Gamespot presents Crush3D preview

Gamespot has gotten their hands on Crush 3D at SEGA’s recent pre-E3 event in Santa Monica, and their impressions seem generally positive. Aside from a brand new (much brighter) art style, Crush 3D will feature a new story and enhanced levels, which were apparently fixed based on fan feedback from the original. Despite the new story, main character Danny will return from the previous game. Though Crush3D has been made more accessible, Gamespot claims that it continues to be a challenging, but satisfying, puzzler. Surprisingly, they also state that turning the 3D on makes little difference.

Though it’s looking a bit more like an enhanced remake than a full-on sequel, it’s a game that not a lot of people played (myself included) so hopefully it finds a bigger audience this time around.

Crush 3D will be released for the 3DS September 6th in North America and on the 9th in Europe.

[Source: Gamespot]

Check out the SEGA Rally Online Arcade trailer


Check that out! What a great trailer for Sega Rally Online Arcade! It’s quirky, it’s fun… It sums up the simple joy of SEGA Rally a treat!

Sega Rally Online Arcade is out NOW on XBLA and PSN (The Playstation Store is still down) for only 800 MS Points it’s a bloody steal, Awesome!

Anarchy Reigns gets delayed, see you in 2012

Guess what? Anarchy Reigns isn’t going to make it to store shelves in the fall of 2011. The game has been pushed back into 2012. Not that long of a wait, it got pushed into a January 2012 release.

It is not known if it’s a worldwide delay or just Japan. I guess we will find out when SEGA makes a statement about it. Also we don’t know if the delay has to do with marketing strategy, like to avoid competing against something like Modern Warfare 3, or if it’s delayed due to development not going as expected.

[Source: AndriaSang]

Review: Thor: God of Thunder (Wii)

Wii! (huh-yeah) What is it good Thor?

Welcome back for another review of a Thor game, this time on the Wii. I’ll admit, I have yet to sink my hammer into the Thor craze. I haven’t seen the movie, nor have I tasted the 7-11 Slurpee (though my guess is it tastes like the color blue). However, I can claim to have played the Wii version of the game. How does this version fare compared to the DS and HD console versions? Let’s (insert Thor reference here) and find out!

A Share of M&S Profits Paying for 2012 Olympics, Some Dream Events Detailed

According to a TotalVideoGames interview with Mario & Sonic developers, a share of the profits from the next Mario and Sonic game will be going towards funding the London 2012 Olympics.

In addition to this, they also gave details on two dream events that will be in the game:

In the case of Yoshi’s Island – I mean Dream Long Jump – we came up with this idea of having four characters racing with each other and hopping on the clouds, so we felt that that location would suit it best.

For the full interview, head over to TotalVideoGames.

SEGA Open to Working On F-Zero

In a recent interview with TotalVideoGames.com, Mario and Sonic Chief Producer Osamu Ohashi talked about the prospect of teaming up with Nintendo to make another F-Zero game.

It might happen, if someone comes up with a brilliant idea that would make both Nintendo and SEGA happy. If there’s a good idea, that will work for both of us, then we might do that. But as far as we know, we haven’t heard of any concrete plan or project that’s going on

I think I speak for every SEGA fan when I say I don’t think I’d be interested in another F-Zero game without SEGA’s involvement. F-Zero GX was a perfection of the futuristic racer genre, and I would love to see SEGA have another crack on it…especially if it’s on the 3DS or the upcoming “Project Cafe”.

Guardian Heroes Trailer!

Rejoice! A true classic is set to return this summer on XBLA! Yep, it’s Guardian Heroes and it’s looking better than ever with the new ‘HD’ filter, new game play modes, online multiplayer, revised VS. mode and more.

If you prefer to play the game how it was on the Saturn with original chunky sprites, enabling ‘Saturn mode’ will allow you to do so!

SEGA/Sammy report has Sonic Generations coming to PC/3DS


First we had that Gamestop/Ebgames listing. Sure, that could totally be false, Gamestop has a tendency to do stuff like this. But what about SEGA/Sammy. It could be a mistake in SEGA’s part, but how likely would that be?

