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Sonic Talk #5: This episode is totally Metal!

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Sorry for how late this episode is and we have no extra guest this week. But we’ll make up for that next week with IAN FLYNN!! For now, it’s just me and Nux talkin’ all things Sonic.

This week, we talk about the Sonic 2 HD fiasco, the reboot rumor, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic 4-2 Avatar items and of course, Sonic 4 Episode Metal. In comic talk we’ll discuss Sonic Universe #38 along with a little of #39, the weepfest that is Sonic #235 and I’ll tell you EXACTLY who the supposed “traitor” is! (I’m using quotation marks cuz technically, there is no traitor.) If I’m wrong, Ian Flynn can shave my head at the San Diego Comic-Con! All this and our game topic of the week is the awesome Sonic Triple Trouble!

If you have a question for Ian Flynn leave it in our comment section by Thursday morning and it may make it on the air.

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Arts and Crafts: Make your own Sonic 4 Episode 2 Genesis box, manual and cartridge!

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With only a month until the game’s digital release, I thought it would be fun to once again create a retro Genesis box design for Sonic 4’s next episode. The first time I designed a fake Genesis box was for Sonic 4 Episode 1, which I shared over at my personal blog The Nomad Junkyard [Update: Here is the new Sonic 4 Episode 1 download link]. I used the original Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis box design as inspiration for Episode 1, so I thought it would be fitting to use Sonic 2’s original Genesis box as my inspiration for Episode 2. After the break, a download link, instructions and a photo gallery for those too lazy to make it themselves.

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SEGA Tunes: What about the future?

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http://youtu.be/CeoK6x1IP-U

I’m not entirely done with Hideki Naganuma yet, (as you’ll see, I have another one of his songs after the break) but thought I’d give Richard Jacques a little attention this week, as well as shift the focus towards the future….Jet Set Radio Future, that is. One of the lucky IP created during the Dreamcast era to receive not a port, but a sequel, on next gen hardware, the evolution of the Jet Set Radio series was shocking in just how much was changed from one game to the other. Taking more of the form of a reboot than a sequel, Jet Set Radio Future introduced not only a staggaring number of gameplay changes, but its soundtrack too took on a very different form.

I can’t help but grin when I hear tracks like this one nowadays, with electrohouse and dubstep taking a firm hold on mainstream culture; I feel like playing JSRF back in the day exposed me to dubstep before dubstep was dubstep. (Wikipedia states that dubstep as we currently know it first came to be in 1998, with the genre coming into its own in around 2001-2002, so, if that’s true, such an assertion is actually not too far off.)

Either way, regardless of where you fall on the whole electrohouse thing, this is a pretty cool track. I’ve always associated it with SEGA’s bold dive into 3rd party publishing, and the adventure and high hopes that went along with it. Richard Jacques’ track is exciting, it carries with it a cool futuristic vibe, and it sounds different from everything that existed in the original Jet Set Radio; an underrated gem. But speaking of futuristic tracks, here’s one from Hideki Naganuma, also fitting in with JSRF’s futuristic motif. Hit the good ol’ “Continue Reading” button to check that one out.

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SEGA Five: Bein’ bad – SEGA style

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Admit it. When a game gives you the option to be bad, you go for it. Unlike the stupid real world, video games have no repercussions. While game designers may not intend for you to do these bad things, or there are in-game penalties, in the end it’s just a game so you can be bad to your heart’s content, hit the reset button and return to playing the game as it was intended. In this week’s Weekly Five, we celebrate Friday the 13th with five SEGA games which allow you to be (you guessed it) bad.

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SEGA Tunes: Hideki Naganuma Edition

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This week’s Tuesday Tunes will showcase the music of Hideki Naganuma, one of the funkiest composers working in video games today. The song above is from Ollie King, and as you can see, it’s as out there as anything else he’s done. If you really allow yourself to zone into it and appreciate all the craziness that goes on in a typical Naganuma track, you’ll see that there’s very little else like it. His work for the Jet Set Radio series remains some of the industry’s most iconic; his funky, up-beat, and totally unpredictable tracks really set the scene for these games and, arguably, played a major role in making them as great as they were.

