New Shenmue 3 information uncovered including PC version’s publisher

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While I jumped in and donated to the Shenmue 3 KickStarter right when it was announced, the whole thing just left me with more questions. I think a lot of fans right now are just so excited (like myself) that most forgot to question some of the aspects of the campaign. I see lots of gaming journalist assuming lots of things, but let’s get some facts out of the way. While the gaming press is discussing Sony stating that they are giving Shenmue 3some funding‘, we don’t know who the publisher is going to be… till now at least.

We know that the PC version (which is getting a physical release) will be published by Shibuya Productions. That would mean that SEGA will not be publishing that version of the game, sadly. They did say that SEGA and Yu Suzuki have a good relationship, so much so that they are allowing Yu Suzuki to use all the elements he needs from the first two games to complete Shenmue 3.

One of the new gameplay systems that the Kickstarter is promoting is the use of scrolls, while the older games had them to learn moves it seems that Shenmue 3 is set to expand on that. Skill scrolls are still part of the fighting system but will also unlock mini-games, gambling and other side quests.

It has also been confirmed that Shenmue 3 will take place right after Shenmue 2‘s cliff hanger. Cédric Biscay has been confirmed to be in charge of the PC version.

[Source: NeoGAF]

Shenmue 3’s Kickstarter has been funded

 

Shenmue 3 is Real

No more waiting. No more false hope. Shenmue 3 is alive, it’s coming, and one day we’re all going to get to play it. As of a few moments ago, Shenmue 3 reached its $2 million goal on Kickstarter, breaking all sorts of records along the way.

Shenmue 3 has become the fastest game on Kickstarter to break $1 million dollar and the fastest to reach a $2 million funding goal, hitting it in less than hours with more than 24,000 funders. The game’s funding moved so quickly in its opening hours that it practically broke the kickstarter page, hitting prospective funders with errors.  It’s also currently on track to outpace Bloodstained, which recently became Kickstarter’s most funded game ever at $5.5 million. For comparison, Bloodstained required 24 hours to reach half of Shenmue 3’s initial funding goal.

Of course, this is just the beginning. With more than 30 days left in the campaign, the project as more than $2 million worth of stretch goals lined up, ranging from Shenmue 1 & 2 cinema shorts at $2.5 million to an expanded Baisha village and additional mini games at $4 million. According to the Kickstarter page, we’ll be hearing more about these stretch goals after initial funding. We’ll post more details as they come in!

Shenmue 3 is being developed by Yu Suzuki’s independent studio YsNet. It is currently unknown how (or if) SEGA is involved, and whether any outside parties are will be performing publish duties or providing outside funding. The game is currently scheduled for a December 2017 release. For additional information on the project and its developers, check out the official kickstarter page and the game’s website. For a look at a list of all the known stretch goals, check out the image below the break!

Shenmue 3 appears at Sony’s E3 2015 press conference, launches Kickstarter

Shenmue is just one of those game franchises that make all SEGA fans sequel in delight, talk to any of the fans that played them and they’ll go on for hours about what makes the franchise so great. This year at Sony’s E3 2015 conference, Yu Suzuki announced that they will be doing a Shenmue 3 kickstarter and you can fund it right now! The budget of the game via the kickstarter is only 2 million dollars, so chances of reaching it are very high (since its at 150k right now and it hasn’t even been an hour!). But 2 million dollars seems a bit low of a budget and it also seems to have a new character models that seem out of place. This is obviously very early assets that will hopefully change down the road. The game will also be developed by Yu Suzuki’s new studio called Ys Net. It seems that the project will only be available on Playstation 4 and PC.

Regardless you can fund the game and enjoy some of the rewards offered. $500 dollars gets you a set of capsule toys, who doesn’t like capsule toys? Are you guys excited for Shenmue III? Let us know in the comments.

Tembo the Badass Elephant trophies hit the net early

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It seems that the trophies for the Playstation 4 version of Tembo the Badass Elephant have been posted online via PSN Profiles website. The trophies will be rather easy to unlock in this title revolving around destroying ‘PHANTOM’ invaders, rescuing civilians and collecting Peanut Butter Jars.

I would assume that the Steam and Xbox One versions will have the same ‘trophies’ but only called achievements. Tembo the Badass Elephant is hitting Playstation 4, PC and Xbox One this fall world wide via digital distribution. Hit the jump to see the trophies.

