DLC of Christmas Past: A Tree in Station Square

If you caught our latest podcast, you may have heard the moment when AAUK said that he begged for the special Christmas DLC to be included in the XBLA/PSN rerelease of Sonic Adventure. Sadly, it was not, so the only way to experience an early example of DLC is to boot up your Dreamcast with a copy of Sonic Adventure and the Christmas data on your VMU.

The file was originally available for download from December 17th to the 28th in 1999, and when players entered Station Square they were greeted by two Christmas trees complete with Sonic and Chao decorations. If you touched the tree, the music would change to the acapella version of “Dreams Dreams” from Christmas NiGHTS. The best place to get the VMU file and more is at Blue Swirl, where you can burn an application allowing you to use hundreds of VMU files. Enjoy!

Sonic 20th Anniversary Soundtracks Now Available on iTunes

Today, Sega of Japan announced that the Sonic 20th Anniversary Soundtrack would be available on iTunes in Japan, Europe and The United States. The soundtracks include Sonic CD, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 and Sonic Heroes. Also available are two Crush 40 albums including a “Best of” and Jun Senoue’s “The Works”. The albums are only $9.99 American so download now!

 

Watch Super Sonic beat Perfect Chaos in Sonic Generations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REFfrd-yaks

Were you upset that you weren’t able to play as Super Sonic during Perfect Chaos? Well, worry no more! A passionate Sonic fan has modded the PC version with a model swap on perfect chaos.

It’s not perfect, but it’s still pretty awesome to see. There is no download as of yet, but you know there will be one eventually, whether it is through this guy or someone else.

I’m hoping one day someone can mod the PC version to play more like the Sonic Adventure Perfect Chaos battle. I feel like the Generations version of Perfect Chaos is missing that sense of epic speed and scale.

Sonic Generations – Six Screens from Speedy Highway!

Take a gander at these high-speed Sonic Generations screenshots featuring ‘Speedy Highway’ (first seen in Sonic Adventure) now in glorious HD!

I remember playing Sonic Adventure when it first released on Dreamcast and that one particular set piece in Seedy Highway where Sonic Runs down the side of a sky scraper blew my mind. I’d never seen anything so mind bending, graphically stunning (for its time) and fast in a videogame before. It will stay with me for ever; I hope Sonic Generations can recapture the magic of Speedy Highway!

Years of the Dreamcast Part 1: Genesis

Years of the Dreamcast is my first stab at autobiographical writing. It is long and is largely a tribute to the Dreamcast’s effect on my life. For those of you brave enough to read a bit about my boring life, my hat goes off to you. I hope you enjoy reading about my Dreamcast experience, and are willing to share yours with the community as well.

Believe it or not, I didn’t really get into gaming with the SEGA Genesis. Or the SNES. Or any other old school console for that matter. Sure, I PLAYED games on my Genesis and Game Gear back in the day, like Sonic, Lion King, and Ecco, but as soon as the Genesis croaked in 1996 I nearly left gaming all together in favor of other interests, including something that got me to buy a Genesis in the first place: Archie’s Sonic comics. I completely passed over the 32 bit generation, something I now sincerely regret given SEGA had some of its best games during that era.

It wasn’t until 2000 that a game console again caught my interest: a SEGA Dreamcast in a Target demo kiosk. I had been playing the N64 and Playstation in kiosks for years, and as much fun as I had had with them, this new system, this Dreamcast, felt like something special. The game on display, Sonic Adventure, was immediately playable. There was no wandering around or collecting of trinkets required to progress: an entire level was immediately opened up to me after the title screen.

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SEGA Sales: 50% off select XBLA titles (UPDATED)

CVG has just reported that from April 19th through April 25th, Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode I, Crazy Taxi, and OutRun Online Arcade will have their prices slashed by 50%. OutRun will run you 400 points, Sonic 4 will cost 600, and Crazy Taxi will set you back another 400 points. No better time to pick these titles up than now.

SEGA Europe has posted a blog about this same sale that includes ALL of their XBLA titles included in this sale. Pick these titles up NOW. Below is a of the titles on sale.

