Whether you like or hate Danica Patrick, every SEGA fan has to be happy with the overall line up revealed for SEGA’s upcoming racer. Vyse, Gilius, Joe Musashi, not to mention stages from Golden Axe and Panzer Dragoon make this game the best SEGA mascot mash up made in eons.
Hardcore has returned to Super Monkey Ball. After being completely absent from the disappointing 3DS release, SEGA is bringing the difficulty back to the franchise in what looks to be the strongest handheld entry in the series yet.
Several modes were available in the E3 demo: Beginner’s Mode, Advanced Mode, Monkey Bowling, Love Maze and a stage generator mode. Beginner’s mode is exactly what it sounds like: easy Monkey Ball levels. People who are either new to the franchise or want to freshen up on easier levels can play this mode without worrying about being brutalized by the game’s difficulty. It is essentially like the early levels of any Monkey Ball game.
SEGA and Gearbox have been very hesitant about showing off their new Aliens game to the public. Announced in 2006, the game’s last E3 appearance consisted of a live, demo unplayable on the show floor, and the game’s appearance at PAX was similarly limited to an unplayable demo followed by an interactive multiplayer.
Hi guys! Apologies for the lack of updates yesterday. We were so busy playing games and setting up interviews, charging cameras and running to and from the media lounge…we didn’t actually have much time to write. Hope you enjoyed Jason’s take on Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed!
I am currently in the midst of writing previews for Aliens: Colonial Marines and Hell Yeah!, the latter I ended up spending about thirty minutes playing…to which you’ll know why when you read the preview. Sonic Stadium visitors will, unfortunately, not be getting much content this year, due to the sheer lack of actual material to write about. We have gotten an interview with All-Stars Racing producer Joe Neate, though, as well as a full rotational look at the new ASR branded car, which will hopefully be going up later today. My Hell Yeah! preview will also be going up on Sonic Stadium, so you guys can read about another SEGA platformer that doesn’t star Sonic.
SEGAbits will, of course, be receiving previews for every game on the show floor. We also managed to score a last minute interview with Gearbox and their new Aliens game, which you can expect to see on the site Friday. There will likely be other interviews as well, but nothing that I can confirm.
Hi guys, I’m writing this from the SEGA booth right now. Nothing too newsworthy, but I thought I’d give you guys an update on what’s going down.
Aliens: Colonial Marines is playable for the first time without having to wait in a massive line. It’s still multiplayer only, and I can still only play marines, but you can bet it’ll be written about here.
Joe Musashi is playable in the ASR demo as well, and we also have Jet Set Radio lanyards!
Finally, someone from the Monkey Ball team is at the booth, and it’s not Toshihiro Nagoshi. Does the name Jun Tokuhara ring any bells? He’s been with the series since the beginning, and he is here now for the Vita entry.
If there’s anything just about every Sonic game has going for it, it’s the soundtrack, and Sonic Adventure 2 was no exception. In fact, this game probably contained some of the most iconic songs in the franchise’s history, featuring songs every Sonic fan knows Live and Learn, City Escape, and I Am the Eggman. Cheesy lyrics and all, Sonic Adventure 2’s soundtrack has had an impact on the Sonic fanbase like no other game in the franchise, at least since the end of the Genesis era. Beyond the well-known stuff, however, is a treasure trove of superb, lesser known tracks.
Like today’s song, “Won’t Stop, Just Go!” which was the theme for Green Forest. Green Forest was one of the fastest, most exhilarating stages in Sonic Adventure 2. Unlike many of the other stages in SA2, this level focused first and foremost on delivering a rush to the player as they raised against the clock to escape Prison Island before it exploded. This track perfectly complimented the quickened pace, standing in stark contrast to some of the slower tracks later on in the game.
Given the source, think of the rumor designation as more of a formality then anything. Earlier today, Sonic Wrecks uploaded an alternate version of yesterday’s trailer that confirmed a Wii U version of SEGA’s upcoming racer. This confirms speculation that the game was headed to the Wii U, started when Sonic Stadium first reported a Sumo Digital racing title heading to the system back in January.
The trailer has since been removed from Sonic Wreck’s Youtube channel, thus this will be considered a rumor until the game is formally announced for the Wii U this week at E3. If the game is playable, you can expect hands on previews from both SEGAbits and Sonic Stadium when the show opens on Tuesday.
