Nintendo has just announced the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack Membership plan, which will hike the price on their base online price but you get Nintendo 64 and SEGA Genesis titles. The new membership plan is set to launch in late October. No pricing yet.
The SEGA Genesis will launch with the following games:
SEGA Talk goes back to 1988, as we alter our inner beasts to talk about the SEGA 16-bit “classic” Altered Beast! One thing is for sure, this game is heavy metal in a cartridge (or arcade)! Sit back and let’s talk all things Altered Beast!
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If you want to give us feedback, suggest a topic for the next podcast or want to ask a question for us to answer on the next episode you can add them as a comment below or send theme directly to our email. Make sure you use subject line ‘SEGA Talk’ and as always, thanks for listening!
SEGA of America’s Michael Lathan has passed away, as reported by SEGA-16’s twitter account. Michael started his gaming character at Rainbird Software where he would localize computer games for the American market, he would then move to Mediagenic where he was a producer for Ghostbusters II and Tongue of the Fatman before the company went bankrupt in 1991.
“It was simply the most fun of any job I ever had. Everything just exploded, and for a young guy in the business it allowed me to do so much so fast. I entered the company as a producer, quickly moved up to run my own production group, and even became a VP before the age of 30, thanks to the unbelievable growth and talented people I worked with. It’s so hard to have all the right people in the right places, and when you do, you get hit companies and products. We were on movie sets, meeting with sport teams, going backstage at concerts – all kinds of exciting projects – and the development teams were still small and you really knew everyone you worked with unlike the mega development teams of today’s games.” – Michael Latham talks working at SEGA during the early 90s
Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World is set to be a remake of Monster World IV for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive and has gotten mixed reactions from fans since it was announced but I can say this new trailer looks a lot better than the previous ones.
The game is set to come out May 28th and cost $39.99 (at least the physical versions)!
A new studio making new shoot’em up Irena Genesis Metal Fury for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive have launched their kickstarter. According to the Kickstarter page the game is influenced by SEGA classics such as Thunder Force III/IV, Aero Blaster, Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master, and Contra Hard Corps. Looking at the footage above, its definitely obvious.
As most SEGA fans know, these new studios pop up and promise big Kickstarter retro projects but most turn into nothing. The team seems to understand this and have at least put up a proof of concept demo, which you can download here.
If the game is fully funded (which seems likely right now, its half way to its goal with 29 days left. ), it will get a 7 level game with cut scenes including dialogue, 3 upgradable weapons, multiple speed modes, and a ton of other features.
If you are a big SEGA fan collector, there is some really great priced physical goods given out like the $55 dollar pledge with the physical game cartridge with manual and a bunch of cool digital goodies. Check it out before its gone since some of these rewards are limited (and moving fast).
Hey buddy, you like SEGA handheld consoles? Remember the SEGA Nomad? It was a small size SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive that you could take on the game. Yeah, like a Nintendo Switch but in the 90s. Recently SEGA has been celebrating the companies 60th Anniversary and they posted the following video above, a class room type setting going through the history of SEGA hardware. One of the pieces shown off for the first time? The SEGA Venus, which was a prototype that became the SEGA Nomad.
Its interesting to see the early designed console, it looks cool but the color scheme seems to be very different from anything ‘SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive’ related, which went with more ‘black’ slick style, this has a more bronze/grey look. Also seems that this version had more normal looking front facing buttons compared to the final model that hard buttons that sort of reminded me of the launch SEGA Saturn buttons (on the unit itself).
[Via: SEGA-16]
On this SEGA Talk, Barry schools George on his favorite non-Sonic Genesis platformer: Ghostbusters! Developed by SEGA and Compile, the game is a unique non-linear action adventure game. Learn about the all-star development team, the game’s unique place in canon and the discovery of demo tracks from the game’s soundtrack.
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If you want to give us feedback, suggest a topic for the next podcast or want to ask a question for us to answer on the next episode you can add them as a comment below or send theme directly to our email. Make sure you use subject line ‘SEGA Talk’ and as always, thanks for listening!
It seems like video game industry creatives stuck at home have been spent some of that time unearthing and sharing hidden treasures from past development projects. First we had Craig Stitt sharing cool STI game concepts, and now we have former SEGA sound designer Kazuhiko Nagai sharing music demo tracks from the late 80s!
