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SEGA Channel Retro: SEGA Multiplayer Showcase & Knuckles’ Chaotix

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Last weekend saw an extravaganza of rarely seen footage of more multiplayer madness with SEGA featuring me and some of my friends. Last time we went through several Sonic games from the Game Boy Advance line-up rummaging for chao, racing to the finish, exchanging fists and more. This time we’ve not only gone back to Sonic Advance 3 with a full house of four players, we also got to check out the multiplayer mode of the Game Boy Advance conversion of Jet Set Radio from the developers behind the GBA version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. Finally our last surprise was us racing in the future with San Francisco Rush 2049 on SEGA Dreamcast.

Also appearing only on Twitch is a silent longplay of Knuckles’ Chaotix running at 60 frames per second as part of SEGAbits’ 32X month. If you missed out on these liveshowings, be sure to subscribe to us on Twitch or YouTube for updates when we go live again or to catch up on our previous showings.

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Movie Review: Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie

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Although Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie is not a SEGA related movie, there is no doubt that James Rolfe’s creation has made an impact on retro SEGA gaming, bringing obscure video game classics and atrocities to the forefront of people’s minds by highlighting the aggravations and rewards of classic games and hardware. While I sit firmly in the pro-Nerd camp, I’ll admit that as a SEGA fan I’m a little annoyed by how James’s over-the-top Nerd persona has affected how modern gamers view some of SEGA’s more controversial add-ons like the SEGA CD and 32X. I don’t blame James however, as I think viewers of his videos simply need to realize that his videos are part parody and the ideal way to form an opinion is to try the games and hardware out for yourself.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, which is releasing in theaters throughout the US and Canada as I write this, had its East Coast premiere last night in Phoenixville, PA. I was able to snag tickets before the show sold out, and after standing in line outside the historic Colonial Theater (home of The Blob), I and over six hundred other fans packed the house and James kicked off the movie that he described as eight years of his life in two hours. So did James’s efforts pay off?

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Classic SEGA Ads: SEGA 32X – “Just stick it in your Genesis!”

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Throughout the 90s, SEGA were the kings of video game slogans. “Welcome to the Next Level”, “Genesis Does What Nintendon’t”, “A little bit too real”, “It’s Thinking”. These are slogans us fans still use proudly to this day. Unfortunately for the 32X, “Just stick it in your Genesis!” did more harm than good. Today’s ad features the return of our edgy friend from SEGA’s SEGA CD commercial in which he famously interrupted a teenager watching television to aggressively ask him why he didn’t own a SEGA CD. The SEGA CD ad was loud, in your face, and incredibly memorable for all the right reasons. The 32X follow-up? Not so much.

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The Year of the SEGA Console – Welcome to SEGA Genesis 32X month!

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In mid-January we made the announcement that all year long we’d be celebrating five famous (and infamous) pieces of SEGA hardware hitting milestone anniversaries in what we dubbed 2014: The Year of the SEGA Console. Throughout March, we celebrated the SEGA Genesis, and later this year we plan to devote months to the Saturn and Dreamcast, both very popular SEGA consoles. But this month will be a bit different, as we focus on the black sheep of the SEGA hardware family: The SEGA 32X.

Released late in the life of the SEGA Genesis on November 21st in the United States (December 3rd, 1994 in Japan and January 1995 in the UK) to serve as a bridge for Westerners awaiting the SEGA Saturn, the 32X was plagued by several negative issues. The design itself isn’t all that appealing, often compared to a mushroom growing out of the top of the SEGA Genesis or a plastic tumor. The 32X was rushed to market, so as to give enough time between the 32X launch and the eventual SEGA Saturn release, which caused a number of headaches for SEGA and consumers. Third-party support was lacking, and the library was a paltry forty titles with many games not fully utilizing the 32X’s power. In the end, the 32X sold only a little over half a million units and was officially killed off by SEGA in 1996. So… hooray, it’s 32X Month…

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Check out TrackerTD’s SEGA collection in his game room tour

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SEGAbits’ resident SEGA Saturn guy Liam ‘Tracker_TD’ Ashcroft gives a game room tour, showing off his games, consoles, collectibles, and other cool stuff that’s he’s accumulated over the past 16 years. Check out the video above for the full tour, and don’t forget to check out our previous Game Room Tour video featuring Barry the Nomad’s collection. We also have more game room videos to come from other SEGAbits contributors!