SEGA has confirmed another track for Jet Set Radio, this one from Rob Zombie. As far as I’ve heard, this is the first news of Rob Zombie’s track being confirmed for Jet Set’s upcoming digital re-release, meaning that fans of his work shouldn’t be left out in the cold! SEGA has more confirmations for Jet Set Radio’s soundtrack coming in the future, so stay tuned.
I never go searching around for fan made remixes when I’m looking for a Tuesday Tune. Not necessarily because they can’t be good, but because so many of them aren’t really that special. I want to keep this feature focused on SEGA’s own work. There is so much of it to explore and use, I try not to waste a week on something not from the company unless it’s really, really good.
Vintagenesis is very, very good. They’ve got quite a few songs on their channel, but this is easily the one to get me hooked. It takes the epicness of the old school soundtrack and enhances it with some pretty epic guitar riffs. Hope you guys enjoy!
Every now and then, I surf around for SEGA music. Not for Tuesday Tunes, though, but for my own enjoyment. I mostly do it when I’m looking for a certain kind of music. More specifically, the music posted above. Something orchestral, something theatrical, and something emotional. Something I can either fall asleep to, or to inspire me as I write something.
Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this track on iTunes, while I was surfing around the digital store for things to listen to while I awaited the flight that would take me to San Francisco and allow me to play Sonic & All-Stars Racing. For a game I barely hear about anymore, the opening track is surprisingly strong and well-constructed, giving off the atmosphere of a game I’d like to experience. I’ve heard Phantasy Star Episode 3 isn’t as good as its predecessors, since it focused on a card based battle system rather than real time fighting, but maybe I’ll give it a try anyway sometime.
Shenmue is a soundtrack I’ve wanted to feature music from ever since I restarted this feature back in January. The very first article was a choice between Shenmue’s main theme and the piece that inspired me to start the feature, Phantasy Star Online’s Whole New World. Four months later, with this week’s feature already delayed a day thanks to a Marvel movie marathon that culminated in The Avengers, I’ve decided to finally feature a song from the game, though not in quite the way I had been anticipating.
PSO2 Producer Satoshi Sakai sat down with fans recently to discuss the upcoming open BETA for Phantasy Star Online 2, as well as the final game, which is expected to launch in Japan this summer. They also revealed the stats of the last closed beta, and revealed that another closed BETA may be in order before they can continue with the open BETA. The stats for the closed BETA are as follows:
I’ve been struggling to figure out just what tune to feature this week. Panzer Dragoon’s Flight seemed so fitting! After all, it was used in the All Stars Racing demo Jason and I got to try out. Unfortunately, Flight had already been featured during Panzer Dragoon month. In the end there could only be one choice, another classic SEGA song from Saturn era.
Ladies and gentleman, Richard Jacques’ Super Sonic Racing! Sonic R is known for its cheesy lyrics and energetic singer, so much so that the PC version actually had an option that allowed players to turn them off. Frankly, I can’t imagine playing Sonic R without this music. It turned what was otherwise a mediocre racer with poor controls into one of the most memorable spin-offs in the mascot’s history. Fans don’t remember this game for the tracks or the characters, they remember it for its over the top soundtrack!
Eurogamer has a preview of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed that I highly recommend you read. It’s very well written and pretty effectively illustrates the struggles many arcade racer developers are having today, and how much of a unique case the success of the original Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing is.
The article also has loads of new info, which I’ve reported below:
The game has 27 characters. This is 7 more than the last game, not counting console specific characters.
A WiiU release cannot be confirmed or denied. I personally am quite confident we’ll see it at E3, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
The development team has been expanded, taking in people from two recently closed British game development studios that specialize in arcade racing titles: Bizarre Creations, the people responsible for Project Gotham Racing, The Club, and Blur, as well as people from Black Rock, creators of Split/Second. Gareth Wilson, whom we met at the press event in San Francisco, is one of those people. He came from Bizarre Creations and has games like Project Gotham 2-4 as well as Blur under his belt.
We finally get to see Project X Zone in action, and I have to say, it looks pretty solid. Of course, looks can be decieving, and we still have little idea of how the game plays, or if we’ll even get a western release. Trailer has lots of little hints and tidbits of what else we’ll be seeing in the game as well. If you’re a fan of any of these companies, you may want to watch it a few times.