E3: Binary Domain Preview and Q&A

At E3, we were shown an exclusive demo of Binary Domain, an action packed third person shooter done by the same team behind Yakuza. The story is a cross-breed between “The Terminator” and I Robot. The year is 2080. The setting is Tokyo. A company has developed intelligent robots for the sake of manual labor. However, an incident occurs when someone has been producing robots that look like humans and some robots are given an ego. This is a breach of international law. An American company called Burgen corporation believes the Amita corporation is doing it. You pay as Dan Marshall, a member of the IRTA which regulates robotics internationally. You are sent into Japan to find the person responsible. However, Japan has gone back to its feudal days and has sealed itself off from foreign intervention, so you will have to infiltrate your way in and fight off large groups of robots who want you dead for invading.

SEGA in the Charts: Japanese sales 6 – 12 June 2011

Last week in Japan saw the release of the third spinoff title in the Yakuza series after its original delay way back in late March. With the Japanese market struggling for software sales, Yakuza: Of the End has helped lift the market somewhat, although the majority of the Japanese market remains dead. Continue to read on to see how well Kazuma’s latest adventure did.

Takashi Iizuka confirms Sonic 4: Episode 2

The guys over at Siliconera had a chance to ask Iizuka if Sonic Team is planning a follow up to Sonic 4: Episode 1, in which he responded:

“We named Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, so there will be an episode 2. Since this year is the 20th anniversary of Sonic we wanted to focus on Sonic Generations. We don’t have a release date or anything.But, we can tell you it will be in the near future.”” – Takashi Iizuka

Near future? Iizuka and his love for time traveling plots. In all seriousness, it seems that Sonic Generations is getting the physics for cassic Sonic right. Would be interested if the physics being used in Generations will be used in Episode 2.

Spiral Knights is now available on Steam

Steam has recently allowed publishers to put free-to-play titles on its store, one of the first titles? Spiral Knights.

Now you will be able to enjoy the game with the Steam overlay, that allows you to chat with friends while you game. If this wasn’t enough, SEGA has launched a Spiral Knights Steam group. Join it to meet up with other Knights and have some excellent adventures.

[Source: SEGA.Blog]

Mike Hayes – Aliens: Colonial Marines to be top quality product


SEGA have been on the ropes with the development of Colonial Marines. Everyone thought it was a dead project but it is back. But will it be a shitty cash-in like other SEGA license games or a good product? Mike Hayes reassures you that they are trying to deliver a top quality product.

“As a general point, when you have a great licence, the amount you need to spend on marketing is significantly less. So the two balance each other out. But that’s independent of how much money you invest in the game, because we know how well tie-in licence games have gone recently, we have to create a game that stands on its own two feet. This is a quality-first approach.” – Mike Hayes, President of SEGA West

Another concerning factor is that Gear Box Software’s newest game, Duke Nukem Forever isn’t doing that great with the critics and seems to have disappointed fans that have waited 10+ years for the release of the game.

[Source:MCV]

E3: Sonic Generations Q&A With Takashi Iizuka

(NOTE: Because this is a Q&A with questions taken from staff from both Sonic Stadium and Segabits, this article will be posted on both sites simultaneously.)

On the Tuesday afternoon of E3, Alex (nuckles87) and I got the privilege of seeing the first new footage of City Escape from Sonic Generations played by Takashi Iizuka himself. Seeing little classic Sonic going through the famous SA2 level was a thrill. We saw as the large GUN truck made every attempt possible to run down the roly-poly hedgehog as two new remixes of “Escape from the City” played through both levels. As he played through he told some interesting tidbits, including the fact that outside of Green Hill zone, all stages on the 3DS will be different from the HD versions and will have levels based on the portable versions of Sonic’s games. Also, voice overs will be done for all nationalities. Not just Japanese and English. He quit the last level as the GUN truck with it’s giant sawblades ran over modern Sonic as he ran out of boost. Here, our Q&A commenced.

Guess who is directing Rise of Nightmares!

[Ueda is on the left.]

Ryuta Ueda! Who is he you ask? Just a man that worked on games like Panzer Dragoon Saga, Jet Set Radio and the first 3 Yakuza games. Pretty much classy stuff.

