The same new issue of Famitsu that included footage of Bayonetta also contains another Mad World video. The MW offering doesn’t show much in the way of graphic content and was a tad bit disappointing considering there are a ton of videos floating around the web that better illustrate the games violent content.

If anything, this video is a watered down version of the game designed to be presentable to the masses. Have at it after the jump. Read more…

I was so excited after seeing Bayonetta at this years E3 that I did everything I could to share what I had seen with all of you — including sketching some key moments from the presentation. Well, thanks to the latest issue of Famitsu, you will all be able to see a short video clip released by Sega that highlights a small sampling of the games footage.

Unfortunately the clip doesn’t showcase any of the fighting mechanics we got to see at E3, but it does give you a glimpse into the style and overall art direction. Having seen the footage again myself, I stand behind my original statement comparing the games look to a mix between DMC and Final Fantasy.

The short video clip as well as three high res scans from the magazine are available after the jump. Read more…

Earlier this year, Platinum Games and Sega announced MadWorld, a grisly Wii game with a focus on vehement, outlandish violence, and beating your enemies to a pulp that would make of Tropicana jealous. Today at GC, Platinum Games has brought us some new details on the game, as well as a trailer showcasing the sadist ways of the game’s main protagonist.

Like all bad asses, you play as Jack, a guy with a generic name and a motorcycle, complete with flames riding out of the back, because its not a motorcycle without outlandish flames tapering down the backside.

Like the best protagonists, he wears goggles on his head that you’ll probably never see him wear, he’s had one of his limbs (specifically his right arm) replaced with a chainsaw, making it pretty damn hard to write with anything other than his enemies’ blood, and of course he’s built like a fucking brick house.

Chances are, he’s got a spitfire mouth full of witty insults about your mother and a lexicon that would surprise even Kevin Smith. Marcus Fenix, eat your heart out. Read more…

Touted as a pulp horror game, The House of the Dead: OVERKILL (the name is actually in caps) was announced today at Leipzig, and although it’s no Jet Grind Radio, it does still look to be an awesome addition for the Wii.
Read more…

Reports have surfaced, and it appears that Sega will be announcing a new Nintendo Wii title tomorrow at Leipzig. At this point we know that the game is being developed by Headstrong, and as we reported a few days ago, Sega recently renewed the trademark on Jet Grind Radio.

JET GRIND RADIO
Standard Character claim: Yes
Current Status: Newly filed application, not yet assigned to an examining attorney.
Date of Status: 2008-07-30
Filing Date: 2008-07-24

Armed with that information, if we had to guess, we would have to lean in that direction as of now, but final word will be coming your way tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Sega’s PS3 exclusive Valkyria Chronicles looks good. It looks really good. Alternate WWII-timeline, elegant painterly graphics, cameos from Skies of Aracdia characters and some newfangled take on strategy-RPG gameplay? We won’t even have to wait too much longer for it, either, as Sega has announced that the game will come out on American shores on November 11.

For the serious Japanophiles out there, the game will include the original Japanese voice-over work - a nice backup option in case the American voice-overs are too hammy. Hit the jump for more info. Read more…

Sega has announced its Leipzig GC line-up, and they’re trying to make a song and dance out of Samba De Amigo. More interesting is the promise of the world premiere of a new title and the attendance of Headstrong Games on their booth.

Headstrong, rebranded from Kuju Entertainment at the end of July, is working on an as-yet-undisclosed Wii title for Sega, so it’s a fair bet they are not turning up to Leipzig just to soak up the atmosphere or see how it compares to E3.

So what could it be? Much as I would love it to be another Shenmue, it seems like it might be another Dreamcast classic – Jet Grind Radio. Sega filed this handy trademark, dated 24 July 2008, which gives us hope that they’re returning to the franchise.

They promise we’ll find out for sure before the event. Here’s the rest of their line-up, sadly devoid of any other Dreamcast greats begging for a resurrection: Read more…

Man-on-top Simon Jeffrey has rounded on developers for drowning Wii in below-par tat, but is confident that publishers – starting with Sega, naturally – can put that to rights.

