All Stars Racing Wii U frame rate issues fixed, says Sumo Digital

If anything, the Wii U version is now the closest to the target frame rate, well discounting the PC version that is.

Those are the words from Sumo Digital’s Steve Lycett, who took to the SEGA forums to quell doubts about the reportedly sluggish framerate in the Wii U version of SEGA’s hotly anticipated racer.

With Sumo Digital’s assurance that this potentially crippling issue has been fixed, is anyone planning on picking up the Wii U version?

Play-Asia lists the US version of Valkyria Chronicles 3

Seems that the boys at Play-Asia made an error, the site has a page for the US version of Valkyria Chronicles 3 on the PSP. The issue? The game has not been announced for Western release. So in the end, we have to determine that most likely, Play-Asia’s web team made a mistake… Or maybe SEGA has a few surprises for Valkyria Chronicles fans?

Review: Jet Set Radio (XBLA/PSN)

About two weeks ago I found myself standing outside a movie theater, looking up at all the films listed under “Now Playing”. I had the choice to see any one of the many new movies, and yet in the end I went with “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. Despite owning the film on DVD and on blu-ray, and having seen it a number of times, I still enjoyed it as much (if not more than) any new release. About a week later I found myself downloading Jet Set Radio on XBLA, and feeling the same sense of excitement as I did with “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. It wasn’t so much the game itself, I’ve already played through it about eight times on the Dreamcast. It was the promise that I was about to see a crisp, clean, widescreen, HD, enhanced port of one of my favorite games. Sure SEGA promised this with the Dreamcast Collection, but they largely failed to deliver. Games were lacking crucial content, such as soundtracks or fishing controllers, or failed to offer up widescreen support. So how does Jet Set Radio fare, does SEGA’s Heritage Collection promise a bright future for HD SEGA ports? Find out after the break in our review of Jet Set Radiooooo!

SEGA of Japan brings us some awesome Sonic Adventure 2 HD footage

Never would have thought that SEGA of Japan would be the ones to give us our first real footage of Sonic Adventure 2 HD in action, but here it is! The footage shows off single player, split screen, CG cutscenes (which are their original 4:3 aspect ratio, thankfully not stretched or cropped) as well as Chao, Battle DLC and footage from the bonus documentary. Having seen the Jet Set Radio doc, I am now really looking forward to the ones included with Sonic Adventure 2 and NiGHTS. And is it just me, or is everything better with a bunch of Japanese words superimposed over it?

My Life With SEGA remembers the original Virtua Fighter

This week, AJ looks back on a SEGA classic: Virtua Fighter for the 32X.

Virtua Fighter; an arcade smash in 1993, thanks to its incredible 3D polygon-based fighters – incredible in 1993, that is – and realistic gameplay. It has spawned numerous sequels, spin-offs, not to mention an animated series….

This week, I’m reviewing the game that started it all. Does this sucker have enough fight left in it? Get in the ring and find out, bitch!

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Phantasy Star Online 2 Vita cross-play gets detailed

I’m there with many of you getting excited about Phantasy Star Online 2 on the Vita. I mean, it’s an awesome idea, take the PC game on the go without a big laptop? Awesome idea. Almost as awesome as a console version *nudge nudge SEGA*.  So how is cross-play going to work between the PC and Vita?

  • SEGA will set up ships, some of the ships will be PC only (ships = servers) and on the Vita they will have their own ships only for Vita owners. But don’t worry, there will be several ships that will allow users to play with PC and Vita users. Nice to see this option.
  • Just like the PC version, the Vita game will be free-to-play. Not only that, it will also be a free download. Only downside is that you WILL HAVE TO BE ONLINE TO PLAY. No offline mode at all.
  • Another downside is that you will only be able to have one account per memory card. So if you want to share a Vita with someone, you will have to save up money for a new memory card.

They have also suggested that the Playstation Vita version will be getting a beta. Sounds exciting. Now release the game in the West, come on!

Platinum Games says Bayonetta on PS3 is their biggest failure


Platinum Games developed an instant classic on the Xbox 360, one which received great reviews. The Playstation 3 version on the other hand wasn’t received so kindly. According to Atsushi Inaba, that port was their biggest failure. Not bad, considering that they didn’t develop the port and it was done by an in-house team over at SEGA.

