If you have been waiting for an English demo of Binary Domain while all your friends gobbled up the Japanese demo on the first of the month, then your wait is almost over. You can expect the PS3 demo tomorrow (February 14) and the Xbox 360 one on Wednesday (February 15).
Binary Domain comes out in North America on February 28th, 2012. Are you ready?
Over at the official SEGA of America forums, a fan brought up the ultimate question. Are we going to suffer through throwbacks the whole time like episode one? Good news, Sonic 4 brand manager Ken Balough says that no, we won’t. He confirms that only one of the zones is a genuine throwback.
Also there is going to be a nice unveiling later this month. Now, he does admit that fans will call anything a throwback, only because it’s a similar environment. Read his full response after the jump.
Makoto Osaki and Daichi Katagiri of AM2 sit down with SEGA America and give you some of their history with SEGA and what Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown is all about. Pretty interesting look if you are into Virtua Fighter.
[The artwork above is by StarRanger. Here is his deviantart account.]
This morning I gave out 3 copies of Sonic CD to our twitter followers, if you missed it, no problem. If you comment on this post you will be entered to win a copy of Sonic CD for XBLA. That is right, just comment and using your legit e-mail (we have to be able to contact you).
Why are we doing this? Simple, we fixed an issue the site had with results. Basically it wasn’t indexing the site and if you now Google search us… Bam! Success. Not to mention that February the 6th is our 2 year anniversary! First winner being picked tomorrow on the 4th and the second winner is getting picked on Sunday the 5th. Best of luck.
Edit: Winner for Saturday, February the 4th is Phantoms-Heart. Cheers. You can still enter for tomorrow’s copy by commenting below.
Edit: The Winner for Saturday, Feburary the 5th is Joey. Cheers. The contest is now over. Keep checking back for our next contests later this month.
For all those Kinect owners thinking about picking up Rise of Nightmares, now you can try out the game for free. SEGA has finally released a demo for their horror Kinect title earlier today. Make sure you have 334.26 MB free on your harddrive to play the game.
The demo is Kinect only, so you will have to have the device to play the game.
Seems that Sonic fans get a another discount. This time coming from Microsoft’s 12 days of deals promotion. The 9th day of the sale will feature most XBLA Sonic games at a discount of 66%. Sorry no Sonic CD, but if you want that for free, enter our podcast contest.
The following titles will be discounted today (and today only).
Lots of people have asked me to just publish the e-mail that I was sent in full. Well, hit the jump to read it.
According to the original rumor, the last bit of info confirms that Tails will be playable. Not only that, Metal Sonic would be the main villain. I guess there was something to that marketing for Sonic CD. Reading the info that the source gave, it seems the version he got was pretty early and sections of it weren’t completed yet.
“You can select either Sonic or Tails before loading the first stage, but selecting Tails simply grants you playing as Sonic with a Tails life icon and ‘Tails got through Act X’ messages.”
“The level design consists of many bottomless pit areas and failing to avoid Metal Sonic after he teleports usually results in death.“
I’ll be publishing the full e-mail later tonight for the interested. This seems like a given, at least to me. After Sonic CD coming out ‘before’ they announced this? I pretty much knew it was going to have Metal Sonic. Tails was a given because he was introduced in Sonic 2, so introducing him in Episode 2 makes sense. Like you can assume that Knuckles will be in 3.
Adding to yesterday’s exclusive rumor on Sonic Episode 2, this time we hope that we are revealing the first stage name for the game. According to the anonymous e-mailer the first zone is going to be titled ‘Cryptic Clock Zone’.
“The first stage is titled Cryptic Clock Zone, set in a dark moonlit stonehenge like area. “
I’m pretty sure if this turns out to be true, that this is an original level idea, unlike the first episode that seemed to borrow themes from past Sonic titles. Or am I wrong? Is there a super secret stonehenge inspired Sonic stage that I missed?
Edit: Put rumor in the title after some sites started running the story as a fact. This is a rumor and has been filed under rumor since I posted it.
Back in my original review of Sonic CD, I said that I would return to this game to review it again and see if it warranted a higher grade. While the game does have some great and wonderful improvements, there are still some slightly nagging issues that just cannot be undone. Full follow-up review inside along with a bonus!
We got an anonymous tip from a fellow reader that has actually played Sonic 4: Episode 2 and his opinion on the title wasn’t a positive one. He stated that the game uses the same physics from the first episode.
“I have obtained access to a prototype build via the Xbox Live PARTNERNET program, and what is concerning is that the physics are exactly the same as they were in Episode 1. Yes, letting go of the stick makes Sonic drop like a brick. The reason I am telling you this information is that if it is out in the open, the fans will have a chance to speak out and make Sega delay the game. I am worried if it is left too late Sega will push out yet another disappointing software product.” – Anonymous e-mail
Some fans didn’t seem to hate the new physics, but many did. We have more Sonic 4 information that he leaked, we will be posting something everyday, so come back when you can. Hopefully we can get some screenshots as well.
Edit: Put rumor in the title after some sites started running the story as a fact. This is a rumor and has been filed under rumor since I posted it.
Sega just wanted to remind you how good Renegade Ops was, so they made this accolades trailer! Pretty sure this is exactly the same footage as another trailer just with quotes spliced into it… But hey, why not? It does a good job of showing off what Renegade Ops is all about, driving around and blowing stuff up!
It’s a brilliantly fun game that reminds me of classic top down shooters of the 90’s like Jackle and Desert Strike except in beautiful HD graphics, online play and four player co-op. If you haven’t already got it, go treat yourself it’s on PSN, XBLA and Steam and its well worth it.
This week we are turning up the Christmas light, so get yourself a hot brew and listen to this extended special episode of the Swingin’ Report Show. This week we got me, Sharky and Barry ranting. We also got Sonic Wreck’s Kevin Eva as a special guest, who also used to do Summer of Sonic and worked at SEGA Europe. If that isn’t enough to get you excited, we will also be giving four lucky listeners a copy of Sonic CD for Xbox Live Arcade. Listen in for details.
I wake up this morning from a hazy slumber to go straight to the Android market to see if Sonic CD was uploaded. Expecting near perfect scores for the game, I get shocked to see so many one stars rating from users. It seems that a ton of people are angry due to three factors:
Come on SEGA, fix your damn servers. There is a reason why you have 63 one star ratings and 69 five star ratings. I have a feeling if the servers worked and people would be able to download their data, that it wouldn’t have gotten such low scores, even if you couldn’t install to SD or work on Nexus Prime. If it makes you feel better, its getting near perfect scores on Apple’s iTunes stores because people can actually download the game.
SEGA have done something fantastic today, something you don’t see big publishers doing very often. They have chosen to reach out to the community and nabbed themselves Christian Whitehead aka ‘Taxman’ and his quite marvelous ‘Retro Engine’. It’s my understanding that Whitehead has been developing his ‘Retro Engine’ for quite some time now and gained a name for himself in the Sonic Community, and I can see why. His re-master release of Sonic CD for XBLA, PSN, iOS, Android, Windows Phone and of course PC is really, really good!
Unlike Backbone’s rather poor and often botched efforts at updating SEGA classics, Christian Whitehead’s ‘Retro Engine’ has given us Sonic CD locked at 60fps on every platform, both Euro/Japan and US sound tracks, new features, playable Tails, a choice of filters and modes, achievements and more… It really boasts the lot!
Hit the jump to find out why I think SEGA should snap up Whitehead and his engine!