So Apple is launching the new iPad 3 today and SEGA is celebrating by giving away a free copy of ChuChu Rocket HD and Brick People to iPad users. This is according to SEGA, I don’t know if you can snatch them up on iPhone, iPod Touch or even on an older model iPad.
If you guys own an older apple device with access to the iOS store, get on and see if you guys can get it for free and let us know in the comments. Happy gaming!
Most of the retro Sonic titles are being removed from the Japanese Virtual Console service. There has ben no word if these games will also be removed from the American and European Virtual Console. Games removed from Virtual Console can’t be bought by any new users, though they can be redownloaded once bought.
The Sonic titles being removed:
This week on The Weekly Five, we will be checking out five awesome Japanese zombie movies to watch before you play Yakuza: Dead Souls. A few weeks ago I did one for Binary Domain, this time I’m trading robots for Japanese zombies. This time around I tried to find over the top Japanese zombie films for you all to feast on. Just like Yakuza: Dead Souls, these films are meant to entertain you with its weirdness and violence.
Rumors continue to heat up after a not-so-cryptic hint from SEGA’s Ben Harbone earlier this week regarding current-gen digital ports of Shenmue and Skies of Arcadia. Now a site called Gamerzines is reporting with a strong degree of certainty that not only are Shenmue and Shenmue II on the way, but they’re completed and have been for over a year.
Citing an industry source with close ties to SEGA, the rumor goes on to say that SEGA chose to wait on the release of these two digital titles “until it had a clearer picture of the future for the Shenmue franchise, namely, whether or not Shenmue III would ever see the light of day.”
That little tidbit adds a whole other level of intrigue to all of this, but of course it’s important to keep in mind that this is very much a rumor and we’ve had rumors like this before regarding the continuation of the Shenmue saga. Gamerzines does look like a legit website, however, and apparently IGN thought so too, since they’ve also reported this rumor. Thought I’d share it with all of you.
So if you didn’t know, Japanese consumers have been treated to free DLC for Binary Domain. We English speakers haven’t received such luxury. But you know what? I really want this DLC, since it lets you play as Yakuza characters in mulitplayer. Sadly, I own the Playstation 3 version and I tried downloading the DLC from the Japanese PSN store. Guess what? Nothing.
Though the Xbox 360 version will work with the Japanese DLC. Isn’t it ironic that it doesn’t work on the Playstation 3 after they boasted so much about it being region free? Thanks to Sanus, who wrote about the Xbox 360 DLC being region free. The DLC adds Goro Majima as the ‘Crusher’ class with a shotgun, Shun Akiyama as the ‘Gunner’ with a submachine gun, and Ryuji Goda is the ‘Defender’ with a heavy machinegun. Kazuma Kiryu sadly isn’t free DLC, it was a pre-order bonus in Japan. More screenshots of the DLC can be found here.
Your Game Gear library restarts now with Sonic Triple Trouble, Shinobi and Dragon Crystal available now on your 3DS. Each priced diffrently (most likely based on probable demand), these games will bring back memories from back in the 90’s. Only this time you don’t need to bring fresh batteries with you when the system drains of power in 2 hours. These games also get a really cool new screen feature. You can have the original blur from the Game Gear system (Why?), have dot-by-dot resolution with a smaller screen showing the GG system on the sides, stretch out the image to fit your widescreen, or just have a standard 4:3 mode. Also, you can now save your game at anytime using restore mode. Let’s look at the game line up shall we?
So Shenmue and Skies might actually be coming to XBLA and PSN?
I found this to be a very suitable reaction, if not a little tame for my liking!
Fan favorite Genesis games Toejam and Earl and Toejam and Earl in Panic on Funkotron are now available to download on Steam. These games were actually on Steam before but were taken down, most likely due to copyright issues. The issue first cropped up serval years ago when SEGA had a poll asking fans what Genesis games they wanted released on XBLA. Toejam and Earl took home the trophy but the creator and copyright owner wasn’t so happy to hear about these plans.