Chewing the fat over at Venture Beat, he says:

“There is a lot of crap coming out for the Wii in general. But if it’s not a good game, it doesn’t sell. That flood of crap will die down as publishers become more coherent.”

Let’s hope this isn’t a case of Simon Jeffrey misspeaking again. He also lets loose on the tug-of-war between Sony and Microsoft for Wii ‘graduates’, putting everyone’s favourite game – Mad World – on the frontline for reaching out to the more hardcore Wii audience.

“No one is doing that. With Mad World from Platinum Games, we are trying to show that millions of Wii gamers want to move on to mature games. They don’t have to have an Xbox 360 to do that.”

There’s more to come from Sega when it comes to Wii – Jeffrey just loves the accessories:

“We are fans of the Wii Zapper. Our Ghost Squad game keeps selling. We have more Zapper games going. The same for the Wii Balance Board, although we have nothing announced yet.”

Never say never. Nothing may be announced *yet*, but Leipzig GC is only round the corner. Read more…

I recently reported that Sega CEO Simon Jeffery, in an interview with Gamastura, stated that Yu Suzuki, Sega’s long time game designer, was no longer employed by the company. The interviewer then made an interrogative statement seeking to further confirm Suzuki’s situation, to which Simon said “Not as far as I know.”

Well, apparently the CEO does not know very much. The creator of Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop, and Out Run is still very much with Sega as a Creative Officer. Just how many layers their are between a clueless CEO and a legendary gaming “Creative Officer” — the world may never know.

One good thing came out of all of this — if Simon can misspeak on the fate of one of their most influential employees, who’s to say he has any idea at all what is going on with the fate of the Dreamcast 2. For all he knows, Suzuki is working on it right now.

Source: Gamasutra

Gary Busey as Sonic the Hedgehog - hide the women and children

First-quarter results from the industry mainstay posted SEGA at a loss of $963 million.

Despite the brutal blow, consumer growth has gone up 90.6%. However, the company’s current woes can be laid directly at the feet of Sega’s pachinko arcade interests which cost them more than $39 million.

However, Videogame sales have continued to climb for the publisher as Iron Man and Valkyria Chronicles continue to exceed sales expectations in Japan and worldwide.

No word yet from the titular blue hedgehog on the considerable loses of his sugar-momma Sega. Those close Sonic say that he now wishes he hadn’t spent all his money sniffing lines of blow of the ass of Princess Elise.

Source: gamesindustry.biz

In an E3 interview conducted with Sega’s President, Simon Jeffery, the Dreamcast revival is jokingly brought up, only to be shot down immediately by Jeffery. The tone of his response in doing so is very routine, and downright unaffectionate to the plight of the many loyal Sega fans who continue to grasp at Dreamcast 2 straws.

We get the business side of it Simon, we really do, but is it really asking too much for you to seem sympathetic when you utter the words that break our collective hearts?

Have at the video interview after the jump, and make sure to have a box of tissues handy — you may need them. Read more…

Nine scans from the Nintendo Power issue featuring Sonic & The Black Knight on the cover have surfaced online. After just seeing Sonic Unleashed in action at E3, and witnessing the “Werehog”, the idea of Sonic with a sword doesn’t shock me much. Have a look at the scans below. Read more…

Sega has responded to the Nintendo Power cover featuring Sonic & The Black Knight. The company’s official message board admin, Clumsyorchid,  posted the following message to their community:

“I can confirm the game is indeed real, however you won’t get any info on it from me, you’ll have to wait until we post the product page tomorrow on SEGA.com and read the Nintendo Power article.

Discuss!”

So there you have it. Check out Sega.com tomorrow for some answers.

Source: boards.sega.com

Update: Sega has responded to the cover, and has announced that the games official product page will hit sega.com tomorrow.

Several hours ago, a Nintendo Power cover surfaced on the popular gaming forum Neogaf. The scan clearly stated that the issue would reveal information on a new Sega IP titled “Sonic & The Black Knight”, however a few sites began to doubt its legitimacy.

