Music man of awesomeness Richard Jacques. Composer of well-known Sega games such as Sonic R, Sonic 3-D Blast, Headhunter and a track on Jet Set Radio will be signing at “The Maestros of Video Games” event at Dark Delicacies Books & Collectables in Burbank, California on June 11th. Several other game composers such as Greg Edmonson, Mike Reagan and more will attend for an hour-long Q&A panel followed by a meet and greet signing.
It’s fair to say that the Shining series has had a rocky time of late, with some good-ish games like Shining Wind (if you’re into that kind of thing) and some really bad ones, like Shining Force Neo and Shining Force EX.
But what’s most annoying is that the best of the bunch, like Shining Force Feather for the DS and Shining Force Cross Raid (seen above) never made it out of Japan! On that note, here’s a trailer of Shining Force Cross Raid.
Cross Raid is an Arcade game in the same vein as Phantasy Star Online… But don’t get too excited: unless you go to or come from Japan, you’re unlikely to ever play it.
It’s funny how they talk about the parrying system being new to the game; if I recall correctly, it was in the Saturn title of Shinobi as well. But hey, I’m no producer at SEGA, what do I know.
Then he talks about a multiplier they added, which seems to be based off of Shinobi on PS2. Only in this one, if you do unique attacks you get stronger?
On another note, expect more media coverage for Rise of Nightmares soon, since you can see from looking back at the interview that they showed it off at this press event too.
Fresh from SEGA PR, and in all caps, comes the announcement that the Wii hit House of the Dead: Overkill will be rereleased to the PS3 and Move in 3D under the name of “House of the Dead: Overkill – Extended Cut”. Frankly, I thought is was a joke email at first, and after reading it I got a little dizzy. Perhaps because I now wonder how many other Wii titles might hit HD consoles. Check out the press release after the break.
Sega’s no stranger to funky marketing, be it severed limbs turning up all over London for the promotion of MadWorld or Condemned 2’s ‘Pony Heart Quest’. Now they are sending doll heads in the mail to unsuspecting videogame journalists.
Any avid Aliens fan will know who Newt is, but for those of you who are lesser beings I shall explain. Newt, aka Rebecca Jorden, is the only survivor of the LV-426 Alien outbreak (Aliens). She was only a little girl and she survived by living deep in the vents of the colony. She also carried a doll’s head known as ‘Casey’.
When Newt is taken by the Aliens, Casey is lost but it turns out Joystiq have recently found her again, in the mail!
Here are some of the plushies, chocolates and other items Japanese consumers will be able to grab up this year to celebrate Sonic’s 20th birthday.
If you hit the source there are other food-related items and a shirt. Everyone likes shirts, right?
[Source: Famitsu]
SEGA has announced the first DLC for Total War: Shogun 2. The first piece is called the “The Ikko Ikki Clan pack” and it unlocks a Buddhist rebel faction called Ikko Ikki clan for single and multiplayer.
This will add a new agent type and eight unit variants. That is not all there are also ten new retainers, new steam achievements, original skill-tree for Ikko Ikki General, new historical battle, new avatar armor sets, more to unlock.
The DLC hit Steam today for the low price of $4.99. Hit the jump to see more screens and a press release.
The full teaser has hit for Shinobi on the 3DS. What do you all think? I can’t believe this game hits in September, that’s so damn soon! Four more months.
The other game revealed in the latest issue of Nintendo Power, SEGA’s Shinobi, seems to be a 2.5D adventure with what seems to be a completely redesigned Joe Musashi, although mentioned in the article itself is that SEGA refused to give him a name so it still could be a new character. Either way, it’s obvious that the design is very much inspired from Joe’s Shinobi 3: Return of the Ninja Master outfit. One final thing mentioned is that the game seems set for a September release date according to the article. Read on to see the full scan.
TSSZ has reported that scans of the latest Nintendo Power have hit the web and news has circulated very fast. Details from the article have surfaced and we’ve got confirmation on an exclusive 3DS level.
The Australian classification website has posted that SEGA filed for Aliens Infestation. Says it will be a ‘computer game(s)’ and being done by Wayforward Technologies.
Wayforward was doing the DS version of Aliens: Colonial Marines when it was put on hold. Their DS game was going to be a 2D shooter, much like Contra. Maybe SEGA decided to release the game with its own title?
[Source: Classification]
Yu Suzuki was interviewed in the latest Famitsu issue, isn’t it great having more and more Yu Suzuki content? This time around he talks about why Shenmue cost so much. Basically his team was an arcade team and they tried to do a game that wasn’t thought about before, on a console that they haven’t really worked on much.
“The main difference between open-world games and other types of games is the overwhelming size of them. Making all the endless objects that build up the world one by one, and portraying how the weather and time of day affects it all, requires massive amounts of time and manpower. “For example, if you enter a building, the room on the other side of the door doesn’t exist until the game generates it in the sliver of time when the player pulls the knob. We didn’t make every tree in town individually, either. There are a bunch of graphic resources for tree branches and leaves, and trees are generated mathematically based off of them. The NPCs in town are also independent — instead of giving unique motions to every single one, they all function independently based on road data and behavior pattern programming.” – Yu Suzuki, producer and director for Shenmue
Not to mention all the details that Shenmue had, which most had to be done by hand!
Back before the SEGA and Sammy merger, Sammy published a pretty good fighting game known as Guilty Gear. The games where developed by Arc System Works. When the merger happened, the rights to the series were owned by SEGA Sammy. Sadly SEGA Sammy had no plans to continue the franchise.
Arc System Works started a new 2D fighter for this generation called Blazblue. Hardcore fighting fans never forgot their original franchise and asked if it would ever come back. Daisuke Ishiwatari, creator of Guilty Gear, said there would be a new game eventually.
Now Arc System Works filed a trademark for “Guilty Gear”, which was published in the Japanese database today. This either means that the developer bought the rights to the franchise from SEGA-Sammy or SEGA-Sammy gave them the franchise. Most likely bought.
Arc System Works has confirmed that they do own the Guilty Gear franchise now, so this isn’t some sly deal.
[Source: Siliconera]
A teaser trailer for the new 3DS Shinobi game has been leaked, sort of…
At least half of it has leaked and unfortunately for us it doesn’t give much away. The trailer suspiciously cuts off abruptly just before the good stuff, almost making me believe that the ‘leak’ could be just another marketing ploy.
The only thing we can take from this short trailer is that they know their Shinobi history! Well, that’s a good start I suppose.
Sega, who usually refuse to comment on leaks, said that they ‘had no comment’… but added: “Keep your eyes open for something official coming your way later this week.”
Heh.
So let’s say you just got a Kinect unit and you really want to play Sonic Free Riders… Like now. You don’t want to drive to Wal-Mart or some other lame store full of lame people to stand in a lame line to purchase your lame game (oh snap).
Don’t worry, Microsoft and SEGA got you covered. Introducing Games on Demand. Basically you can purchase the game on the Xbox Live Marketplace and download it through the internet. This is the future my friends.
Game is being priced at $49.99. Yeah, pretty much full retail. Rethinking about visiting that lame store?
[Source: SEGAblog]