Enjoyed the video? Why not support Liam’s main show, ‘This is Saturn,’ by buying a shirt?

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Watch the full ‘Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation’ San Diego Comic Con panel

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This past weekend, SEGAbits writers Ben, Shigs, and Nuckles hit San Diego Comic Con and SEGA’s game preview event located at the nearby Nerd HQ. While Comic Con isn’t as game centric as E3, there was quite a bit of SEGA goodness to be found. We were able to check out the latest preview builds of Alien: Isolation and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, as well as interview Archie Comics on the upcoming Sonic Boom comic book series. But the main event had to have been Sunday’s Console Wars panel. The panel, which centered around the SEGA and Nintendo rivalry of the 90’s, featured special guests Tom Kalinske (Sega of America), Al Nilsen (Sega of America), Bill White (Nintendo of America), and Perrin Kaplan (Nintendo of America), as well as Console Wars author Blake J. Harris and Julian Rosenberg, producer of the upcoming Console Wars documentary.

Thanks to Blake, Nuckles and Shigs were given the VIP treatment and secured some awesome seats – allowing us to film the panel and Q&A session and meet the SEGA and Nintendo legends! Check out the full panel above, and make sure to pick up your copy of Console Wars if you haven’t already!

Want more Console Wars discussion? Check out our three part interview series with Tom Kalinske, Al Nilsen, and Blake J. Harris.

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SEGAbits at Comic Con Preview: Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric

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From its announcement, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric has drawn a healthy bit of skepticism, especially among the hedgehog’s older fans. Developed outside of Sonic Team by the unproven Western studio Big Red Button and intended to coincide with the release of the Sonic Boom cartoon series, fears typically associated with the phrase licensed game immediately came to mind. Having had the opportunity to play the demo, it’s evident that Sonic Boom has potential, I just hope that what I played isn’t too indicative of what we’ll be playing when the game releases this November.

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SEGAbits at Comic Con Preview: Alien: Isolation

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I should preface this by saying that I’ve never been a huge Aliens fan. I’d seen Alien years ago, and while I thought it was a fun and creepy movie, it’s never been a series that I’d become overly familiar with. I was excited though when SEGA picked up the license, hoping to see what type of spin they’d put on an IP that offers a lot of opportunity.

On that note, I’d like to thank whatever deity exists out there that made me forget to place my preorder for that Colonial Marines game. But Alien: Isolation is from the start an entirely different beast. Planted firmly in the survival horror genre and not feeling, based on this demo, like a shooter of any kind, this game is scary. It’s a wonderfully, ridiculously scary bit of survival horror that has the potential to reinvigorate a genre that’s become so much less about scares in recent years than it ever should have been.

It’s the type of game that will have you diving for the light switch.

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Check out the trailer for “My Life with SEGA: Theater of the Eye” – set to release in 2015

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My Life with SEGA’s A.J. Rosa is in the process of creating his third SEGA-inspired short film: Theater of the Eye! Like the previous My Life with SEGA shorts The Next Level and No Limits, Theater of the Eye‘s name comes from a SEGA ad campaign slogan. Unlike the previous shorts, which were inspired by gritty revenge flicks and buddy cop movies, Theater of the Eye takes inspiration from the Star Trek films and is set to feature A.J. commanding a crew onboard a giant SEGA Genesis. Erica Winter and Mickey Mac, of previous and upcoming 2-Man Scramble videos, are set to appear and A.J. hopes to feature cameos from other SEGA YouTube personalities and SEGAbits team members.

Be on the lookout for My Life with SEGA: Theater of the Eye in 2015, and in the meantime stay tuned to the SEGAbits YouTube Channel as more episodes of My Life with SEGA Season 3 are due to release soon. If you haven’t watched the Comix Zone premiere episode yet, make sure to check it out!

