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Game News, Sega Retro

PSA: Anarchy Reigns Comes Out Next Week

While Japanese have been able to play Platinum’s latest game, Max Anarchy, since July 2012, everyone in the US and Europe hasn’t been able to play the game without spending extra money on importing it. Now it’s finally coming here as Anarchy Reigns with a budget price of $30. SEGA doesn’t seem to be doing a good job letting people know about this, so if you’ve never heard of the game before, watch the Japanese Launch Trailer:

Basicly, it’s a competitive multiplayer brawler with an awesome soundtrack and all the ridiculousness you can expect from Platinum Games. Those who are unfamiliar with the studio, their previous works include MadWorld, Bayonetta and Vanquish. They are also currently making Metal Gear Rising: RevengeanceThe Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2. Characters from MadWorld are playable in this new game and you can also play as Bayonetta if you pre-order it. It’s coming out on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on January 8th in the US and January 11th in Europe and it has the low price of $29.99/€29.99/£19.99. Now please pre-order it so that there are people I can play this game online against. (Yes that is pretty much the entire point of this PSA)

Community, Site News

Play Transformed for Retro Community Day Next Saturday at 5PM Central

Its that time again. We’re doing a three hour special of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed for the next Retro Community Day. This time we’ll be covering Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U versions of the game. Send your friend requests to either of those systems for the user name VidyaRetro (Yes, the name is the same across all systems), then check back here at 5PM Central Time on Saturday December 22nd.

Also a fair warning, if you sent a friend request to any of those accounts previously, send them again as the PS3 and 360 friends lists have been cleared to ensure room for those that have the game. Nothing personal, but if you want to join in on the fun again SEND ANOTHER FRIEND REQUEST TO VidyaRetro.

Also meet Retro’s Wii U representative!

 

Won’t you?

Reviews, Sega Retro

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: The Retro Review

The developers at Sumo Digital have tuned up their old car, shoved a jalapeno up the tailpipe, changed the belts, look, whatever generic trope you want to indicate for the existence of Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed. You know, that Sonic and Sega racing game? They made another one of those.

Without a doubt, it’s a better game than the predecessor. It’s more of everything: more vehicles, more characters, better physics, more track variety, and so on. It also does what it can to give character/item based racers the competitive edge that the genre has difficulty in reaching. On the other hand, the game has mishaps and hiccups that occur more often than it should which can cause the game to be a frustrating experience, especially in some of the game’s more heated situations.

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Game News

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Includes a Christmas Present

It’s always cool when a game does something neat or unlocks something on a holiday, like with Christmas NiGHTS or Animal Crossing. Now it turns out Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed has a secret unlockable that unlocks on Christmas day. This secret can be unlocked early by changing the date of your console to December 25th, 2012. This can be done on Xbox 360 and PS3, it’s not certain if this can be done on the Wii U version as well. You do need to sign out of Xbox Live before you do this though and when you sign back in, it’ll be as if you weren’t able to time travel one month into the future after all. We don’t know if the same goes for the PS3 version.

If you want to spoil the surprise, go ahead and change the date on your console or alternatively, just click the jump of this post.

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Game News

Demo for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Now on Xbox Live

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is now out in stores in Europe and in the US as well in stores that broke the street date. At the same time SEGA released a demo for the game on Xbox Live and a launch trailer with models playing the game and making wacky faces. Because there wasn’t one of those yet for the game apparently.

The demo is 1.05 GB big and contains two events from the game’s World Tour mode. One is a race on the Panzer Dragoon track and the other is a challenge on the Golden Axe track in which you need to boost to stop a timer that is counting down. Those who want to try out one of the new playable characters will be disappointed as Sonic is the sole playable characters in the demo. You can’t download the trial on PSN yet, as it only updates on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Community, Game News, Sega Retro

Retro Stream Today at 4PM Central — Play Sonic Free Riders and Guardian Heroes Online With Us

Watch live video from vidyaretro on www.twitch.tv

We’re throwing out another Stream today! We’re going to be playing a random assortment of games, however starting at 5PM Central we will be inviting everyone to play Sonic Free Riders and Guardian Heroes for the Xbox 360. If you haven’t already, send your friend requests to VidyaRetro and we’ll try to add your name to the friends list.

