Author Archives: George

SEGA expanding on Hostess dating in Yakuza 5

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I know that Yakuza franchise is known for beating the crap out of Japanese gangsters, but it is also known for its hostess mini-games. SEGA is bringing this back (don’t they always?) and expanding on it. In the past games conversations with the hostess where always in text. In Yakuza 5, they will have spoken lines with regional dialects and a new free action system should give players more realistic conversations as well.

If the hostess likes you, you can take her out on a date. This will actually allow you to walk around with her in town and take her places. The more you explore the cities, the more conversation starters you get. Dating will open up side stories for each character you play as, making it unique and expands on the game’s story. Check out more pictures by hitting the jump.

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SEGA shows off its new arcade title, Dream Raiders

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Above is an artist rendering of the arcade cabinet for SEGA’s new typhoon game, Dream Raiders. I know most of you where thinking this hopefully had something to do with NiGHTS into Dreams, but it doesn’t. Sorry.

The game is set to give players a ‘sense of speed’ by mimicking wind effects in real time as you play. This sort of thing is usually referred to as 4D, so this would be a 4D game. Though I doubt SEGA wants to use it to market it, seeing how most people find 3D to be a gimmick (which it mostly is). The game is running on RingWide arcade board. This is usually used for less graphically powered games. Hit the jump to see screenshots of the game! If you want to see video, SEGA is holding it hostage till they get 100 likes on the game’s Facebook page.

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Play-Asia lists the US version of Valkyria Chronicles 3

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Seems that the boys at Play-Asia made an error, the site has a page for the US version of Valkyria Chronicles 3 on the PSP. The issue? The game has not been announced for Western release. So in the end, we have to determine that most likely, Play-Asia’s web team made a mistake… Or maybe SEGA has a few surprises for Valkyria Chronicles fans?

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Project X Zone gets a new frantic gameplay trailer

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXbalVMNliY

Check out the latest Project X Zone trailer, this one is showing off the in-game’s crazy fighting engine. It looks pretty intense. Sadly the game has only been announced for release in Japan. I guess we can look at it and envy them Japanese people.

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Phantasy Star Online 2 Vita cross-play gets detailed

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I’m there with many of you getting excited about Phantasy Star Online 2 on the Vita. I mean, it’s an awesome idea, take the PC game on the go without a big laptop? Awesome idea. Almost as awesome as a console version *nudge nudge SEGA*.  So how is cross-play going to work between the PC and Vita?

  • SEGA will set up ships, some of the ships will be PC only (ships = servers) and on the Vita they will have their own ships only for Vita owners. But don’t worry, there will be several ships that will allow users to play with PC and Vita users. Nice to see this option.
  • Just like the PC version, the Vita game will be free-to-play. Not only that, it will also be a free download. Only downside is that you WILL HAVE TO BE ONLINE TO PLAY. No offline mode at all.
  • Another downside is that you will only be able to have one account per memory card. So if you want to share a Vita with someone, you will have to save up money for a new memory card.

They have also suggested that the Playstation Vita version will be getting a beta. Sounds exciting. Now release the game in the West, come on!

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Platinum Games says Bayonetta on PS3 is their biggest failure

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Platinum Games developed an instant classic on the Xbox 360, one which received great reviews. The Playstation 3 version on the other hand wasn’t received so kindly. According to Atsushi Inaba, that port was their biggest failure. Not bad, considering that they didn’t develop the port and it was done by an in-house team over at SEGA.

“The biggest failure for Platinum so far, the one that really sticks in my mind, is that port. At the time we didn’t really know how to develop on PS3 all that well, and whether we could have done it… is irrelevant: we made the decision that we couldn’t. But looking back on the result, and especially what ended up being released to users, I regard that as our biggest failure. One thing I will say is that it wasn’t a failure for nothing. We learned that we needed to take responsibility for everything. So on Vanquish we developed both versions in-house. We learned, so it wasn’t a pointless failure, but it was a failure nonetheless.” – Atsushi Inaba

Sadly the team isn’t going to try again on Playstation 3 or the Xbox 360 for that matter, since Bayonetta 2 was announced as a Wii U exclusive.

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SEGA Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed to be one of the 23 launch titles for the Wii U

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Some people out there are excited about the Wii U, those people should get a bit more excited now that we know SEGA Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed will be one of the launch titles for the Wii U come November 18th. Another SEGA game to hit the console is Aliens: Colonial Marines, which will come out in the launch window. Meaning don’t bet on playing it day one.

If you want to see all the ‘titles’ announced by Nintendo, hit the jump. So who is buying a Wii U?

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Pai Chan from Virtua Fighter announced as playable in the upcoming Dead or Alive 5

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We went crazy when Virtua Fighter poster boy, Akira Yuki was announced as a playable character in Dead or Alive 5 earlier this year. But we had rumors that he wasn’t the only Virtua Fighter to join the dark side. Today we have confirmation (and screenshots) that Pai Chan will also join Akria Yuki and Sarah Bryant.

Is this the last Virtua Fighter? I hope so, even though I like cross overs, if they continue they might as well call the game Dead or Alive vs Virtua Fighter.

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Today Reddit learned that the “SE-GA” voice at the start of the Sonic the Hedgehog took up 1/8 of the cartridge space

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Did you know that the intro “SE-GA” chime that we all love took 1/8th of the cartridge space? If you are a regular here, you probably already knew this. If you visit Reddit’s /r/TIL subreddit you probably saw this post and now you are seeing my blog posts regarding that blog post. Inception.

So 1/8th of the space? Totally worth it.

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Check out the first screens for Sakura Wars Social

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Red Entertainment will be bringing you Sakura Wars socially through the mobile game Sakura Wars: Allstar Collection. The game will be released through GREE later this month and feature “LIPS” (Live & Interactive Picture System) conversation system that has made the series famous since the SEGA Saturn era.

The system will work the same as it did in the Saturn era, during conversations you have choices that effect the path of the story and moods of the characters. Hit the jump to see the other photos.

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Hatsune Miku Project Diva F sequel unlikely due to development costs

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We already know how much Hatsune Miku Project Diva F sold. But is this enough for a sequel? Not according to Nakanohito, spokesperson for Hatsune Miku, who stated on his twitter that seeing the current sales trend it will be difficult to make a sequel.

Also interesting is that the download version of the game only accounted for 10% of sales, 90% was the box version. Nakanohito has stated that his team at SEGA want Hatsune Miku Project Diva F to be the best selling Playstation Vita title of 2012 and will work hard achieving this.

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Hatsune Miku Project Diva F sells 158k copies first week, surges Vita sales in Japan

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The Playstation Vita hasn’t been selling like hot cakes, but last week it saw a huge spike in sales thanks to SEGA’s Hatsune Miku Project Diva F. The Playstation Vita sold 46,877 units, quadrupling what it did the week before.

As for Project Diva F, the game came in #1 for the week with 158,009 units sold. Hit the jump for the full sales charts for last week in Japan.

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