Not only is he directing the project, he is also writing scenarios, doing the artwork and more (so teases his facebook page).  So if you are a hardcore SEGA fan, this is a title you might want to keep a close eye on.

[Via: The Forums]

1up: Sonic games? Best post whiny video


Oh lawl, I get it. It’s a Sonic game, we best make a “funny video” slowly making fun of the quality in Sonic games. Yes, I know most of us aren’t into Mario & Sonic games, but are they the worst thing to happen to Sonic or even Mario? No.

Funny how this makes a site like 1up depressed, didn’t even seem like the person in the video even played the game before citing it as crap. Journalism. Didn’t they also announce like 3 Mario solo games at E3? No Mario video? Just Sonic?

Yeah, 1up isn’t going to be missed now that they got bought out by IGN.

GamesMaster Sonic 20th Anniversary Magazine Special

by The GagaMan(n) at SEGA Memories

Well didn’t this pop up out of the blue! To celebrate Sonic’s 20th Anniversary (I suspect you’ll be hearing that a lot in the next few months but especially this month), GamesMaster has just released a special 130 page magazine dedicated to nothing but Sonic! I only heard about it today via twitter and pretty much ran over to WHSmith to see if they had and sure enough they had a whole pile of copies. It’s £8 but trust me it’s worth it.

Click here to read more

SEGA Sequels: Risky SEGA Sequels Vol 2

Apologies in advance for adding yet another Sonic story to our collection. I always cringe when I see Sonic dominating our weekly stories just because I know that there are so many other great IP from SEGA to focus on, and I know that, to a lot of people, Sonic is all that makes up SEGA, and that’s unfortunate. It just so happens though that there has been a lot more Sonic news this week to report on than usual, thanks in large part to his big focus at E3 and of course Sonic Boom, but in truth, I’d planned on writing this as far back as a couple weeks ago, so I guess it can’t be helped.

This week’s SEGA Sequel Saturdays will be taking a look at another risky SEGA sequel, Sonic Adventure 2, which, like Jet Set Radio Future of last week, made bold changes to what many thought was a successful formula and, as a result, delivered an experience that was entirely different from what people expected.

Aliens: Colonial Marines – Destructoid Interview

Destructoid snagged a pretty informative interview with Brian Martel, Chief Creative Officer at Gearbox Software. In the interview they discuss key elements of the game itself (obviously) such as drop in/drop out Co-op gameplay and new Xeno types like ‘The Crusher’. They also discuss working with such talent as Ridley Scott.

Finally the attention turned to Nintendo’s new console the ‘Wii U’ and the ways it could enhance the Aliens: Colonial Marines experience. The interviewer suggests this might be the most compelling possible use of the Wii-U he has heard so far and I tend to agree. I haven’t see anything that makes me want to rush out and pick up Nintendo’s new console yet, no not even that Zelda tech demo! However the idea of using the controller screen to view the motion tracker, security cameras, hacking mini games or say, my own idea; to see through allies’ head cams would be totally awesome, even more so when they get killed and it snaps to static.

P.S Why does everyone rag on Alien3 like it was a terrible movie? It wasn’t a classic but as far as horror movies go it was pretty cool! Alien Resurrection on the other hand…

E3: Rise of Nightmares Hands On (Plus, a celebrity appearance!)

I finally got my hands on (well technically, my hands were not on anything) with Rise of Nightmares. The game’s brought to you by the same team behind the House of the Dead series and it shows. This is by far the most violent and gruesome Kinect title ever released: Kinectimals it is not. It starts off with your character waking up and watching as a mad scientist has another victim tied to a chair. He chops off the man’s hand just for the hell of it and then stabs him in the head. Before he can get to you, his nagging wife calls on the phone and he leaves you with a nurse zombie in your care. Just before this nurse checks your pulse with her teeth, another ally comes out and slices her in two. A gruesome way to start a game, but after he frees you it’s time to go find your wife and slaughter some zombies.

The Weekly Five: Saturn in the Media

Before Saturn Month is considered to be completely over, I thought I’d squeeze in one more Saturn related Weekly Five. This week, we combine our regular SEGA in the Media feature with the SEGA Saturn. That’s right, five times the SEGA in the Media in one day! So let’s kick things off with…