Yakuza: Dead Souls found itself the subject of G4′s “First 15″ series. If you dare, you can now check out the first 15 minutes of the Western version of the game right above.
The zombie-shooting spinoff will have its European and North American release this March.
Hedgehog Day news continues!
Sonic fans will get a double dose of events this year as both dates for Summer of Sonic and Sonic Boom have been announced. Summer of Sonic will take place in London (no EXACT location yet) on July 7 while Sonic Boom will be held in San Diego at the House of Blues on July 13th during the San Diego Comic Con. That pretty much guarantees that I’ll be there. With the dates so close together, it’s hard to determine what Sonic talent will show up where. But I’d bet a shiny nickel that at the very least, the Archie comic talent will be at Sonic Boom.
To celebrate Groundhog Hedgehog Day, SEGA of America has shared a new piece of concept art from Sonic 4 Episode 2. Is it another badnik? No! It’s our first look at a boss, and an original boss at that! Dubbed the Egg Serpentleaf, the boss appears to be Eggman inside a giant flower that is able to close up and act as a laser. Pretty cool if you ask me! I wonder if the giant flower hints at the stage motif? After the break, more images of the new boss.
British electronic act Nero used SEGA arcade games as inspiration for the video of their single “You and Me”. The video kicks off in an arcade containing games like Daytona USA 2, SEGA Rally 3, Let’s Go Jungle! and Rambo. A teenager walks around playing the games, until he spots a group of “cool dudes” (who I assume to be Nero) and he follows them out of the arcade to a back room which contains a Nero arcade machine, which plays a lot like Streets of Rage. The teen plays the game, a few more SEGA references ensue (“Are You Ready” replaces “Get Ready”) and then the video ends. I can’t say I enjoy the tune, sort of comes off as a four and a half minute intro to nothing, but I do appreciate the SEGA nods and it’s a worthwhile watch just for that. Though don’t expect the music to go anywhere. Honestly, I’d prefer it if they just remixed this awesome track.
I wrote a nice article last year about SEGA sponsoring and hosting the GameAid cricket event, seems they will be doing it again. The event will pit four teams against each other in a 10/10 match.
Here is the thing, last year that they played, team Screaming Lord Hatch’s Invitational XI won. The team was captained by Bethesda’s Alistair Hatch. If SEGA’s team, rightfully named SEGA All-Stars win this year, they get to take Screaming Lord Hatch’s Invitational XI’s trophy. Sounds like a good game in the spirit of fun. This year’s goal is the same as last years, at least £2,200.
Back in March of last year, Nintendo announced that Sega’s Game Gear games would be coming to the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console. Sadly, we hadn’t heard anything new since…until today! The ERSB has put up ratings for Sonic Triple Trouble and Shinobi. Both these Game Gear games were rated for the Nintendo 3DS. Looks like we’ll be getting them sooner rather than later.
So Sony is going to be giving all six SEGA Genesis titles that are available on PSN. If you forgot, all these titles have been given to PS+ members before, but not all in one month. Each game costs $5, so its a nice savings. I already got ’em all last time, so its good to see all the other stuff they are giving out beside the Genesis games.
PS+ users also get early access to The House of the Dead III demo. So yes, it means that there is going to be a House of the Dead III demo this month.
While the Smithsonian’s Art of Video Games show doesn’t open until March 16th, fans can get their pre-orders in now for the show’s companion book. Retailing for $40, and up for pre-order for $24 on Amazon, the 216 page book makes the argument that games aren’t just for play, but are also “compelling experiences that have crossed the boundary into culture and art”. Writer Chris Melissinos uses the 80 games featured in the show to support this argument, and shares stories and comments about their development and innovation. The book will also feature interviews and over 100 composite images drawn directly from the games themselves.
After the break, a rundown of the SEGA titles to be featured in the book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILGkVbNrB5s
Do you miss the good ol’ days of the Sonic franchise when you could play as Tails, Knuckles and all the other secondary characters? After a bit of modding to the PC version of Sonic Generations, a Russian Sonic fan has brought back the supporting cast by dropping them into modern Sonic’s stages. The video above shows off Shadow, Tails, Rouge, Blaze, Amy and Knuckles running through Crisis City. They may not have their signature moves (yet) but they appear to be fully functional. After the break, more videos of the sidekicks stealing Sonic’s thunder.
Panzer Dragoon is my favorite video game series of all time, thanks in no small part to the consistently awesome musical score. For the first game, I had some major difficulties deciding between the full version of the main menu theme, or Flight. They are both superb pieces, and an interesting look at Panzer Dragoon’s musical style before it settled on a specific style in Zwei. The theme here is a bit more typical kind of orchestration, with horns, violins, and flutes, with some tambourines keeping a nice beat in the background. Not quite what the rest of the series sounds like.
Below the fold you’ll find the full version of the menu theme.
Courtesy of YouTube show OtakuVerseZero comes a unique interview with Hirotaka Machida, producer of the urinal game Toylets. Machida shows off the game, thankfully using simulated blue urine coming from a statue, and discusses the development of the unique “console”. Highlights include the discussion of the game’s “controller” and how the development team presented the game to the board of directors. Check out the full interview for proof that wackiness is not dead at SEGA.
Thanks to reader SEGA_Portuguese for the link!
Sega has released more concept art for the upcoming Sonic 4-2. Once again we are getting original badnik designs. Here, we see a brand new badnik called “Fullboar”. You know what he’s full of? Hedgehog-killing awesomeness, that’s what! This badnik is so deadly, Eggman got his flicky from a maximum security prison for killer flickies! (I lie.) Hopefully the full game will have even more original badniks and levels to keep it from being the mere copycat Sonic 4 was in design. Read on to find another new badnik. I aint (Sea) lyin’! (Ugh.)
Looks cool, that’s for sure.
On a somewhat related note, they showed a 30-second Binary Domain advertisement before this trailer the first time I viewed it on IGN: a promising sign for the marketing of SEGA’s other upcoming shooter.
The recently-delayed Aliens: Colonial Marines will now be hitting the PS3, 360, and PC in the back end of 2012, and though it had also been previously announced for Nintendo’s next generation console, there’s no indication of that version in this trailer.
SEGAbits forum member ezodagrom has been lucky enough to participate in the Phantasy Star Online 2 alpha, and he was kind enough to share some excellent photos and impressions in our forums. Regarding gameplay, he had this to share:
When it comes to gameplay, I only played as a Force, and when compared to PSO and PSU, Forces are much more fun to use now in PSO2, mostly thanks to the ability to charge techniques, being able to combo techs in the middle of normal attacks, the dodge teleporting skill, and being able to switch between the normal camera and TPS style camera.
When using the Gunblade weapon, instead of using the dodge teleporting skill it uses the Hunter step dodge, but now the Hunter step dodge is much more balanced than in the first alpha. There’s a delay between dodges, plus after the dodge the player is forced to “walk” for a few seconds before he goes back to running. Not only the step dodge can’t be spammed like before, running now covers more distance than trying to spam the step dodge.
In addition to his thoughts on gameplay, ezodagrom also talks about controls, music, graphics, framerate and has a number of images to share. Check out his impressions and images in our lovely forums!
2011 was an unbelievably great year for SEGA…for the most part. Even the best game company will always have its strings of hits and misses. However, last year I could only really think of one bad stinker. One starring a certain Norse god you will read about later on. With that in mind, I decided to comprise a list of SEGA games that disappointed me in some way. Games that while not outright bad (except one), did not live up to their expectations. If you find a certain favorite of yours on the list, do not take it personally, as this is mainly coming from my own personal view. Read on to find what SEGA games left me a little flat.