Sonic Talk Episode 10 “Better Late than Never”

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FINALLY!! Yours truly learned how to edit audio and has a double dose of Sonic Talk for you this week!

Sorry about the lateness of this episode. We recorded this just days before We left for the San Diego Comic Con and it took us forever to get it out. This episode has a lot of GX and Nuckles87 getting on each others nerves in a fun way while I’m lucky to get a word in. One thing I’ll say, this week’s episode has more music than ever before.

My Life With SEGA hits the streets in The Crow: City of Angels

Ah yes, that age old question: does an awful movie yield an awful video game? Find out in this week’s My Life With SEGA episode, as AJ suffers though (blast! I already gave it away) the SEGA Saturn game The Crow: City of Angels.

“Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful….well, AWFULNESS is!”

Yeah, I know that’s not the line, but it’s so much more appropriate. Why, you ask? How can the one and only game based on the craptacular sequel to one of the greatest comic-to-film adaptations be anything less than incredible?

Watch it and know my pain.

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Jet Set Radio’s Gum joins the roster of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

Via Nintendo Power scans comes confirmation of another SEGA character joining the racer roster in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: Gum of Jet Set Radio. This latest reveal isn’t as exciting as, say, Vyse or Ryo in the first game. Gum has appeared in a past title in the series, SEGA Superstars Tennis, and her game already has representation by way of Beat. Having said all that, I am personally overjoyed to see Gum added to the game. “What!?” you may say, “Blasphemy! She’s taking a slot from an obscure 16-bit game or some Japanese title that nobody really knows about!”. But hear me out. For starters, the game is severely lacking in female characters, and Gum perfectly fills that role of cool gals from SEGA’s past. Secondly, if Sonic gets seven characters, and NiGHTS gets two, why can’t Jet Set Radio have a second racer? Gum herself is a very unique design, which is something you can’t say about Reala or Shadow when comparing them to other characters represented in their respective IPs. Now, I understand if this riles people up because they will now fear MeeMee of Super Monkey Ball joining the roster. But I say wait it out, we still have more than eleven reveals left. Also, Gum is awesome. Disagree? Sound off in the comments below!

Check out the Nintendo power scans here and here.

The SEGA Five: Revisiting Green Hill Act 1

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In the Sonic universe there is nothing more iconic than the zone that started it all: Green Hill. Any and every SEGA and Sonic fan should know the look and layout of this zone, specifically the first act and even more specifically the first few moments experienced by players. I’m talking about the line of rings, followed by the platform with an item box above and a Motobug below, a Buzz Bomber enters from the right of the screen, passing a palm tree with a spring hidden inside. For many fans, this was their introduction to Sonic as a character and as a franchise. Sonic Team knew the importance of the first zone, as (according to the Sonic Jam strategy guide) it took the team six months to perfect the look and design of Green Hill. In the years that followed, the opening layout of Green Hill reappeared a number of times. In this week’s SEGA Five, I’ll look back on those times, noting the strengths, weaknesses and possible reasons for referencing the classic layout.

My Life With SEGA takes on the whole Empire in Star Wars Arcade

This week, AJ strikes back with an all out attack of the 32X in his review of Star Wars Arcade.

The adventure continues in Star Wars: Episode II – Rise of the 32X, where I review Star Wars Arcade. Yeah, it’s a port of the SEGA-produced arcade game from 1993. Now, SEGA has made some miraculous conversions, such as Virtua Fighter 2 for Saturn and Crazy Taxi for Dreamcast….

Should this 32X exclusive be counted among them?

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San-ei reveals new Sonic the Hedgehog plushes

Japanese company San-ei has revealed a new line of Sonic the Hedgehog plush dolls. They showed off 5 characters scaling from the blue blur himself to Knuckles, Amy, Tails, and SEGAbits favorite Shadow the Hedgehog.

A few years back the company put out similar plush dolls, but they say these will have improved patterns. According to the source San-ei is high quality when it comes to plush dolls. I wouldn’t know, I personally don’t own plush toys. Check out the product page here.

New Phantasy Star Online 2 trailer shows off new content and quests

Phantasy Star Online 2 is still getting summer updates that adds more story quests and much more items to try to collect. This will take you to the planet Lillipa which is known as the Land of the Dragons. Not only that, new outfits and a White Rappy are part of the update too.

This is in Japanese since the game won’t be coming to Europe and United States till 2013. It has been confirmed that the European and US servers will be the same, while Japan will be isolated (unlike the original Phantasy Star Online).

What is Yuji Naka’s studio working on? Digimon Adventures

I know most of you will give me crap for posting this on the blog, since it doesn’t have anything to do with SEGA as a publisher. But let’s be honest, I think we are all interested in what big high profile ex-SEGA developers are up to in the world. This time we look at Yuji Naka’s Prope, who will be working on the upcoming Digimon Adventure.

The game promises to cover the story of the original Digimon anime series and will be a RPG game. Yep, this will be the first RPG from Prope and oddly enough is coming out on the original PSP. So that means no one will probably play it. Find it on shelves in 2013.

Review: Jack Lumber (iOS)

Announced and released on the same day, Jack Lumber, was both a surprise and a curiosity. As the first SEGA Alliance title, Jack Lumber was developed by an external independent developer by the name of Owlchemy Labs and published by SEGA. Per the SEGA Alliance description, SEGA also provided marketing and production support as well as creative consultation. The end result is a fun and unique game that definitely has that SEGA spirit, despite being developed by an external developer.