Many people remember the song entitled “That’s Enough” (which you can hear after the break) in particular, mostly, I think, for its use of the rather memorable line, “the music just turns me on,” a sentiment that fits the Jet Set Radio games like a glove. Since then Naganuma’s created music for other SEGA games, including the first Sonic Rush game, a track or two from Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, and much of the music for the cel shaded arcade skateboarding title Ollie King. In my opinion though Jet Set Radio and its sequel remain his crowning achievements, games that made brilliant use of a sound he pretty much defined.

And though his other work may not be quite as well known, his sense of style, his ability to surprise, and, of course, the breakneck speed at which his songs propel themselves forward, all are aspects that carry across his entire body of work, unquestionably demonstrating his style, talent, and invention. Keep reading to hear a very familiar track from, of course, Jet Set Radio.

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PAX East: Interview with Hell Yeah! Developer

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During PAX I had a chance to talk with Arkedo boss Camille Guermonprez. During this interview we talk about Arkedo’s relationship with SEGA, Hell Yeah’s game play and various SEGA references, and find out some interesting tidbits about the game. For instance, did members from a certain SEGA studio actually play test the game? If you still aren’t interested in this title, click the video above so that you can get an even better idea of what the game is all about.

Apologies for the weird camera angle, by the way. I had to place it close in order to ensure the sound came out.

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PAX East: Hell Yeah! Preview

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What happens when you take Sega’s special brand of lunacy, a Western developer, a digital platform, and toss it all in a blender? This game. I didn’t really care for Hell Yeah’s debut trailer or initial screens. Perhaps it had something to do with the opening trailer’s focus on gore, I’m not really sure. All I did know was I was disinterested. Needless to say, after playing the demo, my interest has been caught.

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PAX East: Jet Set Radio Preview

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I don’t think it’s unusual for a SEGA fan to get a warm, fuzzy feeling every time he or she remembers the Dreamcast. Everyone knows the drill: it was an amazing swan song for a dying console maker, received more quality content in two years than most other consoles receive in five. While the console itself is fondly remembered, it’s the games that truly make the console. So when SEGA first revealed their line of downloadable Dreamcast games for XBLA and PSN, many fans naturally had designs of finally playing amazing epics like Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue in high definition. Unfortunately, the first two waves of games left something to be desired. Sonic Adventure was a fairly bare-bones port of the slightly inferior PC version, lacking even widescreen. Crazy Taxi lost its entire original soundtrack in the process of being brought over and SEGA Bass Fishing is hardly what one would call a Dreamcast classic. This left Space Chanel 5 Part 2 as the only well done master class Dreamcast title, and even that was ported in lieu of the more well-known original.

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The Weekly Five: Things we need to see in a digital version of Sonic Adventure 2

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It’s coming. It’s all but confirmed. As we reported earlier in the week,  it appears that Sonic Adventure 2 will be heading to X-Box LIVE and probably PSN sometime this year. Just like its predecessor, it will most likely include some achievements/trophies, some Avatar awards I’m sure and probably some wallpaper or what not. But the port of SA1 was not all that great and left room for improvement. Read on to see what I feel should, if not MUST be done to make Sonic Adventure 2 a great port.

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Editorial: Gaming sites who failed at reporting last Friday’s news.

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Last Friday we learned the sad news that SEGA West was restructuring, downsizing and canceling certain games. I think we’ve all discussed the news enough, what I wanted to focus on in this editorial are the gaming sites who did an awful job of reporting the news. For whatever reason, unpaid fans who write for blogs do a better job reading press releases and reporting on them than big name sites like Kotaku. I also wanted to draw attention to a general gaming blog, toplessrobot.com, who did an equally awful job in reporting on the news.

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SEGA Tunes: Jet Set Radio’s ‘Bout the City

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Over the ‘hood, through the streets, and right into your braaaaain!!!!!

Savor the sweet sounds of Reps, because it’s Jet Set Radio month on Tuesday Tunes! Over the course of the next few weeks you’ll be powering through the wave of nostalgia, energy, and the sheer, absolute, unmistakable musical sexiness that we know of as the soundtrack to Jet Set Radio and its sequel, with a little branching out for good measure.

