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Creative Assembly and Extra Credits Want to Teach You About Roman History

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When I was at this year’s PAX Prime, I tried to see if I could play Total War: Rome II to write up a preview for a genre I’m not terribly great at. After a few seconds it quickly dawned on me that the time I was going to invest wasn’t going to do this game any justice. I’m not a guy who does great at Real Time Strategy, nor did I come from an education system that would span further from Texas history. However, through some of their marketing money, Creative Assembly has teamed up with the folks behind Extra Credits to give you an overview of Roman history through a series of videos starting today on the Punic Wars. If you’re playing the game and don’t understand everything the story of Rome II is telling, this ought to help provide a better understanding, or for people like me, its great to see developers doing some good to go to new efforts just to teach people about history. That and, well, probably to make sure this doesn’t happen again…

Still its great to see efforts like this happen between the two, and its great for SEGA to even allow their marketing money to be used in this form. Be sure to watch the video and stay tuned to the Extra Credits Youtube channel for more on Roman history.

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PAX ’13 – Heroki Demo Impressions

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At this year’s PAX 2013, SEGA is hitting it off with another indie developer under the SEGA Alliance brand. This time lending a hand to a developer from the Netherlands, Picomy Games, to release their action game Heroki to iDevices. I was joined in by two of the developers, Michael Balm and Bobby Bouman, as well as SEGA Alliance producer John Eternal as they showcased a build running on an iPad to help explain the game mechanics and provide some insight on the development on the game.

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New Hero Bank trailer shows off both combat and exploration elements

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SEGA of Japan has released a new action-packed trailer for Toshihiro Nagoshi’s upcoming 3DS RPG, Hero Bank. The footage provides us with a good look at the cinematic battles, which appear to feature a mix of menu-driven and action-driven gameplay: though the trailer’s editing makes it tough to tell exactly what the balance will be. While the battle scenes are voice acted, it looks like much of the rest of the game’s dialogue will be handled through text boxes.

The trailer also shows that Hero Bank will include some exploration elements, with the main character shown wandering through locations including a city street and classroom. The anime-driven visual style reminds me (during the non-combat sections) somewhat of the look of Shun Nakamura’s Ryhthm Thief and the Emperor’s Treasure from last year, though thankfully Hero Bank will have explorable environments instead of a point and click system. The look and feel of the battles is reminiscent of Saturday Morning anime cartoons.

Specifics, especially with regard to Hero Bank’s combat system, are tough for me to judge at this point, as battles look to be text-heavy and as of now no Western release has been announced. The game is said to be targeting a younger audience, comes from Yakuza and Super Monkey Ball mastermind Toshihiro Nagoshi, and will be releasing on December 19th in Japan for the 3DS.

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Sonic Generations 3DS to hit e-shop in two days, be priced at $29.99?

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According to Vernon Schieck on twitter, famous for being a ‘not-so-secret behind-the-scenes gaming tipper’, SEGA is going to release a digital version of Sonic Generations on Nintendo’s e-shop. Problem? They want to charge users the premium price of $29.99 for a old game.


Honestly, I know SEGA is capitalizing on new Nintendo 3DS owners that want to play a Sonic game before Sonic Lost World comes out later in the fall, but charging them a premium price isn’t how you do it.

How much do you think SEGA should charge for a digital version of Sonic Generations on the 3DS?

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Bayonetta, Rodin, and Jeanne to cameo in The Wonderful 101

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For the first time, to my knowledge, we’re covering The Wonderful 101 news by way of the reveal that Bayonetta characters Bayonetta, Rodin, and Jeanne have been announced to cameo in the Platinum Games developed and Nintendo published game. Hideki Kamiya, director of Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101, made the announcement at PAX today. What is interesting about this announcement is that this is the first time fully owned SEGA characters from Platinum Games have appeared in a game fully owned by Nintendo. So it’s sort of a SEGA, Nintendo, Platinum Games crossover. No further details have been revealed, thus explaining why I’ve been stretching this little bit of news out to a paragraph length.

