You know what had an awesome soundtrack? Sonic Adventure. Even if you hate the cheesy rock tunes of Crush40, it is hard to deny that Adventure’s soundtrack was by and large pretty awesome. Some of the game’s best tracks were those that went well with the blistering pace of Sonic’s levels. Case in point, “Run Through the Speed Highway”, the first theme of Speed Highway. Enjoy!
Backbone Entertainment is mainly knowing for doing a poor job of porting those SEGA Vintage Collection games, but did you know that the team tried to pitch a new Streets of Rage and ESWAT to SEGA? Below is the gallery of that artwork.
The artwork was posted by former Backbone Entertainment artist, most likely to get articles like this written. Congratulations.
Just a few short days after a class-action lawsuit filing in the California court system claiming that SEGA and Gearbox released and sold Aliens: Colonial Marines to the public under the pretense of false advertising, the two companies have responded by unsurprisingly dismissing it .
“SEGA cannot comment on specifics of ongoing litigation, but we are confident that the lawsuit is without merit and we will defend it vigorously,” the publisher said.
Gearbox, however, wasn’t quite so soft of the wording, defending its use of unlabeled demonstration walkthroughs.
“Attempting to wring a class action lawsuit out of a demonstration is beyond meritless. We continue to support the game, and will defend the rights of entertainers to share their works-in-progress without fear of frivolous litigation.”
As it stands, there’s little doubt that due to the very focused nature of the lawsuit that this whole scenario will ultimately end up just being withdrawn or thrown out by a judge. The damage has likely been done in the eyes of players however in terms of the public relations perception, more so for the developer Gearbox than Sega.
The response comes after news that co-developer Timegate Studios has filed for bankruptcy.
[Via Kotaku]
SEGA and Disney are teaming up to bring Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse HD to all major platforms, the remake will even have a new soundtrack for what it seems. They are teaming up with Grant Kirkhope who is best known for his soundtrack in Rare games like Bajo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark and Golden Eye. Mr. Kirkhope tweeted the following a few days ago.
‘Should hopefully finish my final piece for “Castle of Illusion HD starring Mickey Mouse” tonight!!!’ – Via Grant Kirkhope’s twitter.
So new graphics, new box art and new soundtrack? Hows that for a remake?
TimeGates Studios, who where previously known for their Section 8 games and now for co-developing the controversial Aliens: Colonial Marines has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Texas Southern Bankruptcy court yesterday.
The guys over at Polygon obtained the court papers, which stated that the developer is in debt to more than 50 creditors and owed total liabilities ranging from $10-$50 million dollars. Their top creditors include Epic Games (Unreal Engine), Agora Games (online game service), and DJ2 Entertainment. Funny enough, a local pizza shop was listed in the documents, which TimeGate owes $34.80. Wow, are these developers all in the 7th grade that they can’t pay a $35 dollar bill?
I guess life isn’t good for TimeGates Studios and the recent class action lawsuit isn’t going to help them. Weird seeing them lose all this money and still announce a game last month.
Griptonite games, makers of Shinobi on 3DS, Captain America on DS and many other portable games is hitting some tough times. The company, which has recently been aquired by Glu Mobile has had to make some cutbacks in order to maintain revenue. In this report from IGN, Glu Mobile CEO Niccolo de Masi gave the following statement.
We believe concentrating resources on fewer titles, with a greater centralized support infrastructure will accelerate revenue growth in Q4 2013 and beyond. We made over 20 new ‘games-as-a-service’ (GaaS) hires in Q1 and anticipate hiring at a similar rate throughout the year. Our goal is to shift headcount investment out of raw studio team volume and into our centralized GaaS functions. This rebalancing is expected to leave R&D costs approximately flat year over year. A reduction in force was commenced today to promote talent density throughout the studio, as well as fund over 80 new GaaS colleagues. This reduction is equivalent to circa 12% of the year’s starting headcount of 564 employees. Adding back forecast hiring we anticipate finishing 2013 with 582 Gluers worldwide.
Read the full article here.
Have a couple of grand you want to burn on a rare piece of SEGA hardware? Roger Vega, a.k.a. kidvid666, has put his rare SEGA Pluto system up on eBay after its initial auction ended at $7,600, failing to meet its reserve limit.
