Giveaway: Four copies of Condemned: Criminal Origins on Steam up for grabs (Details Below)

Hello, friends. We here at the SEGA Source hope that all of our readers had a happy and safe Halloween. Even though most of the festivities have drawn to a close and a metric ton of candy has already been eaten, we’d like to help keep up the frightful spirit of the holiday with our belated second annual giveaway! This time, we’ll be handing out four copies of the 2006 first-person brawler/physiological horror game Condemned: Criminal Origins, which was just recently added to the Steam platform on PC.

To enter, first you must follow us on any of the following three: Our Twitter, RSS, or our Official SEGA Art Tumblr. Then, all you have to do is email us at thesegasource@yahoo.com with an image of your favorite SEGA-themed Halloween costumes (could be your own or somebody else’s, but please give credit if you choose to enter another person’s costume) and that’s it — you’ve been entered for a chance to win. Please submit your entries before the contest ends on Monday, November 5th at midnight. Winners will be random selected and we will promptly send out all of the codes to the winners via email after the contest has ended.

Thanks for all of the continued support and best of luck to everyone!

EDIT: The contest is now over. Thanks to everyone who entered, and thanks to SEGA of America for the opportunity to do this giveway. See you next game!

House of the Dead 1 and 2 Film Reviews

Though it’s not as iconic as Daytona USA or innovative as Virtua Fighter, The House of the Dead is nevertheless one of the most important series of arcade titles in the history of gaming. With machines found in practically every arcade and movie theater throughout all of it’s 16 years, The House of the Dead has remained a fixture in the scene since its debut in 1997, and since then it has gone on to become one of the most popular series of arcade games in the world, featuring four games in the main series and several spin-off titles spanning across dozens of platforms.

With its outstanding success, further attention was brought to the series outside of the video game medium, when in 2003 a film adaption was released, which was followed by a sequel in 2005. After the break we have included overviews of the plots, discuss the negatives and positives of both films and reveal little-known facts about their production.

Condemned: Criminal Origins now available on Steam

Just in time for Halloween, Monolith Productions’s first-person brawler/psychological horror game Condemned: Criminal Origins (which was released for the Xbox 360 and PC in 2006) has been made available on the Steam platform for Windows. Best known for their first-person shooter/horror series Blood and F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon, Condemned follows suit Monolith’s tradition of blending desperate elements of action, horror, exploration, and puzzle solving into the framework of the tried and true first-person shooter, though Condemned is a shooter only in the most superficial sense. Guns are present in the game, but they are rare — and ammunition is even rarer, making them impracticable and largely unreliable, given other elements of the game and its story. Instead, the focus of Condemned’s combat is based around melee, in which the player can utilize their a variety of improvised weaponry strewn about the environmental, including pipes, axes, cleavers, pieces of rebar, and mannequin parts, and their bare hands to defend themselves against the crazed denizens of the criminal underworld.

The player assumes the role of Ethan Thomas, a crime scene investigator and detective who has been tasked with tracking down a known serial killer, and as such he is equipped with a number of tools with which to examine crime scenes and uncover clues about victims. This leads into the other central part of the gameplay — the investigation, in which the player can examine bodies and uncover clues that might help lead them to the elusive Serial Killer X. Other prominent elements of the game include psychological horror, which permeates throughout all of the game’s dark, grisly environments, as well as the insane humans that stalk Ethan at every turn and other supernatural elements to the story that give the an morose feeling.

At full price the Condemned can be purchased on Steam for $14.99 USD, but as part of it’s annual Halloween Sale, the service is currently offering the game for a sale price of $7.49. We’ve included the game’s original launch trailer after the break.

[Source: Steam]

New DLC available for Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit

New downloadable content has been made available for Arkedo Studio’s offbeat platformer Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit. The DLC, which is available in two separate packs, adds a wide variety of brand new content to the game, which was released earlier this month. The first of these two packs, called the Virtual Rabbit Missions, adds 50 new challenges to the game. These missions are time-based and task the player with defeating all of the monsters in a given level in as little time as possible, with a particular focus on speed and efficiency. The second, aptly titled the Pimp My Rabbit Pack, adds over 70 unique items to the game with which the player can customize look of the titular dead rabbit, Ash. Interesting to note is that some of these items make reference to a number of different SEGA games and series, including Shenmue, Golden Axe, and Skies of Arcadia, among others. All of these and more can be seen in the game’s DLC trailer, which we’ve included after the break.

Both packs are available on PlayStation Network for PlayStation 3, Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360, and on Steam for Windows. Virtual Rabbit Missions can be purchased for $4.99, AUD $7.75, £3.69, €4.49 on PlayStation 3 and Steam or 400 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360, while the Pimp My Rabbit Pack can be purchased for $2.99, AUD $4.25, £1.99, €2.49 on PlayStation 3 and Steam or 240 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360.

Sonic Jump now available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad

Sonic Jump, the latest entry in SEGA’s long-running Sonic the Hedgehog series and the first to be developed specifically for the mobile platform, is now available for purchase on several Apple devices, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Developed by Hardlight, SEGA’s newly formed digital studio based out of the United Kingdom, Sonic Jump is a platformer based around ascension through vertically scaled levels full of various types of enemies and hazards. Though somewhat atypical from the style of gameplay seen in other titles in the series, the core structure and mechanics of Sonic Jump remain largely the same, with the titular mammal collecting many rings and power-ups as he progresses through multiple levels, all of which feature a boss fight at the very end. The core game is mission-based, with the player being tasked with completing several challenges in each area, while the leaderboard focused content, dubbed Infinite Arcade mode, has the player trying to ascend a level as quickly as possible, with the best heights and times being posted on the game’s leaderboard, which can be shared among contacts and friends.

