Update: Here’s part four.

Peter Moore is quite the storied individual. He was the head of Sega of America and responsible for the Dreamcast’s launch. He was head of Microsoft’s Xbox division and now he’s the head of EA Sports division.

Well he had quite an interview with the Guardian’s Games Blog. The interview was so grand, it was split into three parts, here, here and here. However, let’s just grab the quotesthat made headlines (again):

Dreamcast was a phenomenal 18 months of pain, heartache, euphoria… We thought we had it, but then Playstation came out, that infamous issue of Newsweek with the Emotion Engine on the cover… and of course, EA didn’t publish which left a big hole, not only in sports but in other genres. We ended up that Christmas period not being able to get to where we needed to be – we weren’t far short, we just couldn’t get that critical mass…

Bless the Dreamcast and its short, but awesome life.

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A bunch of hardcore and talented Sonic fans have created this:

It’s Sonic The Hedgehog 2, but in HD. It’s supposed to be as accurate as possible, but in higher resolution. I like how they left the low resolution floating platform for comparison’s sake. You can try the tech demo yourselves from their site or here:

  Sonic 2 HD Tech Demo (8.2 MiB, 8 hits)

I suggest trying the 4X version of the executable first.

It was nine years ago today when the Sega Dreamcast launched in North America.

9/9/99

I didn’t get one at launch, but I did pick one up and I still have it til this day. Its life was tragically short, but it had some of the greatest games ever developed.  Oh, the memories…

Yeah it does. Love the black and white style. I can’t believe it’s for the Nintendo Wii as well. It’s being developed by the developers responsible for Okami and God Hand. They’re now called Platinum Games and I’m so pleased they’re still around.

Trailer below:

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Last Sunday I brushed off my Sega Dreamcast and hooked it up to my Dell UltraSharp 2007WFP. At first, it was going well. Everything was working, but then in the middle of Marvel vs Capcom 2, the Dreamcast went black. So, with the aid of Google, I resurrected my Dreamcast.

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Metal Gear Online is now live for everyone meaning I’ll be spending time with it – the amount of time will depend on its quality. So expect something written up about this. As for the game, I have some idea what to expect, but it’s all very vague. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if I just don’t get what MGO is all about.

Grand Theft Auto 4 is just around the corner and reviews are beginning to crop up. IGN’s review is lengthy, but I didn’t bother reading it since it’s just a lot of anecdotes which you shouldn’t be reading, but experiencing for your own. IGN gave it a 10/10. Shocking? No. As for the differences between the PS3 and XBOX 360 versions, it appears that speculation of the PS3 version being “technically superior” appears to be true:

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It was quite shocking to hear that Sega decided to close their Sega Racing Studios. I understood the financial reasons, but it was still a damn shame to see such talented developers be shutdown. Their most recent work was Sega Rally Revo which is a solid arcade rally racer. Fortunately, GRiD, Dirt and Colin McRae developer, Codemasters were kind/wise enough to snap up these guys. A happy ending.

Not so happy news comes with reports of several big wigs leaving Retro Studios. Retro Studios brought the Metroid franchise, not only into the 3-D world, but into first person view as well. Most importantly, it was a successful transition. Hopefully, they will continue to flourish without those key folks.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII was released earlier this week and I am currently mashing my way through it. I played through Final Fantasy VII a while ago via my PSP and I was not that impressed with it. I’m going to blame poor translation and dated presentation for my lack of FFVII appreciation. I also didn’t like Cloud Strife as a character, but I did enjoy the story behind Cloud’s rebirth as ex-SOLDIER extraordinaire. So far Crisis Core is doing many things right with only a handful of peculiar quirks marring it; I’ll elaborate more in my upcoming review of it. Don’t expect it soon.

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Another Sonic game will be gracing (or mocking) us soon. Sonic fans desperately want their blue hedgehog to succeed and Sonic Unleashed looks like it it could pull it off. Maybe? We have screenshots courteousy of Gamersyde and even a leaked Youtube gameplay video complete with shoddy quality.

It looks very promising, but I will reserve any judgement until I get to try it for myself. At least we haven’t seen any of Sonic’s extraneous friends yet.

Update: GameTrailers has a slightly better version of the “trailer“. Video still stutters, though.

Something about putting the fastest thing alive in one of the slowest genres around, RPGs, doesn’t jive well. Or does it? At this point in Sonic’s career, it may actually be in his best interest to slow down and just appear in a good game.

BioWare and Sega finally released screenshots of their collaborative RPG, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.

So far it looks uninteresting, but at least they’ve nailed down the vibrant colors.