Binary Domain gets a 12 minute promotion video for Famitsu

SEGA has supplied Japanese publication Famitsu with an extensive 12 minute long trailer for their up and coming third person squad based shooter Binary Domain. Unfortunately the entire trailer is completely in Japanese but shows a large amount of the story, the locations and the character itself. For those who would rather check out some gameplay segments can skip to 8 minutes and 45 seconds and take a glace at the various set pieces of collapsing buildings, the huge boss encounters and the multiplayer mode. Binary Domain is set to launch next month on 14th February.

[Thanks to Suzuki Yu for the tip!]

Sonic Appears in a New Progressive Commercial

http://youtu.be/RfUsKWyRRm0

Typically when a Progressive insurance commercial comes on the air, I mute the television. But this brand new one requires SEGA fans to crank the volume! For whatever reason, Sonic is now in a Progressive ad. Sonic is shown running about to the Sonic 3 invincible theme looking for savings on insurance, which is smart considering he always has a violent evil doctor out to get him. Flo, Progressive spokeswoman, stops him and yammers on about savings and insurance. The ad ends with Sonic celebrating to the Sonic 3 extra life jingle.

Overall, a very unexpected but awesome ad. The animation is well done, and everybody loves some classic Genesis tunes pumping through their speakers. One note: when the humans get toonified, they look very much like Sonic Unleashed-style humans. Cool to see that SEGA hasn’t dropped this style, despite humans being MIA since 2008 (Eggman aside).

First gameplay trailer of SEGA’s Shining Blade released

SEGA has finally shown gameplay segments for their up and coming Playstation Portable exclusive Shining Blade. Starring several characters that have appeared in the recent Shining games, Shining Blade looks to build upon Valkyria Chronicles BLiTZ system with the titles very own Concerto system. The trailer showcases the characters (Ranging from humans to mystical creatures) towns, the battlefields, enemies and even bosses. Unfortunately SEGA has no plans to bring this title over, but for those willing to port the title seem set to play another enjoyable Shining game. The title is set to launch in Japan on March 15th 2012.

[Thanks Suzuki Yu for the tip!]

The Weekly Five: The Games of 2012

Last week we shared our favorite games of 2011, and while we didn’t officially announce winners or give out some award for SEGA to stick on their box art (I’d imagine we’d award a gold Opa Opa statue nicknamed “the bitty”), the “winners” deserve another mention. Sonic Generations and Yakuza 4 were the top picks, while Guardian Heroes was picked as an excellent download release. Shinobi for the 3DS also earned a spot on the list. Other notable games included Shogun 2, Sonic CD, Daytona USA, Virtua Tennis 4 and Football Manager 2012. Overall, 2011 was a great year! Being only a week into it, 2012 is still young. However, SEGA has a number of great looking releases on the horizon. In this week’s Weekly Five we’ll look at five of those hotly anticipated titles. Could any of these become our favorites of 2012? Probably.

SEGA announces The House of the Dead 3 and 4 for Playstation Network

As if SEGA’s 2012 lineup was not shaping up to be their finest as a third party publisher, the developer has just announced that the arcade exclusive The House of the Dead 4 will be finally making its way onto console as an exclusive for the Playstation Network. SEGA has announced that The House of the Dead 3 as well to be released on February 2012 for the Playstation Network, followed by The House of the Dead 4 releasing sometime in Spring 2012.

It is not known if the Playstation Move controller would be required to play the titles. With Yakuza: Dead Souls also releasing in March, SEGA will be giving gamers plenty of opportunities to shot down zombies en masses.

SEGA in the Media: Space Ghost Emerald Coast to Coast

My favorite tv show of the 90’s featuring my favorite game of the 90’s, it’s a match made… in space! On the November 11th, 1994 episode of Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost Coast to Coast, upon returning from commercials Space Ghost is caught up in a game of Sonic and Knuckles. It must have been a long commercial break, as Space Ghost has reached Hidden Palace Zone. Before cutting to Space Ghost, Zorak dances to the Sonic and Knuckles title screen theme. Just as Space Ghost is about to defeat Knuckles, he is interrupted by the guest and continues with the show.

Yu Suzuki speaks Shenmue and future of series

SEGA’s legendary former designer Yu Suzuki recently discussed his widely loved Shenmue franchise and the future of the series. In an interview lasting just over 12 minutes, Suzuki talked about the content of Shenmue 3 and what would become of Ryo’s thurst for revenge against Lan Di, but perhaps the most interesting part is how Suzuki said that if he could, he would try to obtain the license from SEGA to further develop the series. A must watch for any Shenmue fan.

[Thanks for the tip Madara!]

Rise of Nightmares demo finally debuts on Xbox Live


For all those Kinect owners thinking about picking up Rise of Nightmares, now you can try out the game for free. SEGA has finally released a demo for their horror Kinect title earlier today. Make sure you have 334.26 MB free on your harddrive to play the game.
The demo is Kinect only, so you will have to have the device to play the game.

SEGA Tunes: Phantasy Star Online’s “Whole New World”

Welcome to the return of Tuesday Tunes, everyone! Changing focus away from remixes and original music, we’ll be focusing more on SEGA’s own music. Boy does SEGA have some great stuff! We’ll be starting this feature back up with a song that inspired me to write up a few of these and restart the feature: PSO’s “Whole New World”, a song that recently saw a remix in the latest PSO2 video. Now, I love SEGA’s orchestrations, especially from the Dreamcast and early third party period. To me, this music represents some of the most beautiful original orchestrations ever done in gaming. One of the first SEGA songs to ever land on my mix CD was this beauty of a track. Very different from the cheesy rock I was used to hearing from the Sonic Adventure games.

This is one of those songs that I think would be really neat to hear in a real live orchestra. SEGA really needs to do something equivolent to the Zelda tour for their series. Come on SEGA, just have Crush 40 pop in at the end to play Live and Learn after the orchestra plays all your other masterpieces. People will go!

Shenmue World is now dead [edit]


Even though we all wanted to play Shenmue City or Shenmue World (whatever you want to call it), it seems we won’t get the chance. According to Ysnet, the official developer for Shenmue Gai (the Japanese name of the game) has said that the game will cease to exist. No more updates, no more support. The site has a thank you message to all the users that played it.

This is pretty bad news for the Shenmue franchise and for hopefuls that this would lead to Shenmue III.

[Edit] It seems that this was already discussed by Yu Suzuki in an interview. Basically they are closing the mobile version of the game, but they are going to launch a ‘smart phone’ version for devices like Android and iOS.[/Edit]

Round Table: Our Favorite SEGA Games of 2011

2011 is just about over, and looking back, it has been a great year for SEGA games. Back in 2010, it was hard to imagine what could top titles like Bayonetta, Sonic Colors, Vanquish and the English version of Yakuza 3. Then came 2011 and a slew of awesome titles arrived. SEGA upped their game in digital distribution, popular franchises saw excellent sequels and spin-offs and SEGA’s mascot truly shined. In this extra special round table, SEGAbits writers will share their favorite SEGA games of the year. What did we like? Read on!

Sonic 4 Episode 2 is being built for multicore mobile phones

SEGA has just has released a press release which gives us a hint at what kind of game we can expect for Sonic 4 Episode 2. The game is being built for multicore mobile phones, and SEGA is working with nvidia on a version for the worlds first Quadcore mobile phone processor for android.

This news personally has me really excited. It’s great to see that SEGA is putting so much concern for quality for Episode 2. For those who don’t know, the TEGRA quadcore processor is capable of running XBOX 360 and PS3 style games.

Hit the jump for the press release