The SEGA Pluto is a sub-planet SEGA Saturn variant, of which only two knowingly exist in the world. The system, while much larger than its model 1 and 2 Saturn brethren (and roughly larger than a combined Model 2 Mega Drive and Mega CD), features a built-in NetLink modem, enabling the system to connect to the Internet for web browsing and playing certain online-enabled titles such as Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition, SEGA Rally, Saturn Bomberman, and Virtual On. Otherwise, the system is a typical U.S. NTSC Saturn.
Vega demonstrates in a YouTube video that the system, while fully functional, has a broken disc door that needs to have constant pressure weighing it down in order for the system to function properly. As of this posting, the auction is at $501 with over 21 bidders. It is set to end on May 10.
[Image courtesy of Roger Vega]
If SEGA and Nintendo teamed up to release a limited edition Dreamcast design, they would have all my monies.
Here it is, our sweet podcasts are now on iTunes. I know many of you have given us flack for not having them up, due to RSS problems but guess what? Those are now a thing of the past. Well, not really, we are having some troubles on how it displays on iTunes. But hey, nothing is perfect. Check it out, subscribe and give us a review.
Swingin’ Report Show – Sonic Talk
Thanks to everyone that listened, regardless of not having a iTunes set up. Thank Will for fixing up the RSS feeds for us, he is brilliant.
Aliens: Colonial Marines drew ire from gaming fans due to its shoddy gameplay and overall lackluster production. The quality, or lack thereof, was so substantial that a lawsuit was filed in a Californian court on Apr. 30 by law firm Edelson LLC at the behest of Damion Perrine for false advertising.
Within the lawsuit, Perrine claims that builds shown off at events such as PAX and E3 were in no way indicative of how the final product would ultimately turn out. The suit further claims that the enforcement press embargoes, which were lifted the very morning of the game’s release, meant that game media could not alert early adopters of the disparity in quality between the demos and the final. It finally claims damages for players who pre-ordered the game or purchased the game on launch.
SEGA.com has undergone a much needed redesign! Dubbed “SEGA beta”, the site has been greatly simplified and broken into an easy to navigate grid. The search function has been much improved, with screens and videos given more prominence, as well as handy links to buy the games themselves and links to dedicated microsites. Interesting to note, at the bottom of the site is a breakdown of “Games”, “Brands”, “SEGA Store”, and “Company”. Beneath “Brands” is Sonic the Hedgehog, Total War and Aliens – three major SEGA West franchises. A visit to the European site adds Football Manager to the list. The Store, Blogs, and Forums retain their old designs for now.
First 4 Figures will be putting the Ryo Hazuki statue up for pre-order very soon, and in anticipation of this they have posted up a video detailing the statue. Or should we say statues? First 4 Figures will not only have a regular edition of the statue, limited to 750 statues featuring Ryo standing at 12 inches high on a city street base, but there will also be 350 statues in a Exclusive Edition featuring a special Phoenix Mirror base.
After the break, check out the full details. As soon as the pre-order goes live we’ll make sure to update this article with the prices.
Update: Pre-order here. Regular edition is priced at $169.99, exclusive edition is priced at $184.99.
File this one under “release this West, SEGA!”. The free to play iOS game Puyo Puyo! Quest has released to the Japanese App Store. Described as a puzzle RPG, the game has players challenging their friends to see who is the strongest player. The game appears to be a bit different than traditional Puyo Puyo titles, relying on teams, character cards, creating guilds, and utilizing power ups. While the game is free to play, there are some pay elements. The game looks just as bright and colorful as the excellent Puyo Pop Fever, fingers crossed that SEGA brings this west.
The most famous writer in video game comicdom is coming back to Sonic Talk! Ian Flynn, writer of Mega Man, the New Crusaders and of course, Sonic the Hedgehog will be answering your all important questions on our next show! Questions like “What do hedgehogs smell like?”, ” Why aren’t (insert your favorite shipping pair here) together”, “Is Protoman secretly Racer X?”, and “If a tasmanian devil gets rid of all the echidnas in the world and no one cares, does it make a sound?”
Post your questions in the comments section below, and we may read them on the podcast! Let us know if you want your name to be read as well.
All questions must be in by Wednesday morning.
Please do not ask any questions about the Archie case against Penders as Ian cannot answer them.
I’ve got some great news for anyone who loves some classic SEGA arcade tunes: SEGA’s Super Hang-On 20th Anniversary collection is now available on Amazon and iTunes! Just hop onto either digital service and buy the whole thing for a paltry $9.99.
There are 18 tracks on the collection. You can find the entire track list below the fold. You can expect Tuesday Tunes to feature some of these tracks over the course of the year!