Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III beta survey goes live

dawn-of-war-iii-09-23-16-4If you are are looking forward to playing SEGA and Relic’s Dawn of War III, you are in luck as beta sign-ups have already gone live. The survey asks you questions on your history with Warhammer franchise, where you play your games and experience with strategy games. If you are a SEGA fan that have always wanted to give a franchise like Dawn of War III a chance, I’d recommend signing up.

Beta Survey

Dawn of War III is set to blend aspects of what made Dawn of War and Dawn of War II some of the best selling strategy PC games of all time. Dawn of War III is set to release sometime this year, seven years after the release of Dawn of War II.

Rumor: Shenmue I & II HD Remasters coming by the end of 2017

RoundTableShenmue2“But that’s none of my business”

According to Rice Digital, an online gaming shop who has had close sources in Atlus and leaked announcements in the past has said that Shenmue I & II HD Remasters are in the works. The source also tells Rice Digital that the games could be released together and should be out before the end of the year. The same person leaking this information over at Rice Digital also leaked that Atlus was publishing King of Fighters XIV, which turned out to be true.

Here is the weird part of the rumor, Shenmue I & II HD Remasters are said to be set for PC/Steam release but doesn’t indicate other consoles such as PlayStation 4, Xbox One or Nintendo Switch. While I personally game on PC and would be more inclined to play it on PC, it also needs to be on at least the PlayStation 4. Of course the rumor doesn’t rule out that it could be coming to consoles, only that they know there is a PC/Steam release. Shenmue I & II HD Remasters are looking more and more like a solid thing. Remember a few months back we talked about the leaked domains, last year in September SEGA teased saying the Shenmue I & II HD remasters had their full attention and now this rumor starts popping up. What is your thoughts on this rumor and what would like to see changed or updated for the Shenmue I & II HD Remasters? Let us know in the comments below.

 

Dawn of War III’s latest trailer prophecies war

SEGA and Relic Entertainment are marching towards war, especially with the latest Dawn of War III trailer ‘Prophecy of War‘. Dawn of War III is the latest installment in the highly popular series, the last expansion released was back in 2011 with Dawn of War II: Retribution. While Dawn of War and Dawn of War II differ greatly in gameplay, Relic Entertainment has said that they are mixing aspects of both games to create Dawn of War III.

If you watch the trailer, you get a sneak peek at the Imperial Guardsmen, a faction that hasn’t been announced yet. Sadly Dawn of War III still doesn’t have a release date, all we know is that its releasing this year on Microsoft powered PCs.

Lighting mod for Sonic Adventure DX restores Dreamcast lighting effects

SAVCbkT

Sonic Retro user Morph and several others have gone through Sonic Adventure DX and created a mod that restores the lighting effects that were previously seen in the original Sonic Adventure into the PC version. The difference gives off more vibrant colors in the environment that also reacts to objects and characters. You can download the mod from the discussion thread in Sonic Retro’s forums.

Lighting can be used to set a specific tone or mood in an environment. But why is it such a difficult thing to remain consistent when converting this to other game platforms? The game featured an artistic shift that occurred when the game was converted to other platforms. A combination of technical hurdles and creative liberties can dampen the original artistic intent, and Sonic Adventure is no exception. The original Dreamcast version featured a “Lantern” engine which provided impressive looking lighting effects using palettes on SEGA’s then cutting edge game console. However the dozens of ports of the game left out these lighting effects in favor of using drop shadows instead, until now. Check out additional videos, comparison screenshots and an interview with Morph on the mod after the jump!

Humble Monthly Bundle has Total War: Warhammer for $12

humbletotalwarmonthlybundleSEGA has teamed up with Humble Bundle, a charity driven PC game store to offer gamers Total War: Warhammer for $12 bucks. Getting Total War: Warhammer for $12 bucks is a huge deal, considering that this seems to be the lowest price for the title. But there’s more, you also unlock at least six more games at the end of the month. Last month’s bundle had big titles like X-COM 2, Ryse: Son of Rome, Abzu, and more. If you pay the monthly fee of $12 dollars now, you can download Total War: Warhammer today and start enjoying the game. Just make sure that at the end of the month, when all the games unlock, you cancel your membership or they’ll charge you for the next month.

Is Total War: Warhammer worth the $12 dollars? Well the game has mix ratings over on Steam but manage to score well with critics. Why the mix feelings from fans? Most fans say this is the best Total War game created but are a bit disappointed on how SEGA and Creative Assembly have implemented DLC. Looking at the DLC for the game I don’t blame them, having two packs costing $18.99 for new races is a bit steep. There is also a few free pieces of DLC like Grombrindal the White Dwarf and Wurrzag.

