My Life with SEGA loses some teeth playing NHL Hockey ’94

SEGA’s Mega Drive is now twenty-five years old, and hockey season’s in full swing. What better way to celebrate both than playing NHL Hockey ’94? None!

Now, I’m not much of sports fan, so I own very few sports related titles. However, I have NHL ’94. Why? Well, my brother and I used to play it. A lot. He wasn’t much of a hockey fan either, yet we loved this game….

This week, I share that love with my sister-from-another-mister, Lauren Buckler. Mickey Mac will return. I promise. Until then, it’s the girl’s time to shine.

Review: Sonic Lost World (3DS)

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Another major Sonic game has been released on a home console and with that, another portable version is put out by DIMPS. This time however, DIMPS will be dealing with Sonic in a full, 3-D world with all new controls and an emphasis on platforming instead of speed. DIMPS’ attempts in the past at making portable versions of Sonic console games have been fairly mediocre. Sonic Colors DS was flat out dull and Sonic Generations 3DS relied on its multiplayer and mission mode to be anything more than a rental. (I think I gave that game way too high a grade at the time.) This time however, DIMPS has actually been getting some praise for their port of Sonic Lost World with some claiming it to be the superior version. While I disagree with that, it really seems like DIMPS did their best to make a solid 3-D Sonic game that does in fact, improve over the Wii U version on some respects, but has some serious flaws as well. Read on to see why Sonic Lost World has some of the best highs and worst lows of any portable Sonic game.

Art of SEGA: Panzer Dragoon Zwei

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The Panzer Dragoon games have some of the best art SEGA has ever produced. With input from renowned artist Moebius, the world of Panzer Dragoon is one both alien and familiar. The world is epic in its scope and the unique creature designs manage to be horrific and beautiful at the same time. This art was found on the Panzer Dragoon website Will of the Ancients. You can find their art section here.

Hopefully, the art from this game will inspire anyone interested in participating in our art contest!

Sonic Talk #24 “Third time’s the charm.”

[ MP3 Download ] [ iTunes ]

FINALLY! After 3 tries, we finally get episode 24 out the door. We start with Nuckles87 getting a little too excited over finishing a level in Sonic Lost World. We talk a bit about what we’ve been playing. Alex goes into a rant on TSSZ and Ken Penders and I talk to Lidice Garcia on Sonic Boom U.S. West Chapter and what Sonic Revolution is. Then, we end it with Comic talk. Click on the comments section for show notes.

SEGA Memories: Space Channel 5 premieres in Universal City Walk’s Cinema Plaza

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Back in the Dreamcast era, SEGA would have big promotional events for their titles. Yes, even niche stuff like Space Channel 5, which most publishers wouldn’t spend too much advertising dollars on. SEGA on the other hand had a huge E3 booth for the game, but after when the game was nearing its ‘debut’ they decided to premiere the game to the public, like it was a Hollywood picture. How would they do that? Premiere the game at an event over at Universal City Walk’s Cinema Plaza!

Review: The Typing of the Dead Overkill

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Droppin’ F-bombs like a mother…

The original The Typing of the Dead was a misunderstood sleeper hit when it came out for the Dreamcast. The keyboard accessory may have been useful in the eyes of consumers for games like Quake III Arena, but it didn’t immediately become apparent that a typing game spin-off would make for an amazing, fast paced alternative. The original game appeared in Japanese arcades prior, and when it arrived on PC shortly after it had done well enough to spawn several more sequels and updates on the platform, in Japan. Outside of Japan it would be seen as an outdated arcade game that would be shunned, yet had become the cult hit which emitted an outcry of diehard fans in their never ending list of seemingly implausible demands for a new entry in the series. Years later, after SEGA and Headstrong’s release of The House of the Dead: Overkill on the Wii, it had seen an update with The House of the Dead: Overkill Extended Cut on Playstation 3 and on the week of Halloween has seen an update on Steam for PC as part of a semi two game bundle, literally out of the blue with no fanfare and nearly cancelled by now defunct Blitz Games. Despite these hurdles, it was still the ideal platform to put out this modern update to the franchise that encompasses its cheesiness and over the top absurdity to much higher levels, probably higher than people would expect or possibly want.

SEGA Cinema: House of the Dead

*Warning movie is rated R: contains gore, terrible acting and nudity*

**Is the YouTube video blocked in your country?**
No worries, download the full episode here.

Welcome to another installment of SEGA Cinema, where you sit back and watch a flick with your buddies here at SEGAbits. This time we are watching Uwe Boll’s classic ‘House of the Dead‘. That’s right, just in time to celebrate your Halloween night.

