News

The Creative Assembly’s first Warhammer game to be Total War: Warhammer

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Over two years ago SEGA announced that they and The Creative Assembly had partnered with Games Workshop to make Warhammer games. Now, seemingly not long before the game is supposed to be officially announced, we know what the first game to come out of this deal is. Total War Center forum member StormOfRazors had received the book: “The Art of Total War” about eleven days before its intended release date of January 23rd. And in it he noticed a passing mention of Creative Assembly’s Warhammer game.

As it turns out, the game will combine Total War with the Warhammer series in Total War: Warhammer. Seeing how this book is coming out in a little more than a week, hopefully SEGA will give us a good look at this game pretty soon.

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SEGA Tunes: A look at SEGA AM2’s underrated Sword of Vermilion OST

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Before SEGA AM2 brought Shenmue to Dreamcast owners everywhere, they created a Japanese RPG in the late 80’s for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. That title would help SEGA-AM2 dip their feet into the console market, that first game was Sword of Vermilion. The game was a early Genesis/Mega Drive title and was one of the spotlight games in SEGA’s timeless “Nintendon’t: advertisement campaign.

While Sword of Vermilion was ambitious for its time, it wasn’t really known as a great game and possibly one of the lesser known games by the publisher. But regardless of that status, the soundtrack for this game is actually great. Composed by Hiroshi Kawaguchi (After Burner, Out Run, and more) and Yasuhiro Takagi (Virtua Racing, F355 Challenge and more), both composers who where literally at the top of their game during this time period.

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Game Watch & Impress SEGA 3D Classics interviews continue, focusing on the development of After Burner II

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The SEGA Blog has kicked off another series of translated interviews held between 3D Classics developer M2 and Game Watch & Impress, this time focusing on the upcoming 3D After Burner II which is due out on January 15th for Nintendo’s 3DS. The article, which you can find here, not only delves into the development of the 3DS remake, but also Okunari provides photos and videos of the After Burner II cabinet in SEGA of Japan’s permanent storage warehouse. Suddenly I’m having visions of the ending to “Raiders of the Lost Arc” with every crate sporting a SEGA logo.

Part one can be found at SEGA’s blog, and part two is to be released tomorrow.

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Did You Know Gaming video series shines the spotlight on the SEGA Dreamcast

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Online video series Did You Know Gaming has featured SEGA on past episodes, such as their Sonic the Hedgehog retrospective, and their latest episode takes a look at SEGA’s console swan song the Dreamcast. The video does a nice job putting all the interesting facts revealed over the year in chronological order, touching on the Tom Kalinske’s dealings with Sony during the 1990s, Microsoft’s early involvement, and how piracy both hurt the console and then later helped the indie scene.

I’ll admit, I thought I knew everything about the SEGA Dreamcast, but there were a few factoids I was unaware of like the “potato” chip gag. Was there anything in the video that surprised you?

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Sonic the Comic Editor Deborah Tate will be attending Weston Super Sonic

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Upcoming UK Sonic convention Weston Super Sonic has finally reached the end of its illustrious guest list, with the announcement that Sonic the Comic editor Deborah Tate will be in attendance! 

Deborah was responsible for editing over 100 issues of the UK Sonic comic series, running from Issue #39 to #166, and was also responsible for many staples throughout the series’ life such as the Graphic Zone, Photo Zone, and reshaping Amy Rose’s look and character. This is no mean feat; to say she contributed hugely to many Sonic fans’ childhood is a huge understatement!

If that wasn’t enough, the convention has announced they’ll be making several more event announcements next week!

We’re in the home stretch now folks; don’t forget to stay tuned to SEGABits if you can’t make it, as we’ll have all the details from the day!

Weston Super Sonic is on 17th January in Weston-Super-Mare, and is ticket-only. All tickets have been sold, which is nothing short of impressive to say the least.

Once again, for more details be sure to check the official Weston Super Sonic page.

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The Internet Archive now hosting classic SEGA MS-DOS games including Turbo OutRun, Power Drift, and more!

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The Internet Archive is an awesome resource. It allows us to dig up old websites so we can laugh at what passed for web design in 1997, and now it allows us to relive classic PC games through emulation! With a library of over 2,000 MS-DOS titles to play, you can bet some SEGA games are in the mix. Notable titles include Turbo OutRun, Zaxxon, and Congo Bongo. You can find all the SEGA developed games and games that appeared on SEGA hardware in addition to MS-DOS at this handy link.

