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Pier Solar: The First Few Hours

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I confess, when I first heard about Pier Solar back in 2008, I was both excited and cautious. On one hand, the prospect of playing a new game on my Genesis sounded like an awesome proposition. On the other, I simply didn’t believe the game would get done. As the originally announced release date faded into memory, I assumed the game had simply gone the way of many a Dreamcast indie project, and forgot about it.

The game surpassed my expectations though, and has actually made it all the way into my Genesis. Even as I ordered it, I had my doubts about the game being anything more than a stereotypical role playing game that just happened to be on the Genesis. Has the game been able to surpass my expectations again?

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Sonic fans on Wii: Please Quit Yer Cryin’!

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Some folks are never happy.

As with everyone else this week, I was ecstatic to see the new Sonic Generations gameplay trailer. While discussing it over several different forums, I noticed the same topic coming up. “Why isn’t it on Wii?!” “That’s not fair, the Wii should get an anniversary game too!” And my favorite, “LOL typical Sega. screwing over Wii fans”. This line of discussion really ticked me off. Mainly because if you’re a Sonic fan who only owns a Wii, you’ve never had it so good!

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Press Release Confirms Mario & Sonic at the London Olympic Games for Wii & 3DS UPDATE: Logo and art

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Surprising nobody, it seems the long rumored third entry into the Mario & Sonic franchise has finally been announced. Surprisingly, this entry is cutting the DS out of the mix, and will instead be coming to the 3DS as well as the Wii.

Special thanks goes to Sonic Stadium for digging this up. The press release below was posted on the Czech website Zing.cz and translated by Google. Check it out after the break.

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Ecco the Dolphin, Another Take

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Hello and welcome to my first entry in nSEGA’s incredibly awesome “SEGA Sequel Saturdays” Segment. This is something I had actually promised to do a long time ago on behalf of Panzer Dragoon Orta. It’s something I’ll get to eventually, nSEGA, I swear! In the meantime, last week’s write up on a sequel to Ecco has inspired me to try my hand at it. After all, I beat the game years ago! So that people know where I’m coming from, I figure I’ll detail my history with the Ecco franchise. Any peeps not interested in that, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs.

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5 SEGA Games Perfect for Kinect

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The Weekly Five is back! And this time it’s personal. Okay, it’s not personal, but it may just be a tad controversial. KINECT! Did reading that make your blood boil? Did it make you think of things like “laggy”, “casual” and “the death of video games”? Well if it did, you need to wise up. The Kinect has been around for almost 6 months now, it sold more than 10 million sensors and the video game industry is far from dead. Kinect may not have reinvented the industry, but it hasn’t hurt it in the slightest.

What more, having owned a Kinect since launch and having played ten titles so far (four of them were demos) I can honestly say that things like “lag” and “recognition problems” are not due to hardware problems, but rather fall on the early software. I’ve found that lag has been nearly wiped out in the main Kinect Hub, and is not a problem in first party titles and second gen releases. As software updates occur, the problems that were hardly problems to begin with have become greatly diminished. Anyway, this sort of discussion can continue in our wonderful forums. My point was that the Kinect is now at a great place, both hardware and software-wise, to support some of SEGA’s great franchises. What sort of SEGA games would be perfect for Kinect?

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SEGA Tunes Vol.4 “Making Arcades Friendly”

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Before we start playing the tunes we’ve prepped for you this week, here is a quote from the Suzuki Sama

“The bad kids would be hanging around the game center, playing games.

Video games were a mother’s enemy. That was the image then — “mother’s enemy” — because kids would stop studying.

I wanted to eradicate that.

 I wanted to change the dark, underground image of kids smoking and gathering in dark rooms playing games. I wanted to give it a lively image, bringing gaming to a brighter place — from inside to outside, darker to lighter place. But, you have to change the consumer. The people who play games in dark places will always play games in dark places.

So we had to attract people who would play games in bright places. In other words, I wanted to make games for a new market.

Here I thought Blue Skies in Games Started With Sonic.