Various Photoshop “investigators” went to work hoping to expose the cover as a fake. I decided to go a different route and check to see if SEGA registered the domain name.

It turns out that they most certainly did register sonicandtheblacknight.com on what appears to be July 2, 2008. Below is the domain information extracted directly from the Japan Whois database. Read more…

A witchy librarian with big guns — why’d it take so long for someone to think this up?

I took a little heat in our day four E3 podcast when I began to describe SEGA’s new third person action game, Bayonetta — so I decided to whip up some very quick sketches from memory to help those reading better visualize what I saw first hand in SEGA’s Platinum Games showcase room.

Bayonetta is currently being developed by Hideki Kamiya, the former director of DMC1, which makes perfect sense since everything about this game seemed to kick ass. From the moment the demo started, the room was captivated.

You play as Bayonetta, a very lean and mean witch decked out in what appears to be a skin tight leather suit. If that’s not enough to demand your attention, she is also equipped with guns in nearly every place imaginable. Bang bang! Read more…

Hedgehog by day - Werehog by night

E3 08 … the moment of truth. Would Sonic Unleashed suck? Well, if you are willing to have an open mind, and can toss aside your hardcore “sonic must run fast all the time” mentality, then the answer will be no, Sonic Unleashed will not suck.

First off, Sonic unleashed is scheduled for release in November of 2008 for the Wii, PS2, PS3, and 360 consoles, and as expected, the next gen versions will be different in terms of both content and game play mechanics.

The version we were granted access to at E3 was the 360 version. So the information below is in large part specific to the next gen version of the game. The code we viewed was an early version, and SEGA made it clear that lighting, camera, and AI was still being worked on.

That said, lets dig into some Sonic Unleashed details. Read more…

I will be packing up for my flight to LA shortly — the place where gamers stick out like Pam Anderson’s boobs on, well, Pam Anderson. I once thought to myself, “I wonder what all the beautiful people here think of us?”, but then I realized I didn’t give a shit.

Anyway, as you can see in the image above, I am leaving the site in very capable hands. He runs fast, but what few people know, is that he types even faster.

Sega have a rather flash trailer up for forthcoming PC RTS Empire: Total War, which includes a 6 February 2009 street date.

Empire, you may have guessed, is set against the backdrop of European imperialism and America’s fight for independence, and for those who haven’t been paying attention at the back, there’s a very good reason to keep an eye on it. It will be the first time one of Creative Assembly’s Total War titles has 3D, fully controllable naval combat. Previous incarnations of this aspect have been pits of auto-calculated frustration that the computer normally wins, no matter how many ships you pit against their lonesome galley, so this is quite a big step.

Busy time for Creative Assembly it seems, what with the announcement of the sci-fi flavoured console RTS Stormrise yesterday.

Source: Sega

Sega have announced Stormrise, a new console RTS for PS3 and Xbox 36o, is in development from The Creative Assembly – and it definitely isn’t is a C&C clone.

The hot potato here is something called verticality. The days of lording over the battlefield like some sort of God are apparently behind us, with Stormrise offering something more immersive – a 3D battlefield and a third-person perspective to enjoy it in. At the very least, Sega’s press release promises that we’ll be able to command units in the air, underground and over rooftops as well as on the ground.

Accordingly, there’s going to be a “simple yet effective” new control system, with the key being that you can still run the whole battle while leading a frontline squad. Apparently it will be “tailored specifically for consoles, which allows easy unit selection, rapid navigation and precise deployment.” Wait don’t all RTS titles promise that? Read more…

As E3 approaches and I find myself frantically trying to prepare by reaching out to as many publishers as I can before they simply insist that I stop calling, I found myself today spending a few minutes on Sega’s website. As I clicked around, taking it all in, I kept thinking to myself “GO SEGA!”

Back in 2006, brandchannel.com called Sega “played out” adding that their web presence was “dull and disappointing”. To be fair, the last time I remember seeing their site it was dark and not very appealing at all, but looking at it now from a pure design standpoint it is bright, clean, inviting, and has me genuinely rooting for their success. Sega bandwagon — here I come! Read more…