Sega still feels the beat for Jet Grind Radio

I make no bones about being someone who loves when developers play the nostalgia card so long as they don’t screw it all up.

So hearing Sega bring up Jet Grind Radio warms my heart. Despite my lack of confidence in Sega as developers today, I’m dying for them to bring back some of the Dreamcast classics developed back when they were damn near flawless.

There were no confirmations of a new Jet Grind, nor was there even confirmation of a digital port of the Dreamcast original. However, producer of the digital Dreamcast lineup Yosuke Okunari did make mention of it, Siliconera reports.

If anyone were to make a comment about Jet Grind Radio, wouldn’t you want it to come from someone labeled “producer of the digital Dreamcast lineup?”

Okunari simply said that Sega listens to fans and hears the cries for Jet Grind (I know I’ve done my part), and that “a packaged title, Virtual-On Force for Xbox 360 was born from voiced requests.”

There have long been rumors that Jet Grind Radio is among the Dreamcast games that will soon be ported to XBLA and PSN. I hope this is the case because I need an easier outlet to play it. For as much as I want to, it’s hard to get motivated to whip out the Dreamcast, find all the necessary cables and plug it in.

Laziness is a cruel, cruel beast.

Update: There’s also a brief mention in the same interview of looking into emulating Saturn games.

“It’s the same as how Sega Ages and Virtual Console were separate existences,” Okunari said. “It’s not that we have no intention of porting Saturn titles, so please share your requests.”

I never owned a Saturn, but I know some people are very fond of the system.

Virtual-On returns to Xbox 360

Sega’s new teaser site has been taking up some space on a variety of blogs lately but rather than updating every time it teases another teaser I decided to hold off.

It looks like the answer may have come a little early if this new Virtual-On title turns out to be the big reveal. It wouldn’t be surprising, either. Publishers like spoiling their own teasers with magazine features that hit a few days early.

It’s called Virtual-On Force, and it was revealed in the latest Famitsu. This isn’t a remake though, and it’s not coming to digital services this time – Sega is going full blown retail.

Oddly enough it’s looking like a 360 exclusive.

The game makes full use of online gameplay with both battle and co-op modes.

I was never a VOOT player but I’m sure diehards of the series are excited. If this is indeed a 360 exclusive, I’m not particularly sure why Sega is ignoring the PS3 aside from maybe Microsoft throwing a few bills their way.

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Vanquish thine enemy

Some people are bitching about the look of Vanquish, I happen to think it looks pretty rad. I’ll take the stylish Apple-sponsored whites over the same damn brown and gritty textures of most shooters.

Now that I’ve gotten the defensiveness out of my system, Siliconera has a few new screenshots for your eyes so go check ‘em out.

It’s Platinum developed, so Vanquish has my attention.

DICE’s Hardcore shooter from 1994

Even if they’re a bit shooter heavy, I like DICE. Bad Company 2 and Mirror’s Edge are both great titles and while I’ve never played it, I hear good things about Battlefield 1943.

I’m not particularly well versed on DICE when it comes to their early years, however.

The studio actually had a fantastic looking Genesis side-scrolling shooter called Hardcore. Unfortunately, the game was canceled along with 13 other Genesis games when Psygnosis (Hardcore’s publisher) decided to bail on Sega’s system.

According to DICE, the game was 99 percent complete and had only one bug to iron out.

It seems weird to bring up a canceled game from 1994, but DICE actually showed it off at a Swedish event called Datastorm last month.

Don’t get your hopes up for an XBLA or PSN port, the rights are still with Psygnosis.

Do check out the video though. It’s an ultra generic name (come on, it was 1994) but the game itself looks inspired by titles like Contra and Turrican – I mean that in a good way.

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Sonic 4 boycotters stick it to Sega by giving them money

Boycotters are so stupid. OK, they aren’t all stupid, but for the most part they’re idiots. Any point even remotely valid is often outweighed by the ridiculous tirades the “leaders” go on about or the completely hilarious “stand” they take.

Let’s look at this Sonic the Hedgehog 4 boycott, for example.

In a truly unprecedented fashion, they intend to hurt Sega by giving them money. On the release date of Sonic 4, it’s their plan to buy Sonic 1 in bulk – that’ll show ‘em!

Taken directly from the always effective petition:

“Fans of the sonic series are like most sega fans, we want their old games brought back to the glory days when sega was pretty much the power in video games. Seeing the gameplay of sonic 4 has made many of us realize what we already knew, Sonic 4 will simply not be anywhere near as good as the original sonic games. Either way, We will decide to finally show sega what the fans truly want. A real sonic 4, as long as sonic 4 stays the way it is, we will not buy it, we will in fact buy sonic 1 on release in protest of sonic 4, till we end up with a re tool, or change, we want sonic in hd, not sonic RUSH HD. We will not buy a future sonic game, till we get a true successor to sonic 1/2″

I’m not here to defend Sonic 4 because frankly, I haven’t really liked what little I’ve seen, but come the shit on. The folks at Sega have be laughing their asses off at the prospect of making extra money from Sonic 1 sales on top of the large amount of money they will make from Sonic 4.