Going to be honest, I think Total War: Warhammer for $12 plus more games at the end of the month is a steal. If you like Total War or these type of strategy PC games, give it a shot. There is also a Mac compatible version for those readers not running Windows.

Steam Sale: Dreamcast Collection Titles $1.99 Each

Screenshot_63

Do you need a handy, cheap Black Friday game gift, or perhaps want to finally jump into some classics for a paltry amount? Then SEGA has the deal for you. Until November 28th, every title under the “Dreamcast Collection” bundle, which includes Crazy Taxi, NiGHTS Into Dreams…, Jet Set Radio, SEGA Bass Fishing, Space Channel 5: Part 2, and Sonic Adventure DX are all available for a staggering $1.99 USD each. All of these games are priced at $7.99 normally, and normally buying them all together would be at least thirty dollars. That’s about an eighteen dollar difference for all of them.

Please note that the bundle itself is not discounted, and that Sonic Adventure 2, another Dreamcast classic released alongside NiGHTS and JSR, is not included in this sale. You will have to buy each game individually to make use of the discounts. So get on it, already!

Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena demo now on Steam

Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena demo header

A Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena demo has been released on Steam, allowing users to sample the game’s online multiplayer mode with 3 of the 16 characters.

Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena was released to Steam on July 28th, 2016 and is based on Blade Arcus from Shining 2.1 EX, the most recent arcade version. It’s a 2D fighting game featuring characters from the Sega-published Shining Blade and Shining Hearts games.

Unfortunately, the game has potentially only sold a little over 2,000 copies if you go by the numbers SteamSpy suggests for it. Hopefully those excited to try it before buying will be able to find some online opponents this week thanks to the demo’s release.

The full game features a Story Mode, Training Mode, and local Versus Mode in addition to the Online Mode the demo restricts you to. If you fall in love with it, thankfully you’ll always have those and the new weekly tournament event to fall back on.

Casino Nights DLC now free to all Sonic Generations owners on Steam

sonic generations casino nights dlc

In a surprising announcement at the end of this week, Sega has made the Casino Nights DLC free to anyone who owns Sonic Generations on Steam.

The news was revealed rather quietly a couple of days ago in a post to the Sonic Generations page on the storefront:

We are pleased to announce that from this point onwards, the ‘Casino Night’ DLC will be made available to ALL current and future Sonic Generations customers at no additional cost.

sonic generations casino nights dlc table

The Casino Nights DLC allows players to experience a pinball map based upon the beloved stage from the Sega Genesis classic Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

This is definitely a welcome surprise for a game released nearly 5 years ago. Naturally, some Negative Nancies in the comments on the post were immediately asking for a refund if they had purchased the DLC in the past. Even if they did so years ago.

The DLC itself has been met with many negatives reviews on Steam from buyers who did not read the description before purchasing it. Many seemed to blindly buy the package, thinking that they would be playing the classic original stage instead of brand new content inspired by it. We here at SEGAbits understand the issue for these Steam users: a one sentence description is a lot to sit through!

Have you played the Casino Nights DLC? Will you be downloading it this weekend to check it out? Let us know in the comments!

Retro Community Day on Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Today at 11PM UTC

Play Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed with the Sonic Retro & SEGAbits community! We’ll be playing the PC version on Steam and livestream it. It’s not too late to send a friend invite to us (SEGA Channel Retro) to come play. We’ll pool together 9 players and play for two rounds, then we will restart the room to let more people play. You may get a chance to play with us more than once! Be sure to run Transformed to make it easier to get you spotted, but we’ll try to make sure everyone gets to play with us at least once!

Retro Community Day Returns with Sonic Transformed on PC this Saturday

SonicTransformed

Once upon a time, Sonic Retro hosted the Retro Community Day where everyone came to play games with us and the community and just be our general goofy selves.This weekend we’re bringing it back with Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed on PC/Steam this Saturday at 5PM Central. Send your friend request on Steam to my (Bartman3010) account, which I conveniently named SEGA Channel Retro and watch for an invite to come play with us! We’ll be livestreaming the event to record my great feats. Or is that me getting horribly beaten? In any case, send in your requests early and come see us this weekend!

SEGA says Shenmue 1 & 2 HD remakes have their full attention

Shenmue_HD_remasters_Sega_comment[1]SEGA Europe’s boss Jurgen Post has recently talked about the possibilities of doing Shenmue 1 & 2 HD remakes and ressured the fanbase that they have been looking into renewing licensing to do the remakes correctly.