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Ecco the Dolphin

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This will actually be a short one because all things considered, I haven’t spent a ton of time with this series. (And welcome to Episode 12.) I remember my first experience with Ecco was on the Sega Genesis with Ecco: The Tides of Time, which was actually the 2nd game in the series. As a little kid I struggled to get a grasp of how the game worked, and after many tries, I was finally able to progress through several levels, but was never able to finish it. I was a little older when Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future hit the Dreamcast, but found myself making even less progress, taking countless tries at the demo (which was the game’s first level) before finally getting to level 2.

Immediately after I did that, I rented the full game and attempted to play through it, and the 2nd level was as difficult to figure out as the 1st. As it would turn out, I never got past the 2nd level. But what a seriously good-looking game it was. It’s actually pretty impressive, in hindsight, that Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future carried several traits of, well, an open world game, and keep in mind that this was in the pre-GTA3 era. With the “open world” element having now become a staple of modern video gaming, it would be interesting to see this series given another try.

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Sonic Stories: CrazyTails

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In celebration of Sonic’s 20th anniversary, SEGAbits proudly presents a limited feature highlighting SEGAbits stories from writers and readers of how they got into the franchise and their history with Sonic. Want to share your Sonic story? Check out the dedicated topic in the SEGAbits forum.

Everyone must be aware of Sonic’s 20th anniversary coming closer with each day. I’m sure lots of you are very hyped up! It is the time where fans go ape shit for the smallest tidbit of news, a time where speculation can possibly turn into fan wars. Yeah, great times indeed!

I have pretty much established myself here at SEGAbits, so I feel honored being picked to share my story on how I’ve got to know SEGA’s mascot, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG! I hope ya’ll enjoy reading my story!

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Why SEGA should stick with PlatinumGames

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The closure of Clover Studio several years back was a sad day for the gaming industry, not only because they had just developed a multiple Game of the Year award winner (the beautiful Okami) but also because it was such a shame to see the developer of some of Capcom’s most interesting and innovative content getting the axe. It was a dose of reality: a reminder that originality and innovation doesn’t always pay off (and SEGA knows that probably better than anybody) in an industry that’s rapidly becoming more and more hit-driven and sequel-based.

The good news came shortly after, when it was revealed that the heads of Clover Studios had no intention of folding back inside Capcom. Instead, key developers Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya, and co. formed what would eventually become PlatinumGames, taking many former Clover Studios developers with them. In a move of pure brilliance, SEGA picked up the partnership, what turned out to be an incredible fit.

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Streets of Rage Remake released after 8 years

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[Promotional image showing original vs. remake]

Fan made remake of Streets of Rage has finally been released by the team that has been working on it for the past 8 years. I remember a long time ago, maybe around 2004, I was looking at the site excited for the release.

Now we are in 2011 and can now play it. The final product is massive with over 93 stages in story mode. You can download it below.

Download Here (218 MB)
[Windows only]

[Source: Project Page]

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Review: Yakuza 4

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I remember reading about the first Yakuza game (Ryū ga Gotoku in Japan) way back in 2005. I was super excited to find out that SEGA was going to bring it over. Since then the series has seen significant growth, spawning three direct sequels and three spin offs. When the original failed to catch on in the west, there was a lot of doubt that the franchise would ever come to the west again. Now we are all the way to the fourth main entry for the series. It’s great that SEGA has continued to bring the series over to the west despite the failure of the first game, but four entries in has Kazuma Kiryu finally worn out his welcome? Read on to find out.

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Yakuza 5

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Hey guys, hope everyone in Internetland enjoyed their April Fools day! Welcome to Episode 11 of SEGA Sequel Saturdays. This week I’ll be expressing my thoughts on the (inevitable) sequel to a game that just released, Yakuza 4. SEGAbits’ official review will be up soon, but you can read my own opinion on Yakuza 4 at my blog, here. I feel that Yakuza 4’s a fun game with lots and lots to do and some great storytelling, but at the same time, its formula is really beginning to show its age. I don’t think Yakuza 5 is even worth announcing if we’re not going to be getting some big changes and updates, and here’s what I think they should be.

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