New Valkyria Chronicles DLC trailer
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, Japan, News, Sony PlayStation 3, Video. Tagged with DLC, Download Content, Downloads, Edy's Challenge, Gameplay, PSN, Trailer, Valkyria Chronicles.
Sega has recently released a trailer of the latest download content for Valkyria Chronicles. As the DLC is currently only scheduled for a Japan release the trailer is (unfortunately) all in Japanese - so I have no idea what’s going on. But the lady in the advert sounds very excited and that makes me excited, so I hope you all are too!
What we do know is that this update will consist of six challenges made to the player by Edy’s squad. The challenges will vary, from saving stranded allies to wiping out invading foes. The DLC is due for release on the Japanese PSN June 26th for 300Yen.
[Source: Andriasang]
Sega Game Deals: Empire: Total War half price on Steam
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, News, PC. Tagged with Bargain, Downloads, Empire: Total War, Half Price, Sega Game Deals, Steam, The Creative Assembly.
Ok this has to be one of the best gaming deals around. The critically acclaimed and hugely successful Empire: Total War is now available for download from Steam for just £14.99 (R.R.P. £29.99)
But that’s not all, you can buy the “Special Forces Edition” (giving you additional, special units for single player) for just £17.49 (R.R.P. £34.99) and you get Empire: Total War included!
For more information and to buy the game, check out the Steam store now.
Sonic giving fans free copies of Sonic 3?
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, Microsoft Xbox 360, News, Retro, Worldwide. Tagged with Downloads, Facebook, Free Stuff, Sega Vintage Collection 2, Sonic 3, XBLA.
It seems that Sonic the Hedgehog, (or a person from Sega pretending to be Sonic), is giving out the download code for the recently released XBLA version of Sonic 3, on Facebook.
“Attention Sonic fans! Who wants a free download code for “Sonic 3″ for Xbox Live Arcade? Well, here you go — first to enter the code gets it! Q7MTT-TCW9H-TCRY9-6CCJQ-QD9F6 If someone else nabs the code before you, not to worry, there’s more chances: we’re going to post a code here tomorrow and every weekday next week at Noon, PDT”
Today was the first day the code was given out but (as it says above), they Sonic will give out another code tomorrow and all of next week. You might be wondering; “What’s with this sudden generosity?” - Well apparently it is Sonic the Hedgehog’s birthday on June 23rd (that’s what someone said on the Facebook page).
If that is true, perhaps I should have known that (being a Sega Nerd), but I can’t even remember my parents birthdays (seriously) - so it would be pretty weird of me to remember the birthday of a fictional video game character. I only know the most important birthdays; mine, Jesus’ and Jackie Chan’s.
Anyway, if you really want Sonic 3 for XBLA, but can’t be bothered to pay the 400 MS points, then stay fixed to Sonic the Hedgehog’s Facebook page.
Empire: Total War patch details
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, News, PC, Worldwide. Tagged with Downloads, Empire: Total War, Patch, The Creative Assembly, Total War, update.
Sega Europe has announced the details of the upcoming update to the hugely popular PC title, Empire: Total War.
The patch isn’t due for release until 22 June, only a few days away, but Sega/The Creative Assembly has posted up the main changes and additions to the game, including; frame-rate increases, AI changes/updates, balances to combat, plus included in the patch will be new units to play with - free of charge. Lovely.
Full patch details after the break.
It’s Sega day on XBLA
Posted by Graham. Filed under Arcade, G, Microsoft Xbox 360, News, Retro, Sonic, Worldwide. Tagged with Altered Beast, Comix Zone, Downloads, Genesis, Gunstar Heroes, Mega Drive, Phantasy Star II, Retro, Sega Vintage Collection, Shinobi, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, XBLA.
Do you remember last month that Sega announced several titles that would be joining the Sega Vintage Collection on XBLA? Well they’re here!
As announced in the press release, the new titles now available on XBLA are:
- Altered Beast (Arcade version)
- Comix Zone (Mega Drive/Genesis)
- Gunstar Heroes (Mega Drive/Genesis)
- Phantasy Star II (Mega Drive/Genesis)
- Shinobi (Arcade version)
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (Mega Drive/Genesis)
Each game costs 400 MS points and the games that feature multiplayer modes are online enabled - so you can happily play Altered Beast, Gunstar Heroes and Sonic 3 with a friend.
Of course if you want value for money, then it would be better getting your hands on the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, which features over 40 titles, including all these games with the exception of Gunstar Heroes.
Also don’t forget that Sega announced that Sonic & Knuckles would be joining the Vintage Collection, but that is not due till late this summer. Sonic & Knuckles will allow players to use the lock-on feature on both the Sonic 3 and Sonic 2 titles on XBLA - which should be fun.
Note: Gunstar Heroes should also be available for the PS3’s PSN service. However not owning a PS3 I cannot check to see if it has also been released today - so if someone can confirm that’d be great.