“The biggest failure for Platinum so far, the one that really sticks in my mind, is that port. At the time we didn’t really know how to develop on PS3 all that well, and whether we could have done it… is irrelevant: we made the decision that we couldn’t. But looking back on the result, and especially what ended up being released to users, I regard that as our biggest failure. One thing I will say is that it wasn’t a failure for nothing. We learned that we needed to take responsibility for everything. So on Vanquish we developed both versions in-house. We learned, so it wasn’t a pointless failure, but it was a failure nonetheless.” – Atsushi Inaba

Sadly the team isn’t going to try again on Playstation 3 or the Xbox 360 for that matter, since Bayonetta 2 was announced as a Wii U exclusive.

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SEGA Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed to be one of the 23 launch titles for the Wii U


Some people out there are excited about the Wii U, those people should get a bit more excited now that we know SEGA Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed will be one of the launch titles for the Wii U come November 18th. Another SEGA game to hit the console is Aliens: Colonial Marines, which will come out in the launch window. Meaning don’t bet on playing it day one.

If you want to see all the ‘titles’ announced by Nintendo, hit the jump. So who is buying a Wii U?

“Gods, what have we done?” See the first Total War: ROME II gameplay trailer

SEGA has released an epic trailer for Total War: ROME II showing some pretty amazing in-game footage. Ships! Shouting! Giant statue heads! Elephants!

For the first in-game look at the next title in the award-winning series, The Creative Assembly present a glimpse of the epic warfare and phenomenal detail players can expect when Total War™: ROME II arrives in 2013.

The year is 146BC, brilliant tactician Scipio Aemilianus is dispatched by Rome to break the three-year-long siege of Carthage, an unforgivable blight on the glory of the growing Empire. Ruthless determination and an almost suicidal amphibious assault is required, but the young consul is uncomfortably aware that the price of victory may be much higher than the senate realizes.

Valkyria Duel browser game heading to iOS and Android

While it isn’t making its way to Western gamers (yet), SEGA has announced that the free-to-play browser-based card-battling strategy game Valkyria Duel is heading to Android and iOS. The game has been playable on PC’s for a while, but SEGA and developer NHN Japan promise that the iOS and Android versions will allow players to play the game both at home and on-the-go, with data shared between platforms. Those aren’t lofty promises, so I could see the game delivering on that. Hopefully with the shift to mobile devices, SEGA West will localize the game and give it a release. We’ll have to wait and see.

Thanks to Aki At for the heads up. After the break, screens of the game in action.

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Hey, you got Yakuza in my Border Break!

From the Tokyo Game Show comes a crazy bit of crossover news. While showing off the iOS Border Break game, Gun Front Gale, and the arcade game Border Break Union (version 3.0 of the game), SEGA announced that a number of Yakuza characters will cameo in the arcade version of the game. It seems, however, that it has yet to be revealed just how the characters will be worked in. Only illustrations and the promise of cameos were revealed. As for version 3.0, 10 player co-op will be possible and the game will hit Japanese arcades on October 11th. Click here for more photos from the event.

Thanks to Aki At for the tip!

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Is a new Ecco the Dolphin game in the works?

Could another Ecco the Dolphin game be in the works? The designer of the original SEGA Genesis titles, Ed Annunziata, is pushing for a new title and so far signs are looking good! Scott Foe, a consultant on mobile and social games who worked with SEGA during the Dreamcast years, got Annunziata a meeting with SEGA to discuss reviving the franchise. Annunziata tweeted:

Ecco fans, I need you to follow & tweethank @scottfoe, he convinced SEGA to meet with me now chances of a new Ecco the Dolphin x100!

If that news wasn’t good enough, Annunziata later tweeted: “Spencer is on board! (puttn’ the band back together!) :)”. Annunziata is referring to Spencer Nilsen, the man who composed the beautiful music for the original SEGA CD and Genesis games, as well as the American Sonic CD soundtrack. Could it truly be happening? A new Ecco game? While SEGA is being very careful when it comes to big budget disc releases, releasing another 2D Ecco title as a digital download is surely doable. Just look at Sonic 4, and another Ecco isn’t so crazy in that realm. Better yet, get Christian Whitehead to work on rereleases of the first two titles to accompany a new game. While we all speculate, enjoy some Ecco music after the break. Thanks to ROJM for the tip!

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