This is what SEGA Europe said about the Shenmue 1 & 2 HD remakes:

“There is definitely a desire [to go back to our classic games], Even online, people are constantly talking about products they would like to see come back, and Shenmue 1 and 2  are probably in the top two places. We are looking into it. It is an old IP, it is a beloved IP – and not just by consumers, but also within Sega, we have people saying that if we could do Shenmue 1 and 2 all over again, we’d definitely go for it. The issue is that it is a big game. It is a project from many years ago. If we are to do it, we’d want to do a fantastic conversion to the current platforms, and there are a lot of licences in the game, which were cleared many years ago, so we will need to renegotiate those contracts. We are looking into it. We haven’t given it a green light, but it has our full attention.” – Jurgen Post, President and COO of SEGA Europe

This whole licensing issues from old games have plagued SEGA in the past when they ported over Crazy Taxi on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, omitting the iconic soundtrack due to SEGA not wanting to pay the licenses for the old tracks. This lead fans to getting upset and ever since then SEGA has made an effort to gather all the licenses when remaking or porting games. The last big examples include Castle of Illusions (which, now expiring license is making them pull it from shops) and Jet Set Radio.

What are your thoughts? Does Shenmue 1 & 2 HD remakes seem like a reality now? Jurgen Post has been teasing the return of classic franchises for awhile now, do you really think SEGA Europe actually have something up their sleeves?

[Source: MCVUK]

SEGA News Bits: Virtua Fighter Trademark Renewed & What That Means

Welcome to another episode of the SEGA News Bits, this time we will be discussing SEGA renewing their Virtua Fighter trademark and what that actually means. We discuss the often fan requested Virtua Fighter 6, we talk about life of the franchise after the release of Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown and if there is even a market for a brand new VF game. So sit back, turn up the volume and lets have a virtua discussion about Virtua Fighter.

Like always if you like our SEGA News Bits segments and want to throw us some love, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Monster Boy’s Gamescom Trailer Looks Wonderful

We are very excited over here to get our hands on Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom later this year. If you haven’t heard, Monster Boy is a successor to the Wonder Boy series of games. Its crazy that we will be getting a spiritual successor and a remake of Wonder Boy III within the same time frame. I think we can consider ourselves a lucky bunch since the last official Wonder Boy game came out all the way back in 1994.

We actually got to talk to Monster Boy developer Fabien Demeulenaere on our Swingin’ Report Show Podcast where he talked about the process of getting the game off the ground, how he started working with Wonder Boy creator Ryuichi Nishizawa and how the Wonder Boy copyrights work with this title.

Check out the trailer and if its tickling your nostalgia funny bone make sure to pick it up when it launches later this year on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.  More information from the developer FDG Entertainment after the jump.

Platinum Games Teases Possible Vanquish PC Port

1290338-dtihgkIts coming up almost six years since Platinum Games released their console title Vanquish which received a positive score from critics but sadly didn’t result in a high seller for either SEGA or Platinum Games. Now Platinum Games co-founder Atsushi Inaba is teasing of a possible PC release. If you didn’t know, Vanquish was one of the games asked for by the folks behind the ‘SEGA PC Ports’ fan movement that garnered the attention of SEGA.

When asked during a interview Inaba said“If you stop recording, I can talk about that.” referring to the PC port ofVanquish. But then said it would depend on the publisher (SEGA).

“[W]e’re good friends with Valve and often go to their studio. We go there, hang out, talk about many different things, and we are very interested in Steam and would definitely like to release games on Windows. Right now, we’re at a place in which publishers ask us to make titles. So, if the publisher doesn’t want to release a PC version, then there won’t be a PC version. It really comes down to that.”

So while he is up for Platinum Games to port the game, he is pretty much saying that the ball is in SEGA’s court. SEGA on the other hand have been teasing more PC ports and even considered the PC port of Vanquish a high priority. After the success of the PC port of Valkyria Chronicles, which sold almost a million units, don’t be surprised if SEGA announces a port of Vanquish very soon. I just don’t expect Platinum Games to be the one to port it, mostly due to their busy schedule.

What do you think? Are you waiting for a PC port of Vanquish? What other SEGA games do you want to see on PC?

Blade Arcus from Shining EX releasing to PC on July 28th in the west

ss_ef13e4cb7f44a0b17f90f577be9337087a84f54e.600x338

Blade Arcus from Shining EX, a fighting game featuring characters from SEGA’s Shining series, has been announced to be coming west to the PC through Steam thanks to the developer Studio Saisenzen, who is also acting as publisher. The game originally released in Japan in late November of 2015 for the PS3 and PS4 and was published by SEGA. Fans of the original Genesis/Mega Drive era games should put a damper on their excitement as the Shining characters appearing in this game are from the recent titles in the series. Still, it is very cool to see titles that typically would never release west receiving localizations. The game will be re-titled Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena and is set to release on July 28th.

You can learn all about the game on the Steam page, and stay tuned to SEGAbits for a potential review once the game releases.