SEGA Central at EGXrezzed – Meet Tembo

SEGA are at EGXrezzed this year showing off some of their big 2015 titles. Total War Battles: Kingdoms, Total War Arena and Total War: Attila will all be playable at this event. But that isn’t alll, so will SEGA and Game Freaks first collaboration since 1994, TEMBO THE BADASS ELEPGANT. Check out this short preview of TEMBO from SEGA Central.

If you guys didn’t know, SEGA and GameFreak’s last collaboration was Pulseman on the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive! It is good to see them team up again. I’ve heard whispers that the developer had some semi successful franchise on Nintendo’s handheld systems between SEGA’s Pulseman and now, but the name of the franchise escapes me at the moment. Had something to do with pocket sized monsters?

Tembo the Badass Elephant gameplay video

Want to see more of Tembo the Badass Elephant? Of course you do. IGN have uploaded eight minutes of gameplay, showcasing a city level and a forest level. In this video you can get a better look at Tembos abilities including squirting water, platforming, physics based puzzles, butt-stomping and more.

I love how colourful, vibrate and crisp the visuals are, it’s such a joy to watch in motion. There is a moment in the video at the 4:30 mark where Tembo is running, full speed over green rolling hills reminiscent of the Sonic series and I’m reminded of what made me a Sonic fan all those years ago. Badass indeed!

SEGA and Game Freak reveal Tembo The Badass Elephant for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC

SEGA just announced that the game by Game Freak they’ll be publishing is Tembo The Badass Elephant, a side scrolling action game with 17 levels in which you play as an elephant who is also a commando who has save Shell City from the evil PHANTOM Army. So really it’s what you could expect from the studio that made Pokémon. It’ll be a single player game, and while there’s no multiplayer there are leaderboards as there’s a lot of stuff you can do to get points in each level. This is the third game to come out of Game Freak doing smaller projects aside from their usual Pokémon games, with the first two being HarmoKnight and Solitiba.

The game is being directed by James Turner, who also directed HarmoKnight for the 3DS. Gamereactor had an interview with him about the game, which can be read here. It’ll be released this summer for Steam, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. As for why it’s not coming to Wii U, it’s because James only put the aforementioned platforms on the mock-up poster for the game and kinda stuck with them through development. Screenshots can be found below.

Creative Assembly is celebrating 15 Years of Total War

Human history is a bloody and violent one. Kingdoms and empires have risen and fallen at the edge of a sword. From the time we first sharpen flint we’ve been a pretty stabby lot– thank goodness for that! Total War simply couldn’t exist without it. Thanks to SEGA and Creative Assembly we can relive our ancestors violent, tyrannical and stabby ways in a fun game! Yay!

The Total War franchise is celebrating its 15 year anniversary in 2015! Total War spans 11 games, over 2000 years of historical warfare and an incredible estimated 4.8 billion battles waged in the last 15 years. To celebrate this milestone SEGA and Creative Assembly have released a trailer (see above) to reflect on their own history and give us a hint of what’s to come.

If you visit the EGX Rezzed show in London this weekend you’ll be able to play both retro and modern titles spanning 15 years of Total War history. Plus a ‘huge’ Total War prize giveaway! See you on the battlefield!

Alien: Isolation pre-release footage released, features unused third person view

Games change during development, even change after media journalists have gotten a good look at the game. Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation is no different. The footage above shows what could have been Alien: Isolation before they changed it to first person prospective.

Personally think they did the right move making it first person due to the nature of using melee combat and I hate using melee combat in 3rd person shooters (see: Gears of War, Binary Domain and Uncharted series).

So what do you think?

