Daytona USA Dev Diary
Daytona USA has long been one of the first games I think of when I think of SEGA’s arcade games. You guys picked up Daytona USA from XBLA or PSN yet?
Author Archives: Nuckles87
Amazon Offers Great SEGA PC Deals
Amazon offers some superb deals this time of year. Today and today only they are offering amazing deals on several SEGA games for the PC. The best part? They are all for download, meaning you don’t even have to wait for them to ship! Here’s a few of the deals:
SEGA Power Pack ( 20 downloads including Sonic Generations, Complete Total War series, Football Manager 2012, Renegade Ops, and SEGA Genesis Classic Series): $49.99 (List Price 261.42)
Sonic Generations: $15.00 (List price $29.99)
Total War: Shogun 2: $7.49 (List Price $29.99)
There’s loads more deals, which you can find here.
Sturmwind Delayed
Those hoping to have the new Dreamcast game in time for Christmas will be disappointed, I’m afraid, as Sturmwind has ran into some production problems. Unlike the previous delay this has nothing to do with the game itself. Sturmwind has gone gold and is ready to go into production. Unfortunately, the CD pressing company that was slated to print copies of the game has gone bankrupt. Sturmwind’s publisher, RedSpotGames, has already found a replacement manufacturer, but for the time being the game’s release date is now “TBA”. We’ll be sure to update you as soon as a new release date is established. An announcement is expected later in the month.
Until then, if you wish to purchase the game, you can pre-order the regular edition, special edition, or the Wind and Water combo pack here.
Full press release is below the fold.
New Rhythm Thief Trailer Released at Jump Festa
So you may have seen Sharky gushing over Rhythm Thief’s homages to Samba and Space Channel 5 earlier. Turns out they also released a video!
I have to say this game surprises me. I’ve seen plenty of original SEGA IP launched on handhelds come and go without really being worth talking about, but this one actually looks pretty cool. The animation is absolutely beautiful too. Rhythm Thief will be joining a slew of other 3DS game when it launches early next year worldwide.
Retro Review: Sonic Rush Adventure
The original Sonic Rush was easily one of the fastest Sonic games in history, and in a year that also brought us the likes of Shadow the Hedgehog, it also stood as a reminder of how good his games could be in the middle of increasingly dark times for the franchise. It introduced probably the best new character in ages with Blaze the Cat, and brought the blue hedgehog to the dual screened, polygon capable DS for the first time. That said, the game had its flaws. It was filled with bottomless pits, and the speed was often so intense that death by hole or suddenly appearing robot was far too common. Does Sonic Rush Adventure alleviate the flaws, or just add some new ones with its new focus on adventure?
Sonic’s Road to Redemption: Part 2, Picking Up the Pieces
In February 2007, Sonic the Hedgehog was still fresh in the memories of Sonic fans. Yet they already had a new game to play in the form of the Wii exclusive Sonic and the Secret Rings. Secret Rings was a radically different kind of Sonic game, featuring on-rails play and a heavy emphasis on motion controls. Secret Rings had been championed the previous year by journalists as a Sonic game that was actually good, that took a radically different approach to the formula to solve the franchise’s problems. What gamers actually got was a mixed bag of great and poor design decisions that was still a huge step up from Sonic 06, and would start Sonic on his slow, winding road to recovery.
Retro Review: Sonic Pocket Adventure
After SEGA retired the Game Gear in early 1997, they suddenly found themselves on the market for a new handheld to support. That same year SEGA threw its weight behind the Tiger’s Game.com, offering Tiger the licenses to several of its franchises, including Sonic. This deal would give rise to the worst shit SEGA ever slapped its name on. As the Game.com quickly dropped dead at the sight of the Gameboy, SEGA threw its support behind another, much better handheld: SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket Color. This support would only yield one SEGA game in the American market, in the form of Sonic’s last portable adventure before going third party: Sonic Pocket Adventure.
