‘Sega doesn’t want to make any more bad Sonic games.’
-Mike Hayes
I like Mike Hayes, he’s a pretty level headed guy and knows all the right words to make my tum-tum all fuzzy.
Recently he has been saying some more happy words. When talking to IGN Mike Hayes spilled the beans on Sega’s new strategy with the Sonic brand.
Hit the jump to find out what he had to say and more importantly, what I had to say… About what he had to say.
The long running Shining Force fansite known as Shining Force Central run by the biggest Shining Force fan there is ‘Moogie’ has sprung into action with a new campaign to convince Sega and/or Camelot to give us a new Shining FORCE game in the classic style for next years Shining Forces 20th anniversary.
Who better to introduce the idea then Moogie herself?
Hit the jump for what she had to say on the matter!
I’m not going too write a second, conventional review for Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1. We already have a good review by Barry covering the iPad version of the game. His review touches upon most what you need to know about all versions of the game and I feel I’d just be echoing most of what he has already written.
Instead I want to make a list of all of the things that, after finishing Sonic 4 (and getting almost all of the achievements) I feel could be fixed or improved for Sonic 4 Episode 2.
So, hit the jump for my Sonic 4 Episode 2 improvment rundown!
Picking out your favorite Sonic levels is like picking out your favorite child, sometimes its easy because someone failed math and other times its difficult to do, because you hate them all equally.
We have decided to take a crack at compiling a list of Sonic levels we would like to see in Sonic Anniversary (If the details turn out to be true and they seem like they will). I will only go through the main console series, way too many Sonic games to go through spin offs and handhelds.
This is our opinion, if you have some stages not mentioned, give us a comment letting us know how wrong our opinions are.
Disclaimer; What follows is the humble opinions of a Sega fan! You may not agree with these opinions, but that would just make you WRONG! 😉
I would usually argue that anyone still toting the ‘Sega makes crap games’ line needs a swift kick to the nuts. Not only because this all to common phrase is simply not true, but also because this must mean the person suggesting such a thing would have missed a lot of frankly brilliant Sega games released recently such as Yakuza 3, Valkyria Chronicles, Bayonetta, Phantasy Star Portable 2, Napoleon: Total War and After Burner Climax to name but a few released this year.
Not to mention, we often tend to forget forget Sega has a strong Arcade presents to uphold. Games like Border Break, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown and Lets go Island are all quality games that have yet to see the light of day outside of a Japanese arcade.
I’m not here to talk about all of the things SEGA’s done right, though. Anyone who’s actually interested in good SEGA games can find that out for themselves. What I intend to talk about is how this misconception started and where it does have some grounds in truth. We’ll be looking at the games Sega really did mess up, how they were fixed and if they weren’t how I personally feel they could be.
So let’s start this ruckus!
Hit the jump for more of my ramblings.
When I was in middle school, all I did was read the Official Dreamcast magazine and look at the long list of upcoming games. There is always something about seeing new information about a game before it hits the store shelves, especially when those games you are looking forward to never make it to the shelves. You are stuck wondering what those games could have been, if they came out.
Here is my salute to the most awesome looking cancelled Dreamcast games.
Red Eye is an unwilling agent for the notorious Redrum gang (Try reading that backwards! Mind blowing right?) from Sega’s 1996 fighting game Last Bronx. In a move befitting an evil organisation with such an evil name, their method for recruiting Red Eye (formerly known as Ken Kono) was to offer him something called the Redrum challenge (which I can only assume is a blind taste test of various cola brands). He refused them, and so they naturally set him on fire, causing him to go insane and rather than suffering horrible burns, his skin just turned an odd shade of bright red. He also got a pair of cool night vision goggles, giving him that little bit of extra weirdness/style to cement his image as the ‘crazy evil guy’ of the game.
Shenmonth continues with a new segment called SEGAbits All-Stars! Unlike the similarly named ‘SEGA All-Stars’ series of games, SEGAbits All-Stars will highlight the underdogs of the SEGAverse. The characters who weren’t the star of a game, nor were they playable, but they still made enough of an impact to be memorable.
Gotta take a leak before reading more? You should probably hold it in, because our first SEGAbits All-Star knows all the best spots to relieve oneself.
Lieutenant Columbo, Inspector Zenigata and Dirty Harry.
Just let those three names roll around in your head for a bit. They’re all really great characters aren’t they? Now imagine them all combined into one person, cell shaded and then put into a video game.
Now go change your underpants and come back to read about Jet Set Radio’s Captain Onishima.
Ah tennis, a gentlemanly game of skill. It’s all about two men facing off against each other, nothing but racquets and hairy balls between them. (I’ll get the bad puns out of the way early, I promise). Unless we are talking Sega’s Virtua Tennis series, in which case, prepare for huge sunflower racquets, giant alligators, wheelie bins from outer space invading our tennis courts, and the brave men who need to stop them. You know I’m not making this stuff up, I’m not that creative.
And of course, we have the baddest dudes to ever set foot on a tennis court. Of course I’m talking about Virtua Tennis’ Royalty the craziest, toughest tennis players to ever walk the earth (sorry John McEnroe, better luck next time).
Hit the Jump to read the full story of the Royal Family of Tennis!
May is Shenmonth! That’s right, a whole month devoted to articles about the beloved Dreamcast series ‘Shenmue’. Expect an article a week at the Dreamcast Junkyard and SEGAbits. If writers here or from any other Sega blog wish to participate, feel free to grab the header image above, slap it atop a blog post and write whatever you wish about ‘Shenmue’. A “Top Ten Ugliest NPC Characters” article is up for grabs.