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PAX East: Jet Set Radio Preview

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I don’t think it’s unusual for a SEGA fan to get a warm, fuzzy feeling every time he or she remembers the Dreamcast. Everyone knows the drill: it was an amazing swan song for a dying console maker, received more quality content in two years than most other consoles receive in five. While the console itself is fondly remembered, it’s the games that truly make the console. So when SEGA first revealed their line of downloadable Dreamcast games for XBLA and PSN, many fans naturally had designs of finally playing amazing epics like Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue in high definition. Unfortunately, the first two waves of games left something to be desired. Sonic Adventure was a fairly bare-bones port of the slightly inferior PC version, lacking even widescreen. Crazy Taxi lost its entire original soundtrack in the process of being brought over and SEGA Bass Fishing is hardly what one would call a Dreamcast classic. This left Space Chanel 5 Part 2 as the only well done master class Dreamcast title, and even that was ported in lieu of the more well-known original.

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Nuckles87’s PAX EASTer Egg Hunt

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See Shigs, I can do puns to!

Greetings, SEGAbitters. This Nuckles87, talking to you from PAX EAST. Today, I would like to announce a little contest I’ll be running while I’m at PAX: an easter egg hunt. In this case, the easter egg is me, or more specifically, my 3DS’s Mii. You have to street pass me with your 3DS!

My Mii is a rather portly fellow in a blue shirt wearing a pirate hat, named Alex. He greets you with the SEGAbits web address, so you’ll know it’s me! More details below the fold.

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The Weekly Five: Things we need to see in a digital version of Sonic Adventure 2

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It’s coming. It’s all but confirmed. As we reported earlier in the week,  it appears that Sonic Adventure 2 will be heading to X-Box LIVE and probably PSN sometime this year. Just like its predecessor, it will most likely include some achievements/trophies, some Avatar awards I’m sure and probably some wallpaper or what not. But the port of SA1 was not all that great and left room for improvement. Read on to see what I feel should, if not MUST be done to make Sonic Adventure 2 a great port.

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Editorial: Gaming sites who failed at reporting last Friday’s news.

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Last Friday we learned the sad news that SEGA West was restructuring, downsizing and canceling certain games. I think we’ve all discussed the news enough, what I wanted to focus on in this editorial are the gaming sites who did an awful job of reporting the news. For whatever reason, unpaid fans who write for blogs do a better job reading press releases and reporting on them than big name sites like Kotaku. I also wanted to draw attention to a general gaming blog, toplessrobot.com, who did an equally awful job in reporting on the news.

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SEGA Tunes: Jet Set Radio’s ‘Bout the City

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Over the ‘hood, through the streets, and right into your braaaaain!!!!!

Savor the sweet sounds of Reps, because it’s Jet Set Radio month on Tuesday Tunes! Over the course of the next few weeks you’ll be powering through the wave of nostalgia, energy, and the sheer, absolute, unmistakable musical sexiness that we know of as the soundtrack to Jet Set Radio and its sequel, with a little branching out for good measure.

This week’s chosen song is none other than ‘Bout the City, an infectiously catchy track coming from British artist Reps. Though Kogane-Cho is undoubtedly my least favoite of Jet Set Radio’s three main districts, I can’t help but crack a smile when I drop into the level and this is the first track that plays. To me it embodies everything that makes Jet Set Radio what it is; it was a free spirit in an industry that was growing more gritty and “mainstream” by the year. The punk-flavored ‘Bout the City seems to want nothing more than for the listener to have a total blast, and that to me is everything that Jet Set Radio stood for; Poison Jam may have kidnapped the dog, the Noise Tanks may have flooded the Garage with frogs, and they were constantly pursued by a batshit crazy police captain…yet, you never got the feeling that the GGs weren’t enjoying just about every minute of it all.

Their world was always colorful, the funky melodies were beamed directly into their heads, and the streets of Tokyo-to sure looked beautiful when blasted through on rocket-powered skates. For another upbeat but very different tune, hit the jump for Toronto’s Electric Toothbrush, which pretty much sums up everything awesome about not just SEGA, but hell, the year 2000 as well.