Did you find a title in the archive that you especially enjoyed? Let us know what you enjoyed playing in the comments below!

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Hucast announces Alice’s Mom’s Rescue, an indie 2D platformer for the SEGA Dreamcast

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Hucast, the folks behind DUX, Redux: Dark Matters, and Ghost Blade, have recently announced another indie title slated for the SEGA Dreamcast. The game, given the odd title of Alice’s Mom’s Rescue, is a pixel art platformer in which Alice (potentially of Wonderland fame) must rescue her mom from a giant raven. The game will feature three worlds with twenty five stages, and gameplay includes battling evil animals and using magic mushrooms to change Alice’s height. The game will support 240p, RGB cable, S-video, and VGA and is due to release on March 23rd, 2015.

The game is up for pre-order in two styles, a 2-disc limited edition in a DVD case featuring the game, the soundtrack, and a 12 page manual for 42.95 euros and a standard edition which features the game in a jewel case with a 4 page manual for 24.95 euros. Check out screens from the game in the gallery below, and see the game in motion over at Vimeo.

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My Life with SEGA gets his groove back with Groove on Fight for the Saturn

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SEGA and Atlus have had a long history together. Before SEGA bought the company in 2013, the companies collaborated on various titles which appeared on home console and arcade hardware. 1997’s Groove On Fight: Gouketsuji Ichizoku 3 was one of these titles, the third in Atlus’ Gouketsuji Ichizoku/Power Instinct series of fighting games.

In this week’s My Life with SEGA, AJ and Mickey Mac put Groove on Fight to the test! Is this really one of the best SEGA Saturn games you’ve never played?

Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel.

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Second wave of SEGA’s 3D Classics set to kick off January 15th with After Burner II

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Perhaps the most exciting news last year for Nintendo 3DS owning SEGA fans was the announcement that the second wave of SEGA’s 3D Classics were heading West in early 2015. Revealed to be releasing monthly, think of it as a SEGA Arcade Game of the Month Club, Nintendo Life has discovered that After Burner II will be kicking off the collection in Europe on January 15th and that the games will be priced at £4.49/€4.99. An American release date has not been discovered, but it will likely be the same or just a few days apart from the European date.

It can be assumed that 3D Fantasy Zone, 3D OutRun, 3D Fantasy Zone II, and 3D Thunder Blade will be released between February and May, making the first half of 2015 a retro SEGA fan’s dream come true!

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Aliens: Colonial Marines and Alien vs Predator have been pulled from the Steam store [update]

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We know that Aliens: Colonial Marines and Alien vs. Predator (2010) could have been better games, but did they really have to get pulled from the Steam store? One might say that it has to do with the Alien license, but that isn’t true since SEGA just released Alien: Isolation, which is still on the Steam store.

The even odder thing is that the older Alien vs Predator (published by Rebellion) is also still on Steam, making me think this could have been done by SEGA to weed out the ‘shitty’ Alien games. Though Aliens: Colonial Marines is still available to buy on Amazon, GMG, and other digital PC stores (all even redeem on steam and probably have limited codes).

Alien vs Predator and Alien: colonial Marines join a list of SEGA titles to be pulled from digital services. Others include the recent Afterburner Climax, Outrun 2: Coast to Coast, Sega Rally Revo, and more.  Read more about pulled games in the Steam forum topic.

Edit: Alien: Colonial Marines and Alien vs Predator have now reappeared on the Steam store. 

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Drift Stage: An OutRun inspired driving game gets early alpha demo

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Drift Stage is a driving game inspired by mid-late 80’s racing games, particularity SEGA AM2 games like OutRun. The game finally got its first ‘early alpha’ demo on Windows, Mac and Linux computers. If you’re a fan of early SEGA driving arcade action, this is a game you won’t want to slip through your radar.

This early alpha demo contains a single time trial event for you to challenge three target time ghosts (novice/intermediate/expert) and your personal best.

This is not a final product. Drift Stage is still in its early stages of development. This early alpha demo is intended to give a general impression of the game’s intent but should not be considered at all representative of the final product. Modes, music, graphics, gameplay, and all other facets of this product are subject to change.

