Yakuza

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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ICO & Shadows of the Colossus creator tweets about being a SEGA fan

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Fumito Ueda is one of my favorite people in the industry and runs one of the best teams at Sony, Team ICO. They are working on the upcoming (and excellent looking) title, The Last Guardian.

Fumito Ueda talked on twitter about how he has been a massive SEGA fan since they released the Mark III in Japan. I have actually heard about him being a big SEGA fan and actually being friends with Ryuta Ueda (who worked on Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon series and Yakuza series). They even have the same last name… weird?

Something about Team ICO’s games always reminded me of Panzer Dragoon… I could never put my finger on it.

[Source: AndriaSang]

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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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Toshihiro Nagoshi Talks Binary Domain

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Binary Domain, Nagoshi’s new shooter, was revealed back in January. We saw a trailer that didn’t give much away about the game and we haven’t heard much about it since. Talking to Famitsu, Nagoshi didn’t give much away! Why? Because as much as he would like to tell you more about Binary Domain, he isn’t allowed to!

”To be honest, there’s very little that we can actually reveal at this precise time,” he admitted to Famitsu.
“There’s a lot I want to talk about; it’s practically all about to burst out of my mouth, but I just have to keep it all bottled up for now. All I can really say is that it’s getting better by the day.”

Hit the jump to find out more!

Continue Reading ➜

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First piece of Yakuza 4 DLC up for grabs today

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Well, this is an improvement over Yakuza 3’s DLC. You get this pack for free. It raises the limits of your character’s strength and stamina, and also picks up your relationship with Haruka to a higher point. Oh, and two new karaoke songs.

There are also four new themes (not so free, except to PS+ users), each highlighting a different character of the game. They include Kazuma, Akiyama, Tanimura and Saejima. For normal PSN members, these will run you $2.99 each (£1.99, €2.49).

Pictured below is Akiyama’s theme. The rest of them are pictured at the SEGA Europe’s Blog, linked below.

[Source: SEGA]

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This is Yakuza director Toshihiro Nagoshi’s cat…

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I guess someone emailed Nagoshi to post picture of his cat and guess what? Here he is. He didn’t post the cat’s name sadly, so we will call him Moko. Yes, that sounds like a Nagoshi type name.

Below is a few more pictures, if you are into looking at other people’s cats. Here I thought the cat would have been more brown…

[Source: AndriaSang]

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Yakuza keeping looters at bay in Japan?

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Here in America, if someone farts too loud everyone begins to loot their local Wal-Mart. In Japan, after a huge Earthquake and Tsunami, it seems that crime and looting is rather low. Why is that?

“In times of crisis, there are not Yakuza and civilians or foreigners. There are only human beings and we should help each other.”- Yakuza Boss

It seems major yakuza familes have squads that are patrolling the streets, just like police would do says Slate. Good to know that even people that are considered criminals can realize that you should help your neighbors when they are in need. Kazuma Kiryu would be proud!

[Source: Slate Via: Japanator]

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Sega – The Earthquake Affects News Round Up

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We’ve all seen the devastation in Japan caused by the earthquake, tsunami and the ongoing nuclear worries. Many companies have felt the effects, not least Sega, who have donated a considerable amout of money to the recovery efforts. In this article I will cover all of the Sega related infomation we have linked to the earthquake.

Donations:
Sega have been extremely generous when it comes to donations from both sides of the pond.

-Sega Japan is donating 200 million yen to support recovery efforts. That is approximately £1,542,827 GBP or $2,481,722 USD.

-Sega Europe and Sports Interactive have donated all of their revenue from the Football Manager app starting from last Friday for the next 7 days to the disaster relief funds in Japan.

-Sega America will donate all proceeds from Sonic iOS titles to the Red Cross disaster relief funds in Japan.

As an added incentive Sega have even lowered the price of the Sonic iOS games for this week, there is simply no excuse not to go get them right now!

Find out more after the jump:

Continue Reading ➜

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Two new Yakuza: Of the End Trailers – Amazing!

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With every new trailer and every new bit of information we come across the crazy Yakuza spin off title ‘Ryu Ga Gotoku: Of the End’ AKA ‘Yakuza: Of the End’ just looks better and better.

I hope with this title the series starts to get the recognition it deserves in the West because Sega pulled off a pretty amazing feet putting out a Yakuza game the size of any good RPG pretty much year on year and each time it has got better and better with the exception of Yakuza 3 which didn’t quite live up to the events of Yakuza 2, story wise in my opinion. With this and the English release of Yakuza 4 I’m going to be deep in the Japanese underworld all year in 2011!

Hit the Jump for trailer two!

Continue Reading ➜

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Yakuza, Producer & Director Interview

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Here is an interview conducted by Game Trailers at Tokyo Game Show with Yakuza producer Masayoshi Kikuchi and director Jun Orihara.

The two discuss the story and characters of Yakuza 4 and go onto talk about the direction of the series as a whole. They also confirm that like Yakuza: Kenzan, Yakuza: Of the End is indeed a spin off and not cannon. They mention wanting to continue both the main ‘numbered’ series and the spin-offs.

Yakuza Sci-fi anyone? Punch Aliens in the face? Or a Yakuza Fantasy with Japanese mythology maybe? Punch real dragons in the face?!

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