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Take a SEGA game room collection tour with Barry the Nomad

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I’ve been a SEGA collector and fan since 1991, with the first SEGA thing I ever owned being a SEGA Genesis with Sonic the Hedgehog included. Since then, I’ve collected games and consoles as they released, and I’ve gone back and picked up games and hardware that I’ve missed out on. The result of the past 23 years is my game room, which packs in nearly all the gaming stuff I own plus an assortment of DVDs, blu-rays, books, and other things. I’ll admit, my collection doesn’t come close to some of the ones I’ve seen, but still it’s mine and I’m proud of it. I’ve been putting off making a collection video for a while now, mainly because there was always something on the horizon that I planned to add to the game room and I wanted to wait until I had the latest addition before making a video. But this week I figured I had the time and the room had enough to show off as is, so I made the above 43 minute walkthrough. Check it out and please don’t judge me based on some of the DVDs I own.

We plan to have more Game Room Tour videos in the future, featuring other SEGAbits contributors showing off their collections, so stay tuned for more sweaty hands and close up views of old SEGA merchandise!

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Round Table: Is Comix Zone too hard?

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RoundTable[Above art by SavinArtem via DeviantArt]

Welcome to another installment of our Round Table series. This one will be part of our Comix Zone week and will be looking at the questions asked by SEGA fans in the mid-90’s: Is Comix Zone too hard? There have been very few people I know that have beaten the game without using stuff like safe states or cheats. It is just one of those games that takes dedication and patience. Something most of us didn’t have much as a kid. Of course you can tell us your opinions in the comments.

Let’s get this discussion started!

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Classic SEGA Ads: So you want to live in a comic book?

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SEGA of America’s nineties advertisement strategy can be summarized thusly: come up with the most batshit insane thing you can and run with it. Anyone looking for proof need look no further than this…thing they produced to sell Comix Zone. I kind of get what they were going for, since old comic books often have over-the-top, melodramatic dialogue and bizarre storylines, but this is more like a crazy depiction of some weird cult than anything to do with super hero comics. Unless there was a weird cult in Comix Zone, since I’ve never been able to get much further than the second level.

Looking back though, does that really matter? I don’t think so! This is a fun, quirky little ad that encapsulate SEGA’s attitude more so then the game it’s advertising. It wouldn’t have sold me on Comix Zone back in the day, but it certainly makes me miss what video game advertisement used to be like. I’ll take this over a slick trailer filled with review scores any day.

As a little bonus, I thought I’d also include a print advertisement for Comix Zone, seen in comics and magazines. It’s a little blander, sure, but it also gets to the heart of what the game is a bit more. Check it out after the break!

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Comics to Cartridge: Comics that inspired Comix Zone

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[Sketch Turner drawn by RainDante]

It’s quite obvious that Comix Zone is a 16-bit video game tribute to the comic book medium. It takes several aspects from a variety of popular comics throughout history and uses them in its own way to create a unique world.  Here are some that I’ve noticed during play. Since the developers never talked about stories in comics that influenced them, some of these could only be coincidence.

Let’s have a look.

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Swingin’ Report Show #67: Mega-Bit Figures Inspired by SEGA Genesis Interview

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This week on the Swingin’ Report Show podcast, Barry and George are joined by Nate Mitchell – head of Squid Kids Ink and creator of the So Analog line of figures featuring old entertainment media with eyes, arms, and legs. Nate’s latest project is Mega-Bit, a SEGA Genesis game cartridge inspired line of So Analog figures featuring officially licensed SEGA classics.

To make his SEGA toys a reality, Nate has created a Kickstarter with SEGA’s approval. Those who support the project receive some awesome incentives including limited edition figures featuring Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, and Shinobi. Support Nate and his Mega-Bit toys today!

Following the interview, Barry and George share their thoughts on 3D Fantasy Zone II and Alien: Isolation‘s recently revealed DLC starring the cast of the original film.

[Download] [RSS] [iTunes] [Archive]

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My Life with SEGA Season 3 begins with a pulpy SEGA Genesis classic – Comix Zone

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My Life with SEGA is back, and in HD! That’s right, it’s retro gaming in high-definition.

In the season 3 premiere, I go back 18 years to re-experience a 16-bit piece of art, ripping through page after page of aliens and mutants in Comix Zone. Developed by Sega Technical Institute, this brawler from the mid 90’s was praised for it’s glorious presentation, but scolded for its late arrival and brief playthrough.

Now that Comix Zone is old enough to move out, how does it hold up today? Click it. Watch it. Love it. Damn! That sounds kinda’ dirty, doesn’t it? Oh well.

Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel!

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