Retro Gaming Australia

Xbox 360 owners can gorge themselves on a variety of classic Sega games which are now on sale on Xbox Live.

Deals are as follows:

Crazy Taxi – 400 points (was 800)
Daytona USA – 400 points (was 800)
Jet Set Radio – 400 points (was 800)
Guardian Heroes – 160 points (was 400)
NiGHTS into Dreams… – 400 points (was 800)
Sega Bass Fishing – 160 points (was 400)
Sonic the Hedgehog – 160 points (was 400)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – 160 points (was 400)
Sonic the Hedgehog CD – 160 points (was 400)
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – 160 points (was 400)
Sonic & Knuckles – 160 points (was 240)
Sonic Adventure – 160 points (was 400)
Sonic Adventure DX Upgrade – 80m points (was 200)
Sonic Adventure 2 – 400 points (was 800)
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle mode – 120 points (was 240)
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 – 400 points (was 800)
Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 – 400 points (was 1200)
Space Channel 5: Part 2 – 160 points (was 400)

Sega seems to be having a good run on the 3DS eShop, as they have announced a second round of 3D Classics for the system. Only two titles have been announced so far – Ecco the Dolphin and Galaxy Force II.

Ecco the Dolphin will be out on the Japanese eShop on June 26 – next week. It will include an extra mode, called Super Dolphin Mode, which gives players unlimited air and life, making the game significantly easier. The game will let you switch between the Japanese and Western releases – the Japanese version is apparently a bit harder.

Each game will also support save states and CRT TV emulation, and will set you back 600 yen.

Eternal Champions is Sega of America’s attempt at cashing in on the early 1990s fighting game craze. It’s an admirable effort, but ultimately falls short due to fiddly controls, frustrating AI and less than stellar character design. Cocky ads like this only served to make people snicker at Eternal Champions and go back to playing Street Fighter II.

Light Crusader is a late era Mega Drive RPG developed by Treasure Co. Ltd and published by Sega. Light Crusader is generally considered to be one of Treasure’s lesser games as the isometric perspective causes the game to be quite imprecise, making controlling your character a complete chore. Light Crusader is a distinct departure from the company’s more familiar action efforts and its art style has a heavy Western influence.

Sega has released a new trailer for their upcoming remake of Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse.

The trailer confirms that the game is based on the Mega Drive / Genesis version of the game, but will also feature new levels.

It’ll be coming to Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and Steam in the North American summer. So before the end of September, basically.

It’s the long awaited return of Retro Gaming Theatre!

This edition, we’ve got X-Men for the Mega Drive. The game was released around the peak of the X-Men animated series’ popularity, hence why those character designs are used instead of those featured in the comics. Perhaps the most memorable part of the game comes in the fifth level, when Xavier tells you to “reset the machine”. It took me a good week or so as a kid to figure out that you had to reset the Mega Drive. It’s a neat touch!

This video features a run through the first part of the Savage Land at the start of the game. I’m a bit rusty, but I don’t think I did too badly!

It’s been fricking ages since we’ve done a Retro Gaming Theatre post – mostly slackness on our part. I thought in an effort to speed things up we’d try a test run using an emulator to capture the video. Suffice to say I am not pleased with the results, even though the process was a little less painful than using our capture setup.

Last night OutRun fan TAGGSTA sent us a link to a little project he’d been working on.

A couple of weeks ago, TAGGSTA had created a scale model of the OutRun arcade cabinet.

Yesterday he completed a new version of his LEGO OutRun cab model – and this time, it’s running a playable version of Sega’s popular arcade game, courtesy of an iPhone 4 and the Mame4all emulator. It’s pretty damn cool if you ask us.

It would seem that Sega is intending to push their 3D Classics in Australia later this year, with 3D Sonic the Hedgehog and 3D Altered Beast both receiving classifications from the Australian Classification Board earlier in the week.

Previously, 3D Space Harrier had been classified by the Board as well.

Sega’s mum on the subject, but I suspect we’ll see their full 3D Classics lineup by the end of the year.

Golden Axe is one of Sega’s greatest arcade games, and one of the headliners of the Mega Drive’s early line up. It loses some of the graphical lustre of the arcade original, but it does add two extra stages at the end to compensate.

Streets of Rage 2 is one of the finest beat ’em ups of all time, combining impressive graphics, an amazing soundtrack and some bone crunching action into a single package. You’ll find few Sega fans who don’t list Streets of Rage 2 as one of the finest games the company has ever published.