You guys can download the demo here. It is a little under 100mb in size. What are your thoughts on the game? Enjoy what you guys have seen or played?

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Devolver Digital wants to make a new Seaman game

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The Seaman franchise caused a lot of confusion for us here at SEGAbits when it was announced and, well, probably more confusion when we first played it on Dreamcast. That doesn’t mean the game didn’t have a fanbase, the game was the third highest selling Dreamcast game in Japan when it was released and the sequel Seaman 2 (Japan only) sold similar numbers when released in 2007.

In 2008 the creator and company president behind Seaman and Seaman 2, Vivarium Inc, actually tried to get a Seaman spin-off called GABO! on to the Apple App Store. Sadly they where rejected by Apple and doesn’t seem like the game ever came out.

Now flash forward to the present, Chief Financial Officer from the US publisher Devolver Digital has openly asked SEGA to allow them to handle a new entry to the Seaman franchise via the power of Twitter. Devolver Digital is known for publishing titles like Hotline Miami, Shadow Warriror and bringing back the Serious Sam franchise. The only issue I see here is that Devolver Digital is a publisher, basically what SEGA (and their other company they own, Atlus) does already (and has been doing for decades).

But since SEGA hasn’t done anything with the the IP in 8 years, can it really hurt them to license it to another publisher and get it off the ground? What are your thoughts?

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SEGAbits Round Table: Our Favorite SEGA Games of 2014

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It has been an interesting year for SEGA games. During the first few months of 2014, Western SEGA fans had very little when it came to new games, while those in Japan enjoyed the puzzle mashup Puyo Puyo Tetris and the Yakuza spinoff Ryu ga Gotoku: Ishin!. Thankfully, those in the West had Alien: Isolation and Platinum Games’ Bayonetta 2 to look forward to, and in early February it was revealed that Sonic Boom would be releasing to the Wii U and 3DS. Another reveal came, much to the delight of the Hatsune Miku fanbase, with the announcement that Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd was set for a Western release in November. Meanwhile, fans of Relic Entertainment and The Creative Assembly’s real time strategy PC titles were treated to Total War: Rome II DLC and Company of Heroes 2 standalone expansions Ardennes Assault and The Western Front Armies.

Suffice it to say, the year has been mixed but not a disappointment. While certain blue hedgehogs failed to give us a good game, fans who step outside their comfort zone of Sonic and traditional SEGA games will find several great titles from SEGA. What are these great games? Read on to find out what our favorite SEGA games of 2014 were in our annual year end round table!

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Christine Cavanaugh, voice actress of Bunnie Rabbot in ABC’s Sonic the Hedgehog, has passed away

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Sad news as 2014 winds to a close, we have learned that voice actress Christine Cavanaugh had passed away on December 22nd. Her obituary, which was posted by the LA Times today, does not give any cause of death but the focus really should be on celebrating Christine’s life and her incredible work.

If you don’t know Christine Cavanaugh’s name, you’d undoubtably recognize her voice as she not only performed Bunnie Rabbot in ABC’s Sonic the Hedgehog, but she is also well known as the original voice of Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory, Chuckie from Rugrats, Marty Sherman from The Critic, and Oblina in Ahhhhh Real Monsters. Film and TV audiences will best recognize her as the voice of Babe in 1995’s Babe as well as playing a major supporting role in the classic The X-Files episode “Small Potatoes”. You can see Christine’s many roles at her IMBD listing.

Our thoughts are with Christine’s family, she will be missed.

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“Sonic Runners” officially announced, smartphone game due in 2015

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Takashi Iizuka has officially announced Sonic Runners, the rumoured game we previously reported on, during a Sonic event as Tokyo Joypolis.

The game is set to come to smartphones, with 2015 being mentioned as a release window, and is being developed by Sonic Team once again. That being said, very little is currently known about the game; more details are apparently set to be released in January. Whether Sonic Team have anything else in the works for next year is currently a mystery, but to be perfectly honest, I would like to think they’ve spent the past year or so since Lost World’s release doing more than a smartphone game, and one that it’s currently tentative in just about every way. It can at least be assumed “smartphones” refers to both Android and iOS versions of the game being on the way.

Once more details come out we’ll report on them, so stay tuned for Sonic Runners news!

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