Original Content

Yakuza Week: Favorite Yakuza 4 tunes

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In celebration of…I guess we’re calling it Yakuza Week, (rad) I figured it would be appropriate to dedicate some time to the music of the recently-released Yakuza 4. Their soundtracks have been one area that this series has always excelled in, and Yakuza 4 is certainly no exception. The adrenaline-pumping and guitar-heavy soundtrack returns, of course, as do the power balads, and let’s not forget those crazy Japanese karaoke songs. Here are some of the songs I found to be memorable in Yakuza 4, and I encourage you to post/discuss yours in the comments section below!

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The Weekly Five: Why We’re Partying Like It’s 2001!

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2001 was a great year for SEGA games, but a bad year for SEGA. While a number of amazing titles released, we played them with the knowledge that the Dreamcast was to be discontinued by March. To create a sad analogy, it was like going to Disneyland knowing you had three months left to live. Jump ahead ten years to 2011. All signs point to a great year for SEGA games AND a great year for SEGA. The comparison between 2001 and 2011 doesn’t end there, as you’ll soon learn in this week’s “Weekly Five”. Just why are we partying like it’s 2001? Read on to find out!

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Review: Super Monkey Ball 3D

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Super Monkey Ball has become one of SEGA’s strangest popular franchises over the years. Like Ridge Racer or Tetris, a console’s library almost isn’t really complete without an entry from this quirky series. I imagine it may only be a matter of time until Monkey Ball ends up on the HD consoles in some fashion.

Due to this constant stream of new entries into this series, the quality has been taking a dip. Whether it’s the declining quality of the mini games or the increasingly poor stage design of each game, this series has seen better days. So, the question for SMB3DS is: does it reverse this trend? Read on to hear my opinion.

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays Presents: F-Zero GX

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Hello and welcome to your weekly dose of potential SEGA Sequel Awesomeness (yeah I did just say that). Before I get started on Episode 14, though, I’d like to give a shout out to another pretty amazing sequel that has nothing to do with SEGA. As anyone who has been following my Twitter likely knows by now, I’ve been seriously loving the new Mortal Kombat game. If you’ve ever been a fan of the Mortal Kombat series, especially games 1-4, I’d definitely recommend checking MK9 out on your HD system of choice, really a lot of fun.

Anyway, without further ado…this is one I’ve been wanting to write since last week, when IGN’s Martin Robinson did an article celebrating the Amusement Vision-developed F-Zero GX. After reading his piece, what I had always thought in the back of my head was brought completely to the surface: I don’t think a new F-Zero game could be as good as GX was without SEGA’s Amusement Vision back at the helm.

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Pier Solar: The First Few Hours

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I confess, when I first heard about Pier Solar back in 2008, I was both excited and cautious. On one hand, the prospect of playing a new game on my Genesis sounded like an awesome proposition. On the other, I simply didn’t believe the game would get done. As the originally announced release date faded into memory, I assumed the game had simply gone the way of many a Dreamcast indie project, and forgot about it.

The game surpassed my expectations though, and has actually made it all the way into my Genesis. Even as I ordered it, I had my doubts about the game being anything more than a stereotypical role playing game that just happened to be on the Genesis. Has the game been able to surpass my expectations again?

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Sonic fans on Wii: Please Quit Yer Cryin’!

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Some folks are never happy.

As with everyone else this week, I was ecstatic to see the new Sonic Generations gameplay trailer. While discussing it over several different forums, I noticed the same topic coming up. “Why isn’t it on Wii?!” “That’s not fair, the Wii should get an anniversary game too!” And my favorite, “LOL typical Sega. screwing over Wii fans”. This line of discussion really ticked me off. Mainly because if you’re a Sonic fan who only owns a Wii, you’ve never had it so good!

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Round Table: Our thoughts on SEGA asking Bomber Games to pull Streets of Rage Remake Offline

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After eight years of development, Streets of Rage Remix hit the internet a few weeks ago, only to be promptly removed by SEGA.

While it’s called a remake, its actual content is closer to a remix, developed on Bomber Game’s very own engine. Featuring 19 playable characters across the classic trilogy Streets of Rage games; 64 types of enemies; 83 remixes of classic techno tunes; and 103 stages, the game has clearly had a lot of love put into it, as Bomber Games strived to make the most complete homage to Streets of Rage possible.

Shortly after its release, SEGA contacted Bomber Games and forced them to take down the game. SEGA later issued a statement regarding the matter:

“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. 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.”

-nSEGA54’s- Opinion

Can’t say I knew much about Streets of Rage or even the existence of its fan remake. This issue though of a company demanding a fan game be taken down is nothing particularly new; I remember Square-Enix got some internet heat when they did this type of thing a while back. Companies have their own reasons for “protecting” their IP, and and money’s often a big part of it.
And money was likely the biggest factor here, as shortly after this remake was pulled, Streets of Rage 2 was re-released for the iPhone. SEGA would clearly rather you buy Streets of Rage 2 than to play a fan-made remix online.

