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Captain America: Super Soldier has been in development since 2008

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As if we needed another reason to compliment this game. It already looks miles better than the best parts of Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor: God Of Thunder. The combat and gameplay looks smooth and pretty polished. The story even looks pretty good.

And now, we find out that this title has been given a three year development cycle. Going off of SEGA’s track record with movie games, this is very rare.

Also of note is that the development company, Next Level Games (Super Mario Strikers, Transformers: Cybertron, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon), convinced SEGA and Marvel to let them write their own original story for the game. They even brought in Christos Gage, a Marvel writer, to craft it.

Captain America is coming to the 360, Wii, 3DS, DS, PS3, and PSP on July 19th in North America, and July 15th in Europe.

[Source: PlayStation Universe]

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Mie Kumagai discusses VT4

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Australian Gamer recently sat down with famed SEGA developer Mie Kumagai, the first ever female president of an internal development team (Hitmaker). She has worked on titles in the Virtua Tennis and Virtual On franchises.

In a surprisingly short interview, she discusses a bit about Virtua Tennis 4, and tells us that SEGA is looking to continue Virtual On. Hmm….

Check out the rest below.

[Source: Australian Gamer]

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The guy behind the “shrill” NPC voice in Shenmue II explains how it came to be

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The Shenmue series may be known as a pioneer in a lot of ways…none of those ways includes the quality of its English dub. Shenmue Dojo yesterday posted a story from a voice actor who did some NPC voices from Shenmue II. Not a whole lot about the process we hadn’t heard from Jeremy Blaustein’s revealing interview a while back, but I still got a few chuckles out of this.

The actor, who asked to be anonymous (though Shenmue Dojo attests to his legitimacy), explained to his agent that he was not capable of altering his voice convincingly, but he was then asked to do just that when he showed up for the Shenmue II recording session.

For the next role, I was asked to do the voice of an old man.
My agent, who was in the control room, did not say anything at all. In fact, I saw the agent ducking out of my line of sight. Nothing from the agent about the fact that I had accepted the job on the condition that I not have to alter my voice. Because my voice characterizations are not good and game players will notice the poor quality. And no clearheaded game producer wants to put bad voices on their project. Right?

Once again, I was on the spot. Well, it’s their game, I figured. One standard elderly-man voice coming up.

My favorite part of this story would have to be when this actor reveals that he was also the one responsible for that quirky NPC with the high-pitched voice, and I actually have a feeling that I know which voice it was.

One of the characters was described to me as an especially weird fellow and they needed an appropriately weird voice. They played some scenes on the monitor. They gave me a moment to think of a voice style.

They didn’t like my first attempt and neither did I.

The next attempt was a shrill, scratchy concoction that actually hurt to do. “No way will they want this voice,” I thought.

They loved it.

I had a created a voice that sounds like a cross between Clint Eastwood and Richard Simmons.

As I was recording, I remember thinking to myself “This character voice is terrible. If I were playing this game and heard this voice, I’d turn off the sound.”

He also discusses how he and a couple other actors improvised the background chatter of the Heavens gang, the small studio in which the recording was done, and his declaration that he will never accept video game voicework again. Pretty entertaining.

[Source: Shenmuedojo]

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IGN does feature entitled “F-Zero GX: The Speed of Sega”

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IGN’s done a feature today celebrating F-Zero GX, and how the collaboration between Nintendo and SEGA arguably made this game the pinnacle of the F-Zero series.

F-Zero GX was much more than a mere continuation of the series, though. SEGA’s blue sky thinking brought vibrancy to a world that previously treaded murkier waters, and it did so with style. Powered by SEGA’s Triforce arcade hardware – for which Nintendo’s GameCube provided the foundations – F-Zero GX lent Nintendo’s world a robust makeover.

It was also unmistakably a SEGA game. Amusement Vision was the team behind F-Zero GX, headed up by a Toshiro Nagoshi who was fresh off of making Super Monkey Ball, and its outlandish backdrops owe much to that game’s colourful fancy. Neon clowns loom above Casino Palace, a gigantic ROB controller gyrates in the background of Port Town and giant sandworms dance across the skies of Sand Ocean.

The courses also bear that indelible SEGA stamp. They’re extravagant, often torturous and as memorable as a pop classic, a fact that can be accredited to its creator’s methods. During the game’s development Nagoshi likened designing tracks to penning a rock anthem; each should have its own rhythm, complete with chorus, middle eight and a hair-raising solo.

To check out the full article, head on over to IGN.

Nice read and a celebration of one of the best racers I’ve ever played. I’m also proud to say that I did manage beat all 7 challenges in the Story mode…well, on the normal difficulty setting, anyway.

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SEGA using open source 3D for VT4

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Apparently SEGA is using a free to download 3D program to aid in the development of Virtua Tennis 4 in Japan. SEGA Of Japan technical artist Katsuhiko Omori said this in an email to the creators of Blender:

Hello

My name is Katsuhiko Omori and I work as technical artist at SEGA Japan.
One of my main responsibilities is to research new technology and evaluating them for a possible application for SEGA’s game titles.

