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The SEGA Five: SEGA Games That Would Thrive in Virtual Reality

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SEGAVRWhile not every single gamer is sold on Virtual Reality just yet, mostly due to the fact that it is rather expensive to even get a headset and compatible computer, the people that have experienced it all think its the future of gaming. While this is still open to debate, what I do know is that Virtual Reality has opened the door for older types of genres that SEGA pioneered in their long history to thrive. So today on The SEGA Five we will be discussing five genres that SEGA can revive with the help of Virtual Reality.

Before we get started I just want to say that these ideas are to make the games Virtual Reality compatible and not exclusive. I think this would mean that more gamers will be able to enjoy the games, VR headset or not.  The number of gamers with Virtual Reality headsets is too low to spend money on exclusives right now. So let’s get to it.

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Celebrating Sonic the Hedgehog’s 25th anniversary with 25 great underrated moments

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sonic 25 headerSEGA’s Sonic the Hedgehog franchise turns 25 today, and while we’ve celebrated franchise milestone years in the past, there is something really special about this one. A quarter of a century is a long time, and it is a testament to SEGA’s perseverance and the devotion of the Sonic fanbase that the franchise is still going strong. Sonic Lost World and the Sonic Boom franchise – particularly the games – are often pinpointed as the franchise’s recent weak points and signs that the franchise as a whole needs to be put down or at the very least take a long break. While I am not here to debate the merits of Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom, I will say that to end a series or take a long break because of either is both incredibly shortsighted and far too extreme a reaction. I would also argue that Sonic is about much more than just the main series games, as fans like to label the major titles, and that there has always been great Sonic things happening even during the franchise’s darkest years.

In celebration of 25 years of Sonic the Hedgehog, join me in looking back year-by-year as I shine the light on great moments in Sonic history that more people need to be talking about.

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Multiplayer Showcase looks at Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing

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Multiplayer Showcase is the review show where you get to see me and some friends of mine play multiplayer games that have been long forgotten and give it a proper analysis by sharing our opinions on the game in a roundtable discussion to see how things have held up for gaming’s past brightest stars and lowest points.

This episode compares the boxing gloves to the green shells with the Mario Kart-inspired Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. I never got to play this game much with friends locally. I’ve certainly played it online some time ago, but as you might recall, there are limitations added when playing online, so playing with a group of people with everything unlocked lets everyone dig in for some four player action coupled with SEGA nostalgia.

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Unboxing: Rodea the Sky Soldier Limited Edition (Wii U, 3DS)

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While yes, this is not a SEGA product, it IS the long awaited action adventure game from Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka. Naka and his studio Prope had been working on this game for quite some time, and it has been an equal (if not more) amount of time that the game has been delayed. In fact, the game is so old it had to be ported from the Wii to the Wii U! Naka has been pretty vocal about being disappointed with the Wii U and 3DS versions of the game, urging players to try the original Wii version as that is the version he and Prope truly developed.

Having said that, I bought the Nintendo 3DS version. Mainly because the Limited Edition was about $20 cheaper and included the exact same extras. So ignore which version of the game I bought and check out what bonuses came with the NIS America produced Limited Edition version of Yuji Naka’s long awaited Rodea the Sky Soldier!

Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel.

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The History of Sega Japan R&D, Part 4: The Current Sega

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A NEW STRUCTURE, A NEW SEGA

The executive team, Hideki Okamura (Left), Hisao Oguchi (Middle) and Takayuki Kawagoe (Right). These men have been responsible for risque games such as Segagaga, Jet Set Radio and also Sega Saturn and Dreamcast marketing in Japan. With these man, the unique corporate culuture of Sega would continue.

The executive team, Hideki Okamura (Left), Hisao Oguchi (Middle) and Takayuki Kawagoe (Right).

In 2005, Sega was back in the black in all areas for the first time in a long time. The Sega Sammy structure was completed, and the next generation home consoles were ahead. Like in the formation of twelve new R&D studios in 1998, executive management had a reset. Long time executives Hideki Sato and Hisashi Suzuki retired from Sega, after their thirty – or even in Suzuki’s case – forty years of service.

Masano Maeda & Naoya Tsurumi
Masano Maeda & Naoya Tsurumi

As mentioned in Part 3, Hisao Oguchi would atain the highest executive position which he held until 2008 where he received even wider responsibilities as Chief Creative Officer of Sega Sammy.

Then there is Masano Maeda, who joined in 1991. Madea was responsible for building a new Western management team that made crucial partnerships and buyouts of Western companies, like Creative Assembly, Sports Interactive and Secret Level On a side note: the amount of games developed for Xbox 360 amount to roughly forty games, and on PC to about sixty games. On the Dreamcast, the amount comes to fourteen, and old PC releases amount to sixteen.

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NIS America interviews Yuji Naka to promote Rodea: The Sky Soldier

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NIS America just posted an interview with Rodea the Sky Soldier creator Yuji Naka (Sonic the Hedgehog, Chu Chu Rocket and NiGHTS) and director Zin Hasegawa (Fatal Frame series) on their Youtube channel. It’s a pretty interesting interview with Yuji Naka starting off by saying that it has been a long time and it really has, so it’s good to see him do these types of interviews for games again.

Yuji Naka even talks about how he has created games that have to do with speed like Sonic the Hedgehog and flying games like NiGHTS and whether that factored into creating Rodea the Sky Soldier since it has similarities. Listen in and I hope Prope and SEGA work on a project again in the near future.