Valkyria Chronicles DLC screenshots
Posted by Graham. Filed under Europe, G, News, North America, Sony PlayStation 3. Tagged with Download Content, Downloads, PSN, Valkyria Chronicles.
Sega Europe has posted up an absolute ton of screenshots, showing off the new download content for Valkyria Chronicles in the West.
The content was released in Japan ages ago now, but it’s great to see it finally making its way to Europe and America. In case you don’t know there are set to be three download packs for the Western release of the game:
- Hard EX Mode - fight your way once again through the entire Imperial army, where the enemies are more lethal and your main tank Edelweiss is unavailable. You’ll have to be more strategic in order to overcome your opponents.
- Edy’s Mission “Enter the Edy Detachment” - six members have been separated from Squad 7 and on their journey to reunite with their squad, they stumble upon a tiny village under attack by the Imperial Army. Play as Edy and command your outnumbered team to defend the small village from annihilation.
- Selvaria’s Mission “Behind Her Blue Flame”- Taking place right after the outbreak of Gallian battle lines, you play as Johann, a young and meek engineer assigned to Selvaria’s troop. See the action as it unfolds behind enemy lines and see the war play out through the eyes of the enemy.
The download content for will be available on PSN for download for £3.19 or €3.99 each on 16th April. Check out all the screens over at Sega Europe’s Flickr page.
[Source: Sega PR]
Is Sony’s bandwidth charge hurting download content?
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, News, Sony PlayStation 3. Tagged with Charges, Downloads, Fees, PSN, Sonic Unleashed, Sony.
With the recent release of download content for Sonic Unleashed on XBL, quite a few PS3 owners were asking; “Where’s our PS3 download content?”
Well we don’t know for definite what the reason could be, but as Sega seems to quite like the PS3 platform (releasing several PS3 exclusives), we are sure there must be a legitimate reason as to why they haven’t made recent content available on PSN. And we think we might now know the reason.
Some of you might already know this, but we were only recently informed of this link - which suggests that many publishers are annoyed at Sony, because they implemented a new charge for bandwidth usage at the end of last year, which wasn’t made publically known until recently.
Microsoft willing to “bend rules” on XBLA download size
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, Microsoft Xbox 360, News, Retro. Tagged with Downloads, Dreamcast, Microsoft, Rumour, XBLA.
As many of you probably know, Microsoft’s download service is much stricter than that of Sony’s Playstation Network. XBLA has always had size restrictions on downloads, offering smaller downloads, while PSN has been happy to provide gamers will full size games to download (don’t worry, all this is going somewhere).
However over the last few years there have been some allowances and changes to Microsoft’s service, allowing certain games to go over the limit. Originally the download limit was just 50MB, which was later bumped up to 150MB. But we still saw titles like Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix going well over, hitting over 360MB.
More recently however, Watchmen: The End is Nigh broke the bank with a whopping 1.2GB download. This might have annoyed some other developers, who worked hard to try and keep their games under the set limit. But speaking to Ars Technica, Microsoft explained their position on the download limits:
[Update] A bag full of Dreamcast news updates
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, News, Retro, Video. Tagged with Browser, Downloads, Dreamcast, DUX, Fan Sites, Fan Stuff, Linux, NetBSD, PSO, PSO v2, Space Channel 5 part 2, Trailer, Unix, XDP.
We have received some fairly mild complaints/comments that we don’t post enough news about everyone’s favourite console, the Dreamcast.
Well it’s not through lack of trying, but with current Sega news always on the go we do sometimes miss out on the retro side of Sega life.
So here is a short list of Dreamcast-related news that came about towards the end of 2008. Some of this might be a little old (if you keep up with the Dreamcast scene), but I’m hoping that those of you who don’t peruse the many Dreamcast fan sites out there much will find this interesting. So on with the show.
Sega Vintage Collection titles coming to PSN?
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, News, Sony PlayStation 3. Tagged with Downloads, Golden Axe, PSN, Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage 2, Vintage Collection.
According to IGN, a few Sega titles have appeared on the latest ESRB list and are said to be coming out for the PS3. The titles mentioned are Streets of Rage 2, Golden Axe and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - three of the Mega Drive titles already available on XBLA under the “Vintage Collection” title.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Sega was intending to release them on the Playstation service, I’m actually surprised that they haven’t done it already. It hasn’t been confirmed, however, if these titles will still fall under the “Vintage Collection” or if they will just be released as they are. Not that it really matters, the Vintage Collection title doesn’t really change the games at all.
But could it be too late for Sega to release the games on the PSN? They have been out on XBLA for some time now, and had a decent chance to get some sales. But with the Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection on it’s way, how many Playstation 3 owners will really buy these individuals titles, when you can get over 40 games for just a little bit more?
[Source: IGN]