As always, though, I can’t help but wish that these types of decisions were made with a bit more tact. It always winds up seeming like a slap in the face to the fan community, and that sort of thing just doesn’t look good in the press.

Cube_b3’s Opinion

SEGA contacting Bomber Games for undisclosed reasons leading to Bomber Games shutting SOR-Remake downloads, has been blown so out of proportion that it has given the game ten times more publicity than it would have ever received (BomberGames website has received so much traffic that they’ve exceeded their bandwith and have gone offline). Every one is talking about it and the game has already gone viral so everyone who wants it can simply google it and find it.

The only problem is the game isn’t a remake it is more like Streets of Rage Recycle, don’t get me wrong I play the game almost everyday while I wait for my TV shows or Movies to download it is the perfect way to kill time and has more replay value than any beat em up I’ve played with unlockable characters, art work and cheats but it can’t be compared to the orignal Ancient/Overworks Master Trilogy (well it is better than the original).

Also note their are plenty of other Streets of Rage fan remixes and even original games (that means they make original backgrounds, sprites and music) I suggest checking them out they may not be as expansive as Bomber Games take on Rage but they will keep you satiated.

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Ecco the Dolphin, Another Take

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Hello and welcome to my first entry in nSEGA’s incredibly awesome “SEGA Sequel Saturdays” Segment. This is something I had actually promised to do a long time ago on behalf of Panzer Dragoon Orta. It’s something I’ll get to eventually, nSEGA, I swear! In the meantime, last week’s write up on a sequel to Ecco has inspired me to try my hand at it. After all, I beat the game years ago! So that people know where I’m coming from, I figure I’ll detail my history with the Ecco franchise. Any peeps not interested in that, feel free to skip the next two paragraphs.

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5 SEGA Games Perfect for Kinect

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The Weekly Five is back! And this time it’s personal. Okay, it’s not personal, but it may just be a tad controversial. KINECT! Did reading that make your blood boil? Did it make you think of things like “laggy”, “casual” and “the death of video games”? Well if it did, you need to wise up. The Kinect has been around for almost 6 months now, it sold more than 10 million sensors and the video game industry is far from dead. Kinect may not have reinvented the industry, but it hasn’t hurt it in the slightest.

What more, having owned a Kinect since launch and having played ten titles so far (four of them were demos) I can honestly say that things like “lag” and “recognition problems” are not due to hardware problems, but rather fall on the early software. I’ve found that lag has been nearly wiped out in the main Kinect Hub, and is not a problem in first party titles and second gen releases. As software updates occur, the problems that were hardly problems to begin with have become greatly diminished. Anyway, this sort of discussion can continue in our wonderful forums. My point was that the Kinect is now at a great place, both hardware and software-wise, to support some of SEGA’s great franchises. What sort of SEGA games would be perfect for Kinect?

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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.

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Ecco the Dolphin

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This will actually be a short one because all things considered, I haven’t spent a ton of time with this series. (And welcome to Episode 12.) I remember my first experience with Ecco was on the Sega Genesis with Ecco: The Tides of Time, which was actually the 2nd game in the series. As a little kid I struggled to get a grasp of how the game worked, and after many tries, I was finally able to progress through several levels, but was never able to finish it. I was a little older when Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future hit the Dreamcast, but found myself making even less progress, taking countless tries at the demo (which was the game’s first level) before finally getting to level 2.

Immediately after I did that, I rented the full game and attempted to play through it, and the 2nd level was as difficult to figure out as the 1st. As it would turn out, I never got past the 2nd level. But what a seriously good-looking game it was. It’s actually pretty impressive, in hindsight, that Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future carried several traits of, well, an open world game, and keep in mind that this was in the pre-GTA3 era. With the “open world” element having now become a staple of modern video gaming, it would be interesting to see this series given another try.

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Sonic Stories: CrazyTails

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In celebration of Sonic’s 20th anniversary, SEGAbits proudly presents a limited feature highlighting SEGAbits stories from writers and readers of how they got into the franchise and their history with Sonic. Want to share your Sonic story? Check out the dedicated topic in the SEGAbits forum.

Everyone must be aware of Sonic’s 20th anniversary coming closer with each day. I’m sure lots of you are very hyped up! It is the time where fans go ape shit for the smallest tidbit of news, a time where speculation can possibly turn into fan wars. Yeah, great times indeed!

I have pretty much established myself here at SEGAbits, so I feel honored being picked to share my story on how I’ve got to know SEGA’s mascot, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG! I hope ya’ll enjoy reading my story!

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