Developer Retrospective: A look back at the games of SEGA’s WOW Entertainment

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When SEGA WOW Month began, we took a look back at the games of SEGA’s Overworks. While Overworks existed for only a short span of time before merging with WOW Entertainment, this month has made it very clear that Skies of Arcadia made a major impact on SEGA fans. But what of WOW Entertainment? Unlike Overworks, WOW managed to release a large number of games spanning different genres on different pieces of hardware. From sequels to classic franchises like The House of the Dead and Columns, to new franchises like SEGA GT and arcade oddities like The Typing of the Dead, a collaboration with Namco, and a dog walking simulator. While WOW Entertainment can’t be pinned down to one iconic title, they more than made up for this with an amazing library of games!

Join us now for part two of our SEGA WOW retrospective, in which we take a look at the many games of WOW Entertainment.

Playable build of Sonic X-Treme now available

We all know the story. 19 years ago, everyone was getting super excited about the upcoming release of Sonic X-treme, which would mark Sonic’s first fully three dimensional adventure. Long story short, the game was never released, and the Sega Saturn always had a hole in its library, no main Sonic title ever being released.

While bits and pieces of what the game would have been have leaked/been released over the the years, last November JollyRodger showed up with a plethora of material from defunct gaming studio Point Of View, including the source code for a variety of Sonic X-treme builds on both the Saturn and the PC. Being as the code could only run natively on hardware very few people have access to, Jolly took it upon himself to begin the process of porting the code to modern PC’s. Earlier tonight, the first public release of this labor of love was been released, “version 037” of X-treme now fully operational.

Download links and more after the jump.

New Wonder Boy/Monster World game: Monster Boy and the Wizard of Booze announced

The original creator of the Wonder Boy/Monster World series, Ryuichi Nishizawa, is working together with Game Atelier and FDG Entertainment to make a new game in the series called Monster Boy and the Wizard of Booze. Series composer Shinichi Sakamoto also returns for this new game. It doesn’t look like SEGA is involved, but it’s still very exciting news nonetheless.

This new sequel seems to have a lot in common with Game Atelier’s cancelled Kickstarter game Flying Hamster II, which was going to be a tribute to the Monster World series. It’s especially easy to compare the UI in the two games, and the silhouettes on the Monster Boy teaser site also look a lot like the transformations seen in Flying Hamster II. So it looks like that stuff from that game will be re-purposed for Monster Boy. You can expect the game later this year for PC, Playstation 4, and other unannounced platforms.

Swingin’ Report Show #74: Drift Stage – Interview with Super Systems Softworks

The SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show returns for 2015, featuring brand new interviews with talented people connected to and inspired by SEGA! On our 74th show we’re joined by Super Systems Softworks, developers of the 80s and 90s inspired racer Drift Stage. Chase Pettit (Programmer), Charles Blanchard (Art), and Hugh Myrone (Music) talk about the genesis of the project, their inspirations, and their plans for the final version of the game. We also take a trip down memory lane, talking about our favorite and least favorite racing games, as well as memories of SEGA-AM2’s classic OutRun.

Visit Drift Stage’s Kickstarter page, give the demo a try – and if you like what you see, back the game!
Demo: supersystems.itch.io/driftstagealpha
Official Site: driftstagegame.com

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

Iwakura Productions to Fan Translate Sakura Taisen on PC

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Iwakura Productions, known for their work on numerous Japanese fan translated games, has taken charge of translating SEGA and Red’s best selling dating sim/tactical role-playing game, Sakura Taisen (Sakura Wars in the West) to English. The project is currently being worked on by three people and will have a brand new translation with no prior scripts to be used or referenced. So far, the game’s script is 1/12th finished. If anyone would like to volunteer for the translation project, click here and send comment to the project lead. For screenshots of the game in english, be sure to hit the jump!

Win a copy of Valkyria Chronicles for PC!

Valkyria Chronicles Segalization Giveaway

The PC port of Valkyria Chronicles has been a success for both the fans and Sega. In celebration of the franchise’s second wind in the West and our recent one-year anniversary as a website, Segalization is giving away five digital copies of the PC port of Valkyria Chronicles on Steam! For more details on the contest and to participate, just follow this link to our entry form over at Segalization. Winners will be determined on December 7th at 7:00 PM GMT / 2:00 PM EST, and they’ll receive the code via e-mail or through a gift on Steam in the following days. Good luck!

