Obviously, I love me my SEGA. Why else would I be writing for this place? But just because I love them, doesn’t mean I can’t be a little bit peeved with them when it comes to a few things. In this week’s Weekly Five, I’ll be going down my list of areas in which SEGA is slacking.
Most people that bought a 3DS seem to be waiting for software, what better way to wait than to play some of the best SEGA published software on the Game Boy Advance? Today I’m going to give you my top 5 favorite SEGA GBA games. Ready?
Despite being over ten years old, VMU games can still be fun! Sure they pale in comparison to modern day handheld devices, but even back when VMUs were new they couldn’t compete with the handhelds of the early 00’s. The main purpose of a VMU was to save your game data, the fact that they could play mini-games was the cherry on top. While the VMU didn’t change the world, at least SEGA didn’t advertise it as the standout feature of the console (subtle dig at the Wii U). While I don’t carry a VMU about with me like I did back in ’99, I still make it a point to occasionally pick up some CR2032 batteries to bring my VMU back to life. What follows are my personal favorite VMU games.
Want to play these yourself, but don’t have all the Dreamcast titles that offer these extra features? Check out Blue Swirl’s VMU Tool. An awesome application for the Dreamcast which allows you to make a number of (safe) modifications to existing VMUs as well as download game saves and VMU games from the entire Dreamcast library. It even has a VMU emulator, for those too lazy to play an actual VMU.
I make it no secret that I am a big time Dreamcast fan. It is the SEGA console I own the most games for (around 120 last time I counted) and every September 9th I take the day off from work to host a nine hour Dreamcast marathon. There are many reasons why I love the console, but the number one would have to be the exclusives. Jet Set Radio, Shenmue and Crazy Taxi 2 are fantastic games and have yet to appear on any other console, and I’m totally cool with that. It’s a perfect reason for my Dreamcast to remain hooked up next to my current generation consoles.
But as time goes on, SEGA has been porting more and more Dreamcast classics to other consoles. Great for the gaming community, bad for the Dreamcast. Less exclusives mean less of a reason for gamers to pick up a used console. I know it sounds like I’m being overly dramatic, however this past May I did witness a kid turning down the purchase of a Dreamcast due to SEGA’s recently released Dreamcast Collection. As such, I thought I’d share five lesser known Dreamcast games that remain exclusive to the console and show no sign of receiving a rerelease. If you want these, you need a Dreamcast.
SEGA has a massive stable of iconic characters. From the normal (Ryo Hazuki) to the bizarre (ToeJam and Earl) and everything in-between. But what about the characters you never see? They’re just as iconic, yet they have never had a face to put to the voice. In this week’s five, we will be shining the spotlight on the best unseen SEGA characters. The characters who can define a game without the need for a visit to SEGA’s character design department.
SEGA has had some highly rated games released on the PSP, sadly mostly everyone outside of Japan has decided to ignore the platform. Sony recently announced the ‘PSP Remasters’ series. Games from PSP ported over and enhanced on the Playstation 3.
One of the first games to get this treatment has been Monster Hunter Freedom 3, which looks great. I decided to put together 5 games that deserve the PSP Remasters treatment.
Next to the games, perhaps my most favorite Sonic thing of the 1990’s was the cartoon series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (AoStH). While Saturday morning’s Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic SatAM) had stronger plots and more polished animation, AoStH was just too damn fun to be deemed the lesser cartoon. To me, AoStH was a much better adaptation of the games, and when I say games I mean the only two that were released by that time: Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Every episode featured Sonic and Tails playing cat and mouse with Robotnik and his gang of badniks, just like in the Genesis games. Even better, the show kicked off with an awesome mix of the original Sonic theme song, “Flight of the Bumblebee” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King”.
While I was satisfied with this amount of video game fan service, every so often an episode would air that would give the video game fans a little bonus. Something that would make us sit up and pay a bit more attention. Sonic might traverse through a zone from Sonic 1 (gasp!) or Robotnik might make reference to a Chaos Emerald (Hey, I know those!). In celebration of Sonic’s 20th, and my favorite 90’s cartoon series, I present five game inspired episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog!
In his 20 years of existence, Sonic has not only appeared in dozens of games, but he has also introduced a ton of irregularities. The irregularities I’m referring to are the things that exist within his video games that support the gameplay and the player playing the game, yet don’t make a whole lot of sense within the context of the world within the game. For example, it’s a ton of fun to run through a twirling highway in Sonic Adventure, but why in the world would such a highway even exist? Or what about all those springs and item boxes? Surely Eggman didn’t put them there, because they assist Sonic. So just how and why do elements like that exist in Sonic’s world? In this week’s weekly five, I’m going to attempt to explain five oddities of Sonic’s world. Most of my explanations will probably be complete bullshit, but that’s the fun of over-thinking!
Before Saturn Month is considered to be completely over, I thought I’d squeeze in one more Saturn related Weekly Five. This week, we combine our regular SEGA in the Media feature with the SEGA Saturn. That’s right, five times the SEGA in the Media in one day! So let’s kick things off with…
One of the best things about the SEGA Saturn is it’s wide array of exclusives. While Dreamcast lost many of its best exclusives to its competitors shortly after it died, the exodus of Saturn exclusives has been painfully slow. A port here, a remake there, but nothing like the sort of treatment that Dreamcast, Genesis, and even Game Gear/Master System libraries got after SEGA’s departure from the console business. Heck, when a Saturn game does get ported, it doesn’t even get localized much of the time. Why the general lack of porting or emulation? Well, according to Panzer Dragoon series director Yukio Fatatsugi, it’s because SEGA has misplaced the source code for many of their Saturn games, meaning that many games now on the Saturn will never see the light of day on another console unless they are completely rebuilt from the ground up, something that is probably unlikely to happen.
Hey, a gamer can dream, right? Here are five Saturn titles that I think should see the light of day on modern consoles, whether it be a port, emulation, or a total remake for a retail release. Since I recently wrote an entire article demanding an Astal remake, and since Guardian Heroes is now going to be the latest Saturn title to make the leap, obviously those won’t be counted.
As most of America well be celebrating Memorial day by being stuck in traffic, sweating, drinking and laying on beaches, I thought I’d present five Saturn tunes fitting for the nice warm holiday weather. Can you guess what the first tune will be? Hint: The above photo.
One of the things that really held the Saturn back from commercial success was the general lack of continuity between SEGA’s franchises on the Genesis and their franchises on the Saturn. The Saturn was home to many great, original franchises, but only a surprisingly small handful of genuine Genesis sequels. These are five franchises the Saturn should have gotten.
I love the SEGA Saturn, you love the SEGA Saturn, we all love the SEGA Saturn. But why do we love the SEGA Saturn? I asked myself this very question and came up with five reasons why SEGA’s 32-bit wonder makes me all happy inside.
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!
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?
