Jeopardy! answers “Who is Sonic?”

Last week on Jeopardy it was Kids Week, so appropriately clues catered to the younger crowd. Despite being twice their age, many of the questions went over my head and were successfully answered by the competing grade schoolers. Thankfully, I was sure to get one question right and that one involved a popular blue hedgehog. On the Friday, July 8th episode, in the category Cute & Cuddly the $800 clue was: “Tails is a big-eyed friend of this ever-popular hedgehog”. The eventual champion Tony correctly answered “Sonic” in the form of a question. Thank goodness he didn’t screw up and say Shadow or Silver. Way to go, Tony! Now use that prize money to pre-order Sonic Generations, and pick up Jeopardy! for the SEGA Genesis while you’re at it.

Rumor: Rise of Nightmares is “STAMACSTA” in Australia

Rise of Nightmares: It’s a pretty creepy title. It makes sense in the context of the game, the nightmares are rising and it is up to you to keep them down and defeat them.

STAMACSTA: What?!

According to the Australian Classification Board, a game developed by SEGA’s CS3 team containing “strong horror violence, blood and gore” will be released in Australia. This describes Rise of Nightmares to a T, however the title does not match up. In the classification, this game is titled “STAMACSTA”. Either SEGA’s CS3 team are developing two gory games and we have yet to hear of this other one, or much more likely STAMACSTA is Australia’s title for Rise of Nightmares. Fingers crossed that a classification board employee accidentally let his cat walk on the keyboard rather than this being true. It’s quote an awful title. “Stam-acts-ta”?

After the break, check out the classification information.

Rumor: SEGA working on Phantasy Star Victory?

Seems that SEGA developer Kenichi Tanase might have let slip the title of the next Phantasy Star game on twitter. He says the next game will be called Phantasy Star Victory.

Since Phantasy Star Portable (PSP) was for the Playstation Portable (PSP), people are assuming that Phantasy Star Victory (PSV) will be on the Playstation Vita (PSV). Chances seem high, SEGA has already confirmed it’s working on 5 titles for the portable.

[Via: NoGamesPortable]

SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Clockwork Knight

Clockwork Knight and Clockwork Knight 2 were both games that were released early on in the Saturn’s life. Since the Saturn didn’t make too big of a splash, these games aren’t well known to most mainstream gamers and that is a shame.

So what is Clockwork Knight and why does it deserve a new entry? Well, hit the jump and find out.

Swingin’ Report Show #12: Tight Purple Spandex

This week on the podcast you have me (George), nSEGA and Shigs talking about a variety of SEGA topics. We talk about SEGA signing a distribution deal with EA, rumored Sonic related games in the works and go off topic (quite a bit). A big theme of the podcast is the NiGHTS franchise, which turns 15 years old this week.

[audio:http://www.segabits.com/wp-content/uploads/Swingin_Report_Show_12_Tight_Purple_Spandex.mp3]

[Download] [Archive]

The Weekly Five: SEGA PSP games that should be ported to PS3


SEGA has had some highly rated games released on the PSP, sadly mostly everyone outside of Japan has decided to ignore the platform. Sony recently announced the ‘PSP Remasters’ series. Games from PSP ported over and enhanced on the Playstation 3.

One of the first games to get this treatment has been Monster Hunter Freedom 3, which looks great. I decided to put together 5 games that deserve the PSP Remasters treatment.

SEGA Amusement USA changing location and name


I guess there have been rumors flying that SEGA Amusement USA will be closing down, since their website has been down. The fine folks at Arcade Heroes got down to it and found out what is really going on.

It seems that SEGA Amusement USA will be changing locations from Elk Grove Village, IL to Wood Dale, IL. They have also confirmed that they will be changing their name from SEGA Amusement USA to Play It Amusement Inc. The company is still going to be operated and owned by SEGA.

This new change is aimed to keep the same employees and streamline operating costs by working closer with SEGA Amusement Europe. I don’t know why they changed the name myself, but whatever.

[Source: ArcadeHeroes]

I’m a celebrity!

Before I talked about my E3 experiences on the Swingin’ Report Show, I was a guest on “The Spindash” the best darn Sonic-related podcast that hasn’t had an episode in half a year. GXEchidna interviewed me. He’s a great guy and we have the same interest in podcasts. The episode is even named after my full username. “Much Ado about Shigamado”.

You can catch it here.

Famitsu Reveals Sonic Generations City Escape Modern Remix and More Screens

While City Escape has been known of since E3, and there has been a number of preview videos and screens since then, we have yet to hear a clean version of the music for the modern version of the stage. This is the tune that singer Tony Harnell hinted at re-recording long before Sonic Generations was ever announced. Thanks to SEGA of Japan and Famitsu, a new trailer puts the E3 trailer to shame by incorporating the actual stage music. What more, Famitsu shares a few new screens from both modern and classic City Escape including the stage hub.

Virtua Tennis 4 rallies back to fifth in British charts

 

Thanks to the conclusion of Wimbledon over the previous weekend, two tennis games saw a jump in the charts and it was SEGA’s Virtua Tennis 4 that triumphed over rival Top Spin 4. It has been reported by a NeoGAF member, using some calculations provided by Chart-Track, that Virtua Tennis 4’s combined sales last week was no more than 9,300. Whilst not as impressive as Djokovic was against Nadal, it is none the less a good number of sales in this time of year as the British market is often sluggish during June. Expect to see Virtua Tennis 4 in the British charts for a few more weeks to come.

[ Source: Chart-Track and NeoGAF]

SEGA Japan launches Sonic tweeting game


SEGA Japan launched another web app for Sonic’s 20th anniversary. This strange little app is called “Sonic ★ Tweet“.

I guess the way the game works is that you have to use the twitter client to unlock 500 cards that feature characters from Sonic’s history. How do you unlock the cards? Defeat Eggman by using some wit in your tweets.

Basically the game takes your tweet, breaks down the words and each one has assigned points. Depending on what words you use, in one tweet (and what others online are using) you rank in combos, giving Sonic’s attack more damage.

After you take down Eggman’s health to zero, you will get exp and a card. Cards can be used to bypass a cooldown phase (you have a limit to how much you can attack).

Sadly this game is only up for our Japanese readers, the rest of us either have to learn Japanese or pretend we know how.

[Source: Sonic Wrecks]