are developing two gory games and we have yet to hear of this other one, or much more likely STAMACSTA is Australia’s title for Rise of Nightmares. Fingers crossed that a classification board employee accidentally let his cat walk on the keyboard rather than this being true. It’s quote an awful title. “Stam-acts-ta”?

After the break, check out the classification information.

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Famitsu Reveals Sonic Generations City Escape Modern Remix and More Screens

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While City Escape has been known of since E3, and there has been a number of preview videos and screens since then, we have yet to hear a clean version of the music for the modern version of the stage. This is the tune that singer Tony Harnell hinted at re-recording long before Sonic Generations was ever announced. Thanks to SEGA of Japan and Famitsu, a new trailer puts the E3 trailer to shame by incorporating the actual stage music. What more, Famitsu shares a few new screens from both modern and classic City Escape including the stage hub.

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Ryo Hazuki Opens a Café, Milk Not On the Menu

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Don’t worry, Yu Suzuki has not created Shenmue Diner Dash for cell phones. Instead, Ryo Hazuki’s Japanese voice actor Masaya Matsukaze has opened a cafe in Akihabara with a unique twist (don’t all Japanese cafés have a unique twist?). Matsukaze’s cafe, called “Seiyu Café”, is staffed by voice actors and has a voice acting theme. The interior of the space resembles a recording studio, and throat-friendly drinks are sold alongside alcohol and sweets.

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The Weekly Five: Game Inspired Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

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Next to the games, perhaps my most favorite Sonic thing of the 1990’s was the cartoon series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (AoStH). While Saturday morning’s Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic SatAM) had stronger plots and more polished animation, AoStH was just too damn fun to be deemed the lesser cartoon. To me, AoStH was a much better adaptation of the games, and when I say games I mean the only two that were released by that time: Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Every episode featured Sonic and Tails playing cat and mouse with Robotnik and his gang of badniks, just like in the Genesis games. Even better, the show kicked off with an awesome mix of the original Sonic theme song, “Flight of the Bumblebee” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King”.

While I was satisfied with this amount of video game fan service, every so often an episode would air that would give the video game fans a little bonus. Something that would make us sit up and pay a bit more attention. Sonic might traverse through a zone from Sonic 1 (gasp!) or Robotnik might make reference to a Chaos Emerald (Hey, I know those!). In celebration of Sonic’s 20th, and my favorite 90’s cartoon series, I present five game inspired episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog!

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The Weekly Five: Overthinking Sonic

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In his 20 years of existence, Sonic has not only appeared in dozens of games, but he has also introduced a ton of irregularities. The irregularities I’m referring to are the things that exist within his video games that support the gameplay and the player playing the game, yet don’t make a whole lot of sense within the context of the world within the game. For example, it’s a ton of fun to run through a twirling highway in Sonic Adventure, but why in the world would such a highway even exist? Or what about all those springs and item boxes? Surely Eggman didn’t put them there, because they assist Sonic. So just how and why do elements like that exist in Sonic’s world? In this week’s weekly five, I’m going to attempt to explain five oddities of Sonic’s world. Most of my explanations will probably be complete bullshit, but that’s the fun of over-thinking!

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GameStop Sonic Generations Pre-Order Bonuses Revealed!

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So, you say you’re pumped for Sonic Generations, but think it’s too far off for any real reason to place a pre-order this instant? Think again! United States gaming store GameStop is offering digital content for those who pre-order Sonic Generations! You can see what they’re offering for yourself right here. XBOX 360 owners who pre-order will receive a DLC mini-game pinball stage based on Sonic 2’s Casino Night Zone. Think of it as being like Sonic Adventure’s pinball stage. Also included is a Super Sonic avatar costume, basically confirming Super Sonic in Generations, and an exclusive theme for your 360’s menu. PlayStation 3 owners also receive the Casino Night Zone pinball stage and a theme for their PS3 menu.

Still no word on a birthday pack or special packaging, but we’ll keep you posted. In other news, the full stage and boss list as well as a load of other info on the game has leaked due to fans digging through the recently released demo assets. I’ll abstain from mentioning any of the leaked content, as SEGA has yet to officially reveal it, but it’s out there on the Internet.

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Let’s Take a Look at Sonic #226 – The Genesis Saga Part 1!

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Just a day until Sonic’s 20th, and this arrives in the mail: Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog #226. This issue is better known as being part one of the hotly anticipated Genesis saga, which throws the main cast of the Archie continuity back into the SEGA Genesis days of Sonic. In the previous issue, #225, the Eggman of the Archie continuity (who looks like the modern Eggman of the games but has a back story so complicated I’ve yet to wrap my head around it) unleashed a resurrected Death Egg on the Freedom Fighters. After a bit of fighting, Eggman killed a well known character from the SatAM days and powered up a device that enveloped the universe in white (hmm, sounds like something that is happening in Sonic Generations) and rebooted the entire universe. As such, when issue #226 kicks off, Sonic is acting as though he is from the Genesis era (with a modern design), running through Green Hill and bopping badniks which he seems to be encountering for the first time.

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GamesMaster Sonic 20th Anniversary Magazine Special

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by The GagaMan(n) at SEGA Memories

Well didn’t this pop up out of the blue! To celebrate Sonic’s 20th Anniversary (I suspect you’ll be hearing that a lot in the next few months but especially this month), GamesMaster has just released a special 130 page magazine dedicated to nothing but Sonic! I only heard about it today via twitter and pretty much ran over to WHSmith to see if they had and sure enough they had a whole pile of copies. It’s £8 but trust me it’s worth it.

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The Weekly Five: Saturn in the Media

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Before Saturn Month is considered to be completely over, I thought I’d squeeze in one more Saturn related Weekly Five. This week, we combine our regular SEGA in the Media feature with the SEGA Saturn. That’s right, five times the SEGA in the Media in one day! So let’s kick things off with…

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NiGHTS into Dreams into Comics – Issue 1

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Originally written July, 2009 for The Saturn Junkyard

While the Saturn hit the US in 1995, it wasn’t until late 1997 that I bought a system. A large part of why I held out was money, $399 is a fortune to an 11 year old. Also, I was having way too much fun with my Genesis at the time, a testament to the quality of the 16-bit system. The Genesis had everything I wanted: Sonic the Hedgehog and Disney Interactive games. The Saturn had a Sonic compilation of games I already owned and some goofy jester game. At the time I was oblivious to the fact that NiGHTS was a Sonic Team game (no Wikipedias or SEGAbits back in 1995, kids) and so I went on ignoring one of the greatest games and systems of the mid-90’s.

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Nintendo Power’s Classic and Modern Cover Variants Hitting Newsstands

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While we had previously reported on the screens found within Nintendo Power’s Shinobi and Sonic Generations 3DS reveal issue, we have yet to share the two versions of the cover. Now hitting newsstands are two way past cool covers featuring Classic and Modern Sonic. I’ve been keeping my eye on my local newsstand, making a sad face every time I saw the old Zelda cover of this past month on the rack. But today the awesome Sonic covers hit and I snatched them right up, thus falling into NP’s trap and giving them double the money. Oh well, it’s worth it for Classic Sonic.

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THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD: OVERKILL – EXTENDED CUT ANNOUNCED!

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Fresh from SEGA PR, and in all caps, comes the announcement that the Wii hit House of the Dead: Overkill will be rereleased to the PS3 and Move in 3D under the name of “House of the Dead: Overkill – Extended Cut”. Frankly, I thought is was a joke email at first, and after reading it I got a little dizzy. Perhaps because I now wonder how many other Wii titles might hit HD consoles. Check out the press release after the break.

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