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My Life with SEGA travels to a galaxy far, far away in Star Wars Arcade for the SEGA 32X

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That’s right, gang! My Life with SEGA has decided to celebrate the ill-fated 32X on its 20th anniversary by rehashing its not-so-exciting adventures in a galaxy far, far away.

Star Wars Arcade! Yeah, baby! This time, AJ is not alone. AJ and his faithful sidekick Mickey Mac, are going up against the Galactic Empire in a desperate attempt to see the fuckin’ ending!

If you wish to see the original solo – pardon the pun – review of Star Wars Arcade, you can find it after the break!

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Check out TrackerTD’s SEGA collection in his game room tour

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SEGAbits’ resident SEGA Saturn guy Liam ‘Tracker_TD’ Ashcroft gives a game room tour, showing off his games, consoles, collectibles, and other cool stuff that’s he’s accumulated over the past 16 years. Check out the video above for the full tour, and don’t forget to check out our previous Game Room Tour video featuring Barry the Nomad’s collection. We also have more game room videos to come from other SEGAbits contributors!

Enjoyed the video? Why not support Liam’s main show, ‘This is Saturn,’ by buying a shirt?

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Watch the full ‘Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation’ San Diego Comic Con panel

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This past weekend, SEGAbits writers Ben, Shigs, and Nuckles hit San Diego Comic Con and SEGA’s game preview event located at the nearby Nerd HQ. While Comic Con isn’t as game centric as E3, there was quite a bit of SEGA goodness to be found. We were able to check out the latest preview builds of Alien: Isolation and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, as well as interview Archie Comics on the upcoming Sonic Boom comic book series. But the main event had to have been Sunday’s Console Wars panel. The panel, which centered around the SEGA and Nintendo rivalry of the 90’s, featured special guests Tom Kalinske (Sega of America), Al Nilsen (Sega of America), Bill White (Nintendo of America), and Perrin Kaplan (Nintendo of America), as well as Console Wars author Blake J. Harris and Julian Rosenberg, producer of the upcoming Console Wars documentary.

Thanks to Blake, Nuckles and Shigs were given the VIP treatment and secured some awesome seats – allowing us to film the panel and Q&A session and meet the SEGA and Nintendo legends! Check out the full panel above, and make sure to pick up your copy of Console Wars if you haven’t already!

Want more Console Wars discussion? Check out our three part interview series with Tom Kalinske, Al Nilsen, and Blake J. Harris.

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Check out the trailer for “My Life with SEGA: Theater of the Eye” – set to release in 2015

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My Life with SEGA’s A.J. Rosa is in the process of creating his third SEGA-inspired short film: Theater of the Eye! Like the previous My Life with SEGA shorts The Next Level and No Limits, Theater of the Eye‘s name comes from a SEGA ad campaign slogan. Unlike the previous shorts, which were inspired by gritty revenge flicks and buddy cop movies, Theater of the Eye takes inspiration from the Star Trek films and is set to feature A.J. commanding a crew onboard a giant SEGA Genesis. Erica Winter and Mickey Mac, of previous and upcoming 2-Man Scramble videos, are set to appear and A.J. hopes to feature cameos from other SEGA YouTube personalities and SEGAbits team members.

Be on the lookout for My Life with SEGA: Theater of the Eye in 2015, and in the meantime stay tuned to the SEGAbits YouTube Channel as more episodes of My Life with SEGA Season 3 are due to release soon. If you haven’t watched the Comix Zone premiere episode yet, make sure to check it out!

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Take a SEGA game room collection tour with Barry the Nomad

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I’ve been a SEGA collector and fan since 1991, with the first SEGA thing I ever owned being a SEGA Genesis with Sonic the Hedgehog included. Since then, I’ve collected games and consoles as they released, and I’ve gone back and picked up games and hardware that I’ve missed out on. The result of the past 23 years is my game room, which packs in nearly all the gaming stuff I own plus an assortment of DVDs, blu-rays, books, and other things. I’ll admit, my collection doesn’t come close to some of the ones I’ve seen, but still it’s mine and I’m proud of it. I’ve been putting off making a collection video for a while now, mainly because there was always something on the horizon that I planned to add to the game room and I wanted to wait until I had the latest addition before making a video. But this week I figured I had the time and the room had enough to show off as is, so I made the above 43 minute walkthrough. Check it out and please don’t judge me based on some of the DVDs I own.

