SEGA Media Event Report (Mania.com)

By:James Stevenson
Date: Friday, January 30, 2004

On Monday, Sega held a private event for members of the press to celebrate the release of SONIC HEROES for the PlayStation 2. Located at the Metreon in downtown San Francisco, Sega had a private theatre reserved for the initial press conference part of the event, and a private area of a Martini Bar in the Metreon.

The event started with Scott Steinberg, Sega's vice president of entertainment marketing, talking about the rich history of the Sonic series. He then introduced Yuji Naka, the founder and president of Sonic Team, who said he had brought Sonic along with him. But Sonic hadn't shown up yet. Then, Sonic entered the room with his new friend, Astro

SONIC HEROES.

Boy.

ASTRO BOY is based on the comic of the same name that dates back to 1951. A new cartoon series is set to run on the Kids WB!. He's one of the most popular characters in Japan essentially Mickey Mouse in the land of the rising sun. The looks to be some sort of aerial combat game, the video seemed similar to that of ZONE OF THE ENDERS from the video. But that remains to be seen, as there was no playable version at the reception.

The next game shown was SAMURAI JACK. Developed by Amaze Entertainment, the game was to be published by BAM! Entertainment, but that fell through and several companies were vying for the rights to the game based on the Emmy-winning Cartoon Network property. The game was playable, and was quite easy to get into. It

A screenshot from SAMURAI JACK: THE SHADOW OF AKU.

was also very stylized and fun to play. The main objective to the game is to free captives in order to get more information on the time portal but there are secondary objectives to keep the game fresh. I played through the first couple levels and was amazed at all the different paths in the second level. The final game was sold to Sega completed, so it'll be out next month.

One other game was shown in video form only was BLOOD WILL TELL. From the creator of ASTRO BOY comes a game about a samurai who is trying to recover his body. His body parts (pretty much all of them) have been replaced by weapons and players must attempt to recover them. Sega is promising over 20 hours of gameplay, and BLOOD WILL TELL also features a two-player co-operative mode.

All things said, the event was pretty cool, and it was a good look at some of Sega's upcoming titles. Steinberg promised that more titles would be announced at E3. At this point though, Sega's lineup is looking pretty good with ASTRO BOY, and BLOOD WILL TELL impressing. My only complaint was that I didn't get to play those two games! We're expecting a new build of SAMURAI JACK very soon.

Cinescape would like to thank everyone at Sega for the great hospitality we received in San Francisco.