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The Weekly Five: The Shenmue HD Wish List

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To wash the yucky taste of today’s big news story out of our mouths, let’s focus on something positive. Recently, SEGA has been hinting at an HD Shenmue 1 and 2 rerelease. Given the latest announcement of putting more focus on digital releases, Shenmue HD could become even more of a reality. As SEGA has yet to release an official announcement, we can do what Shenmue fans do best and speculate! This week’s Weekly Five will take a look at what we want to see in a Shenmue rerelease. Let’s begin, shall we? [insert sailor joke here]

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SEGA West Restructuring, Downsizing and Canceling Certain Games

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Ah, it’s Friday. Let’s check the news. Wonder if we’ll see a Sonic 4 trailer today… wait. What the fuck is this?! Pardon my language, but some breaking news!

SEGA Sammy announced today that it will carry out “structural reform” of consumer business. SEGA Sammy also said it will “streamline” video game operations in the west to “create a smaller company positioned for sustained profitability”. Part of this streamlining will include cutting the number of SEGA games produced and canceling some titles already in development.

The statement read as follows:

The Sega consumer business is expected to post operating loss due to the challenging economic climate and significant changes in the home video game software market environment in the US and Europe.

It is essential to streamline [our] organisation in the field of home video game software, while shifting to a structure that corresponds to a change in environment, including strengthening development in the field of digital content.

We decided to narrow down sales titles to strong IPs such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Football Manager, Total War and Aliens which are expected to continue posting solid earnings. In accordance with this, we are cancelling the development of some game software titles.

SEGA will still post profits of £152m for the 12 months ending March 2012. However, it will see a one-off “extraordinary loss” of £54m. This money will be spent on cutting back and restructuring. No word on what games are being cancelled or just who will be laid-off. Is this the end of crazy unique SEGA games? Or are the more risky games being relegated to digital services, and only the big IPs will get disc releases? Freak out in the comments section.

Update: According to IGN, with information said to come from sources within SEGA, all non-franchise titles will be dropped:

Earlier today, four franchises were overtly announced as being safe: Sonic, Football Manager, Total War, and Aliens. Our sources have revealed that any currently announced game that isn’t included on that list will not be published by SEGA, leaving a decent amount of the publisher’s upcoming publishing roster in jeopardy.

What does this mean for upcoming games like Rhythm Thief? At this point, it’s anybody’s guess. The source goes onto report that North America’s QA team has been axed entirely, with staff cuts also being made in the following departments: marketing, social, design, and development.

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SEGA Tunes: Bayonetta’s Fly Me to the Moon

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Bayonetta had a great soundtrack, but it’s clear the game’s director had an obsession with one, All-American classic: Fly Me to the Moon, one of my favorite songs from the great American songbook. Originally written by Bart Howard in 1954, it’s been performed by all the greats, including Frank Sinatra.

Perhaps the most notable part about this song’s inclusion in Bayonetta is the fact that it was integrated so deeply into the game. It wasn’t just a once used track, or something used in the end credits, but a song heard constantly throughout the game. Bayonetta herself even whispered the song in a scene.

This version, performed by Belgian singer Helena Noguerra, gives this age old classic a nice little SEGA twist. The background music sounds like something that would be perfectly at home in a multitude of SEGA arcade titles. All that said, I must admit I do prefer the version in the end credits, a 1963 by Brenda Lee. That will be getting its own Tuesday Tunes one day.

Below is my favorite version of this song, sung by Frank Sinatra

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Weekly Five: Five Game Gear Games that Need to Be on 3DS

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There are some interesting similarities between 3DS and the Game Gear. They both have 5-6 hours of battery life, they both have oversized peripherals that defeated the whole “portable” concept, and now…they both have Game Gear games! Last week, the Game Gear debuted on the 3DS’ Virtual Console service with a strong trio of titles: Sonic Triple Trouble, Shinobi, and the rogue-like Dragon Crystal. The line-up was a good way of introducing a new generation of gamers to what the Game Gear had to offer. The Game Gear has way more to offer then these three though, and hopefully SEGA will send some of the titles I’ve listed below our way in the coming months.