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Rodea The Sky Solider gets 16-minute gameplay video

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Recently some Japanese game programming decided to take a look at Rodea Sky Solider, since I don’t really understand Japanese and I assume you don’t either, I skipped the video above to the gameplay (and if I did it wrong it starts at the 8 minute mark). A few thing that I noticed was the long loading at the start and the low resolution textures (mostly because the game started as a Wii game).

It was recently announced that NIS America would bring the game to America and Europe this fall; so you’ll be able to play it in English soon enough. The game will be coming to Wii U and 3DS, the video mostly shows off the Wii U version but at the end they show off very little of the 3DS version too (off screen gameplay).

So who is picking up this title?

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Opinion: What Modern Sonic can learn from Classic Sonic

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ClassicSonic
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.

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Nintendo pulls the plug on online features for Wii and DS games

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Nintendo of America has just announced that as of May 20th, you will no longer have access to WiFi connection service on their Wii, DS and DSi games. That will include features like online play, online leaderboards and anything else that it does online. All games will work perfectly fine online.

Honestly this move makes me more weary of Nintendo and actually makes me reconsider the idea of buying a Wii U. I know most people will post and say that I’m overreacting, saying not many people play DS titles online, but it sucks knowing that if we make a party on our forums to play Phantasy Star Ø, as of May 20th, we won’t be able to play online just because Nintendo decided they didn’t want to support online services going on to the next generation.

To see all SEGA games that will be affected, hit the jump.

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Vidya Retro Streaming Feature of House of the Dead

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Watch live video from VidyaRetro on TwitchTV

With the release of Typing of the Dead Overkill on Steam, we get to take a look at it along with other games in the House of the Dead series.

Update: Our livestream is over, but you can expect the Retro crew including Bartman3010, DavidTL, Overlord, Perfect Chaos Zero, GeneHF and Guess Who looking at several titles including The House of the Dead III, The House of the Dead 4, Zombie Revenge, and several random mobile games as well as The House of the Dead Overkill – Lost Reels, and the horrors of the mine cart in Sonic 4 Episode 1. 

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SEGA Australia’s crazy pitch for remaking SEGA classics

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GoldenAxeSEGAReborn
[Above is SEGA Australia’s pre-alpha prototype pitch for Golden Axe remake under their label ‘SEGA Reborn’]

SEGA Australia isn’t known as the type of studio that had too many hits, but it seemed that the team was finally hitting their stride with the Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse remake that is coming out in early September. Sadly that will be the studio’s last game, since it was announced that they will be closing by the end of the year.

Seems that the studio pitched for a series of remakes, most notably ‘Golden Axe’ and all to be in a new label called ‘SEGA Reborn’. That’s not all though, the company thought that all these classics should take place in the same universe. Yes, we are talking about Marvel movie treatment with retro games. That would mean that a game like Out Run takes place hundreds of years after Golden Axe.

Much like its remake of Castle of Illusion, they where open to going in and adding new content and fixing issues the originals had. Some of the other games they talked about remaking included Streets of Rage and Shinobi. Hit the jump to see video of the ‘Golden Axe’ remake that the studio pitched to SEGA. 

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Yuji Naka’s Rodea the Sky Soldier is Still Alive

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Have you been wondering what Yuji Naka has been up to since leaving Sonic Team besides making a bunch of small and kinda neat games? Well, a new action adventure game called Rodea the Sky Soldier was announced for Wii and 3DS, publisher Kadowaka Games released a trailer which can be seen above. So why is it being released for Wii? Well, this trailer was released a little more than two years ago, after which the publisher never spoke of it again. Yuji Naka gave an update a few months later saying that the game was finished, but that they were waiting for Kadowaka Games to publish it. After a while everyone who did know about the game either forgot about it or assumed that it was scrapped.

Now we finally have an update on the title. Yoshimi Yasuda, the president of Kadowaka Games had said that they were having trouble adapting the control scheme to the 3DS version, which is being handled by the publisher. Yasuda said that the version is about 70% finished and that there will be more information in the near future. Maybe it’ll get a re-reveal at TGS 2013? We’ll see.

Prope also released a Digimon RPG called Digimon Adventure for PSP earlier this year in Japan, a western release doesn’t seem likely for this game though.

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High Voltage: “We harbor no ill will towards Sega”

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There have been lots of rumors hitting the internet about High Voltage, one of those rumors was that High Voltage was mad at SEGA for not shipping more copies of the game to retailers. High Voltage’s  Eric Nofsinger decided to tackle the rumors and give the fans answers to misinformation.

“We do wish that Conduit 2 had been carried by more retail outlets but we harbor no ill will towards Sega.”

In the end of the day, I completely forgot this studio existed. Don’t get me wrong, I hope the best to them and their employees, but they have yet to make a game that is spectacular.

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Why Sonic 4: Episode II shouldn’t skip the Nintendo Wii

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There have been a lot of talks since SEGA announced that Sonic 4: Episode 2 wouldn’t be headed for the Nintendo Wii. Many long time Sonic fans got angry, mostly because they only own Wiis. I know some of you might grunt at the thought of only owning a Nintendo Wii, but that’s their choice.

Not to mention that the first title appeared on the Wiiware service, got pretty good scores on the service. So why do you think SEGA pulled it and why do I think they should reconsider putting it back on the Wii?

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