Aliens: Colonial Marines lawsuit dismisses Gearbox Software

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The Alien: Colonial Marines lawsuit has been on going for two years now and it seems that SEGA will be the only one paying money out of their pocket when all is said and done, while Gearbox Software will walk away scot-free (minus courts and lawyers). SEGA previously agreed to pay $1.25 million back in August of last year, while Gearbox decided it would fight the charges stating it was a contractor and that SEGA had final approval. SEGA even made claims that marketing was also done by Gearbox in court filings which showed SEGA America’s displeasure with Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford.

In May 12th, US District Judge James Donato actually denied the original motion for class certification of the suite and also denied dismissing Gearbox Software from the case. But just yesterday it seems that the plaintiff’s attorney agreed to dismiss Gearbox with prejudice (meaning they can’t file another suit against them concerning Aliens: Colonial Marines) and in return Gearbox won’t be seeking legal fees. Of course there have been no explanation why the plaintiffs all of a sudden dropped the charges against Gearbox Software, after 2 years of fighting in court.

This also means that they will have a renewed settlement discussions with SEGA, these will go on until June 3rd. What are your thoughts on Gearbox Software being dismissed and SEGA still being charged with the suit?

[Via: NeoGAF]

Check out Relic Entertainment’s Humble Weekly Bundle

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It seems that Humble Bundle has teamed up with SEGA once again, this time to do a Relic Entertainment specific Humble Weekly Bundle. If you have been living under a rock and didn’t know that SEGA purchased Relic Entertainment after THQ went under, thus acquiring all their past games in their game catalog, now you know!

Here are the tiers

Pay at least $1:

  • Company of Heroes 2 – The Western Front Armies: Oberkommmando West
  • Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
  • Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
  • Company of Heroes: Complete Edition
  • Company of Heroes 2 Soundtrack
  • Bonus Digital Extras

Beat the average:

  • Company of Heroes 2
  • Company of Heroes 2  The Western Front Armies: US Forces
  • Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution
  • Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 

Pay $15 or more:

  • Company of Heroes 2 – Ardennes Assault 

Pay $30 or more:

  • A Relic T-Shirt

I would suggest to at least ‘beat the average’ if you are looking for the best ‘gaming for your buck’. Company of Heroes 2 still retails for around $40 dollars (when not on sale) and not to mention Space Marine is a great 3rd person shooter with a lengthy single player campaign. Also remember its all to support charity, so its for a worthy cause.

SEGA Humble Bundle sale slashes 75% off some great games

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Open up your E-Wallets folks! There’s a big sale going on at Humble Bundle and SEGA is one of the main publishers, so get in on the big clearance ‘cuz everything must go! Although, technically it’s digital so it really doesn’t go anywhere. Just…data gets copied from a server and onto your computer but that data also stays at the server so it’s not like…..NEVERMIND! Anyway,here are some of the great SEGA deals going on:

And many many more! The sale ends soon, so come on down and take a gander.

SEGA officially announces Total War: Warhammer, first part of a trilogy

Just like The Creative Assembly’s Alien title, SEGA have kept their Warhammer licensed title underwraps, that is until now. The newly announced game only has a CGI trailer with scarce information other than the fact the game will feature “Gigantic monsters, flying creatures, legendary heroes and storms of magical power take their place on the battlefield, alongside thousands of warriors clashing in real-time tactical battles” and that this is but one of two more stand alone installments making a trilogy of Warhammer titles.

It’d be interest to know if this is hinting at a possible Dawn of War 3 which would be using the Warhammer 40,000 license. Whatever the case, enjoy the CGI trailer and with E3 only a month and a half away, you won’t have to wait long to find out more information on The Creative Assembly’s latest strategy title.

SEGA has said that this first title will be part of a trilogy and other content packs they are planning on releasing. This is going to be a big license for SEGA going out, so what do you guys think? Should have SEGA taken the fantasy turn or stuck to time period games?

Virtua Tennis 4 being delisted from Steam and other digital stores

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SEGA is going to be pulling sales of Virtua Tennis 4 from digital stores including Steam on April 23rd, 2015. After this day you won’t be able to pick up a copy of the undeserved critically panned tennis game.

If you have a PC, I suggest you purchase a copy right now for $2.99 on Steam, I feel that the game is well worth it even if it has crappy Games for Windows Live tacked onto it. Its a great Tennis game filled with addictive mini-games.

