With various stay-at-home orders in place in many regions around the world, there are a lot of people who have a lot of time on their hands. Thankfully, many game publishers have held sales or even offered some games for free for a limited time. Sega is the latest publisher to do the latter, announcing that Total War: Shogun 2 is free to keep on Steam for a limited time.
Space Channel 5 is a game series we haven't heard from in a long time, but it's about to get a revival on PlayStation VR. Today, Sega announced the release date for Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash!, which will be launching on PS VR at the end of the month. When it arrives, it'll be the first Space Channel 5 game in 18 years.
Crane games are common sights in arcades, but now the magic of the internet will allow you to try your luck remotely. Sega has launched Sega Catcher Online in the United States, giving us here on this side of the Pacific a chance to win crane game prizes from Japan.
Analogue has teamed with electronic music record label Hyperdub to offer music on a unique medium: game cartridges. Specifically, Analogue is producing 1,000 units of music-packed Sega Genesis cartridges that feature a total of 11 songs composed by various Hyperdub artists specifically for the new collaboration. Each cartridge will come with a substantial price tag.
Earlier this year, Paramount Pictures took a swing and a miss by releasing the first trailer for its upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog flick. The response to that trailer was not great, with many people complaining about Sonic's uncanny valley look. Fans of the blue blur criticized everything from Sonic's vaguely human proportions to the way his teeth looked and the shape of his eyes.
Gaming accessories company 8BitDo is back with another third-party gaming controller that offers consumers features they can't get from a console's official controller. This time around, 8BitDo is targeting the new Sega Genesis Mini, the retro-style modern console offering access to some of the most beloved games that were launched for the original model. The new controller is wireless and includes six buttons.
Back in 2010, Obsidian Entertainment released a role-playing game by the name of Alpha Protocol. Though there was a good amount of hype heading into Alpha Protocol's release, the post-launch reaction to it was divided. Some loved it, some hated it, some never played it. That was the only Alpha Protocol game publisher Sega commissioned from Obsidian, and though the world has since moved on from Alpha Protocol, it has remained available through various digital storefronts, waiting for people who may want to dive into Obsidian's back catalog.
If there's one criticism that can be leveled at the NES Classic and the SNES Classic (aside from the fact that they were hard to find), it's that neither offered enough games given their stellar libraries. The NES Classic only contained 30 titles, while the SNES Classic went even lower with a mere 21. Sega is not looking to make that same mistake with its upcoming Genesis Mini console, as the company today revealed the final 12 games that will ship with the device.
It was a strange time in video game history when Contra first hit NES. International rules forbade content of too violent a nature - if it contained humans - and all blood was highly, highly pixelated (no matter where you lived). Now, here in 2019, for the first (official) time ever, Konami's prepared the entire history of one of the most classic running and gunning games of all time.
Instead of a November 2019 release date, the Sonic the Hedgehog live-action movie will be moved to 2020. This is not the first time a delay of this nature took place in the internet age - but it might be the most important. Because of the less-than-great response given to the first full trailer for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, it's headed back to the shop for repairs and upgrades.
Sonic the Hedgehog fans complaining about Sonic the Hedgehog is nothing new. I should know - Sonic the Hedgehog was the very first video game I played when I was a kid, and throughout the years, I've tried to roll with the punches without feeling too bitter about the character's years-long downturn. Sonic fans have learned to accept mediocrity over the past 15 years or so, but it seems that even Sonic's low points couldn't prepare them for the official reveal of the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog movie.
Translating video games into the big screen isn't easy, especially if you insist that the translation is a live-action one. The film industry is filled with examples of such attempts, many of which have ended up as box office catastrophes. There are some exceptions, of course, like the recent Detective Pikachu movie, so whose to say a Sonic the Hedgehog film couldn't be just as good. The Internet, however, gave it a big "NO!" and now everyone involved might be scrambling to fix the blue hedgehog's teeth.