Another thing to note is that SEGA is expecting to sell 23.29 million pieces of software for the year, up from 18.71 million last year. How do you expect them to reach the new goal? A portable Sonic Generations is a start.

[Source: AndriaSang]

Mario & Sonic platformer never happened due to internal disagreement

When we where kids, growing up in the 16-bit era, we always took sides with either Sonic or Mario. But deep down inside, we always wanted to see them do a game together, an awesome platformer. Then SEGA announced Mario & Sonic Olympic series, making people angry. But why not make a platformer game?

“Prior to this project there has always been a discussion between Nintendo and Sega about bringing Sonic and Mario together somehow. But every time we talked about it, there was an issue as to exactly how we could achieve that.

These characters come from two totally different backgrounds, and have completely different worlds. If you do any kind of collaboration, you can’t just get them to run on one of the Sonic stages or vice versa. You have to create something from scratch, a neutral location. Nintendo and SEGA never managed to agree on just where or what kind of universe we could set a Mario and Sonic adventure in.

Then, some time ago, SEGA secured a license to create games based on the Olympics. At that point I came up with the idea of having Mario and Sonic compete with each other in the Olympic games setting. We proposed that idea to Nintendo and they were really positive and interested in the idea, so that is where we started building it into a concrete game proposal.” – Osamu Ohash, Producer.

Very interesting, minigames seem to be the easiest way to cash in on the brand names.

[Source: Spong]

SEGA: No plans for a full SEGA Rally brand revival

With SEGA announcing SEGA Rally Online Arcade for Xbox Live and PSN, the he question from fans has been; is SEGA trying to revive the brand and release a new console version of the game like 2007’s SEGA Rally Revo?

“Sega constantly wrestles with what existing IP we should try and reignite. We did a pretty good job with Sega Rally back in 2007, but it came out at a time when the consumer was moving away from driving games in general. There’s a bit of a resurgence in those games – I’ve got to say Codemasters did a brilliant job with F1 2010, it was first-class – and therefore, is it a viable market? We’re constantly looking at it.”

“Have we got any plans for Sega Rally on any platform at the moment? The answer is no. But we constantly review those IPs to see if we can reinvent them. A lot of it is dependent on what those platforms can do. And of course the cost of development.” – Mike Hayes, SEGA West CEO

It is too bad to see, but at least we are getting a digital title for now. One of the complaints for SEGA Rally Revo was that it didn’t have enough content for most racing fans, so maybe releasing the franchise as a XBLA/PSN title is a smarter choice.

[Source: Eurogamer]

SEGA: UK studios are ‘the bedrock of our business’

It’s no secret that Creative Assembly and Sports Interactive are successful studios, but they still seem to surprise SEGA.

“Our UK internal studios are probably the bedrock of our business. For the second year both Sports Interactive and Creative Assembly are outperforming their business plans from a profitability perspective. These guys are on top of the game, it’s a real testimony to the games they make.” – Gary Dunn, SEGA Europe VP of production

If only SEGA could emulate this and get a few good American developers under their belt. SEGA has said they will try to focus on improving SEGA America, we will have to see what they have planned.

[Source: GoNintendo]

Review: Thor: God of Thunder (DS)

Licensed games tend to be cursed. They’re usually made by low-end development teams with little budget and even less time. This is even more true with Sega’s games that are licensed out by Marvel. Iron Man, Incredible Hulk and especially Iron Man 2 have all been stinkers that seemed to have been made for a quick cash-in.

However, when given to the right developer, you can have a winning game on your hands. Such is the case when Sega gave development of the DS version of Thor to Wayforward. The company behind such other 2-D hits as Contra 4, Shante and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Here’ they bring their expertise to make what could have easily been movie tie-in garbage into a well polished 2-D action game.

Renegade Ops – Gameplay trailer!

Anyone else getting serious flashbacks to the mid 90’s whilst watching this? The gameplay in Sega & Avalanche Studios’ new digital download game Renegade Ops takes me right back to games like ‘Jackle’ for the NES or ‘Desert Strike’ for the Genesis in everything but the absolutely beautiful graphics!

I think this is one of the best-looking downloadable titles I’ve seen in a while! I really like the way the Jeep appears to handle, it reminds me of the Halo Warthog, awesome!