---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ S E G A F A N S W E E K L Y ~ ~ ISSUE 05 - Mar 12 2006 ~ copyright 2006 segafans.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A Message from benstylus ~ Page 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- So we're here again, a week later, and we're still just getting started! This week, we feature a game from late last year that seems to havebeen largely ignored by SegaFans and mainstreamers alike - Spartan: Total Warrior. Also we've got the answers to last week's Sega Trivia down in the SegaFuns section - so if you haven't taken the quiz yet, load up last week's newsletter and write down your answers before you spoil them! We've got more, but rather than telling you about it, why not go ahead and just read it? I've had a lot of people asking me if there was a way to get the newsletter via e-mail because they don't check the site regularly. We've had e-mail delivery from the get go, but I guess it was hard for people to find - buried with the contact and legal info down at the bottom of the newsletter. Well, it's still there, but I'm also going to include it right above the Table of Contents. As a final note, did you know that subscribers get SegaFans Weekly in their e-mail hours before it's posted online? If you're not subscribing, you're missing out. - benstylus ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to the free SegaFans Weekly newsletter and have it delivered to you via email before it shows up on the SegaFans website, send an email to sfw.subscribe@segafans.com & follow the instructions! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents ~ Page 2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 - A Message from benstylus 2 - Table of Contents 3 - Top Story - Return With Your Shields... Or Upon Them 4 - Weekly News Roundup 5 - SegaFans Forum Digest 6 - SegaFuns 7 - New and Upcoming 8 - Game of the Week - Space Jam (Saturn) 9 - Links 10- Credits / Legal / Contact / Subscription Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Top Story - Return With Your Shields... Or Upon Them ~ Page 3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Every so often, a game comes along that looks to be so incredibly average that nobody bothers to actually play it to see if it's any good. They instead take one look at the cover, one look at the screenshots and cast the game aside in favor of something else. If you simply cast Spartan: Total Warrior aside, you have just made a terrible mistake. Spartan: Total Warrior is an all-out action game. The beatemup to end all beatemups. You've got weapons. You've got special moves. You've got some interactive environments. You've got allies. You've got dozens, if not a hundred people on screen at times. Looking at the case, you might think you were in for some boring historical war game. In Spartan: Total Warrior, you will find no such history. You'll be treated to a first class hack and slash game with a very mythological flavor. One of the first things you'll notice is the decidedly unimpressive graphics. Once the screen starts to fill up with enemies, you'll understand why graphics were developed to be simply adequate instead of extraordinary. The game manages to retain its silky smooth 60 frames per second in all but the most extreme circumstances. One of the biggest pitfalls in this genre is repetition. After all, beating people senseless can be fun for a while, but it can certainly get repetitive if there's nothing else to do. Spartan: Total Warrior makes a valid effort to alleviate this problem by giving you various missions or side goals to complete while you're playing. You may be tasked with protecting a character, killing certain enemies, preventing the enemies from calling for reinforcements, or any number of other objectives. Each level also contains several secrets that you can find - such as finding and contaminating the Romans' water supply. The variety is further increased by giving you various different weapons throughout the game, each with different speeds and strengths. Of course your enemies won't let you win without a fight, and Spartan's AI is actually pretty good - on both your side and your opponents. Your fellow Spartans will attack and kill enemies, though not as fast as you can hack through them. Your opponents will try to surround you, attack from behind, block your attacks, etc. With some practice and a good knowledge of your moves, you'll be beheading Romans and other baddies in no time. The size of the battles in Spartan: Total Warrior conveys a scope that really has never been done before in a beatemup. This is what more powerful consoles should be used for - not necessarily photorealistic graphics, but changing the fundamentals. With dozens of allies and enemies on screen at once, more often than not you really do feel like you're right in the middle of a war, not just picking off thugs two or three at a time. The boss fights are pretty memorable thanks to the game not relying solely on historical fact. The very first boss fight, for example, has a giant mechanical Roman warrior headed to destroy Sparta, and you must stop it before it reaches the city. While you're trying to stop the giant Roman, the real Romans are climbing the city walls as well as trying to break through the gate, and you need to stop them from breaching the city as well. The end result is a pretty frantic mix of dropping boiling oil on the Romans working on the gate, slashing the ones who come over the walls, and firing catapults at the giant. No game is without its faults, however, and Spartan: Total Warrior is no different in this regard. The biggest flaw is that it's a single