First4Figures reveals their modern Sonic statue

Via their Facebook page, First4Figures have revealed the first in their modern line of Sonic statues: Sonic the Hedgehog. Like the photo says, pre-orders start May 15th, 2012 and there will be a very limited number of statues available. I have to say, when I heard of a modern line I was iffy, but this statue looks great! While I won’t be getting it, the F4F statues are too rich for my blood, I do love looking at photos of them. What do you think, dear readers? Would you let this hedgehog into your home?

Rumor: SEGA’s Hardlight studio shifting from Vita to iOS

In January we reported on a new SEGA studio called Hardlight, whose goal was to develop “high quality and innovative experiences for both current and future platforms”. Hardlight’s first game was, and may still be, a “unique action adventure” for the Playstation Vita. However, since SEGA’s recent changes, some SEGA fans questioned what was to become of Hardlight’s project. After the break, speculation as to what the status of the game is and why it might be heading to iOS.

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Check out this awesome GameWorks Virtua Cop statue that never became a reality

This exclusive, never before seen, concept sketch comes courtesy of a GameWorks social media employee who recently joined up with the Sonic Stadium forums. Seems a GameWorks topic brought the forum to his attention. As a special treat, the “GameWorks Social Media guy” shared a very special bit of concept art that he describes as “mock-up art of a Virtua Cop statue from way back when GameWorks was only a glimmer in SEGA & DreamWorks’ eye”. This statue never made it to the construction stage, but it is a very cool piece of SEGA, and Virtua Cop, history. You can check out the full sized image here. After the break, his thoughts on SEGA’s split with GameWorks.

Monster World IV and two more now on American Virtual Console (there’s still a Virtual Console!?)

Edit: Updated headline, joke still works.

The long awaited Monster World IV, as well as Super Hang-On and Wonder Boy in Monster Land, are now available to download on the American WiiWare Virtual Console. Each game is 900 Wii Store points, or around $9. If you have a PS3 or XBOX 360, it might be best to wait for the upcoming compilations which will feature sharper visuals, a slicker interface and more games for your buck. Still, great to see Monster World IV finally getting a release. We were talking about it as far back as this time last year.

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Redux: Dark Matter – A new game being developed for Dreamcast

Do you like new games? Do you like your Dreamcast? Then it’s most likely that you want a new game for your old Dreamcast. How about Redux: Dark Matter? It’s a arcade space side scrolling shooter? It’s true that the Dreamcast indie scene has released mostly these types of games, but they are pretty fun.

Sadly if you want Redux: Dark Matters to come to Dreamcast you will have to put in some cash. The developer started a kickstarter page for the project which will allow you to grab a limited edition (limited to 1,000) of Redux: Dark Waters and Dux 1.5. Think of it as a bonus for believing in the project. Above is a video showing the game in alpha stages. Game is being developed by René Hellwig from NG:DEV.TEAM (GunLord, Fast Striker, Last Hope and DUX) and KTX Software (The Haunted: Hells Reach, Gem’X iOS).

SEGA is skipping Gamescom 2012

SEGA has confirmed that they will have no booth at this year’s Gamescom event in Germany. Gamescom is basically Europe’s E3, and even though the event has gained incredible popularity, SEGA says that their 2012 releases won’t benefit from being at the August event.

“Sega has made the decision not to attend Gamescom this year  Gamescom 2011 was a very successful show for us and continues to be the most important European event in the calendar.Unfortunately the release timing of our 2012 AAA titles and new projects don’t work with the mid- August scheduling of the show. The decision will not mean that Sega will never attend Gamescom in the future, this was simply a commercial decision made for 2012.”

Seems that SEGA Europe has been hit the hardest. Now they don’t have a community team, their CEO is leaving (Also America’s CEO) and no presence at a big event like this? What do you guys think?

