Retro

SEGA Retrospective: Get Ready For After Burner Week, Fire!

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SEGA made a name for itself in the eighties thanks in no small part to the incredible talents of Yu Suzuki and his team at AM2. Though the company saw numerous successes throughout the decade ranging from Zaxxon to Fantasy Zone to Altered Beast, it was AM2’s innovative tetralogy of super scaler powered games that would make SEGA a big name in the arcades. From 1985 to 1987 SEGA released a crescendo of innovative mega-hits, including Hang-On, Space Harrier and OutRun, culminating with the release of After Burner.

Much like the rest of its brethren, After Burner was a resounding success, spawning numerous updates and spiritual successors. This week, we’ll be giving you a taste of what After Burner has to offer. First, we’d like to present an overview of the franchise for the uninitiated.

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Cracked: 4 Social Criticisms Hidden in ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ Games

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Imagine if this whole time you played Sonic the Hedgehog, you weren’t winning, you where falling for Eggman’s plans the whole time? Well, the grown ass men over at Cracked.com have posted a new video detailing four social criticisms that are present in Sonic the Hedgehog.

Now if you’d excuse me, my mind has been blown. Just leave me in this Hedgehog wonderland created by Robotnik.

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SXSW 2014: Hands On with the RetroN 5

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Photo courtesy of Hyperkin’s facebook page.

There wasn’t much of anything SEGA related at this year’s South By Southwest in Austin, Texas. However it did provide a chance to check out Hyperkin’s upcoming RetroN 5 console with a number of games to show off the system’s accuracy and additional perks.

The RetroN 5 is a major step up from the other RetroN consoles for a number of reasons. The system provides compatibility for a number of consoles including Nintendo, Famicom, Super Nintendo, Super Famicom, Genesis, Mega Drive, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games through its five cartridge slots on the system as well as Master System games via the Power Base Converter. But aside from the added compatibility, it makes use of emulators running on Android hardware instead of clone hardware to run the games. What this provides besides better accuracy, is the other benefits of game console emulation including save states, remapping buttons and macros on any controller, take screenshots, fast forward games, as well as several video filtering options.

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Shinji Mikami agrees: Aladdin on the Genesis is better than SNES

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dealwithit
When I was a kid there was much debate between my friends on which version of Aladdin was better, the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive version by SEGA or the SNES version by Capcom. Its hard to pick, considering I was gifted the SNES one as a child while my cousin got it on the SEGA Genesis. I have played it growing up on both consoles and I will state that the SEGA Genesis version is superior. What about Shinji Mikami  (Resident Evil, Vanquish), he worked on the game, does he agree? I guess so.

“If I didn’t actually make [the SNES game], I would probably buy the Genesis one. Animation-wise, I think the Genesis version’s better. The Genesis version had a sword, actually. I wanted to have a sword.” – Shinji Mikami tells Polygon

So, what about you SEGA gamers? Which one is your favorite version of Aladdin?

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Hideo Kojima’s SNATCHER being remade on Dreamcast

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Have you ever wanted to play SNATCHER, Hideo Kojima’s awesome SEGA CD game, on the SEGA Dreamcast? You might be able to do that soon enough, since Collectorvision is planning on remaking the game for the Dreamcast with ‘enhanced visuals’ and a remixed soundtrack.

Outside of this, not much else is known. You can check their facebook post, where they posted the above image (comparing the graphics of the SEGA CD version to the Dreamcast remake). Don’t expect it to be out soon.

Let’s get excited!

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SEGA Genesis RPG Pier Solar HD coming to the Nintendo 3DS? [Update: Game delayed to April]

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We already know the guys behind the remake of the SEGA Genesis RPG from 2010, Pier Solar, want to bring the title to many platforms including the Dreamcast and the Wii U this Spring. According to the developer Watermelon, they could end up putting it on the Nintendo 3DS as well.

“On Wii U, we’re definitely putting the second screen to good use, a feature that will be exclusive of that platform. Well, maybe not for long if we end up making it to the 3DS, but that’s for later.” – Watermelon Presiden Tulio Goncalves

Pier Solar HD is also coming out for PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Android, Ouya and lastly the SEGA Dreamcast. Yeah, its going to be hard to miss!

It should also be noted that a recent tweet from the team confirmed that the game has been delayed from a March release to April.

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Swingin’ Report Show #54: SEGA Retro Talk with GameSpot editor Peter Brown

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The SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show is back for 2014, and boy do we have a good show for you!

