Original Content

Time Eater Pumpkin Says: “Happy Halloween from SEGAbits!”

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Happy Halloween! To celebrate the release of Sonic Generations, I thought it would be fitting to carve a Time Eater pumpkin (code name: Peter Peter Pumpkin Time Eater). I carved this baby up over the weekend, during a very bizarre east coast snow storm. Fitting that the city was covered in white the same day that I carved a Time Eater. I’m kicking myself now for not taking a photo of it in the snow, but if I come across a time hole, I’ll make sure to jump back to Saturday to snap the photo. You can’t see it so well in the above shot, but I carved the lid in the shape of a clock gear. After the break, more Time Eater Pumpkin photos!

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SEGAbits Halloween Playlist

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Believe it or not, the day before Sonic Generations releases there’s a little holiday going on called Halloween. Everybody has their own Halloween traditions, mine focus on pumpkin carving and scary movies. This year I thought I’d mix things up by throwing video games into the mix, specifically five games with a Halloween slant, each played on a different SEGA console. What follows are the five games I’ll be playing over the Halloweekend, and I hope if you have any of them you’ll revisit them as well.

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SEGA in the Media: “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” doesn’t have SEGA

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With the Jurassic Park trilogy releasing on blu-ray this week, I thought it would be a fitting time to highlight a nod to SEGA in the second film “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”. An actual SEGA console does not appear, but our beloved gaming company does get a mention in the dialogue. While preparing to leave for another island filled with dinosaurs, Ian Malcolm is trying to persuade his daughter to go and stay with a friend of his. Unfortunately, she doesn’t want to go for a number of reasons, but the main one is that the woman “doesn’t have SEGA”. To quote Muldoon from the first film: “Clever girl.” Interestingly, I did not find this line of dialogue in the film’s script, so it looks like it was something added on the day of shooting. Perhaps Spielberg wanted to infuse a real world issue a kid would have, and staying with somebody who doesn’t have a SEGA is a great reason to not want to go. Perhaps they should get the girl a Game Gear or a Nomad?

Hear the audio of the scene here, or listen below in the embedded player:

She Doesn’t Have Sega. She’s Such a Troglodyte

Speaking of SEGA and Jurassic Park, head on over to our forums to discuss the many Jurassic Park games found on SEGA consoles.

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Sonic Generations Original Stage Review

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With less than a week to go ’til Sonic Generations, I thought it would be fun to take a leap back and run through the original stages featured in Generations. What made the original stages so memorable? Are they a fitting choice for representation of the game they originally appeared in? Were there better choices that could have been made? Those questions and more will be explored after the break!

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The Weekly Five: I’m Lovin’ Modern Sonic

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The second Sonic Generations demo is out, and with it comes the first public demo of modern Sonic! Of course, we’ve had hours of footage and pages and pages of modern Sonic impressions. But none of that compares to actually playing the game. Having finally played the demo, I can happily say that modern Sonic is the best the 3D ‘hog has played in the HD era. Perhaps only being rivaled by the 3D Sonic of the Adventure titles. To celebrate Sonic’s return to form, let’s look at five reasons I’m lovin’ modern Sonic!

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The Weekly Five: SEGA locations I’d want to visit

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There’s a certain feeling I get when I’m playing a video game and, suddenly, I find myself absorbed into its world. It’s a feeling even greater than being pulled into a movie I’m watching, or even a book I’m reading, in the sense that this is a world in which I have control over my character. In a video game, you’re not simply along for the ride, but rather, you play a major role in the main character’s journey; you’re the force that guides your character through these worlds. SEGA has created some stunning worlds over the years, and the five I’m going to list here only scratch the surface. But these are a few of the worlds that SEGA has created which, ever since I first got to explore them, I’ve been wishing for a way to transport my real life self into them. Hit the break to read on.

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SEGA-Sammy changes half-year forecast due to poor game sales

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SEGA-Sammy has changed their financial forecast, stating that they will make less revenue, yet make more profits.

SEGA-Sammy has changed their forecast  due to recent software titles not selling as well as expected. But they reduced the cost of operation from their pachinko machine business, thus they will return profit instead of losses.

SEGA-Sammy orginally posted that they expected to make $2.15 billion in revenue, now they changed it to $1.96 billion. Revenue isn’t Profit. SEGA orginally forecasted that they will lose $39.11 million, now changed it to a profit of $26.08 million.

