Hello guys. I am in the middle of finals right now, and today was much longer then I thought it would be. So that you guys can still have a Tuesday Tunes tonight…here’s a guy playing a Vectorman song on his guitar.
I’ve got some great news for anyone who loves some classic SEGA arcade tunes: SEGA’s Super Hang-On 20th Anniversary collection is now available on Amazon and iTunes! Just hop onto either digital service and buy the whole thing for a paltry $9.99.
There are 18 tracks on the collection. You can find the entire track list below the fold. You can expect Tuesday Tunes to feature some of these tracks over the course of the year!
You know what’s more awesome then classic SEGA arcade music? Obscure SEGA arcade music! I’ve never played Power Drift, but its soundtrack is still pretty damn awesome. This is just the sort of incredibly catchy, upbeat tune that I would expect from a classic SEGA title. Hope you enjoy it!
Power Drift’s soundtrack was composed by Hiroshi Kawaguchi. He is one of the oldest SEGA composers still active and working within the company. You can find his website here.
“Hello SEGABits readers! I’m Kori-Maru, admin of The Website of the Dead. Some call me one of the more “hardcore” Sega fans out there for my extensive knowledge of Sega’s games and my love for HotD. I would like to share some of my favorite SEGA tunes with you guys and my experiences with them. Let’s start out with…
For the last several weeks we’ve been getting some serious hints that a remake of the classic Genesis Mickey Mouse game Castle of Illusion was incoming, including leaked box art and a teaser trailer. With today’s announcement on Sony’s Playstation blog we can finally confirm it: the remake is real and it will be hitting PSN, Xbox Live and Steam this summer.
The game is being developed by SEGA Studios Australia, which will be shutting down later this year. The team has confirmed that they are working closely with the director of the original game to ensure that they not only remain true to the original, but also include new elements that were intended for the original game but could not be implemented due to the technical limitations of the day. You can find some gorgeous screenshots, as well as comments from the team, below the fold.
Things have not been too hot in the video game industry lately. Over the course of the last three months we’ve seen THQ close its doors, LucasArts shuttered by Disney, and Hell Yeah! developer Arkedo cease video game development. Today unfortunately brings another name to the list: SEGA Studios Australia. SEGA has announced that the studio will be shutting down later this year.
Formerly known as Creative Assembly Australia, they were responsible for the critically acclaimed Medieval II: Total War. Besides their Total War video game they created Stormrise and London 2012.
We at SEGAbits wish the developers all the best in their future endeavors.
Kenji Eno, a composer who created soundtracks for a few SEGA published games, as well as his own original albums, passed away last month. I confess that I’ve never played any of the games he was involved in, so I’m afraid I am rather unfamiliar with his work. If it is anything like the above, then it seems like I’ve been missing out on some of the most beautiful and atmospheric soundtracks in SEGA’s library.
Expect to see more Kenji Eno tracks featured here as I continue to peruse his work. Until then, here’s another song from D2, “Morning Theme”. Be back next week when we finish off the SEGAbits staff spotlight with an entry from Kori Maru!
If you’re a fan of Arkedo’s and SEGA’s recently released Hell Yeah!, I’ve got a surprise for you! A new Hell Yeah! game, called Pocket Inferno, will be debuting on the iOS store today. The game is a simple, fifty-level long, two button autorunner starring the Prince of Hell we all know and love from the previous game.
As usual with iOS announcements, I’m afraid that’s all the news we have for you right now. If you’re interested in a new Hell Yeah! game or a new autorunner in the vein of Rayman Jungle Run, be sure to check it out when it debuts on the app store later today!
Destructoid has done a pretty awesome job covering the clusterfuck that is Aliens: Colonial Marines. Now they have learned, courtesy of a former Gearbox developer that spoke to them only under the condition of anonymity, that Gearbox not only lied to SEGA but that this lie lead to the project temporarily being canceled.
“Gearbox was taking people off the project to put them on Borderlands 1. This was before the big art style change happened on Borderlands. Our team was getting smaller by the month, making it very difficult to get the game made. Ironically several of the team members were ex-3D Realms people who were saying [paraphrasing] ‘Finally, we’re going to Gearbox to make Aliens, and we’re going to ship a fucking game!’ Hah.
At some point in 2008, SEGA temporarily pulled the plug on the game. They caught wind of Gearbox shifting resources (despite still collecting milestone checks as if the team were full size) and lying to SEGA AND 2K about the number of people working on each project. This led to the round of layoffs at Gearbox in late 2008.” -Anonymous former Gearbox developer
It should be noted that due to the developer’s anonymity, this should be regarded as a rumor. Though if this is to be believed, the next question one has to ask is…why did SEGA pick the project back up? While this is pure conjecture on my part, I would surmise that the resurrection of this project had everything to do with the financial success SEGA saw with Aliens vs. Predator, released in 2010. The following year, Aliens: Colonial Marines made its debut at E3 and…well, we know the rest, don’t we?