Maybe with this release SEGA and Toejam and Earl creator Greg Johnson have settled their dispute. Who knows, we might be seeing more of Toejam and Earl, maybe a guest spot in the next SEGA All-Stars game?
Segabits is would like to announce that we will now be doing preview and reviews of the Sonic comics. First up is a five page preview of Sonic Universe #38 (available in comic stores next week.) The second part of the “Scrambled” arc show that rotten Eggman invading Station Square with some Eggman-looking At-Ats just to get at the traitorous Snivley who has escaped from the Eggman empire to plead with his niece Hope. Meanwhile Omega and an entire army are fighting the invasion while Shadow and Rouge protect the president. (What a lousy way to keep those two out of the fight! I’m not much of a Shadow fan, but having him fight Eggman’s army would give this issue some great action.) Anyway, hit the jump for the full preview of this hard-boiled (Get it?) tale of treachery.
Like the rest of the world, when SEGA announced Binary Domain, the new IP by Toshihiro Nagoshi, I was wondering to myself if a Japanese studio could make a great third-person shooter. At least one that could stand up against the offerings of western developers. Now that Binary Domain has released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, did Nagoshi’s team deliver in the end, or should they have stuck with the Yakuza series?
Ticket sales start early for the American Sonic event, Sonic Boom! Besides mingling with fellow Sonic fans, Crush 40 and Cash-Cash will be preforming as well! This will all be taking place at the House of Blues in San Diego July 13th during Comic Con! Don’t be surprised if you end up seeing some of your favorite Sonic alumni like Takashi Iizuka, Yuji Naka, comic writer Ian Flynn, community members Kellie Parker, Ken Balough and Arron Webber or others! You can even meet me! (Just don’t ask for my autograph. You couldn’t afford it.) Jump ahead to see Sega’s full press release.
If you guys didn’t know, Origin is EA’s PC digital download platform. There has been a lot of bickering over it, people saying they where refused access to their games for quoting someone on a forum that cursed and other such stories. I don’t use the service myself, I like to stick to Steam.
“By partnering with publishers like SEGA, we’re able to bring even more of the industry’s best games to players on Origin,” commented EA exec Craig Rechenmacher. “With 11 million registered users around the world, Origin is fast becoming the destination for consumers looking for fresh new content to play with their friends.”
The first game released by SEGA on the new service is going to be Total War: Shogun 2 – Fall of the Samurai. You can even pre-order it now if you want. SEGA isn’t the only publisher to be announcing their allegiance to EA’s digital service, Rebellion and Kalypso Media Digital also joined the roster.
SEGA has finally let us know the release date of House of the Dead 4. It will be coming to PSN on April 17th and will set you back 10 dollars. Cheap price to pay, this is also the first time this game has been released on a home console. So I’m very excited.
Some of the key features from the port:
So if you are like me, a man that owns an Android phone. Then you probably have been totally jealous of all these other guys with shiny iPhones playing with their Monkey Balls. Well, good news, now we can play too.
“SEGA’s games, both new and old, are seeing an amazing new life on mobile devices, and Android is a big part of that,” said Haruki Satomi, Senior Vice President of Digital Business at SEGA of America. “We want to make it clear we are not just monkeying around on this platform, and that means giving Android users the same kind of variety and quality as any other medium. Super Monkey Ball is one of our fan-favorite franchises, and it makes a great fit for Android smartphones and tablets.”
The game is a high definition port of the arcade and Gamecube hit Super Monkey Ball 2. It features 125 fun filled levels, four mini-games and its only 99 cents right now. Its a special launch price, so act fast!
Last time I the site was updated it was to five chromosomes per publisher. Now they added one more to each, totaling at six. It seems that everyone is saying that these chromosomes are hints of characters they will be using for the crossover 3DS game. We all took our wild guesses at the SEGA one, one totally looks like Bayonetta.
[Namco/Capcom]
Above is the chromosomes for Capcom and Namco. What do you see in there? Hard to tell with just colors. If you want to check out the Japanese teaser site, click here.