There are reasons why SEGA could have delisted the game, most of the usually fall in licenses expiring. I wonder what this means for the future of the Virtua Tennis franchise?

Virtua Tennis 4’s PC version gets one last sale before it gets removed from Steam

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SEGA announced today that Virtua Tennis 4 will be removed from the Steam store on April 23rd. So before it will no longer be possible to buy the PC version, SEGA has put the game on sale for 80% off the normal price. As with all games on Steam that were removed from the store, you will still be able to download it from your library after its removal. However, the game still uses Games for Windows Live, of which online services no longer work. So you won’t be able to play the game online.

Virtua Tennis 4 isn’t the first SEGA game to be removed from Steam. Outrun 2006: Coast to Coast was removed from the store back in 2010, and in 2011 Happy Tree Friends: False Alarm was de-listed as well.

SEGA launches free-to-play Total War Battles: KINGDOM on Steam

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SEGA has released Total War Battles: KINGDOM out of its closed beta testing phase and is now free to download as an open beta game. The game will allow you to seamlessly play from PC to mobile when the app launches.

Reviews for the game so far have been mixed with the Total War fanbase disliking the game’s use of free-to-play mechanics that are similar to the ever popular mobile title Clash of Clans. The general complaint is that the game doesn’t resemble much of what people like in Total War games and that SEGA is charging people who want to grow wheat instantly instead of waiting 8 hours.

We shall see if SEGA will further tweak the wait time for basic actions or if they will continue down the same path with this game.

Download the Dead or Alive 5 Last Round texture mod for the ultimate Shenmue fight

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Reddit user Esppiral
has posted the following texture modifications for the PC release of Dead or Alive 5 Last Round. Sadly modders haven’t figured out how to swap models (yet?), so the user went in and used a base model and changed the textures to make them look like Shenmue characters. He not only created Ryo (using Jacky as a base model) and Lan Di (using Akira as a base model) but also included the famous dojo.

Download the mods here:

If you bought the game on Steam (or any other service) and want to learn how to install texture mods, hit the jump.

Typing of The Dead: Overkill update adds Custom Dictionaries with Steamworks support

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Everyone knows that typing funny words is part of what makes SEGA’s Typing of the Dead video games so much fun, especially since SEGA embraced the wackiness early on with the first entries to the series. For Typing of the Dead: Overkill, SEGA dipped their fingers in adding DLC for new word content and now it seems they are going to drop all that to allow users to make their own ‘Custom Dictionaries’ of words.

Not only that, SEGA is adding Steamworks support, meaning that you will be able to share your custom dictionaries with all of Steam. Want to make a themed dictionary based on delicate words, words that describe your mom or quotes from ‘Back to the Future’? Well, you are in luck, now you can.

Since SEGA is having their Steam sale, you will be able to pick up Typing of the Dead: Overkill for 75%.

Sports Interactive releases Eastside Hockey Manager: Early Access Edition

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Sports Interactive used to make more games than just the super popular Football Manager (that is one of the top 5 most played Steam games), they used to make Eastside Hockey Manager but that was discounted back in 2007 due to the games not being able to pay for its development costs, mostly due to the high piracy rates. But much has changed since 2007, more people actually purchase games thanks to the rising popularity of Steam and Sports Interactive is ready to give it another shot.

We need to prove that there is enough demand to justify resurrecting the series fully. Whilst this version has ‘fake’ data, we want to show that there is a demand for a fully licensed version of the game. That won’t come with this release but, if it’s successful, it means we can go to the leagues around the world and get licenses for future, annualised, versions (in much the same way that we do with FM).”

Eastside Hockey Manager is now available to download in its ‘early access edition’ form for a mere $14.99, but only has support for English. If you are a Hockey fan and want to see this series resurrected then head over to Steam and support it with your wallet. So far ratings on Steam have been positive.

Who knows, maybe SEGA can create in-house games in early access and take fan feedback to shape the series and see if there is an audience for some of their franchises.

[Via: Eurogamer]

Total War: ATTILA – Blood & Burning Pack

Unleashing the full horror of the apocalypse! The Blood & Burning add-on brings blood effects, decapitations, limb-lops, disembowelment and more to Total War: ATTILA. Disease-ridden soldiers can be seen vomiting on the battlefield and decapitations and gore-slicked event pictures feature on the campaign map.

If that kind of thing floats your boat, the ‘Blood & Burning Pack’ is available on Steam now for just £1.99/$1.99.