Sonic Jump can be found on the iTunes App Store for the price of $1.99 USD, AUD $1.99, £1.49, and €1.59. If interested, the game’s launch trailer can be viewed after the break.

Source: Apple Store

Classic SEGA Music: Star Humming

Ristar (also known as Ristar the Shooting Star) is the 1995 platformer developed by Sonic Team and released for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive and later for the SEGA Game Gear. The game follows the titular young star as he travels across the Valdi Galaxy in pursuit of the evil space pirate Kaiser Greedy, who has kidnapped the Legendary Hero that watches over the galaxy and protects it from harm. Although it is often overshadowed by Sonic Team’s other popular series, including Phantasy Star, Samba de Amigo, NiGHTS, and, of course, Sonic the Hedgehog, Ristar has managed to hold its own over a veritable who’s who of video game classics, and today it is often considered to be one of the very best and most beloved games on the platform.

Without further ado, let’s blast off and take a look at a cheerful little tune called “Star Humming”.

Crazi Taxi released for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

A portable version of the hit arcade and home racing game, Crazy Taxi, is now availible for the iOS platform across several devices, including Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Originally developed by the now defunct AM3 division of SEGA, Crazy Taxi is a time-based racing game in which the player must pick up and transport fares to various locations across the city as quickly as possible, whilst performing many dangerous (and crazy) tricks and stunts in order to improve their score and gain time bonuses before their allotted time runs out. The series is well known for its absurd humor, fast pace, addicting and highly replayable gameplay, and most notably, its soundtrack, which consists entirely of songs provided by punk rock bands The Offspring and Bad Religion. The soundtrack is so heavily ingrained in the attitude and general style of the game that many fans consider the two synonymous, which is why some were left highly disappointed when the game was released for the PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE Arcade in 2010 with a different, generally worse soundtrack. With this new version, however, fans can once again rejoice, as the original soundtrack will be making a full return, as evidenced by the use of the song “All I Want” by the Offspring in the game’s brief trailer, which you can view after the break.

You can read our review of the Xbox LIVE Arcade version of the game here.

[Source: Apple Store]

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit available for download

The brand new action-adventure Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit is now available for download on Steam for Windows, as well as on Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 and on Sony’s PlayStation Network for PlayStation 3. Hell Yeah! is, in it’s own words, crazy, over the top, and completely absurd, both in its story, presentation, and gameplay, which sees Ash, the resident dead rabbit and Prince of Hell, on a quest to save face after a scandalous photograph is taken of him during a bath with his favorite rubber ducky and posted on the ‘Hellternet’, which garners over 100 page views. Ash then decides to do what comes naturally to him and opts to kill every single monster in a variety of ridiculous ways before word of his secret obsession gets out. The ways in which the player ultimately kills these monsters is unique, and one of the game’s most bizarre and interesting gameplay mechanics, as they engage in timing-based minigames, similar to those seen in Nintendo’s WarioWare series of games, which have a similar tone to that of Hell Yeah. It’s core gameplay revolves around platforming and exploration, with player gaining access to new items and abilities as they progress through ten large worlds.

A trial version of the game is available on Xbox LIVE Arcade and PlayStation Network, which features the first world of the game. It’s also worth noting that those who pre-purchase Hell Yeah! on Steam will receive ten free games as part of the Classic SEGA Platform Collection, which includes Comix Zone, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Kid Chameleon, Ristar, Decap Attack, Flicky, Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair, Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, and Wonder Boy in Monster World, also available on Steam.

After the break, be sure to check out the game’s launch trailer.

NiGHTS into Dreams, Sonic Adventure 2 available for download this week on XBLA and PSN

Sonic Team’s NiGHTS into Dreams… and Sonic Adventure 2 will both be available for download on the Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Network on PlayStation 3 this week with PC versions for both titles being released at an unknown future date. Across all platforms, both games will cost 10 USD (800 Microsoft Points).

Originally released on the SEGA Saturn, NiGHTS into Dreams… was a flagship release on the platform and received critical acclaim for it’s unique take on the platforming genre and the amount of replay value it offered based on it’s scoring mechanics. This modern version of the game is based on the obscure PlayStation 2 port, which was only released in Japan. It features some of the extra content from the demonstrative Christmas NiGHTS and includes newly created higher resolution models and textures.

Sonic Adventure 2 was one of the last major releases on the Dreamcast and was ported to GameCube as Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, one of SEGA’s earliest games on a Nintendo platform. Additional purchasable content for multiplayer will also be available for the game, but it is unknown if that will be playable online.

The Cave to be released on Wii U eShop

It was announced at PAX Prime 2012 on Sunday that Double Fine Production’s upcoming adventure game, The Cave, is set to be released as a downloadable title on Nintendo’s Wii U eShop, in addition to seeing release on PC, Sony’s PlayStation Network on PlayStation 3, and Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Arcade on Xbox 360. No additional details were given on how, if at all, this version of the game will differ from other platforms, though it is expected to make use of the touch and movement capabilities of the Wii’s U tablet controller. The Cave is currently being developed by Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions in collaboration with industry icon Ron Gilbert, who created and is producing the game. Gilbert is best known as the creator of several of the most well respected adventure games of all time, including the Secret of Monkey Island and its sequels, Day of the Tentacle, and Manic Mansion, the later of which Gilbert has said inspired some of the game elements seen in The Cave. No official release date has been announced as of yet, but The Cave is due for release sometime in February of next year.