SEGA Tunes: Shenmue Theme by Mr. Bonus Stage

Shenmue is a soundtrack I’ve wanted to feature music from ever since I restarted this feature back in January. The very first article was a choice between Shenmue’s main theme and the piece that inspired me to start the feature, Phantasy Star Online’s Whole New World. Four months later, with this week’s feature already delayed a day thanks to a Marvel movie marathon that culminated in The Avengers, I’ve decided to finally feature a song from the game, though not in quite the way I had been anticipating.

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Flick of the Dead released to the Japanese iOS app store

Flick of the Dead, which was trademarked in early April, has released today in Japan to their iOS store. The game is, as many guessed, a Typing of the Dead for iOS devices. This iteration is said to have added over 25,000 words, a boss rush and a drill mode. Unfortunately, the game is exclusive to Japan at the moment, however given that Miku Flick released to English app stores, it is possible we’ll see this getting a wider release at some point. The game is currently free to download, so if you can download it, do so. After the break, screens!  “I don’t want to tap!”

Spoiler Alert: See every page of The History of Sonic book

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGURDOlBcQ8

Pix’n Love Publishing’s The History of Sonic book has finally released… in French! So while English readers await the release of the English version, which is coming, enjoy this spoileriffic page by page video of the book. The book looks to be very impressive, with a lot of artwork and screens as well as a good amount of text, a nice balance of pictures and words in my opinion. The most awesome aspect of the book is that it has never before seen artwork! After the break, part two of the book.

SEGA in the Media: Tosh.0 reveals how Sonic died

I’m starting to think comedian Daniel Tosh is a Sonic fan. Back in 2010 his Comedy Central show Tosh.0 did a segment on real life speed runs, based off of a Sonic 2 speed run video. On the March 13th episode of this year, Sonic got another mention in a segment on a failed parkour video. After showing a woman smashing her face into a concrete wall, Tosh quipped “of course the greatest parkourer of all time was Sonic the Hedgehog – who died turboing through a triple corkscrew. He got greedy.” You can see the full segment at the Tosh.0 show page, tell them SEGAbits sent you.

Are we ever going to get tired of writing “Hell Yeah!” headlines? Hell no!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uP6QpUWs_I

A new gameplay trailer has arrived for SEGA and Arkedo Studio’s Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit. The trailer reveals a bit of the game’s plot, which I won’t spoil. You’ll have to see it in the trailer. It is – ahem – quite odd. The art style is definitely influenced by Rayman Origins and Splosion Man, complete with wacky over the top environments and lots of meat flying about. Gameplay looks very fun, it’s like if General Grievous of Star Wars went on a rampage on his wheel bike. The game is set for a summer release to XBLA, PSN and Steam.

Thanks to SEGAbits forum member max_cady for the heads up!

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Swingin’ Report Show #31: Restructuring

This week we have a inimate podcast with just George and Barry. That’s right, we are going to get you all settled in by talking about SEGA restructuring, Anarchy Reigns and much more. Give the podcast a listen and tell us what you think of the new shorter format. Too short? Just right? Leave a comment.

Note: The YouTube version will be going up early tomorrow. I wanted to get it ready in time, but didn’t have enough time. Sorry!

[powerpress url=”https://segabits.com/wp-content/uploads/SwinginReportShow31.mp3″]
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The Weekly Five: Best to worst “Avengers” SEGA games

SEGA’s license pact with Marvel was a prime example of how the game industry tends to treat movie licensed properties these days. They sell the license to a game company to promote the movie. Game company turns around and uses their B and C (and sometimes D) teams to work on said games and hope they can come up with at least a half decent effort. Then the game is released just before the movie hits theaters whether it’s ready to go or not. Many times, they fail even to get to that half-decent point.

But this doesn’t mean that all movie licensed games have to stink. Sometimes, you get the right development team with the right goal in mind and you get something of quality. Sometimes, a game is almost crap, but you can see a little bit of gold in that turd. But sometimes, crap is just crap no matter what angle you look at it. What better example of this is there than with these five Marvel Studios movie licensed games released by SEGA. And what better time to “reminisce” over these games than with today’s movie release of The Avengers in American theaters. Read on to see which one I find is the best quality to which one I think is total, unredeemable crap.