Arcade Games, Game News, Game Secrets, Uncategorized

Sonic the Fighters Coming to XBLA/PSN, With New Playable Characters and Online Play

Confirming rumors that have been circulating for some time now, Sega today announced the Model2 Collection, a digital collection of five classic Sega titles originally developed for their Model2 arcade hardware. Among those titles is Sonic the Fighters, a somewhat obscure Sonic-themed fighting game built on the Fighting Vipers engine and previously rereleased as part of Sonic Gems Collection. Most interesting to note is that this new release appears to include several characters not previously playable in the game, such as Metal Sonic and Eggman (who were previously bosses), as well as Honey the Cat – a character based on Candy (known as Honey in Japan) from Fighting Vipers. Retro aficionados will know that Honey was actually buried in the data for the original arcade release but not playable without hacking the game, so to see Sega put in the effort to make her (and the boss characters) playable is truly refreshing after some of their more lackluster porting efforts in the past. The Japanese site for the Model2 Collection also makes mention of online play, which could be a big selling point for this rerelease as well. Currently there’s been no information about an overseas release, but Sonic the Fighters is due to hit Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network this fall in Japan. See the trailer after the break. Continue Reading

Game News, Game Secrets, Interviews

Retro Interview: Steve Lycett on Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing

All Stars Racing Transformed is only a little over a month away at this point. With this close to release, a number of people may be looking to retire their copy of Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing. Comparing the two is almost like comparing apples to oranges. That said it still acts as an important stepping stone that deserves an honorable mention. Before it becomes overshadowed from it’s upcoming sequel, we rattled the memories of Executive Producer at Sumo Digital Steve Lycett in an E-mail interview regarding development for Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing and what it’s sequel has benefited from their efforts.

 

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Reviews, Uncategorized

Sonic Adventure 2 (XBLA/PSN): The Retro Review

(SPOILER WARNING: This review contains unmarked spoilers. The game is over a decade old and well-known amongst our readers, so we deemed it unnecessary to refrain from spoilers. If you’ve never played the game before, you’ve been warned.)

In a franchise like Sonic that has been on such a rollercoaster of quality for the past twenty years, Sonic Adventure 2 somehow sticks out in the franchise as possibly the most polarizing game in the series. To one part of the fanbase, it’s the pinnacle of Sonic. Because it was the first major Sonic title on a Nintendo platform, many people cite SA2 as their introduction to the franchise. And yet to others, the game symbolizes the start of everything that nearly killed the franchise forever. So as I review Sega’s recent digital rerelease of Sonic Adventure 2 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, I feel it’s necessary to frame the game in context.

Outside of the broader fanbase context, I – like many others – have my own personal relationship with SA2. I was but a wee child when it first came out for the Dreamcast in 2001, and I spent a frightening number of hours engrossed in the game. It wasn’t my first exposure to the series; that title goes to Sonic 2 on the Genesis, whose predecessor and sequels received a similarly obsessive amount of my attention. In fact, the sole reason I asked for a Dreamcast for Christmas in 2000 was so that I could play the original Adventure. So, being the fanatic little child I was, Sonic Adventure 2 earned a special, fuzzy, nostalgiatastic place in my heart. The question, then, is: eleven years later, can it keep it? Continue Reading

Game News

Battle Mode, Challenges and More Are Shown Off In This New Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Trailer

With the release of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed being a month and a half away, SEGA has started showing some new stuff for the game. First of they’ve released a new trailer (seen above) which showcases the world tour mode, challenges, online and local multiplayer and the battle mode. A The House of the Dead battle arena can be seen as well in the trailer. SEGA also released a bunch of new screenshots which confirm that Ulala from Space Channel 5 will be back in this game as well and they’ve shown what Danica Patrick and her vehicle look like in the game. All of these screens can be seen below.

Besides all of this stuff, SEGA just started a website for Transformed. Besides there being a neat animation of Sonic’s vehicle transforming, one of the backgrounds shows that Sky Sanctuary from Sonic & Knuckles will be one of the courses. You can also look at a bunch of old trailers and screenshots there if you want to.