SEGAbits editor/writer Barry the Nomad and SEGAbits writer, Sonic Talk host, and Sonic Stadium writer Jason aka Shigs are joined by GameSpot editor Peter Brown for a retro themed round table discussion. Peter shares how he got into video game journalism and gives us his thoughts on the Xbox One’s Panzer Dragoon spiritual successor Crimson Dragon – which he officially reviewed for GameSpot. We also discuss the many SEGA consoles celebrating anniversaries this year and share some good ol’ SEGA memories. Listen today, and while you’re at it subscribe to us and rate us on iTunes!

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

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Retro Review: Ristar the Shooting Star

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 Ristar title copy

SEGA’s catalog is quite literally littered with spectacular characters and franchises that either never took off or never made it to the west. We each have our favorites and one of mine is a little game for the Genesis called Ristar, a glowing example of SEGA’s mascot aspirations that was unfortunately unable to find an audience.

Back in the early Genesis days, SEGA was looking for their Mario killer. After Alex Kidd failed to save the Master System from being anything more than a speed bump to the NES’s growing monopoly, SEGA knew it needed a mascot that could capture the imagination (and money) of gamers. As we all know, they would eventually come up with Sonic the Hedgehog. Along the way, however, they created some other concepts, including a bunny that could throw things at enemies. This concept would percolate within SEGA for years, until it was finally released in 1995 as Ristar.

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SEGA Retrospective: It’s Ristar Week, c’mon!

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I’d like to welcome you to Ristar Week! This week we’ll be focusing on Ristar’s depressingly short run as a video game star, looking back on the character’s two games. Sonic Team’s star-faced hero never got his due back when he first came around. Debuting just a few months after the release of the 32X and just a few months before the US debut of the Saturn, Ristar came out at a time when the Genesis was no longer a console SEGA was interested in selling. As a result, Ristar was ignored and became a cult classic. This week, SEGAbits will be giving Ristar his long overdue respect.

  First, though, a little history lesson.

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SEGA Memories: A look back at Toys ‘R’ Us’ 1996 holiday video game catalog

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Its almost that time of season where most kids are waiting to tell their parents what modern day war shooter they want under their Christmas tree. Its also the time where older folks, like ourselves on the site, think about our previous holidays and how we used to make our parents waste hoards of cash to buy our affection. Wasn’t that great? Well this week on Monday Memories we will look at the 1996 holiday Toy ‘R’ Us video game catalog. I remember these where awesome as a kid, it was like window shopping for games in my underwear.

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Mac Senour talks about how SEGA almost passed on Gunstar Heroes

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Imagine now if SEGA never published Gunstar Heroes, the first game by then brand new studio Treasure Co? That was almost the case according to a brand new interview with Mac Senour over at SEGA-16.

“12 people looked at it and passed before it got to me. If I didn’t pick it up, he was going to be rejected. I played it for five minutes, maybe less, and threw the controller on the floor and said “this is game of the year.” Every one in earshot laughed.” – Mac Senour

According to Marc, the only thing he asked the developers to change was a boss character that was basically Hitler. Those Japanese people, they love putting Hitler in all their media.

“I was the last guy; if I said no then it would have been canceled. They spoke no English, so I had to go through my contact at SOJ, Henry Geison. Henry and I became friends when I was developer tech support.” – Mac Senour

I know the gaming industry was way different back then, but I seriously don’t know how more than twelve people could pass on a classic like Gunstar Heroes?

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SEGA Memories: Dave’s Sega Saturn Page

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Obviously SEGAbits isn’t the first and won’t be the last website dedicated to the big blue. Throughout the life of the internet, there have been thousands upon thousands of SEGA related websites and out of all those websites there are few webpages that we would visit regularly. Dave’s Sega Saturn Page was one of those sites I always kept bookmarked along with others that we will most likely cover here on Monday Memories.

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A Look at Elusive Dreamcast Titles on Vidya Retro

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This week on Vidya Retro we look at what could have been after the passing of the Dreamcast as we take a look at unreleased games and other elusive Dreamcast products as well as a pre-show look at the Android version of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing.

Games covered include released and unreleased Dreamcast games, as well as games running on commercial and homebrew emulators through Dreamcast such as Half-Life, Bleemcast! with Metal Gear Solid, Propeller Arena – Aviation Battle Championship, Wacky Races, Fur Fighters, Sam & Max: Hit the Road and Doom II – Hell on Earth.

Commentators include Sonic Retro members Bartman3010, TimmiT, Overlord, Cinossu and David the Lurker. Listen as they trudge up old Dreamcast information from the US Dreamcast magazine and guess review scores for Dreamcast games.

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