Here in America, we just finished celebrating Thanksgiving and went through hell with Black Friday. Now I’m sitting here putting together a list of why I’m glad to be a SEGA fan this year. It seems that SEGA hardly gets the credit they deserve for some of the things they do, but when they do something wrong everyone notices. So why am I a SEGA fan?
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.
Back in August, George shared five SEGA games on the Game Boy Advance totally worth playing. All those games, which included classics like Chu Chu Rocket and Gunstar Super Heroes, are worthy of any GBA collection. But guess what? SEGA’s GBA goodness doesn’t end with those games, this week I’ll be highlighting five more GBA games worth playing!
Not that we were making a lot of cash from Adsense, but it did pay some of the bills. It seems that Google thinks there is some invalid clicking going on on our site, which lead them to disable and take all our money from our account. Shame really.
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.
While Sonic Generations is just over a week old, fans from all corners of the interwebs have started to discuss what’s next for the hedgehog. I would say it’s a bit too soon to start speculation on the next game, but even series producer Iizuka has started hinting towards the future. So with Generations considered completed and released, let’s look towards 2012 and beyond, and just what we might expect from the next Sonic game!
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.
Since the reveal of Binary Domain’s box art, I’ve been thinking about just what is it that makes it so… ineffective. I hesitate to use the word “bad”, as artistry clearly went into producing the cover. However, I think the reason for the cover’s failing is that not a lot of thought went into it. Sure they threw a lot into the scene, but perhaps they threw in too much? I’ve been working in the graphic design industry for five years now, so I thought I’d put some of my professional experience to practice and pick apart Binary Domain’s cover art problems, and perhaps find a better solution. Is it worth the time picking apart the game’s cover? Of course it is! As a new IP, the only thing the game has going for it is SEGA’s name when it comes to appearing on a shelf. First impressions are key for a new franchise, and sadly Binary Domain is not making a good first impression.
SEGA’s next big Sonic game is centered around his 20th anniversary. Even though Sonic started off this console generation with some awful games, Sonic Team has been learning from their mistakes and perfecting their skills. Have they finally delivered the Sonic game that all their fans want?
On this week’s show, -nSega54-, nuckles87, shigs, and special guest GX Echidna from the Spindash podcast discuss Sonic Generations, which just came out a few days ago (in America), along with some other tidbits, including discussion of some bad boxart. Sadly I couldn’t make it to this week’s show, but the table was filled with regulars.
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Aliens: Infestation is one of the games that almost got canceled, along with Aliens: Colonial Marines. Thankfully for Aliens and DS fans, the game has been resurrected. But was it worth bringing it back?
Believe it or not, the day before Sonic Generations releases there’s a little holiday going on called Halloween. Everybody has their own Halloween traditions, mine focus on pumpkin carving and scary movies. This year I thought I’d mix things up by throwing video games into the mix, specifically five games with a Halloween slant, each played on a different SEGA console. What follows are the five games I’ll be playing over the Halloweekend, and I hope if you have any of them you’ll revisit them as well.
With less than a week to go ’til Sonic Generations, I thought it would be fun to take a leap back and run through the original stages featured in Generations. What made the original stages so memorable? Are they a fitting choice for representation of the game they originally appeared in? Were there better choices that could have been made? Those questions and more will be explored after the break!
The second Sonic Generations demo is out, and with it comes the first public demo of modern Sonic! Of course, we’ve had hours of footage and pages and pages of modern Sonic impressions. But none of that compares to actually playing the game. Having finally played the demo, I can happily say that modern Sonic is the best the 3D ‘hog has played in the HD era. Perhaps only being rivaled by the 3D Sonic of the Adventure titles. To celebrate Sonic’s return to form, let’s look at five reasons I’m lovin’ modern Sonic!
There’s a certain feeling I get when I’m playing a video game and, suddenly, I find myself absorbed into its world. It’s a feeling even greater than being pulled into a movie I’m watching, or even a book I’m reading, in the sense that this is a world in which I have control over my character. In a video game, you’re not simply along for the ride, but rather, you play a major role in the main character’s journey; you’re the force that guides your character through these worlds. SEGA has created some stunning worlds over the years, and the five I’m going to list here only scratch the surface. But these are a few of the worlds that SEGA has created which, ever since I first got to explore them, I’ve been wishing for a way to transport my real life self into them. Hit the break to read on.