SEGA announces Total War Battles: Kingdom coming to PC, Mac and Tablets

Seems that Creative Assembly’s free-to-play title Total War Battles: Kingdom is finally getting a closed beta on PC, SEGA confirmed today.

Total War Battles: Kingdom is being developed by Creative Assembly’s Digital Team (responsible for Total War Battles: Shogun), this entry will take you to the 10th century, unique time period weapons and plenty decisions to make. The game will feature kingdom building,  sim style gameplay and of course tactical battles across multiple devices.

Do you want to participate in the game’s beta? Sign up right here.

SEGA reveals new traumatic DLC for Alien: Isolation

The latest DLC for Alien: Isolation‘s Survivor Mode is now available for you to download. This DLC is dubbed “Trauma” as it introduces Sevastopol’s medical officer, Dr. Lingard, as a playable character. You will control Dr. Lingard as you explore three new maps as she seeks to destroy her research on the Alien creature. The DLC has launched on PC,  Xbox One and of course Xbox 360. Sadly Sony gamers will have to wait for the store to update Thursday to get it on Playstation 3 and Playstation 4.

Trauma is the second DLC pack of five that SEGA is set to release and will join the first DLC titled ‘Corporate Lockdown’, that launched in October. The next pieces of DLC are set to be titled ‘Safe Haven’, ‘Lost Contact’ and ‘The Trigger’. You can get all the DLC for $30 in the game’s season pass, which is half off right now on Steam. Each DLC is priced at $8 individuality or you can just wait for the Game of the Year edition later next year, but that’s none of my business.

Sales of Valkyria Chronicles PC Port has “Blown all predictions” say SEGA

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For those worried that the sales for SEGA’s PC port of their classic Valkyria Chronicles may fall short of any sale targets can rest easy. SEGA have confirmed that not only did Valkyria Chronicles meet expectations, it ‘blown all predictions out of the water’ quite the accomplishment for a 6 year old port of a Playstation 3 exclusive. Speaking to MCV, SEGA Europe’s senior VP of commercial publishing John Clark had to say;

“During its first 24 hours on sale, blew all forecasts and predictions out of the water. The award-winning Strategy RPG, originally released in 2008 for PlayStation 3, forced its way to the top of the Steam download charts, beating a host of brand new games to reach number one,”

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the fans for their support in the phenomenal success of this launch. We’re also delighted at the response from the Steam community which indicates that newcomers to the series are finding it as enchanting and engaging as those who have played it before.

A fantastic achievement for all at SEGA, here’s hoping that this could only lead to more future PC ports from the blue skies company.

Opinion: What Modern Sonic can learn from Classic Sonic

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Like most long suffering Sonic the Hedgehog fans I have a love/hate relationship with the Sonic series. For every step forward Sonic takes, he takes two steps backwards or worse. I’m sure we call all agree, we’d like to see our beloved Sonic series shine again. Unfortunately we don’t all agree on how to achieve this goal. By creating various ‘generations of Sonic’ with a variety of differently play style,s SEGA have built a polarized, multifaceted fan base who all want something different from the series. From classic Sonic fans who like 2D side scrolling to Adventure fans who enjoy a varied play styles and a story driven experience and not forgetting the Rush fans that just want a good bit of fast.

Is any one group of the Sonic fan base more correct than the other? No, of course not- it takes all sorts. Though I do love the classics, I am no stranger to the modern Sonic games and I believe both have plenty to offer. I enjoy both Sonic Colours and Sonic Generations. I routinely return to Sonic Rush and it’s incredible OST. I spent an unhealthy portion of my teenage years in a stuffy dark bedroom playing the Sonic Adventure titles.

So is it possible to cater to the entire multifaceted Sonic fanbase? Probably not! But is it possible to create a Sonic game the majority of us can enjoy without it being a bloated hot mess? Maybe! Here are some of my suggestions.