Retro Review: Sonic Jam
The SEGA Saturn was something of a black sheep in SEGA’s family of consoles. It divorced itself from many of its predecessor’s most well-known franchises, and instead focused on a slew of original IPs. Even Sonic Team would take a big break from Sonic, instead focusing on NiGHTS into Dreams and Burning Rangers, the former becoming the Saturn’s mascot. This would lead to the Saturn becoming the one and only SEGA console to not feature a wholly original Sonic platforming game. Instead, the Saturn merely saw a trio of spin offs, in the form of Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R and the subject of today’s review, Sonic Jam. The first two were fairly mediocre spin offs created by Traveler’s Tales for the purpose of filling the cap by the canned Sonic X-Treme game. Sonic Jam was easily the best Sonic game on the Saturn, though largely because it capitalized so heavily on the past: it was a compilation of the best Sonic titles ever made.
Shinobi for 3DS in Stores Now!
I’ve been an advocate for this game pretty much since I played it at E3. I’ve liked what I’ve played of my two playthroughs at E3 and NYCC so much that I picked up at midnight last night alongside Halo Anniversary. Several hours in, I must only reiterate what I’ve said before: if you have any love for Shinobi or old school games in general, you must buy this. This is easily one of the best 3DS games I’ve played all year, not to mention one of the best SEGA games I’ve played. The difficulty is punishing and pure old school Shinobi at it’s finest. The controls and level design are rock solid so far, and there are plenty of references to past Shinobi games hidden throughout. Remember those killer brains from Shinobi 3’s Body Weapon level? I just got mauled by one a few minutes ago.
And remember, if you don’t buy it, we won’t get another one.
Shinobi is out in stores now. SEGAbits will be doing a few things to promote the game, so keep an eye out.
Sonic’s Road to Redemption: 2006, the Fall
This six part series looks at the disaster that was Sonic’s 15th anniversary, and how the series slowly redeemed itself over the following five years, culminating Sonic’s next anniversary title, Sonic Generations.
It’s a little hard to believe that it’s already been five years since Sonic the Hedgehog or “Sonic 06” as it’s called by fans, made its debut. It feels like only yesterday that this infamous train wreck of a game was released and utterly destroyed what little credibility the character had left in gaming. Of course, by 2006 bad Sonic games were nothing new for anybody. Even in his halcyon days Sonic still churned out stinkers, like the infamously not 3D Sonic 3D Blast, and the utterly horrible (and largely forgotten) Sonic Jam for the Game.com. Heck, the franchise had churned out a whopper of a stinker just a year before in the form of Shadow the Hedgehog, the first Sonic game from Sonic Team to average in the 4s on Game Rankings. Even so, Sonic 2006 represented something new for the franchise: it was the first main entry considered utterly deplorable by both critics and fans alike. Sure, Sonic has had his “controversial” games. Sonic Heroes sparked some massive debates on the SEGA forums back in the day and the Sonic Adventure series had its share of dissenters in the press that grew ever more vocal as they were re-released on other platforms. None of them have received the amount of vitriol and did the same amount of damage to the franchise that Sonic 2006 was able to do with its released.
Preview: Shinobi 3D
This was the same demo available at E3. As such, there are certain things I don’t cover in this preview. For the full picture, check out our E3 preview!
Back at E3 I previewed Shinobi 3D for the first time. I loved what I got to play, but my time with the game was limited. At last month’s New York Comic Con I was able to give the game another go, so I’d like to talk more about it.
Trailer: GunLord
NG:Dev recently released a new trailer for their upcoming Dreamcast/Neo Geo game, and while its production values may not be much to look at, the actual game play looks pretty damn good. It’s nice to finally have a new shoot em up platformer on the Dreamcast. What do you think of the game? Tells us about it on the forums!
You can pre-order the game here.
WTF: Sonic 4 Easter Egg in Sonic Generations
Who says Sonic Team doesn’t have a sense of humor?
WTF: World’s Biggest Ecco Fan
Classic Sonic Not Returning After Generations
Retro Sonic fans better enjoy their classic Sonic while they can, because it looks like they won’t be seeing him again, at least not for a while.
“Do you know what? There are no plans, to be brutally honest, to bring Classic Sonic back. The reason for bringing him back for this game was because this is a celebration of 20 years of Sonic. It was a real fitting time to do it. He’s really well loved. Let’s see how Generations does. You can never say never in this industry, but at the moment there are no plans.” – David Corless, Brand Manager SEGA Europe
Personally, I don’t see the point in bringing classic Sonic back after this, at least not until the 25th anniversary. Classic Sonic holds a special place in Sonic history. He is all about the 90s when cute little pudgy animals dominated video games. Let him continue to exist as a part of that era, not this one.