SEGA AM2 Month

SEGAbits Forum Member’s Round Table: SEGA AM2 Memories

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SEGA AM2 Month has come to an end, and before we move onto February’s developer we wanted to look back on fond memories we have of SEGA’s most iconic and prolific developer. Usually the SEGAbits round tables involve our writers and contributors, but this week we thought we’d give up our seats to our loyal forum members! Of course, we promised the best entries SEGA 3D Classics codes, but to our surprise several forum members shared their memories despite already owning all the games or not having a use for them. What am I saying, of course this wasn’t a surprise. If there is one thing all SEGA fans excel at, it’s sharing fond memories of their favorite games and developers.

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SEGA Retrospective: Virtua Fighter’s Spin-Offs and Crossovers

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When we kicked off Virtua Fighter week, we took a look back at the main titles from the series. Despite being only five games long, thanks to the many revisions, updates, and upgrades as well as arcade to home console ports, what was five games felt more like ten. While Virtua Fighter didn’t dip into bloody fatalities or energy blasts, there did exist the metallic cyborg final boss Dural. Despite this, Virtua Fighter could be described as a fighter that tends to keep things in the realm of the real world. So where did SEGA-AM2 unleash their pent-up wackiness? In the spin-offs of course!

From 1996 through to today, Virtua Fighter has done everything from turning their adult roster into children, to crossing over with other SEGA fighters and even sharing the ring with a rival franchise! Join us as we look back on the many spin-offs, cameos, and crossovers that the franchise has produced over the years.

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Classic SEGA Ads: Tiger Electronics puts the “L” in Virtua Fighter

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If you thought Virtua Fighter in arcades and on the SEGA Saturn was as real as it could get, Tiger Electronics asks you to think again! Released in 1995, Tiger’s R-Zone (not to be confused with Pizza Hut’s P’Zone) was a portable headset and attached controller that promised a virtual reality experience, but ended up just delivering a headache. Unlike other Tiger Electronic LCD games, R-Zone took cartridges.

Each cartridge contained a transparent LCD display, projecting the game onto a mirrored surface placed just inches from the players eye. As was the norm for VR at the time, red was the color of choice. Leeching off of popular franchises to survive, the R-Zone featured Men in Black, Jurassic Park, Batman, Star Wars, and SEGA’s own Virtua Fighter. Don’t let the ad above deceive you, despite being right in your face, R-Zone’s Virtua Fighter was as far from virtual Virtua Fighter as one could get. Wait… did that kid say “brain chop”?!?

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The SEGA Five: Virtua Fighter Facts

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Welcome to another unexciting episode of The Weekly Five where we create top five list on all things SEGA. I’m your host George and this week we will be talking about Virtua Fighter facts. This is a weird thing to do considering anything can be a fact, so I’ll try to keep it interesting. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something new.

This will also be my last AM2 related Weekly Five for the rest of the year, so I hope you guys enjoy it! Let’s dive right in.

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Play Virtua Fighter 2 with SEGAbits on XBLA this Friday!

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To celebrate the last week of SEGA AM2 month with Virtua Fighter, the SEGAbits crew are planning on having a couple game sessions over on Xbox Live Arcade by playing Virtua Fighter 2 with our visitors and forum members. The game session will begin on Jan 30th, Friday at 12pm EST (9 AM PST).

To join us in a couple of matches, you could either follow us on Twitter and send us a direct message with your XBL gamertag or add “KoriSX15” with a message typed “VF2” to the gamertag. So be sure to put your skills to the test and show us what you got this Friday! Juunen hayainda yo!

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SEGA Retrospective: Kicking off Virtua Fighter Week

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As SEGA-AM2 Month enters the final week, we thought it would be fitting to shine the spotlight on the developer’s longest running and most influential series – Virtua Fighter. One of SEGA-AM2’s defining traits is their ability to create “pure” gaming experiences. Looking at their catalog, they seem to have a penchant for taking a simple concept – be it fighting, racing, flying, or shooting – and translating it to a near-perfect 3D arcade experience. I hesitate to call SEGA-AM2’s games simulations, as gameplay is simple enough for any player and often AM2 titles have a bit of an elastic reality. Virtua Fighter didn’t have any gimmicks – there were no fatalities, weapons, adjustable bouncing breasts, or cutscenes. Players simply chose their fighter, each with their own defining style and moves, and fought. This why the term “pure” feels like the best way to describe their many games, and why the Virtua Fighter series is the purest fighting game franchise to ever exist.

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SEGA Retrospective: After Burner II – From SEGA arcade classic to SEGA 3D Classics

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After Burner is just one of those franchises by SEGA that took American arcade goers by storm due to the sheer speed of the game, the eye catching cabinet, and its highly detailed (for the time) graphics. I truly believe that After Burner is just one of those arcade games that don’t get enough credit by gamers today, so jump into your F-14 Tomcat and blast through our After Burner retrospective. You never know, you might learn something!

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SEGA Tunes: A look at SEGA AM2’s underrated Sword of Vermilion OST

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Before SEGA AM2 brought Shenmue to Dreamcast owners everywhere, they created a Japanese RPG in the late 80’s for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. That title would help SEGA-AM2 dip their feet into the console market, that first game was Sword of Vermilion. The game was a early Genesis/Mega Drive title and was one of the spotlight games in SEGA’s timeless “Nintendon’t: advertisement campaign.

While Sword of Vermilion was ambitious for its time, it wasn’t really known as a great game and possibly one of the lesser known games by the publisher. But regardless of that status, the soundtrack for this game is actually great. Composed by Hiroshi Kawaguchi (After Burner, Out Run, and more) and Yasuhiro Takagi (Virtua Racing, F355 Challenge and more), both composers who where literally at the top of their game during this time period.

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Developer Retrospective: We celebrate the legacy of SEGA AM2

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SEGA AM2 is just one of those developers that always puts a smile on my face whenever I talk about their games. Not only do they have one of the most vast libraries, but they also revolutionized gaming in general multiple times over the past decades. Let’s look at the developer that popularized sprite-scaling in the 80s, gave us modern 3D with their Virtua series and created one of the most expensive games ever as we walk through their legacy.

Don’t forget to join us all month long while we talk more about SEGA AM2 and all their legendary franchises.

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