I would suggest reading the entire article over at Destructoid.
For SEGAbits’ 3rd anniversary I thought I’d devote this month’s Tuesday Tunes to choices from other staff members! This week we’ll be highlighting the host for the SEGAbits video series “My Life With SEGA” A.J. Rosa. His selection? Two songs from The Terminator for the SEGA CD, a game that he covered in My Life With SEGA as part of his Schwarzenegger double feature. Enjoy!
The Terminator for SEGA CD didn’t have any fancy scaling and rotation effects; it’s true. However, it did have a kickass soundtrack! That’s saying a lot, because I generally criticize movie-licensed games when they fail to include score from the actual film. While it does feature Brad Fiedel’s iconic theme, the score was written and performed by Tommy Tallarico. The man is a legend in his field, having scored hundreds of games, such as Earthworm Jim, Unreal, Robocop vs. The Terminator and Cool Spot. Rather than aping Fiedel’s destinctive style, Tallarico went his own way and wrote something more akin to rock opera. It’s bursting with wicked electronic guitars that kick-start your adrenaline, melodies that inspire feelings of foreboding and desperation….
That’s certainly appropriate.
This score is so fucking awesome that I made a copy for the car. I’ll listen to “Future Shock” on my way to work, “Destinations Unknown” on my way home. That CD didn’t leave my player for a month. So what you’re about to listen to is – essentially – my Going to work/Going home ritual. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Check out the songs below the break!
Even when I first played it on Shenmue in 2001, Space Harrier was an incredibly unique game. Trippy, animated and hard as fuck, Space Harrier was one of my favorite past times in Shenmue…aside from forklift racing, of course. What really made the game experience, and what helped keep me coming back to spend my hard earned money that I should really have been saving up for Hong Kong, was the kick ass sound track.
The Space Harrier theme remains an all-time classic in SEGA’s library, and one that I hope continues to be revisited in future SEGA games. You can expect us to revisit the track plenty of times via official and fan remixes!
You may have read yesterday’s rumor that SEGA will be purchasing Relic from THQ. Well, that purchase has just been confirmed. At the moment these are the only details available, but we will be sure to update you with all the latest as it’s revealed!
UPDATE: Thanks to Kotaku, we can now confirm that SEGA spent $26.6 million to buy Relic, outbidding Zenimax’s final bid of $26.3 million.
Relic is a developer known for their games in the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, as well as the Company of Heroes series. It seems likely that SEGA now owns the right to Company of Heroes 2 which will be released on PC later this year, though at the moment that cannot be confirmed. According to THQ’s letter:
Some assets, including our publishing businesses and Vigil, along with some other
intellectual properties are not included in the sale agreements. They will remain part of
the Chapter 11 case. We will make every effort to find appropriate buyers, if possible.
Hopefully we will find out soon exactly what, if any, THQ IPs SEGA got in the deal, though it’s worth noting that Warhammer 40,000 is not a THQ IP, but a license owned by tabletop game company Games Workshop.
Now I don’t know about you, but I definitely didn’t see Project X Zone’s western release coming, especially given the fact that the last several crossover strategy games from Monolith and Banpresto never even made it out of Japan. So what better way to celebrate this crossover’s surprise localization then to post some tunes from the game?
Today, we’ll be featuring the epic main theme as well as the music from the trailer, “Brave New World”. In the future, you can also expect us to feature tracks from the variety of SEGA franchises represented in the game, including Sakura Taisen, Virtua Fighter, Resonance of Fate and Shining Force EXA.
Check out Brave New World after the jump.
The latest digital offering from Double Fine and SEGA is now available on the Wii U’s eShop, and will be available on the Playstation Store later today! The Cave is the latest adventure game from Ron Gilbert, a man best known for his work the LucasArts adventure games Escape from Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion. While SEGAbits was never given a chance to play the game, we were given an eyes on preview which we wrote about here.
The Cave is going for $15, and will be available on Xbox Live and Steam tomorrow. At the moment, Wii U owners wishing to purchase the game will need to search for it on the eShop since it is not currently available on the shop’s front page.
Compared to some of the other big SEGA racing franchises like Outrun and Daytona USA, Hang-On hasn’t really gotten all that much love in recent years. I’ve personally only played the game through Shenmue, having never even seen the arcade cabinet in real life. While I haven’t had much experience with the Hang-On franchise, that hasn’t stopped me from enjoying its soundtrack! When I was looking for new SEGA soundtracks, Hang-On was one of the first places I looked. SEGA’s arcade games always seem to have the most enjoyable and catchy tracks in SEGA library and this one did not disappoint!
Enjoy and please share your own memories of this track and the game itself below.