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New returning characters announced for Yakuza Ishin, including the return of Nishiki

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Nine returning characters have been announced for the upcoming Yakuza Ishin. The list so far includes popular characters like Ryuji Goda, Akira Nishiki and Date. But who are they playing in this game? If you haven’t read, the game will take old characters from the Yakuza universe and plant them as characters during the bakumatsu period in Japan.

To see all twelve returning characters and their roles in the new game, hit the jump.

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Bayonetta director interested in spin-off for 3DS starring Jeanne

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Jeanne Bayonetta Spinoff
Platinum Games has just released The Wonderful 101 on the Nintendo Wii U, their first game with Nintendo and another game by Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya. At PAX, Siliconera asked Kamiya if he would want to make a game on the Nintendo 3DS and Kamiya said he had two ideas for the handheld.

“Given the chance, I’d like to make a game based on Jeanne from Bayonetta. Something that’s not as big in scale. Something that’s portable, that you could play in quick sessions, where she’s a history teacher and the kind of fun things that could come out of a scenario like that.” –  Hideki Kamiya (Director of Bayonetta, The Wonderful 101)

So what was the second idea? Well, if you are an Okami fan, time to hit that jump button.

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Review: Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F

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Warning: the review you are about to read is very bright and colorful. If you hate bright neon and colorful things, well.. you have been warned 😉

So it’s finally happened, a Hatsune Miku game has been translated to English and released in the Western hemisphere. Is the Project Diva series as good as people say it is? Read on to find out how I have experienced my first Hatsune Miku game.

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Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F launch trailer

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Hatsune Miku Project Diva F is out now in North America both in retail and on PSN. In Europe the game has been delayed to next week and is only available digitally. I’ve started playing the game today and it is a lot of fun. I plan to have a review up by next week, maybe this weekend if I get through the game faster than I think I will. So, stay tuned!

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My Life with SEGA returns this October with an Alien-packed season 2 premiere

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The SEGAbits YouTube channel original series My Life with SEGA will return this October with a three part assault on the Aliens franchise! On October 2nd, AJ revisits the Alien Trilogy, a game he reviewed way back before the series moved to SEGAbits. October 16th sees the battle of Aliens vs. Predator, and then the infamous Aliens: Colonial Marines lands the day before Halloween. Check out the trailer above, and mark your calendars!

Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel.

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SEGA Australia’s crazy pitch for remaking SEGA classics

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[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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SEGA’s PAX lineup reveals Heroki for iOS

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Could the SEGA Alliance program be continuing? SEGA Blog’s latest post has revealed their PAX Prime 2013 demo lineup, which includes a game that has not been mentioned by SEGA until now. The Seattle event will feature Sonic Lost World, Total War: ROME II, Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F, and Heroki at booth #142/242. Heroki, by iOS developer Picomy Games, is described as a “platformer that is a story based action/adventure game but different from regular run and jump type of platformers, many people are already familiar with. The core of the game lies on the flying aspect, giving the player much more freedom then regular platformers. Sure, Heroki can also walk/run but he’s at his finest in the air where he can perform lots of different abilities providing a unique experience that is ideal for a touchscreen.”

The Picomy Games blog features screens, art, and gameplay footage of Heroki, however the blog itself hasn’t been updated since October 2012. Perhaps SEGA and Picomy have been working on the game together since the indie’s blog went silent? Check out some gameplay footage after the break!

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Saints Row IV pays tribute to Streets of Rage

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[Warning: Spoilers]

The latest entry of the Saints Row franchise came out last month and in the full game there is a part in the story mode where you play as a retro side-scrolling beat ’em up arcade game called ‘Saints of Rage‘. Sound familiar?
If you want to see gameplay, hit the jump but I warn you the gameplay reminds me more of ‘Double Dragon‘ than Streets of Rage.

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