Earlier this year Epic Scents, the world’s foremost video game scent creator, announced their plan to produce products based on SEGA’s expansive line-up of characters. So far they have created air fresheners for both Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles ‘Tails’ Prower – SEGA’s two mascot characters from 1992. Under the label Scent Blasters ™, Sonic is available in Sonic Breeze, which smells of Green Hill Zone after Sonic has run through it, and Tails is available in Miles High Fresh, a fragrance that smells of the fresh air and clouds that Tails flies through.
Date Released: 3 September, 2013 Date Reviewed: 1 October, 2013 Players: 2-8 Length: 20 minutes Replayability: None
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Introduction
SEGA’s Total War: ROME II has recently released for the Personal Computer (PC). Developed by The Creative Assembly (CA) in the UK, the game is set to be one of the biggest PC game releases from SEGA. Combing both real-time battles and sieges – both on land and on sea – and turned-based campaign strategy, the game offers the most grand and expansive Total War experience to date. Continue below to see how the game fared.
SEGA’s developer The Creative Assembly has teamed up with Games Workshop to develop video games based on the popular series Warhammer. The Warhammer series features fantasy settings and themes such as orcs, elves, goblins, and so on in a dark and gritty manner, noted as being similar to The Lord of the Rings mixed with Early Modern Germany. The Creative Assembly is mostly known for its tactical and strategy series Total War, in addition to action games featuring large-scale battles, such as in 2008’s Viking: Battle for Asgard.
An entirely new team within The Creative Assembly has been tasked to create multiple games based on Warhammer, which will not delay the progress of Total War, mobile, or action-console games currently being developed by The Creative Assembly.
SEGA Vintage Collection has been recently released on both XBLA and PSN – for the XBox 360 and PS3 respectfully. Known as SEGA AGES Online in Japan, it features proper emulations of SEGA classics – both console and arcade – with an abundance of features. It is developed by M2, former SNK employees responsible for SEGA’s Virtual Console offerings on Wii and many previous SEGA AGES games on PS2. Extensive emulation options, high definition artwork wallpapers, leader boards, saving, replays, achievements/trophies, new trial modes, and on-line play are all included, bringing these games back to life in a respectable, professional manner. With it being an on-going series of releases of classic games, it might be helpful to get a basic overview of what is included, how it fairs, and how others view the games released so far. Below is a compilation of this.
Jet Set Radio has been announced for Sony’s PS Vita handheld. Based on the upcoming downloadable HD release on PSN, PC, and XBLA, this version will feature new content such as use of the touch screen when spraying graffiti, retaining everything from the new home versions plus more. Pricing has not been set, although the game is due out this summer, 2012.
Known as Jet Grind Radio in North America at the time, Jet Set Radio was originally released on the Dreamcast in 2000 and was praised for its unique style, based on both its soundtrack (which will mostly be retained, but not fully) and it’s unique ‘cel-shaded’ graphics that launched a new visual style within video games.
Date Released: 13 March, 2012 Date Reviewed: 8 May, 2012 Players: 1 main game, 2 in select side games Length: 40+ hours Replayability: High
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Introduction
Yakuza: Dead Souls is the latest entry in the Yakuza franchise to be released outside of Japan. Rather than being a direct sequel to the last entry, Yakuza 4, it instead goes for a hypothetical story-line that acts as a non-canonical spin-off title, focusing on a zombie outbreak in the well known locality of Kamurocho, in Tokyo, Japan. Abandoning the beat em’ up style the franchise is known for, Dead Souls instead opts to create a 3D, third person action game focused on gun mechanics, akin to classic video games such as Zombies Ate My Neighbours, although with the aesthetics of the Yakuza franchise. The same game structure the series is known for is also present with its action story segments, its missions, and its open world full of shops and attractions. Created by the same developers in SEGA of Japan as always (ie: ‘Yakuza Team’), Yakuza: Dead Souls comes off as an experiment, seeking to provide a combination of horror comedy, zombies, and SEGA’s take on Yakuza in one title.
SEGA has announced a sequel to 2010’s Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing titled Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed. While dropping the ‘SEGA’ portion of the title, the game will still feature a wide variety of SEGA franchises in addition to the Sonic the Hedgehog series, spanning from SEGA’s early years up until now. Franchises shown off include Skies of Acadia and Panzer Dragoon, with mention of others such as Golden Axe. The game’s main feature over its predecessor is the ability for player vehicles to transform from cars into both boats and planes mid-race, combining three separate physics engines into one game.
The game has been announced for XBox 360, PlayStation 3, Personal Computer, PlayStation Vita, and Nintendo 3DS, and will be developed by Sumo Digital. It is set for a release in Autumn of 2012. Assets below include a launch trailer, a set of screenshots, and a preview by IGN including a developer video interview.
Recent research by the leading third-party authority on the Clockwork Knight franchise has revealed a rare fact to the SEGA fandom. The toy knight known only as Sir Ginger is playable in the Japan-only compilation Clockwork Knight Fukubukuro. This SEGA Saturn game’s additional content makes it worthy of any importer’s collection and it should be sought after for a complete Clockwork Knight experience.
Below are instructions on how to activate Sir Ginger, as well as a gameplay demonstration of Sir Ginger’s abilities.
Information has become available that Alex Kidd Collection will appear on Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA for short) for Xbox 360, although further formal announcements may be made for other platforms. The game will feature Alex Kidd in Miracle World for the SEGA Master System, Super Hang-On 3D – a new 3D (non-polygonal) version of the arcade game, and The Revenge of Shinobi for Mega Drive/Genesis. The collection will be released digitally and will include both bonus trials for the games in addition to a dedicated sound test mode. It is being developed by M2, former staff of SNK and Treasure.
Similarly to the upcoming SEGA Vintage Collection: Monster WorldCollection, there have been no mention of these titles by SEGA themselves, although Monster World IV and Revenge of Shinobi were announced for release on PlayStation Network last year, no information has been seen on their releases until recently.
The SEGA Source 