This week’s chosen song is none other than ‘Bout the City, an infectiously catchy track coming from British artist Reps. Though Kogane-Cho is undoubtedly my least favoite of Jet Set Radio’s three main districts, I can’t help but crack a smile when I drop into the level and this is the first track that plays. To me it embodies everything that makes Jet Set Radio what it is; it was a free spirit in an industry that was growing more gritty and “mainstream” by the year. The punk-flavored ‘Bout the City seems to want nothing more than for the listener to have a total blast, and that to me is everything that Jet Set Radio stood for; Poison Jam may have kidnapped the dog, the Noise Tanks may have flooded the Garage with frogs, and they were constantly pursued by a batshit crazy police captain…yet, you never got the feeling that the GGs weren’t enjoying just about every minute of it all.

Their world was always colorful, the funky melodies were beamed directly into their heads, and the streets of Tokyo-to sure looked beautiful when blasted through on rocket-powered skates. For another upbeat but very different tune, hit the jump for Toronto’s Electric Toothbrush, which pretty much sums up everything awesome about not just SEGA, but hell, the year 2000 as well.

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The Weekly Five: The Shenmue HD Wish List

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To wash the yucky taste of today’s big news story out of our mouths, let’s focus on something positive. Recently, SEGA has been hinting at an HD Shenmue 1 and 2 rerelease. Given the latest announcement of putting more focus on digital releases, Shenmue HD could become even more of a reality. As SEGA has yet to release an official announcement, we can do what Shenmue fans do best and speculate! This week’s Weekly Five will take a look at what we want to see in a Shenmue rerelease. Let’s begin, shall we? [insert sailor joke here]

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SEGA Tunes: Bayonetta’s Fly Me to the Moon

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Bayonetta had a great soundtrack, but it’s clear the game’s director had an obsession with one, All-American classic: Fly Me to the Moon, one of my favorite songs from the great American songbook. Originally written by Bart Howard in 1954, it’s been performed by all the greats, including Frank Sinatra.

Perhaps the most notable part about this song’s inclusion in Bayonetta is the fact that it was integrated so deeply into the game. It wasn’t just a once used track, or something used in the end credits, but a song heard constantly throughout the game. Bayonetta herself even whispered the song in a scene.

This version, performed by Belgian singer Helena Noguerra, gives this age old classic a nice little SEGA twist. The background music sounds like something that would be perfectly at home in a multitude of SEGA arcade titles. All that said, I must admit I do prefer the version in the end credits, a 1963 by Brenda Lee. That will be getting its own Tuesday Tunes one day.

Below is my favorite version of this song, sung by Frank Sinatra

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Weekly Five: Five Game Gear Games that Need to Be on 3DS

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There are some interesting similarities between 3DS and the Game Gear. They both have 5-6 hours of battery life, they both have oversized peripherals that defeated the whole “portable” concept, and now…they both have Game Gear games! Last week, the Game Gear debuted on the 3DS’ Virtual Console service with a strong trio of titles: Sonic Triple Trouble, Shinobi, and the rogue-like Dragon Crystal. The line-up was a good way of introducing a new generation of gamers to what the Game Gear had to offer. The Game Gear has way more to offer then these three though, and hopefully SEGA will send some of the titles I’ve listed below our way in the coming months.

I would also like to make some special notes: we did not record these videos, and we recommend that if you want to see more, you click them and visit the creator’s Youtube channels. Also, I would like to note that the sound in the final game on this list isn’t as bad as it is in the video.

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SEGA Tunes: Outrun 2’s Magical Sound Shower

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http://youtu.be/39L1f6CKaoo

You know what’s the mark of a good soundtrack? When you can’t remember which one of the tracks was your favorite. Was it Splash Wave? Maybe Risky Ride? In the end, I just went with Magical Sound Shower!

Beyond being a really fun arcade game, Outrun 2 also had one of the best SEGA soundtracks of the last decade. Almost every single track had a unique personality and a really great beat. It sounded like a track right out of SEGA’s mid 90s arcade library. Magical Sound Shower is probably the richest tracks. It mixes drum beats and electrical instruments with a really superb saxophone, all set to a nice tropical island theme. A gorgeous track for a gorgeous game!

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