Sonic Team producer expresses interest in making a new Samba de Amigo for Nintendo Switch

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Sonic Team producer, Shun Nakamura, was recently interviewed by Eurogamer discussing Sonic Mania and its impact on future Sonic titles. When asked about the Nintendo Switch’s features and his time working on Samba de Amigo for the SEGA Dreamcast, the producer expressed high interest in making another title in the franchise for the console. Here’s what he had to say in the matter:

“I really, really want to make it! This is coming from someone who had to make physical items you had to buy and plug into your console in order to play Samba de Amigo at home. When the Wii came out, there was only one Wii Remote, and you had to buy another one. You could still do it, but it’s a bit of a hurdle to get over. The first time I saw the Switch, I thought oh my god – this is it! You don’t have to buy another peripheral, you don’t need to buy another controller. I’m really, really interested in that.” – Shun Nakamura

Samba de Amigo made it’s latest outing on the Nintendo Wii with the help from Gearbox. What are your thoughts if Sonic Team themselves can produce another game in the franchise for the Switch?

Eurogamer runs a Condemned: Criminal Origins retrospective

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SEGA’s Condemned: Criminal Origins was one of the Xbox 360’s launch titles, and later the game received a sequel on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. I loved this game when I first played it, and it has even made some of our lists of sequels we want to see. The fine people over at Eurogamer seem to like the game as well, since they posted up a retrospective article on it.

Did any of you guys enjoy the first game? If so, why? Let us know!

Obsidian talks more about their canceled Aliens survival RPG

Aliens_Crucible_GameplayObsidian recently talked to Eurogamer about their canceled RPG, Aliens: Crucible and some of the mechanics it would have had in the full version. Obsidian had a pretty cool idea about building a stronghold that seemed to be one of the main features in the game.

“If you’re dealing with a ship repair mechanic who may have no combat experience whatsoever, that obviously would serve a vital function in surviving in this predicament. So it’s more of a third-person, two companions with you survival game, but it had a lot of the RPG trappings in terms of you could set up your own stronghold and base and build that up over time, explore more of the environment, figure out how you get all of the resources and stuff to survive.”– Chris Avellone, Obsidian’s creative director

The game was in development for over three years, till it was finally canned in 2009. Chris says that SEGA told them that they had to “take a step back and carefully consider the type of game we want to release”. Yet they still released that awful Aliens: Colonial Marines. According to Chris it wasn’t that bad, SEGA paid for them to build their own engine and even though the game got canceled they had that to walk away with. So yeah, great way to manage your money, SEGA. No wonder you are at the position that Nintendo has to fund Bayonetta 2.

What about Alpha Protocol 2?

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Panzer Dragoon creator talks about his time at SEGA

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Eurogamer is running a pretty neat piece on Yukio Futatsugi, the creator of the Panzer Dragoon franchise. Like every great piece they go into detail on how he grew up, the schools he went to and how he ended up at SEGA. One of the neat pieces of information was that at age 23 he took over Team Andromeda. Think about it, this dude was in charge of many people older than him at the age of 23. He was 25 when Panzer Dragoon came out. Crazy!

“I handed in several proposals, one of which was Panzer Dragoon,” says Futatsugi. “I’d only been there about two years, but they accepted my proposal and put me in charge of the project. Just like that I was making Panzer Dragoon for the Saturn launch. It was a difficult project. All the programmers and designers were above me in the company but I had to tell them what to do, which was tricky. But I was young, so I could be stubborn.”Yukio Futatsugi

The piece goes on and talks about his work after leaving SEGA, working at Microsoft Studios and releasing Phantom Dust (a great Xbox game, if you haven’t played it). He also confirms that Crimson Dragon is still in the works!

Edge Online wants a western release for Yakuza 5

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Guess what? We agree with them. They did a pretty sweet article titled ‘Yakuza 5 and why it needs a western release.

 “Nagoshi’s housewarming is in full swing in Japan, and it’s high time the rest of the world gatecrashed the party.”

Usually I would love for the game to get a box release, but seeing as One Piece and a few other games have profited by digital only releases, I wouldn’t mind that as long as I get to play it in English. What about you?

EuroGamer Provides Loads of Additional SASRT Details

Eurogamer has a preview of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed that I highly recommend you read. It’s very well written and pretty effectively illustrates the struggles many arcade racer developers are having today, and how much of a unique case the success of the original Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing is.

The article also has loads of new info, which I’ve reported below:

The game has 27 characters. This is 7 more than the last game, not counting console specific characters.

A WiiU release cannot be confirmed or denied. I personally am quite confident we’ll see it at E3, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

The development team has been expanded, taking in people from two recently closed British game development studios that specialize in arcade racing titles: Bizarre Creations, the people responsible for Project Gotham Racing, The Club, and Blur, as well as people from Black Rock, creators of Split/Second. Gareth Wilson, whom we met at the press event in San Francisco, is one of those people. He came from Bizarre Creations and has games like Project Gotham 2-4 as well as Blur under his belt.

Iizuka wants to do more NiGHTS

In a recent interview with EuroGamer Takashi Iizuka of Sonic Team mentioned that he would like to make another game in the NiGHTS series.

This was translated on our forum from Portuguese as the English version of Eurogamer doesn’t have it up yet.

“Personally I’d really like to make a third NiGHTS game, but it all depends on SEGA.”
Said Iizuka.

Now, Mr. Iizuka… I’m all for another NiGHTS game but please take heed, there are strict guidelines that need following!

(After the Jump!)