Project Needlemouse has been revealed to be Sonic the hedgehog 4 Episode 1.

Sega's blog has posted a new trailer and information regarding the downloadable title.

Sonic 4 looks like they are trying to bring the series back to its genesis days, they show promise although my impressions are the character model looks akward when moving as his movements seem unnatural but it still looks better then anything i have seen from sonic lately so i am freaking ecstatic about this title.

hope more gameplay is released, as the short clip is lacking.

Watch the trailer HERE

Along with the trailer and interview over at gamespot Sega has also launched the sonic 4 official website. It has lots of what has already been seen, but it seems to have times allover showing when new information will be posted, so if your intrested in keeping tabs on the game might as well bookmark the official site.

View the website HERE

UPDATE:

If you take a look at the official website it states that its coming soon to playstation network, xbox live arcade, wiiware and ????. After some sluthing it was revealed the ???? is the Iphone.

www.sega.com/sonic4/assets/promo1.png

Project Needlemouse's intro music has been revealed, and it sounds nostalgically genesis.

Sega has released this short clip of music (9 seconds to be exact) from the upcoming project needlemouse.

My god has it got me frothing at the mouth for some actual ingame screens. 

Also To be noted groundhogs day is now hedgehog day according to sega.

Atlus is excited and so they seem to be extending the "holiday cheer" into 2010 with the "Twelve Days of Atlus!" Giveaway! atlus seems to be giving away tons of swag for twelve days (January 4, 2010 - January 15, 2010) to twelve randomly selected registered members of the Atlus Faithful who are residents of the U.S. or Canada.

This is seriously awesome! I did not even know untill i finaly checked my email today (being a member of the Atlus faithful i had an old notice about this).

If your not an atlus faithful yet this is a good reason as anyother to join.

Atlus is one of the best companies at giving back to their fans, with the inclusion of lots of neat swag if you purchase any of their games (from soundtrack cd's to plush dolls) they always know how to treat us faithful.

Now they are doing even more with this random giveaway.

I know I am crossing my fingers and wishing i get one of these lucky prize packs. The pack includes lots of altus gold and many items i desperately want.

So go join if you havent or pray you win if you have. 

God bless you atlus.

This is something I am planning on doing from time to time, bringing up older and more forgotten game titles of days past. The first game in this series is a game I dearly love and find to be very uniqe in its game play, a title for the dreamcast titled;

Maken X

Maken X is a FPS game only, the S does not stand for "shooter" but "slasher". The essence of game play is running around using melee attacks in first person. It is unique in that the main character is the games weapon (Maken), rather than a person. Maken has the power to "Brain Jack" people to gain all of the knowledge and abilities of the person. This "brainjacking" leaves the target a "vegetable" and allows you to reuse the bodies if you so chose. Brain Jacking would also change the form of Maken to be more fitting for the jacked persons skill set. 

Maken X also had an intresting storyline and lots of charm from its cast of characters, from a monkey man with a tounge that is very long to a highschool girl with a long sword (first character that gets brain jacked kei)

Maken even had a manga that fleshed out the plot a bit and changed it up leaving kei to not actually be completely brain dead and having an internal struggle.

I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys japanese style story telling with first person game play.

Resonance of Fate, known in Japan as End of Eternity is a Tri-Ace developed Sega Published JRPG heading for XBOX 360 and PS3 early 2010. Recently the Japanese demo has gone live, Centered on the games new tri-Attack-Battle system or officially t-A-B for short. The demo has a series of battles for you to check out the games unique battle system. When I first started up the demo I did not have much expectations for the combat or any idea about how it worked, I just knew I liked the trailer for the game and I have an interest in JRPG.

The demo had two game types to pick from, New Comer mode and Standard mode. While the game types did not vary in gameplay much the New Comer mode is very helpful for me especially with my limited knowledge of Japanese (I pretty much only can read Hiragana). Thankfully I could read and understand the controls for the most part.

_{X/Square - Action button}

_{A/X - Shoot}

_{B/Circle - Cancel/End turn}

_{Y/Triangle - Team Up attack}

_{Back/Select - Open Item menu}

_{LR/L2R2 - Change Weapon}

_{LbRb/L1R1 - Change Character}

_{D-pad - Selects targeted enemy}

For the most part these are the games controls.

The games t.A.B. system is very new and unlike anything I've used, it took me a few plays to get fully accustomed to it. But once I did, I was pulling off combos that were impressive as they were satisfying. While I did say combos were impressive they did tend to get a little old after seeing the same ones a few times, mostly the in air hang time with each shot of the characters firearm. While the alternate weapons did make for some interesting change up, overall the effect is pretty fun each time with a bit of overdone flair at times.

For those of you know haven't had a chance to play with the t.A.B. system it is pretty much this.