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Bayonetta breaks one million in sales

Bayonetta gets to join the lucky bunch of titles that have surpassed one million copies sold. Yes, it’s worldwide and across two platforms, but I don’t think many expected Platinum to get those kind of numbers out of it; I know I didn’t.

Obviously I’m pleased with these numbers considering I enjoyed it immensely.

The 1.1 million it sold still didn’t outperform Sega’s other release Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, which sold 5.67 million, but it’s become apparent that anything with Mario in the title is going to kill. That it’s developed by Sega and is a part of the Olympics franchise means it’s probably shit and doesn’t deserve it, but try telling the mainstream consumer that.

Either way, Bayonetta is a success and Platinum finally has a well-deserved hit on their hands. Now please show us some gameplay footage of Vanquish.

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Sonic the Hedgehog 4 coming to XBLA, WiiWare, PSN

The big Project Needlemouse unveil happened late last night over at Gamespot with a short clip and an official name, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1.

Sega announced that the game will launch on XBLA, WiiWare and PSN, each being nearly identical. The only mentioned differences will be the 1080p resolution for XBLA and PSN over the Wii’s 480p, and slight motion controls added for both the Wii and the PS3 (presumably Sixaxis).

After a reading an interview with Sega’s Ken Balough and taking one look at the trailer, it’s obvious Sega is developing a Sonic with old school fans in mind, but we kind of already knew that.

I’ll keep optimistic about the project though I’m not exactly blown away by what little is shown. The trailer transitions from the classic Sonics to a 2010 Sonic and it’s as if the blue rodent suddenly starts running in waste deep imaginary water.

It looks a little better when he’s running through an actual course, but the animation is still off.

Balough confirmed to Gamespot that, as suggested by the name, this isn’t a one and done affair. Sega plans to continue on with classic Sonic in downloadable form.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a decent console Sonic game, I just hope a new video (preferably longer) gets released to alleviate some of my fears.

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Bayonetta — Review

Review based on 360 version. Typically this wouldn’t matter, but the PS3 is said to be an inferior port — please keep this in mind.

Former Capcom developer Clover (now defunct) are on their second release since forming under the Platinum Games name, and like MadWorld, they’ve went for another stylish and extreme take on the action genre with Bayonetta.

The game puts the super sexualized female lead of the same name, Bayonetta, in the filthy and perverted hands of 360 and PS3 gamers.

But Bayonetta is more than just sex appeal, it’s a frantic action game that feels more Devil May Cry than perhaps even modern day Devil May Cry. That should come as no surprise considering the developer’s roots, and the background of director Hideki Kamiya. READ MORE

Sonic only star in Project Needlemouse; first concept art

So will Sega shit it up with this upcoming 2D Sonic dubbed Project Needlemouse, or will they finally cater to the old school fans dying for a, you know, good Sonic? Well, it’ll be a long time before we know the answer to that, but they appear to be trying at least.

One of the most dreaded things about each new entry is the lame buddies that always end up showing up in new Sonic games or worse yet, alter egos like the frickin’ werehog in Unleashed. Everyone was just waiting on Sega to announce a host of unnecessary characters for Project Needlemouse much to the dismay of anyone who cares about the game.

Well, celebrate because we have at least one victory at hand: it’ll be based on Sonic and Sonic alone.

Taken from Sega:

“To the thousands of you out there asking for a game where Sonic is the only playable character – rejoice. As of today, your wish has been granted. In Project Needlemouse, there will be no new characters – playable or otherwise. The focus will remain solely on one blue hedgehog.”

Awesome, now make the game not suck.

Unfortunately we’re still without a single image, but Sega was nice enough to release a piece of concept art – looks classy. Hopefully the game will sport full 2D art, but I’ll allow 3D graphics on a 2D plane if Sega opts for it.

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More M-rated titles from Sega on Wii? Probably not.

Sega might be done with M-rated games on Wii if studio director Constantine Hantzopoulos’ words hold true.

“Are we going to do more mature titles for the Wii? Probably not,” Hantzopoulos said.

“I have to say that it was a space that was open and we took a gamble on it. It’s like, ‘Wow, there’s no mature games on the Wii. Is there an audience out there?’ We did some research, it said there was an audience out there.”

I guess there wasn’t.

House of the Dead: Overkill didn’t pull in big numbers and aside from myself, only 12 other people bought MadWorld (fact). The Conduit pulled in decent numbers, but it still never reached the market Sega hoped for.

Dead Space: Extraction seems to have sealed the fate of future Sega developments. READ MORE