player only affair. Even the best beatemups are made better when you have a friend along. Also, many of the mission objectives are accomplished by using the same hack and slash gameplay as the rest of the game. Having the objectives, however, does make the game feel more focused, and rather than just killing people to get to the end of the level, you're actually trying to accomplish several goals as you progress through the levels. And this focus manages to keep things fun. Finally there are several points in the game that are difficult, but you may feel like you died unfairly. I don't mind losing legitimately, but there were parts of Spartan that I just felt a bit cheated when I was killed. Other than these minor gripes, I've got nothing but good things to say about the game. Spartan: Total Warrior is available on GameCube, Playstation 2, and Xbox, so whichever system you've got, you ought to at least give it a rental. It's certainly not at all what I expected, and I've never been so pleasantly surprised. -benstylus ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly News Roundup ~ Page 4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This may not exactly be news, but I just discovered that Sega's remake of Dynamite Deka (Sega Ages 2500 volume 26) will include a special bonus. The original Dynamite Deka (Die Hard Arcade) on Saturn included Sega's 1979 game Deep Scan as a bonus. Dynamite Deka 2 (Dynamite Cop) on the Dreamcast had Tranquilizer Gun from 1980 included. The upcoming Dynamite Deka remake will include Sega's very first game - Periscope. From 1968. All I can say is... WOW. - http://sega.jp/ps2/ages26/home.html If you've got news in the world of Sega, let us know about it and we'll include it in the next newsletter! See the contact section on Page 10 for info on how to reach us! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SegaFans Forum Digest ~ Page 5 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OMG! Changes! Yes, the SegaFans forum went through a bit of a shuffle today - many forums were consolidated into few, and we opened up a brand new forum specifically to discuss strategies. It's more exciting than ever, so come check it out! - http://www.segafans.com/forums Here are the highlights of this past week. Steve asks the question that benstylus originally mentioned... Just how bad is DragonHeart for the Saturn? Well, read the topic and you'll find out! - http://www.segafans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1773 IcePak started several hot topics this week, including this one asking for opinions on the best Sega game since Sega went 3rd party. - http://www.segafans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1755 And this one about Virtua Cop 3... - http://www.segafans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1756 And this one about the greatest Sega game of all time... - http://www.segafans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1758 Not to be outdone, JoshF starts up his own topic about Sega's lush animated platformer, Astal. - http://www.segafans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1747 And scrodamoon pulls no punches as he shares his impressions on not one, but six Saturn racing games. - http://www.segafans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1765 The topics keep coming and we keep posting! Hopefully this coming week will be just as eventful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SegaFuns ~ Page 6 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the answers to last week's trivia questions! Here we present for you a short quiz of ten Sega questions. The higher the number, the harder the question. Each question is worth a number of points equal to the question number (Question 1 is worth 1 point, question 2 is worth 2 points, etc.). 01. What name is SEGA derived from? SERVICE GAMES 02. What is Segata Sanshiro's catch phrase? SEGA SATURN SHIRO!!! 03. Virtua Fighter 1, 2, and 3 debuted on Sega's model 1, 2, and 3 hardware respectively. Virtua Fighter 4 broke this tradition by appearing on which hardware? NAOMI 2 04. What are the names of Sega's two hologram games? HOLOSSEUM, TIME TRAVELER 05. Sega currently holds a Guinness World Record. What is this record for, and which game won it? MOST EXPENSIVE VIDEO GAME DEVELOPMENT, SHENMUE ($100+ MILLION!!!) 06. In Sega's Virtual On series, what does M.S.B.S. stand for? MIND SHIFT BATTLE SYSTEM 07. In Clockwork Knight, what is the word on the wallpaper in Betsy's room? ATELIER 08. What are the names of the two protagonists in Sega's arcade game Magical Truck Adventure? ROY, ALMA 09: In NiGHTS into dreams... how many places are set at the table in Puffy's area? ELEVEN 10: In the Dreamcast hit Jet Set Radio, What is the name of the donut shop in Benten-Cho? MISS DONUTS 55 points possible, how did you do? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- New and Upcoming ~ Page 7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's a list of Sega's upcoming releases (within 2 weeks of this newsletter) as well as recent games in case you accidentally missed any of them. This list covers games developed by Sega, published by Sega, or on Sega systems. These dates are direct from Sega, but sometimes they change em. So this should be considered a "rough estimate" rather than hard facts. RECENTLY RELEASED - USA ----------------------- None :( UPCOMING GAMES - USA -------------------- The Tower SP GBA 03/21/06 RECENTLY RELEASED - EUROPE -------------------------- None :( UPCOMING GAMES - EUROPE ----------------------- Sonic Riders GC PS2 XB 03/17/06 RECENTLY RELEASED - JAPAN ------------------------- Doraemon Nobita no Kyouryuu DS 03/02/06 Tenkabit PS2 03/02/06 Sakura Taisen 1 & 2 PSP 03/09/06 UPCOMING GAMES - JAPAN ---------------------- Jissen Pachislot Hishhouhou! Ultraman Club ST PS2 03/16/06 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Game of the Week - Space Jam (Saturn) ~ Page 8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I can see the look of disappointment on your faces... A movie-license game? Even worse, an Acclaim-published movie-license game? Worse yet, an Acclaim-published movie-license SPORTS game? You're probably reaching for the "close window" button as you read this. But before you click that X, I wonder if I could entice you to keep reading by mentioning that it isn't as bad as it sounds? Believe it or not, Space Jam for the Sega Saturn has some redeeming values. Look at NBA Jam. Everyone loves NBA Jam. It's fast paced, arcade basketball action. What if Space Jam played like NBA Jam? Well, it sort of does - at least when you're playing basketball. You've got a turbo meter, you can push people without worrying about fouls, and you've got mad crazy dunking action. It is a little different in that it's 3 on 3 (although you can play 2 on 2 instead), but it's not a bad game of Basketball. The announcer can be annoying, but thankfully, you can shut him off in the options menu. Space Jam doesn't stop there, though. Yes, there's basketball (and there'd better be - that's what the movie was about), but it doesn't stop there. Acclaim and Warner Bros both realized that a straight basketball game would only get them so far... After all, there are only two teams - the Tunesquad and the Monstars, and that along sort of limits the replay value right there. So instead of adding a bunch of teams that aren't in the movie, they decided to add a few minigames that aren't in the movie. Yes, between each quarter, you'll have the option to play a minigame. They provide a somewhat entertaining break from the basketball the first few times you play them, and doing well will improve your team's capabilities during the game - such as increasing your speed or your shooting ability. It's actually a pretty neat idea to have minigames that help turn the tides of the main game, but when there are only a half a dozen different minigames, that really puts a big dampener on fun. Sadly, the minigames are overly simplistic and lose their charm very quickly. It also doesn't help that the control in some of them is flat out awful. Thankfully, you have the option to skip them, or even to turn them off entirely. You wouldn't think that much effort would go into a movie license game, and you'd be right, but developer Sculptured Software did take the time to make Space Jam multitap compatible. So if you can find five people in your area willing to play this game (almost a statistical impossibility), the six of you can all play together. The minigames are still only for two players, though. While it won't win any awards, Space Jam is certainly far from the worst game on the Sega Saturn, and actually a pretty decent idea for a movie license. It's just a shame it wasn't fleshed out a little more. It could have been a lot better. On the other hand, it could have been a LOT worse. Take a look for yourself. I brought a video. - http://www.segafans.com/gotw/sat_space_jam.wmv -benstylus ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Links ~ Page 9 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SegaFans: Covering the past present and future of everything Sega - http://www.segafans.com Sega of America - http://www.sega.com Sega Europe - http://www.sega-europe.com Sega of Japan - http://www.sega.jp Cuddly Gamers: A forum where gamers are nice to each other - http://www.cuddlygamers.com Game Trading Zone: Buy, sell, or trade your games online for free - http://www.gametz.com Game Tribute: Provides ad free hosting to quality game fan sites - http://www.gametribute.com Whip Ass Gaming: A very hip gaming site run by BelPowerslave - http://www.whipassgaming.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits / Legal / Contact / Subscription Information ~ Page 10 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This issue was created in its entirety by benstylus. All original content copyright 2006 segafans.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You may redistribute this newsletter under the following conditions: 1 - You will not add, remove, or change any part of this newsletter. 2 - You will not charge for this newsletter. If you run a subscription-based website, this newsletter must be in a non- subscription area of the site. 3 - You will provide proper credit and a link to www.segafans.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- All games featured are copyright their respective owners. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Would you like to subscribe to the free SegaFans Weekly newsletter? Just send an email to: sfw.subscribe@segafans.com NOTE: To avoid spam, you will receive an auto-reply from that address. Read the instructions in the auto-reply to confirm your subscription. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tired of receiving the newsletter in your email every week? If you want to cancel your subscription, send an email to: sfw.cancel@segafans.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Got any comments, suggestions, complaints, or even submissions (hint hint)? Just e-mail: sfw@segafans.com Make sure to put SEGAFANS WEEKLY in the subject header to get past the spam filter! Do not send file attachments without my approval - unsolicited e-mail with files attached will simply be deleted. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ~IS IT WRONG TO THINK LOLA BUNNY IS HOT?~