We suffered through this, now you have to too!

[MP3]

Art of SEGA: House of the Dead III

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House of the Dead isn’t exactly the most beautiful game series, but it still required a substantial amount of concept art in order to determine the design of the protagonists, enemies, and game play scenarios. Below is a load of concept art, provided by our sister site Website of the Dead. As usual, we won’t be posting everything they have, so be sure to check out their database here!
Also, remember to submit something to our art contest!

SEGA Retro Spotlight: Happy 25th anniversary to the SEGA Mega Drive

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Twenty-five years ago today, SEGA released what was arguably their most beloved and popular console: the SEGA Mega Drive.

Since April 1st of this year, SEGAbits has been teamed with Sonic Retro, the internet’s best resource for all things Sonic the Hedgehog. But the folks at Sonic Retro didn’t want to limit themselves to just Sonic, and so the SEGA Retro wiki was born. SEGA Retro covers anything and everything SEGA, from hardware to games to arcade titles. Despite being less than four years old, the wiki has amassed nearly seven thousand articles and continues to grow. The SEGA Retro wiki has been just a click away from SEGAbits, by selecting “Info” from our navigation bar, but we wanted to go one step further and highlight the many excellent wiki entries in a new SEGAbits feature entitled “SEGA Retro Spotlight”.

Given the significance today has for SEGA history, we’re going to highlight SEGA Retro’s entry on the SEGA Mega Drive.

SEGA Memories: A look back at Toys ‘R’ Us’ 1996 holiday video game catalog

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Its almost that time of season where most kids are waiting to tell their parents what modern day war shooter they want under their Christmas tree. Its also the time where older folks, like ourselves on the site, think about our previous holidays and how we used to make our parents waste hoards of cash to buy our affection. Wasn’t that great? Well this week on Monday Memories we will look at the 1996 holiday Toy ‘R’ Us video game catalog. I remember these where awesome as a kid, it was like window shopping for games in my underwear.

Art of SEGA: NiGHTS into Dreams

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In order to inspire prospective participants in our re-launched art contest, we’ll be running a featured centered around SEGA art throughout the contest! We’ll be starting off with one of SEGA’s most artistically amazing games of all time, NiGHTS into Dreams. We’ll be featuring a sampling of the concept art you can currently find on NiGHTS into Dreams.com. If the art below interests you, I recommend checking them out, as they are a great repository of all things NiGHTS!

Announcing the SEGAbits Season of Colors art contest!

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How would you like to win some fabulous SEGA merchandise, much of which will never be released to the public? I am happy to announce that now you can, and all you have to do is participate in a little art contest to express your SEGA love. If you think you can draw, shoot a good video, or even if you just fancy yourself a good writer, all you have to do is create a piece of SEGA art and send it into segabitscontest at gmail dot com. From there we will pick our favorite piece of art! Of course, since art is subjective, we will also have five runner up prizes.

The grand prize will consist of:

A set of Valkyria Chronicles 2 pins, a set of Jet Set Radio pins, 2 different Castle of Illusion pins, the original Valkyria Chronicles art book, the Eyes of Bayonetta art book and DVD, the original Jet Set Radio Future soundtrack, the Jet Set Radio soundtrack, a commission from Sonic comic artist Tracy Yardley.

We will also be offering five runner up prizes consisting of all the pins listed above. The contest will be ending November 26th. Unlike Summer of Art, don’t count on any extensions.

You can find some more information about this contest (as well as what happened to the Summer of Art contest) below.

Contest: Mega Drive 25th anniversary Kingdom Conquest II card giveaway

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To celebrate the Mega Drive’s 25th anniversary, we’re teaming with SEGA to give away cool new in-game Kingdom Conquest II cards based on the Golden Axe and Altered Beast franchises made famous on SEGA’s 16-bit console. We’re giving away 10 Altered Beast Werewolf Monster Cards and 10 Golden Axe Gilius Thunderhead Commander Cards.

HOW TO ENTER:
Follow us on Twitter, tweet us an answer to this question: “What is your favorite SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis game?” with the hashtag #SBMD25 and if you’re selected, we’ll send you a code via direct message!

or

Like us on Facebook, reply to the dedicated Facebook post with an answer to this question: “What is your favorite SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis game?” and if you’re selected, we’ll send you a code!

Contest ends 10/31/13, codes will be given randomly.

Want more ways to win? SEGA is holding their own contest on the SEGA Blog, as well as on the Kingdom Conquest II Facebook page or enter on Twitter by following @KingdomConqGame and Tweeting #KC2MD