Posted to his YouTube channel, demo tracks from the Genesis/Mega Drive release of Ghostbusters, the Genesis/Mega Drive release of Rambo III and a track from the Genesis/Mega Drive game Mystic Defender have appeared in recent weeks. The tracks are labeled as rough sketches and “maybe rejected”, with Nagai providing his best guess at times for what the intention of the track was. As of writing, a new video was just uploaded (after the break) with fingers crossed for many more over the coming days.
We have been covering all the SEGA Technical Institute pitches that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 artist Craig Stitt has been posting over at the SEGA Retro Gaming group on Facebook. First he showed off his pitch for Sonic’s partner called Boomer, then he showed off Astropede and now he is showing off a pitch Craig Stitt did with programmer Dave Sanner back in SEGA’s 16-bit days. The game was set to be called ‘Spellcaster’ and was meant to be a two player combat game based around the use of magic. The gimmick would be that the game would have a musical component in that players had to press button combinations to cast a spell but each button would play a musical note.
The idea would be that players would have a easier time doing complicated button combinations if they were based around sound. According to Craig Stitt, the pitch was put together after Sonic Spinball was completed and was rejected, this is when Craig Stitt began working on his Astropede pitch. Check out some of the artwork Craig Stitt did for Spellcaster below:
We have been posting a lot about Sega Technical Insitute’s canceled projects including Boomer an unused Sonic 2 side kick, Astropede a canceled pitch 16-bit game and now we have Treasure Tails which was a cancelled pitch by Sega Technical Institute. While these screens is all we have, at first, it was said to be pitched by Bill Dunn but Craig Stitt has come out and said its not true.
Check out what Craig Stitt had to say:
If you haven’t been keeping up, SEGA Technical Institute artist Craig Stitt has been posting quite a bit of lost video game concept art and now prototype footage of a game he pitched SEGA at first called Segapede and later renamed Astropede. Its a very interesting project since it seems Craig wanted this to be a part of the Sonic universe and even used ideas from Sonic 2 with a twist, for example each pod that follows you contained a power and if you got hit you would lose a pod. A very similar gimmick to Sonic’s rings.
On this, our milestone 50th episode of SEGA Talk, George and Barry look back on the development, release and legacy of Sonic The Hedgehog 2 for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. We cover the game’s unique creation in America, the debut of Miles “Tails” Prower and the comics and cartoon adaptations that took place following the game’s release.
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If you want to give us feedback, suggest a topic for the next podcast or want to ask a question for us to answer on the next episode you can add them as a comment below or send theme directly to our email. Make sure you use subject line ‘SEGA Talk’ and as always, thanks for listening!
If you’re unfamiliar with Figma, Figma is a Japanese action figure line produced by Max Factory and distributed by Good Smile Company. Various anime, movies, video games and even the occasional celebrity have Figma figures, what what’s so cool about them is that they are all the same scale, are super articulated and can mix and match accessories. The figmaPLUS line focuses on accessories and playsets, and of interest to SEGA fans is the figmaPLUS SEGA Consoles collection, which is now available for pre-order!
The developer of Picross S, Jupiter, has announced Picross S: Mega Drive & Mark III Edition would be coming to Nintendo Switch via teaser at the end of a commercial for Jupiter’s April-released Picross S4 and the newly released Working Zombie.
“Picross” is a picture crossword puzzle game that uses numbers as hints to complete an illustration. Further details on the title have yet to be announced. We will let our readers know when more details are announced.
Source: Gematsu
Barry and George return to the world of Alex Kidd with the franchise’s 16-bit Mega Drive/Genesis debut Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle! On this episode we discuss the game’s crazy story, the return to the platforming roots of Miracle World and investigate whether the game was ACTUALLY a SEGA Genesis launch title or not. You’ll be SHOCKED by what we learned!
Support us on Patreon! Get early access, tell us what games to cover, and have your SEGA memories read at the end and more!
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If you want to give us feedback, suggest a topic for the next podcast or want to ask a question for us to answer on the next episode you can add them as a comment below or send theme directly to our email. Make sure you use subject line ‘SEGA Talk’ and as always, thanks for listening!