[Thanks: TheREALTupac]
[Source: Gamasutra]

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Sonic Generations: Sonic Team building on lessons learnt

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Sonic Generation is looking to celebrate the 20th anniversary of SEGA’s blue mascot in style. The game is set to feature a number of throwbacks, references, past levels and a complete mishmash of the history of the entire series as publisher SEGA looks to restore the quality that was once synopsis with the series. I spent an extensive time playing the levels available for the Sonic Generations demo and got to play as both classic and modern Sonic, click after the break to find out how the title fared!

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The Weekly Five: Sonic Generations Classic Callbacks

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While Sonic Generations release is still a month away, thanks to the many screens and video clips released by SEGA, fans have been able to pick apart every pixel. Some screens feature road signs with in-jokes, while others feature references to classic Sonic stages from the Genesis/Mega Drive days. Yes, even though the game only features a handful of classic era zones, that hasn’t kept Sonic team from including callbacks to zones not featured in the game. In this week’s Weekly Five we’ll run through five of these way past cool references.

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Anarchy Reigns: The new Power Stone for parties

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Platinum Games has enjoyed a beneficial relationship publisher and that is set to continue with their latest title, Anarchy Reigns. The title is set to be a number of new Intellectual Properties that publisher SEGA is set to be releasing next year and is a sort of spiritual sequel of Platinum Game’s first title, MadWorld. Although not as much as one would expect, there is still plenty that separate the titles, in particular is Anarchy Reigns heavy focus on multiplayer gaming and perhaps become to SEGA what Power Stone was for Capcom. Read on after the break to find out what I thought of the game at the recent Eurogamer Expo.

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Years of the Dreamcast Part 4: Leaks and Homebrew

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Click to Read Past Entries: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Through the next few years, I would continue to explore the Dreamcast. Starting in 2003 however, my focus began to shift towards the Xbox, as games like Halo, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Splinter Cell blew me away. Even while these new games mesmerized me, I would continue to look for new Dreamcast games to play, trying to find the next gem.

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The Weekly Five: Best “Post-Dreamcast” Games

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When the Dreamcast breathed its last back in 2001, many thought it was for the best. “They’ll be more successful as a 3rd party publisher!” “They’ll be able to make more money since they’ll be on more systems!” But sadly, that wouldn’t be the case for a long, long time. In fact, only in the last two years has there been a big enough turnaround in quality. When Dreamcast died, much of the creativity and spark of the developers seemed to die with it, 2006 being the best example of Sega’s worst time in the industry.

But not all of it was bad. In fact, their initial outings on GameCube and X-Box were quite strong. Even during Sega’s worst times in 2003-2008, there were some diamonds in the rough. Continue on to see my top 5 favorite “post-Dreamcast” Sega titles from 2001-present.

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Years of the Dreamcast Part 3: Shenmue

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Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2

After watching the Shenmue trailer on my Dreamcast’s demo disc, and after seeing the outrage that the cancellation of Shenmue 2 received, I decided to pick Suzuki’s epic up. The actual game wouldn’t win me over so easily, though. Shenmue was unlike anything I had ever played. It was slow and rigid. The character couldn’t jump or do anything particularly interesting. What kept me coming back was the world and the story. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The cinematics put Sonic Adventure to shame. The storyline was almost like a movie.

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The Weekly Five: Rise of Nightmares X The House of the Dead

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I’d think any true blue SEGA fan has a special place in their heart for The House of the Dead franchise. Being an arcade lightgun classic, and spanning three console generations, The House of the Dead has produced a number of sequels, spin-offs and even ventured outside of the video game world by way of two horrible films. When Rise of Nightmares, SEGA’s latest Kinect title, was revealed at last year’s Tokyo Game Show, little was known of the game aside from “save your wife from an evil scientist”. Was it internally developed? Was it a House of the Dead title? We just couldn’t tell based on the short and creepy trailer. But now that time has passed, and the game is in stores, we have all the answers. In this week’s Weekly Five we’ll take a look at five reasons why I think Rise of Nightmares sits well alongside the beloved House of the Dead series, despite not carrying the series title, and why HotD fans should check the game out!

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Years of the Dreamcast Part 2: Good Things Never Die

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To Read Part 1, go here.

In July, reality finally caught up with me. Something had possessed me to join the SEGA forums. Because I hated being told that my name was already taken, and I figured the Knuckles name must already be taken given he’s such an awesome character, I decided to cut to the chase and just leave the K out of my name. Upon joining the forums, I discovered the Dreamcast had been canned and, being a teenager, I immediately latched on to the first online petition I saw. Those were the days. Keeping a thread ever present at the top of the forum whenever I got home from school or my friend’s house. Arguing with older, wiser, more realistic individuals like the naïve teenager I was, a large part of my Dreamcast experience came from defending it from bashers and supporting a petition that SEGA probably never even saw, let alone cared about.

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