We plan to have more Game Room Tour videos in the future, featuring other SEGAbits contributors showing off their collections, so stay tuned for more sweaty hands and close up views of old SEGA merchandise!

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Classic SEGA Ads: So you want to live in a comic book?

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SEGA of America’s nineties advertisement strategy can be summarized thusly: come up with the most batshit insane thing you can and run with it. Anyone looking for proof need look no further than this…thing they produced to sell Comix Zone. I kind of get what they were going for, since old comic books often have over-the-top, melodramatic dialogue and bizarre storylines, but this is more like a crazy depiction of some weird cult than anything to do with super hero comics. Unless there was a weird cult in Comix Zone, since I’ve never been able to get much further than the second level.

Looking back though, does that really matter? I don’t think so! This is a fun, quirky little ad that encapsulate SEGA’s attitude more so then the game it’s advertising. It wouldn’t have sold me on Comix Zone back in the day, but it certainly makes me miss what video game advertisement used to be like. I’ll take this over a slick trailer filled with review scores any day.

As a little bonus, I thought I’d also include a print advertisement for Comix Zone, seen in comics and magazines. It’s a little blander, sure, but it also gets to the heart of what the game is a bit more. Check it out after the break!

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Swingin’ Report Show #67: Mega-Bit Figures Inspired by SEGA Genesis Interview

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This week on the Swingin’ Report Show podcast, Barry and George are joined by Nate Mitchell – head of Squid Kids Ink and creator of the So Analog line of figures featuring old entertainment media with eyes, arms, and legs. Nate’s latest project is Mega-Bit, a SEGA Genesis game cartridge inspired line of So Analog figures featuring officially licensed SEGA classics.

To make his SEGA toys a reality, Nate has created a Kickstarter with SEGA’s approval. Those who support the project receive some awesome incentives including limited edition figures featuring Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, and Shinobi. Support Nate and his Mega-Bit toys today!

Following the interview, Barry and George share their thoughts on 3D Fantasy Zone II and Alien: Isolation‘s recently revealed DLC starring the cast of the original film.

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My Life with SEGA Season 3 begins with a pulpy SEGA Genesis classic – Comix Zone

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My Life with SEGA is back, and in HD! That’s right, it’s retro gaming in high-definition.

In the season 3 premiere, I go back 18 years to re-experience a 16-bit piece of art, ripping through page after page of aliens and mutants in Comix Zone. Developed by Sega Technical Institute, this brawler from the mid 90’s was praised for it’s glorious presentation, but scolded for its late arrival and brief playthrough.

Now that Comix Zone is old enough to move out, how does it hold up today? Click it. Watch it. Love it. Damn! That sounds kinda’ dirty, doesn’t it? Oh well.

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This is Saturn looks back on the SEGA Saturn Action Replay 4M Auto

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In this episode of This is Saturn, I look at something that’s not a video game! Shock, horror!

Rather, we look at the Saturn’s most well-known and most common Action Replay device, the 4M Auto. I was first introduced to this through My Life With SEGA, and made it my goal to get one – and after some delivery shenanigans that involved it being sent to the wrong person, I finally got one! It can do a whole lot beyond the typical cheat device setup of most Action Replays, but is it actually a worthy investment? Watch, as I try and answer that question for you!

This is Saturn is a video series created by British teenager Liam ‘TrackerTD’ Ashcroft, aiming to give an alternative and in-depth look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of SEGA Saturn gaming, all whilst maintaining a somewhat strong accent.

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Swingin’ Report Show #66: Interview with Roger Craig Smith, voice of Batman, Sonic the Hedgehog, and many more!

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This week on the Swingin’ Report Show, hosts Barry and George welcome a guest who has helped shape the sound of SEGA’s speedy mascot – Roger Craig Smith, voice actor of Sonic the Hedgehog! Roger is also well known for voicing Batman, Captain America, Chris Redfield, Ezio Auditore, and more. Recent projects include Batman: Arkham Origins which features the recently released “Cold, Cold Heart” DLC pack and SEGA’s Sonic Boom which spans video games and a television show which release later this year.