[Source: CVG]
[Source: SEGA]

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Four SEGA titles make IGN’s list of “so bad it’s good” voice acted games

If there’s one thing I know a thing or two about as a SEGA fan, it’s wonderfully bad voice acting, and apparently Adam Sutton at IGN Australia feels the same way. The article’s a tribute of sorts to games with voice acting so bad that it actually enhances the experience, and SEGA’s all over it: 4 of the 10 games, in fact. Hit the break to see which games made it.

Review: The Dreamcast Collection

Back in November 2010, online retailer GameStop let slip that a title called “The Dreamcast Collection” was to be released. In January 2011, SEGA officially announced The Dreamcast Collection for the XBOX 360 and PC. Between that time, speculation and hype ran rampant. Was the collection to be as massive as the previously released Genesis collection? Were we to receive Power Stone,  Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and many more non-SEGA games on a release published by SEGA? Would the disc contain both Shenmue titles? Once officially announced, many of the expectations were not met. It wasn’t to be an all-out tribute to the console, nor a mega collection of a dozen games. Rather, the Dreamcast Collection turned out to be a disc release of four previously released and soon to be released XBLA titles at a budget price.

Despite not being what many were hoping for, how does the release fair as an XBLA compilation?

SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Sonic Adventure 3

Welcome to SEGA Sequel Saturdays, Episode 6. This week I’m going to take on the challenge of creating another Sonic Adventure, the series in which Sonic broke free from his 2D universe and into full, uncompromised 3D gameplay. We have had many Sonic games since Sonic Adventure 2, but each has been a fairly radical departure from where Sonic’s 3D escapades began back on the Dreamcast. In this episode I’ll look at how a Sonic Adventure 3 could be great, assuming SEGA wouldn’t just be using the “Adventure” name for sales purposes, but actually making another game fully in the Sonic Adventure template. As always, we welcome and appreciate your craaaaaaaazy responses in the Comments section below.

Sonic Adventure Vanquish Remix

Earlier this week I picked up Vanquish in Kmart’s awesome sale, and I am totally in love with the game. The opening cinematic is crazy, brutal, epic and reminded me of another great SEGA game. So, using the powers of YouTube and iMovie I’ve mashed up two intros into one. Take note that this may be a tiny spoiler to those who haven’t seen the first few minutes of Vanquish and the game is rated M for Muthaf*ckin’ Mayhem. Enjoy!

If you haven’t picked up this modern day classic yet, do so now! The sale is still going on, though the game is out of stock online. So run to your local Kmart and get the game.

Sonic levels that should be in Sonic Anniversary


Picking out your favorite Sonic levels is like picking out your favorite child, sometimes its easy because someone failed math and other times its difficult to do, because you hate them all equally.

We have decided to take a crack at compiling a list of Sonic levels we would like to see in Sonic Anniversary (If the details turn out to be true and they seem like they will). I will only go through the main console series, way too many Sonic games to go through spin offs and handhelds.

This is our opinion, if you have some stages not mentioned, give us a comment letting us know how wrong our opinions are.

Review: Sonic Adventure (PSN)

Sonic Adventure was one of the first titles available on the Dreamcast, when it released in the United States back in 1999. Now the game is being ported over to the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

Is Sonic Adventure an old relic that should have stayed on Dreamcast or does its new outing show everyone how great the game always was?

Sonic Adventure Dated and Priced

I have some good news and some good news: Sonic Adventure will be hitting XBLA (and presumably PSN) on September 15th for a mere 800 points or $10!

The low price, in my opinion, makes for a nice impulse or curiousity buy. While I bemoaned SEGA for lack of widescreen, at $10 I’ll be giving this a download just for an easier way to play the game. I hate having to walk to my game shelf to get the Dreamcast version, plug in the VGA box and skip past the screen telling me to set the time and date. Also, achievements would make for some nice replay value.

Let’s just hope they’ve ironed out the bugs.

[Source: Major Nelson’s Blog]

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Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi officially announced for digital download


Big surprise, right?

SEGA has just, finally, officially announced that Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi will be coming to the Xbox Live and Playstation Network services later this year. But more then that, apparently these games will be the first in a slew of Dreamcast games that are going to be made available on the service!

The games will be incorporating all new features including HD visuals, leader boards, achievements/trophies, and surround sound. The games will be at E3, so expect coverage from SegaBits and Sonic Stadium!

These games are expected to launch in Europe this autumn.

Source: SEGA Blog