I would also like to make some special notes: we did not record these videos, and we recommend that if you want to see more, you click them and visit the creator’s Youtube channels. Also, I would like to note that the sound in the final game on this list isn’t as bad as it is in the video.

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Swingin’ Report Show #30: SEGA – Ten Years of First-Rate Third-Party Games

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This week on the Swingin’ Report Show we celebrate SEGA’s 10 year anniversary as a third-party publisher. George, Barry the Nomad, Nuckles87, and Shigs discuss great third-party SEGA titles like Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta and even Outrun 2. But don’t worry we also discuss stinkers like Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 06 and Virtua Quest. Sit back and get a large drink, this is going to be a long one.

[Download] [Archive] [RSS] [iTunes]

 

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SEGA Tunes: Outrun 2’s Magical Sound Shower

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http://youtu.be/39L1f6CKaoo

You know what’s the mark of a good soundtrack? When you can’t remember which one of the tracks was your favorite. Was it Splash Wave? Maybe Risky Ride? In the end, I just went with Magical Sound Shower!

Beyond being a really fun arcade game, Outrun 2 also had one of the best SEGA soundtracks of the last decade. Almost every single track had a unique personality and a really great beat. It sounded like a track right out of SEGA’s mid 90s arcade library. Magical Sound Shower is probably the richest tracks. It mixes drum beats and electrical instruments with a really superb saxophone, all set to a nice tropical island theme. A gorgeous track for a gorgeous game!

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Contest: How to win one of three Yakuza: Dead Souls swag packs

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Hey guys, we have three Yakuza: Dead Souls swag packs. Not only are there going to be three winners, we also have three items per winner in a pack. If you win you will get a fake Kazuma tattoo sleeve, Goro Majima replica eye patch and a deck of Yakuza: Dead Souls branded playing cards.

There are three ways to enter:

  1. Comment on this forum post, a winner will be chosen at random.
  2. Tweet the following message to be automatically entered to win a pack on twitter:
    “Enter to win 1 of 3 awesome Yakuza: Dead Souls swag packs. Three ways to win, click link for details: http://bit.ly/xRdLin “
  3. Like us on our Facebook and comment on this wall post to be entered.

Since last time we had issues knowing when the contest was going to end I’ll make it clear now. Winners will have their usernames posted on the blog, if you don’t like this, don’t enter. If you win and don’t get back to me within 48 hours, someone else is going to get your prize. This contest is open world wide. THE CONTEST ENDS THIS WEDNESDAY.

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The Weekly Five: Japanese zombie movies to watch before playing Yakuza: Dead Souls

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This week on The Weekly Five, we will be checking out five awesome Japanese zombie movies to watch before you play Yakuza: Dead Souls. A few weeks ago I did one for Binary Domain, this time I’m trading robots for Japanese zombies. This time around I tried to find over the top Japanese zombie films for you all to feast on. Just like Yakuza: Dead Souls, these films are meant to entertain you with its weirdness and violence.

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Review: Binary Domain

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Like the rest of the world, when SEGA announced Binary Domain, the new IP by Toshihiro Nagoshi, I was wondering to myself if a Japanese studio could make a great third-person shooter. At least one that could stand up against the offerings of western developers. Now that Binary Domain has released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, did Nagoshi’s team deliver in the end, or should they have stuck with the Yakuza series?

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Contest: Tweet and win a Sonic related shirt from Insert Coin Clothing

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Today we are giving one lucky twitter follower a Sonic related t-shirt from Insert Coin Clothing. You can either pick the bright blue Team Sonic shirt or be a bad guy with the Eggman inspired t-shirt. I have to say, that Eggman shirt sure does look nice. So how do you enter and win one of these bad boys? Simple, follow us and retweet the message below:

Follow @SEGAbits and retweet this message to be entered to win a Sonic shirt from @insertcointees. More details: http://bit.ly/y2VXMo

A winner will be picked in random and notified by twitter that they won. The winner will be picked on Thursday at noon. Happy tweeting!

CONTEST IS OVER, WINNER HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED. 

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