Join us as we talk with Roger about voicing Gotham’s Dark Knight and Green Hill’s Blue Blur. Roger also provides details on how he got into the business, and has some great advice for aspiring voice actors. Yes, we even asked him about his work on Valkyria Chronicles and his earliest work as Sonic at Alton Towers.

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SEGAbits at Too Many Games 2014 – “Surviving the Dreamcast Apocalypse” panel and more!

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SEGAbits made its very first convention appearance this year at TooManyGames in Oaks, PA. In addition to walking the convention floor, Barry the Nomad, Patrick aka Kori-Maru (Website of the Dead), David the Lurker (Sonic Retro) and A.J. Rosa (My Life with SEGA) held a panel discussing the life and death of SEGA’s swan song, the Dreamcast. The same panel also included a presentation from Sonic Retro, covering the history of Sonic the Hedgehog 2‘s Hidden Palace Zone – with rarely seen footage of Sonic 2‘s release and early efforts to remake the lost zone. We also met with several fellow SEGA fans, gave away a pile of rare SEGA swag, and did we mention the panel was standing room only? SEGAbits Does.

Also featured in this video is a convention walkthrough with the crew, and a one-on-one bout between Patrick and A.J.

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Editorial: False Positive: Sonic, the Media, and Wrongly Diagnosing the Problem

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False Positive

The Sonic franchise has an image problem. It remains disrespected, discredited, and broadly misunderstood for years, not because his titles are consistently good, but rather because the good titles are often swept away and ignored in favor of snark towards past failures.  In this sense, games writers might as well joke about airline food or women drivers.  I’m not a marketing wizard, nor do I claim to have all the answers, but I do think it is important to highlight what the problems are and are not.  At the very least, the culture could stand to be snarky and dismissive about something that happened six months ago instead of six years.

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SEGA Retrospective: Sonic the Hedgehog’s Classic Trilogy

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SONIC22

The following is a guest article from Sonic Stadium writer Brad, written as part of our intersite #Sonic23on23 celebration. Enjoy it, and maybe check out our guest article over at Sonic Stadium written by our own Ben Burnham.

Ah, birthdays. The perfect times for parents to get out those old, embarrassing pictures of you when you were a baby. Our spikey blue hero is no exception to this, however his own classic outgoings were never something to be embarrassed about. In fact, many fans still refer to the original trilogy of games as some of the best games the series has made. I’m not far removed from this ideal, and as such I wanted to look back at these old gems of classic gaming, chronologically.

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Visual Memories: Digging through Sonic Adventure & Sonic Adventure 2’s DLC

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We’ve said it time and time again here at SEGAbits: the Dreamcast was an incredibly innovative console! Back in the late 90’s, Dreamcast owners could hop online via their console to surf the web and download various things to their VMU including free DLC. That’s right, not only did SEGA offer DLC in the late 90’s, it was free! Continuing our Sonic 23rd birthday celebrations, Liam aka TrackerTD of our This Is Saturn YouTube series put together this great showcase of most of the DLC offered in Sonic Adventure & Sonic Adventure 2. Celebrate New Years, the Dreamcast launch, Halloween, and more in the many fun additions made to these memorable Sonic titles.

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Swingin’ Report Show #62: Console Wars with Tom Kalinske – SEGA of America’s President (’90-’96)

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This is it! Our third Console Wars focused episode of the Swingin’ Report Show in which we speak with the man himself, SEGA of America’s former President Tom Kalinske! Tom has an amazing history with the toy and game industry. Before his years with SEGA, Tom served as President and CEO of Mattel, reviving the Barbie brand and creating the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe line. During his time at SEGA, Tom reinvigorated the SEGA Genesis brand, helped in the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog, and led the launch of many famous pieces of SEGA hardware including the Game Gear, Pico, 32X, Nomad, and Saturn.

Tom Kalinske’s career is chronicled in the book “Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation” by Blake J. Harris, and if you haven’t purchased a copy yet, do so today. If you’ve read the book, are reading the book, are awaiting delivery of the book, or are simply a fan of SEGA during the 90’s, our latest show is a must listen!

Also, make sure to check out our other Console Wars interviews including our discussion of SEGA’s marketing efforts with SEGA’s former Director of Marketing Al Nilsen and our interview with the author of Console Wars, Blake J. Harris.

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