Week

Art of SEGA: Ristar the Shooting Star

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artofsegaristar
 
All Sonic fans are familiar with the work of Yuji Uekawa. He has been the franchise’s primary character designer for nearly two decades now, taking the reigns in 1996 with Sonic 3D Blast. He’s most notable for completely redesigning Sonic and his friends for the new millennium in Sonic Adventure, and has played a pivotal role in the character design of most Sonic and Sonic Team titles since then.

Before Sonic though, Uekawa had Ristar. He was Ristar’s lead character designer, designing all of the characters in the game including Ristar himself. Unfortunately, there is no art book for Ristar, so we had to rip the designs straight from the Japanese version of the manual, which is filled with beautiful illustrations of Ristar and other characters, as well as a few nice instructional comics and backgrounds. We’ll also be including the sprite artwork from the credits.

The character artwork was taken from SEGA Retro’s Ristar manual scans. The sprite artwork was ripped by Dr. Schnaps. The various bits of trivia and character information can be sourced to Ristar Cluster. Enjoy!

Continue Reading ➜

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Yakuza Week – Day 5 of Bowls & Babes

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“Practice for your first date!”

TWITTER GIVE AWAY – Day 5 of 6

We have two prizes today, winners can finally fulfill their dream of eating like a Yakuza with these bad boys!
Prize 1: Yakuza branded Bowl & Yakuza branded Chopsticks
Prize 2: Yakuza branded Bowl & Yakuza branded Chopsticks

All you have to do to have a shot at winning this awesome prize is follow us on twitter, CLICK HERE follow SEGAbits and simply retweet this message;
“RT & Follow @SEGAbits – YAKUZA WEEK – DAY 5 – CONTEST! Retweet to win Yakuza prizes! Info: http://www.segabits.com/?p=12235“

We’ll pick a winner at random!
If you don’t win, don’t fret, there will be another chance tomorrow!

Day 4 winner is:
Of the Yakuza 4 game (signed) and the Yakuza art book is – Vittoriogiorgi

Congratulations!

Why you should own this game – Day 5 –Reason 5

Any long time Sega fan will notice that there is something uniquely ‘Sega’ about the Yakuza series. It’s hard to put your finger on what makes something a ‘Sega styled game’, you could be playing Panzer Dragon Saga or Jet Set Radio, two completely different games, and yet you’ll know both have a very Sega feel about them. Weird!

It could be down to the music, one of the things Sega rarely fails to impress with. Or it could simply be that the Yakuza series has game play elements reminiscent of other Sega series. I wouldn’t blame you for being reminded of the Shenmue games or even Streets of Rage whilst playing Yakuza. Not to mention Yakuza games are littered with throwbacks to other Sega games, like music tracks, that only the most hardcore of Sega fans would spot. Or… Perhaps it could be that Sega characters have a disproportionate hand to face to ratio? The hands are always massive. (Anyone else noticed this?)

But whatever it is, Yakuza is undoubtedly a Sega game, and if you’re a Sega fan (and I suspect you are as you’re on Segabits.com) then Yakuza 4 is simply a must.

Do yourself a favor and look at our side bar, over there on the right. We’ve made it easy for you to buy! Just click on that BUY NOW button!

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Yakuza Week – Day 4: Of Demon Ninja Turtles!

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“Well, isn’t that strange!”

TWITTER GIVE AWAY – Day 4 of 6

We have just one prize to give away today, but it’s a good one!
Today’s prize is; Yakuza 4 the game, signed by YAZ and the Yakuza 4 Art book!

All you have to do to have a shot at winning this awesome prize is follow us on twitter, CLICK HERE follow SEGAbits and simply retweet this message;
“RT & Follow @SEGAbits – YAKUZA WEEK – DAY 4 – CONTEST! Retweet to win Yakuza prizes! Info: http://www.segabits.com/?p=12213“

We’ll pick a winner at random!
If you don’t win, don’t fret, there will be another chance tomorrow!

Day 3 winners are:
Of the Yakuza 4 game (Signed by YAZ) and branded Chopsticks! – Stinkdeken
Of the Yakuza 4 Art book and branded bowl! – Krup213

Congratulations guys!

Why you should own this game – Day 4 –Reason 4

It’s very rare that a game can be ‘laugh out loud funny’ I find more often than not the attempts to inspire laughter in videogames fall flat and more often then not are pretty cringe worthy.

