Though it was never exactly given a firm release date, Gearbox’s highly-anticipated Aliens project had long been pegged for a Spring 2012 release. That’s no longer the case according to G4, who’s reporting today that the game has slipped into the Fall 2012 window.
This means that it will be facing competition from the likes of Bioshock Infinite and Halo 4, plus whatever Call of Duty game Activision’s prepping, so SEGA’s marketing department had better be ready to write some big checks if they don’t want this promising-looking title to get lost in the shuffle.
Gaming site Playr2 recently polled 1,411 gamers, asking them to vote for the best retro console, and a whopping 61% chose the SEGA Mega Drive! Other SEGA consoles also made the top ten, including the Master System and the Game Gear. Unfortunately, our favorite underdog the Dreamcast did not make the list. Placing second was the Nintendo 64. If the NES and SNES were Nintendo 1 and Nintendo 2, whatever happened to Nintendo 3 through Nintendo 63? After the break, check out the full top ten and feel free to agree with me in the comments that the Mega Drive/Genesis is the best retro console of all time.
For Japan at least, SEGA has announced through their Ryu Ga Gotoku Kamurocho radio station webcast that their up and coming third person squad-based shooter Binary Domain is going to have a demo available 16 days before the game’s release there (the Japanese release date is still set for February 16th). The demo itself promises to be fairly lengthy, with it featuring two stages, one set in the Shibuya’s Spain-zaka area in the lower city (The area featured in all demoes) and one in the Shinjuku train station-like area of the upper city.
It was confirmed though that the demo will only have single player support, and no confirmation of when a Western demo will debut, but it is the best indication that the title will have a demo released before launch over in America and Europe. Binary Domain is set for release in America and Europe on 28th February.
Sega is offering up a contest for people who’d like to have some input in the upcoming game “Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown” for X-Box LIVE and PSN. In the contest, you’ll be able to put a new name on your favorite fighter and even come up with his catchphrases which will then be put into the single player mode. There will be many chances to win and you can do as many submissions as you like! Read on for more details.
Don’t happen to own any of the hundreds of platforms that Sonic 4: Episode 1 has been released on thus far? Well fear not, because as of today, Droid users have the opportunity to download the first episode of Sonic 4 from the Android Marketplace for only $3.99.
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2, meanwhile, is looking increasingly likely for a release in the first half of this year if all goes well. Though if you haven’t played Episode 1 yet, I suppose for $3.99 you can’t go too wrong.
I have become increasingly excited for SEGA’s upcoming 3DS rhythm game. Produced by Shun Nakamura, the same man who directed Samba De Amigo, the game features homages to both Samba de Amigo and Space Channel 5, and looks like a lot of fun going by all the videos we’ve seen. Of course, we won’t know anything about the game’s quality until we get to play it, but going by Famitsu’s review scores it may very well have the quality to match the games it homages.
Rhythm Thief and The Emperor’s Treasure (3DS) – 8/8/8/8
The game also sold decently in it’s debut week, placing second behind Mario Kart 7:
01./02. [3DS] Mario Kart 7 <RCE> (Nintendo) {2011.12.01} (¥4.800) – 35.105 / 1.404.728 (-33%)
02./00. [3DS] Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure <ACT> (Sega) {2012.01.19} (¥6.090) – 31.598 / NEW
03./03. [3DS] Monster Hunter 3G # <ACT> (Capcom) {2011.12.10} (¥5.800) – 31.369 / 1.159.866 (-30%)
04./04. [3DS] Super Mario 3D Land <ACT> (Nintendo) {2011.11.03} (¥4.800) – 26.051 / 1.265.491 (-35%)
05./00. [360] Onechanbara Z: Kagura <ACT> (D3 Publisher) {2012.01.19} (¥7.140) – 22.013 / NEW
Rhythm Thief & The Emperor’s Treasure will launch in Europe on February 24th and in America on the 28th exclusively for 3DS. A demo on the eShop has also been confirmed for Europe.
The AMC series Breaking Bad has depicted some pretty detestable things, including producing and selling meth, but perhaps the show’s biggest offense was the depiction of characters enjoying Sonic ’06. In the eleventh episode of season four, titled “Crawl Space”, the character Jesse plays a two player match of Sonic vs. Shadow in Wave Ocean with his girlfriend’s son. Warning: the following clip features some very bad pretend video game playing.
This week was a contest between Shenmue and a Sonic song. Since I’ve already shown a load of orchestral pieces over the last month, I decided I needed to go in a different direction….and expose my weakness to Crush40’s brand of rock n’ roll.
Yes, I love Crush40, and I won’t apologize for it. Yes, their lyrics make no god damned sense and can be cheesy as hell, but the beats. I love the rhythm and sheer auditory awesomeness of their songs, and What I’m Made Of is easily my absolute favorite song out of them. It never misses a beat, it never slows down, and it just sounds like something huge is going down, which was very fitting considering this was the final boss theme. The song even has a proper ending, with all the instruments stopping just before the final verse is uttered. Sure, he’s daring someone to reach inside of him….and gain his energy…but if you stop trying to actual give the lyrics context they aren’t so bad!
Perhaps most importantly, this theme makes up for the absolutely atrocious main theme of Sonic Heroes. It’s as if Crush40 knew how horrible it was and made something new just for the boss battle so it wouldn’t be so lame!
Next month is Panzer Dragoon month, so be ready for something completely different!
SEGA has released a 5 minute long trailer showing off more of the story that you will find in the full product. I have to say, even though I like the concept of the game, I do think that the English dub is a bit hard to swallow. Especially the dude that sounds oddly enough like Bill Clinton.
The trailer talks about hallow children, robots born thinking they are humans. Basically the plot twist for Terminator Salvation. Did I ruin the movie? Oops.
If you saw the title and got a bit excited, you are probably a Tails fan. Hi, how are you doing? Good? Great. First things first, who is making the figure? First 4 Figures, they are known for doing other Sonic collectible statues. How much is it going to cost? A cool $199.99. Expensive yes, but it is 12 inches and only limited to 500 units. Did I mention it has two fully spinning tails and a mushrooms that pulse with light?
Its damn impressive, hit the jump to see a ton of pictures of the statue in action.
Valkyria Chronicles has some amazing art, so its good to see the Japanese artbooks get American releases. This is going to be the second Valkyria Chronicles artbook that publisher Udon has published in America. The first art book released had art from the first title, this new one is going to be based on the PSP sequel.
If you guys want to pre-order the art book, you can do so on Amazon. The book is listed for $31.24, with a release date of April 10th, 2012.
Thanks to a job listing, we now know the name of SEGA’s newest studio: Hardlight. The job posting for a programmer revealed a number of details. The studio is UK based, in Solihull, and will focus on developing “high quality and innovative experiences for both current and future platforms”. The first of these games is described as a “unique action adventure” for the Playstation Vita. Also revealed, Hardlight would be working closely with Sega R&D to “stay at the cutting edge of developments in technology, middleware and game experiences”.
It’s great to see SEGA growing and we wish Hardlight a bright future!
Actually right now, as I’m writing this, the podcast episode hasn’t been recorded. They are recording in a couple of hours (3PM PST) and have a phone number for people to drop in questions. Anyway if you are interested in the podcast, you can get more information here.
Sonic CD is a smash hit on PSN! It has topped the charts and has beaten some of the bigger PSN titles such as Infamous2: Festival of Blood, and Castle Crashers. At the $5 price point, it’s not hard to see why. Still it’s great to see a Sonic game #1 in sales again. Full top ten list of PSN titles at the link.
