Finally, some Sega news! It’s been a slow week.
PS Plus subscribers can pick up the arcade version of Golden Axe for free*. The downloadable title has difficulty options, screen settings and of course, trophies. Expect it to hit regular PSN stores in about a month or so.
*= You are paying for the Plus service so it’s not technically free.
Last week on Jeopardy it was Kids Week, so appropriately clues catered to the younger crowd. Despite being twice their age, many of the questions went over my head and were successfully answered by the competing grade schoolers. Thankfully, I was sure to get one question right and that one involved a popular blue hedgehog. On the Friday, July 8th episode, in the category Cute & Cuddly the $800 clue was: “Tails is a big-eyed friend of this ever-popular hedgehog”. The eventual champion Tony correctly answered “Sonic” in the form of a question. Thank goodness he didn’t screw up and say Shadow or Silver. Way to go, Tony! Now use that prize money to pre-order Sonic Generations, and pick up Jeopardy! for the SEGA Genesis while you’re at it.
Rise of Nightmares: It’s a pretty creepy title. It makes sense in the context of the game, the nightmares are rising and it is up to you to keep them down and defeat them.
STAMACSTA: What?!
According to the Australian Classification Board, a game developed by SEGA’s CS3 team containing “strong horror violence, blood and gore” will be released in Australia. This describes Rise of Nightmares to a T, however the title does not match up. In the classification, this game is titled “STAMACSTA”. Either SEGA’s CS3 team are developing two gory games and we have yet to hear of this other one, or much more likely STAMACSTA is Australia’s title for Rise of Nightmares. Fingers crossed that a classification board employee accidentally let his cat walk on the keyboard rather than this being true. It’s quote an awful title. “Stam-acts-ta”?
After the break, check out the classification information.
Seems that SEGA developer Kenichi Tanase might have let slip the title of the next Phantasy Star game on twitter. He says the next game will be called Phantasy Star Victory.
Since Phantasy Star Portable (PSP) was for the Playstation Portable (PSP), people are assuming that Phantasy Star Victory (PSV) will be on the Playstation Vita (PSV). Chances seem high, SEGA has already confirmed it’s working on 5 titles for the portable.
[Via: NoGamesPortable]
The Sonic Show people have released an hour long retrospect of what happened at Summer of Sonic ’11. Not only did they capture a ton of video, they also go direct audio. So if you don’t have time to see the whole thing, at least see the music bits.
Hit the jump to get the break down on what is in the video.
I guess there have been rumors flying that SEGA Amusement USA will be closing down, since their website has been down. The fine folks at Arcade Heroes got down to it and found out what is really going on.
It seems that SEGA Amusement USA will be changing locations from Elk Grove Village, IL to Wood Dale, IL. They have also confirmed that they will be changing their name from SEGA Amusement USA to Play It Amusement Inc. The company is still going to be operated and owned by SEGA.
This new change is aimed to keep the same employees and streamline operating costs by working closer with SEGA Amusement Europe. I don’t know why they changed the name myself, but whatever.
[Source: ArcadeHeroes]
Before I talked about my E3 experiences on the Swingin’ Report Show, I was a guest on “The Spindash” the best darn Sonic-related podcast that hasn’t had an episode in half a year. GXEchidna interviewed me. He’s a great guy and we have the same interest in podcasts. The episode is even named after my full username. “Much Ado about Shigamado”.
Call the poliiiiiiccceeee.
Benzai from Blistered Thumbs plays a bit of NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams.
SEGA announced that they would be doing a Sakura Wars tie-in for Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity… they teased it way back in November of last year.
Now we finally get to see how this content will look like in game. Check out the gallery below for more photos of the sexy action. Including pictures of the weapons.
While City Escape has been known of since E3, and there has been a number of preview videos and screens since then, we have yet to hear a clean version of the music for the modern version of the stage. This is the tune that singer Tony Harnell hinted at re-recording long before Sonic Generations was ever announced. Thanks to SEGA of Japan and Famitsu, a new trailer puts the E3 trailer to shame by incorporating the actual stage music. What more, Famitsu shares a few new screens from both modern and classic City Escape including the stage hub.
Thanks to the conclusion of Wimbledon over the previous weekend, two tennis games saw a jump in the charts and it was SEGA’s Virtua Tennis 4 that triumphed over rival Top Spin 4. It has been reported by a NeoGAF member, using some calculations provided by Chart-Track, that Virtua Tennis 4’s combined sales last week was no more than 9,300. Whilst not as impressive as Djokovic was against Nadal, it is none the less a good number of sales in this time of year as the British market is often sluggish during June. Expect to see Virtua Tennis 4 in the British charts for a few more weeks to come.
[ Source: Chart-Track and NeoGAF]
NiGHTSfan tweeted us this image today from a Wal-Mart. It’s good to see that SEGA is getting stuff like this made to promote their upcoming game. I mean, look at the long and varied list of consoles you can buy it on.
Xbox, Wii, NDS, PS3 and Sega? I love my Sega console, I have one of those. I got it back in the 90’s when I upgraded from my Nintendo.
SEGA Japan launched another web app for Sonic’s 20th anniversary. This strange little app is called “Sonic ★ Tweet“.
I guess the way the game works is that you have to use the twitter client to unlock 500 cards that feature characters from Sonic’s history. How do you unlock the cards? Defeat Eggman by using some wit in your tweets.
Basically the game takes your tweet, breaks down the words and each one has assigned points. Depending on what words you use, in one tweet (and what others online are using) you rank in combos, giving Sonic’s attack more damage.
After you take down Eggman’s health to zero, you will get exp and a card. Cards can be used to bypass a cooldown phase (you have a limit to how much you can attack).
Sadly this game is only up for our Japanese readers, the rest of us either have to learn Japanese or pretend we know how.
[Source: Sonic Wrecks]
Don’t worry, Yu Suzuki has not created Shenmue Diner Dash for cell phones. Instead, Ryo Hazuki’s Japanese voice actor Masaya Matsukaze has opened a cafe in Akihabara with a unique twist (don’t all Japanese cafés have a unique twist?). Matsukaze’s cafe, called “Seiyu Café”, is staffed by voice actors and has a voice acting theme. The interior of the space resembles a recording studio, and throat-friendly drinks are sold alongside alcohol and sweets.
Bowplex is basically a bowling place in the UK, but also has arcade and other fluff around to make extra cash. The place has inked a exclusive deal to get ‘Sega Active Zone’ machines in their place of establishment.
“We’re really excited about the partnership with SEGA. It’s such a prominent brand within the industry and we’re thrilled to be associated with the company on this level. We work hard to push the boundaries of family entertainment and strive to be the first to introduce new concepts and we believe working with SEGA to introduce SEGA Active Zone is testament to that.” -Tracy Standish, Managing Director of Bowlplex
The project has £2 million in investments for ‘state-of-the-art equipment’. Sega Sports Active will feature sports games with iconic SEGA characters, such as Sonic. No other names where mentioned in the press release.
Hit the jump for that.