                         ^{most of t.A.B. ends up being this}

During the start of battle, you have your characters set at starting positions, with each character having a "time" gauge behind their name at the bottom right corner of the HUD. As you move around the timer goes down, and enemies are also able to move and attack during this phase. If you stop and press the Action Button everything freezes and you get to select a path for the action, which is how attacks are performed or chained. After selecting a path for the character to run along you press the action button a second time to start the action. Once you start an action your character runs along the trajected path and you can either press the action button again to jump (Read: super flip) or to shoot. The longer you wait to shoot the more powerful the attack. Also when the action sequence is complete, your character is left open to be attacked if you don't get him to cover. Alot of depth goes into this, as you can't just make a run at the enemy is it could leave your party members vulnerable to attack. The game seems to have a lot of emphasis on making the battles more of a puzzle to solve since you can restart at the last battle lost.

The team up Attacks is where this game gets really interesting. Having all three party members rush at the same time with charging shots and flipping chaining together an amazing combo is fun. If done right, it feels amazingly satisfying. I can see the team ups being a highlight of this game.

The graphics in the demo while good, are not anything to write home about. The character models have a few jaggies around the edges of the hair and the textures used on the walls and floor are pretty low quality. I'm a bit dissapointed with the graphics while at the same time I find them adequate for the game.

Over all I just felt the game has potential and i'll definitely going to pick it up to see how it developed into a complete game.

[Edited By Moderator]

Sega has recently started posting Developer Diaries over at the Blognik Detailing the development of S&SASR. this is a good way to get some insight into the way the game was developed and has alot of cool stuff to see like the above concept art of amy's vehicle for the game.

Steve Lycett the developer who is posting the diary is very entertaining, his post details the early builds of the game as well as what did and didnt work, and even what ideas they had about the game before even deciding on a racing title.

the most enjoyable part to read was this small portion so i will post it here for those of you who might not read all of the diary entry.

"Also the programmers, having spent so much time playing OutRun, had got Amy’s car drifting. This was really satisfying, but how do you get a Hedgehog to drift in a similar manner. Worse still, how do you get dwarf in full battle armour on a parrot faced lizard to drift…"

Check out the full post by clicking Here

Ryo Hazuki;

Shenmues leading character was the worlds best character ever, I am going to tell you why and how he is a superstar.

First off, Ryo is a master at hiding his emotions. After his dad died he imeediately got to action with no time to waste. he is also a master of asking questions in a monotone voice, not many can pull this off with a straight face, I for one have tried. Various times I remeber trying to ask sales clerks and even people in the mall simple questions with my best immitation of good ol' ryo. "Excuse me, can you tell me where i can find some staples?" "What can you tell me about the language of C?" "Have you seen a blue minivan pass by here?" "Can you tell me where i can find some oranges?" all questions I have asked real people with my best ryo voice imitation. heres a tip: its really hard not to laugh when all you can think about is asking about the four wu shu or where you can find some sailors.

Second point about Ryo being a master.

What main character who is looking for his fathers murderer other then ryo has time to be a true champion and stop to get the latest capsule toy? Ryo is hardcore about his capsule toys, putting his adventure aside he collects and appriciates the fine craftsmenship of the figures.

See he's a rockstar.

Reason number three.

he's like ryu from streetfighter only with a leather jacket and 80's sky blue tight jeans on, if that doesnt scream awesome you need to take a look at your life and re-evaluate it (here's a tip: if you dont find leather and tight jeans cool you must not know cool). Ryo also like ryu has a duffle bag making him the peak of wondering hobo awesomeness.

like I said he is nothing but cool.

And my last reason is my reason for making this blog.

Ryo is a complete badass he drives a motorcycle, has hot chicks allover the place and even has a band-aid on his face for added cool. Not to mention he is an arcade game hero (hi-scores all across asia baby!). Ryo is everything I aspire to be in a person. While all this is true its not the reason he is a champion, but it does add to the fact.

Ryo is as hardcore as it gets and he proves it on a daily.

Bonus points! He also hangs out with b-boys.

So, Phantasy Star zero was released today and looking around I haven't really come across any reviews, any ads or even a post anywhere about the game. Even when I went looking for a copy at my local stores it was hard to find. I haven't had much time to play with the game yet, as at this point my copy has not arrived (I had to order off amazon).  This post is more concerning the lack publicity this game is receiving rather than a full on review of the game.

I know the game did well in Japan, but seriously I am not expecting stellar sales stateside with its lack of media coverage and hype.

I still do not have it yet, although I did try the Japanese version for a bit on someones DS who had a copy of it. from what I played it looked to be an amazing game with lots of potential. I hope the game has online play with people from Japan as I do not expect the game to be flooding with other players (sadly PSU also has low amounts of users).

Famitsu, Japan's leading gaming rag gave the game high marks (An outstanding 33 out of 40) praising the game's control scheme, game play, and online mode. Yet nothing over here from American gaming news sources.

After looking around online recently to find out what people thought of it since I just ordered it today I could find only a few private reviews of the game from fellow hardcore fans and personal websites nothing from the larger well known circles.

This is a giant depressing kick to the nuts as I was hoping the game would do well and spawn more portable titles.