The Yakuza series is one of the very few videogame series that have got a real, hearty laugh out of me. Whilst the main storylines are a serious affair, just below the surface there is always something to make you chuckle. Be it the often crazy revelations, some over the top heat moves or side missions like outrunning a cross dresser that wants to have his/her way with you. In Yakuza 4 you’ll also encounter some great look-a-likes and Cameos too; such as Dr. Emmett Brown from Back to the Future. Yeah, this game has it all!

Do yourself a favor and look at our side bar, over there on the right. We’ve made it easy for you to buy! Just click on that BUY NOW button!

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YAKUZA WEEK – DAY 3: Of Punching Tigers in the Face!

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TWITTER GIVE AWAY – Day 2 of 6

Today, like day one we have 2 prizes to give away!
Prize one: Yakuza 4 Art book & Yakuza 4 branded Bowl!
Prize two: Yakuza 4 game signed by YAZ & Yakuza 4 branded Chopsticks!

All you have to do to have a shot at winning these awesome prizes is follow us on twitter, CLICK HERE follow SEGAbits and retweet this message;
“RT & Follow @SEGAbits – YAKUZA WEEK – DAY 3 – CONTEST! Retweet to win Yakuza prizes! Info: http://www.segabits.com/?p=11998
 “

We’ll pick a winner at random!
If you don’t win, don’t fret, there will be another chance tomorrow!


Day 2 winner:
jegarcia
Congratulations!

Why you should own this game – Day 3 –Reason 3

That story!

I love my fair share of Japanese games; in fact, looking at my collection I tend to prefer Japanese games than western games. That said one thing I find the Japanese are trailing behind the West with is really good stories in games. Whilst I’m a firm believer in game play before storyline when it comes to videogames if a game has both it’s always a plus!

Story driven Japanese games are often made for a Japanese audience, (and rightly so) but that often means they’ll be littered with the kind of clichéd characters and plots I’ve seen a hundred times by now are wearing thin. Yakuza games are right on top of the game when it comes to interesting mature plots and compelling, likeable characters and it’s easily as good as any of the top story driven western games I’ve played.

Whilst Yakuza 3 lost a bit of its flair and became quite tame and monotonous at times, Yakuza 4 took the series back to the top of its game with four playable characters each with uniquely thrilling stories and backgrounds.

Do yourself a favor and look at our side bar, over there on the right. We’ve made it easy for you to buy! Just click on that BUY NOW button!

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YAKUZA WEEK – DAY 1: Of Underwear Theft and Contests!

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Video of the Day: Yakuza 4 Revelations – Essence of Triple Strike


Why you should own this game, Day 1 – Reason 1: There isn’t a bad time to jump in!

Every time a new Yakuza game is about to release I see the same question cropping up in every forum I visit; ‘Can I buy this game now or do I have to play the series from the start to understand the storyline?’

You can jump in RIGHT AWAY; Each Yakuza game has its own story arc with a beginning and an end. If you don’t care to know about the series history you can play right off the bat and you won’t feel lost at all.

However if you are one of those kinds of people who just needs to know all the history of the game and the characters, Yakuza 4 has you covered. At the start of every Yakuza sequel so far there’s the chance to ‘reminisce’, which is a fancy way of saying ‘watch videos of the events of the previous games’ and they go really in-depth too!

Do yourself a favor and look at our side bar, over there on the right. We’ve made it easy for you to buy! Just click on that BUY NOW button!


TWITTER GIVE AWAY – Day 1 of 6

Prize 1: A Yakuza 4 Branded Bowl & Yakuza game signed by YAZ
Prize 2: A Yakuza 4 Art Book & Yakuza 4 branded chopsticks

All you have to do to have a shot at winning these awesome prizes is follow us on twitter, CLICK HERE follow SEGAbits and retweet this message;

“RT & Follow @SEGAbits – YAKUZA WEEK – DAY 1 – CONTEST! Retweet to win Yakuza prizes. info: http://www.segabits.com/?p=11634”

We’ll pick a winner at random!

If you don’t win, don’t fret, we’re here all week!

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Yakuza Week at SegaBits!

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Today is the first day of a very special week, (My week starts on a Thursday, deal with it!) The next 7 days will from this point on, officially be known as Yakuza Week! I’ve informed the Queen of England, the President of America and Colonel Gaddafi.

Each day this week I’ll write an article about my favorite things Yakuza 4 has to offer and why (if you haven’t already) you should go out and pick this game up right away!

Why? Well, because the Yakuza series is one of my favorite videogame series of all time, is criminally underrated (lol pun) and it should be one of yours too.

Not to mention Sega have generously donated us all these awesome prizes to give away! To win all you have to do is follow SEGAbits on twitter and we’ll pick winners at random! (Prize details coming up shortly!)

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