In 2010, I designed a shader rendering pipeline for Virtua Tennis 4 (SEGA) with the help of Blender 2.4. I utilized the material node-editor to generate and compose different surface materials and fine tune the finale results. In this aspect, the node-system was an extremely helpful tool in exploring the possibilities of this artist oriented experiment.

VT4 adopted the ueber shader and thus was it possible to re-implement my designed materials and user parameters on the game console. The attached image illustrates the face-skin material – the most complicated shader. As you can see it is a rather complex combination.

It’s all Greek to me, but maybe some of our more computer inclined readers can make sense of it.

In other news, the World Tour Virtua Tennis 4 demo is now live on PSN. Go check it out now if you are a PSN+ member. If you aren’t you can check it out this time next week.

[Source: Videogamewriters.com]
[Source: SEGA]

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Streets Of Rage 2 out now on iOS

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From out of seemingly nowhere, Streets Of Rage 2 appears for download on the Apple iPod Touch and iPhone. The game will cost you $2.99/€2.39/£1.79/AU$ 3.99 and includes Bluetooth multiplayer, and the Japanese version, Bare Knuckle 2.

The article also mentions that Golden Axe 2, Golden Axe 3, and Streets Of Rage 3 will be available this spring. Cool beans.

[Source: SEGA]

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Support SEGA’s Hope For Japan by playing SEGA Play! Baseball

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SEGA Of America is pouring their hearts (and a lot of money) to help out Japan after the huge earthquake/tsunami crisis last month. It’s a great thing, and they have sure helped out a lot of people with their huge auctioning off of rare swag, as well as donations from Football Manager, Sonic, and Kingdom Conquest. Now, you can help some more by buying two Japanese items to decorate your stadium or team in SEGA Play! Baseball, available here.

[Source: SEGA]

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First piece of Yakuza 4 DLC up for grabs today

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Well, this is an improvement over Yakuza 3’s DLC. You get this pack for free. It raises the limits of your character’s strength and stamina, and also picks up your relationship with Haruka to a higher point. Oh, and two new karaoke songs.

There are also four new themes (not so free, except to PS+ users), each highlighting a different character of the game. They include Kazuma, Akiyama, Tanimura and Saejima. For normal PSN members, these will run you $2.99 each (£1.99, €2.49).

Pictured below is Akiyama’s theme. The rest of them are pictured at the SEGA Europe’s Blog, linked below.

[Source: SEGA]

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SEGA responds to Streets of Rage Remake pull

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“SEGA is committed to supporting any fans that take an interest in our games, and where possible we do so by involving them in Beta tests and other development, marketing or research opportunities,” explained the publisher. “However we need to protect our intellectual property rights and this may result in us requesting that our fans remove online imagery, videos or games in some instances.”

I guess it never occured to SEGA to protect their intellectual property when Bomber Games asked for permission to produce the Remake or when they allowed Secret Level to Remake Golden Axe.

After the Jump check out SEGA protecting their IP from a terrible reimaginig by Bottle Rocket.

Continue Reading ➜

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Space Channel 5 Part 2 & Bass Fishing hit XBLA & PSN this summer

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When Space Channel 5 part 2 was announced along with SEGA Bass Fishing, they had an early 2011 release date. Now that SEGA has released the titles on PC & 360 as part of the ‘Dreamcast Collection’, they delayed the digital versions.

“Space Channel 5 Part 2 and SEGA Bass Fishing are definitely coming to XBLA and PSN. Look for them sometime in late summer,” SEGA brand manager Ben Harborne

The people that seem to lose in this are the PSN users, who now have to wait till summer to get a taste of the Ulala pie (sexual? Maybe).

[Via: Eurogamer]

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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.

Continue Reading ➜

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Sonic & SEGA All – Stars Racing now on Games On Demand

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Ryo ASR

SEGA have just announced today that the all star title from Sumo Digital is now up for download on Xbox Live via Microsoft’s Games on Demand service. ASR joins the ranks with SEGA titles Bayonetta and Aliens Vs. Predator.

Sonic and SEGA All – Stars Racing will set you back $29.99. Well worth it.

Here’s to another way to play as Ryo!

[Source: Gameplay Today]

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Bangai-O XBLA port coming world wide on May 4

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[This title is being published by D3, not SEGA. It is filed under news and not SEGA News.]

Bangai-O was originally released for the Nintendo 64. The series later got ported over to the Dreamcast, where it was released world wide. In 2008 the series made a comeback on the DS with a sequel titled Bangai -O Spirits.

Now the first game, the one that appeared on the Dreamcast by acclaimed developer Treasure (Gunstar Heroes and Sin & Punishment) is getting a remake on XBLA called Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury. Not only that, it will be out on May 4th. Other Treasure remakes hitting XBLA? Radiant Silvergun , which appeared on the SEGA Saturn (an excellent game!).

Game comes out May 4th world wide, comes with over 100 levels, map editor, ability to share levels online, online leaderboards and a nice price of 800 MS points.

[Source: AndriaSang]

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