Sonic Chronicles launches tomorrow and we have an all new movie to get you a bit more excited .  The newest release focuses on the combat and combos of the game.  Unlike most turn-based RPGs which are very menu driven for combat, Sonic Chronicles uses a unique system to keep you on your toes and keep you interacting with the events you are participating in.  Look away for a brief second during combat and you might find yourself missing a critical block or not hitting a POW move.

We’ve been fortunate to have Sonic Chronicles in the office and it is a treat to play it in a fully finished form.  I’d love to hear from Sonic fans who are anticipating this release, what are you most excited about for Chronicles?

Eurogamer.net is running an indepth Empire: Total War Preview here

As the team at Creative Assembly hits the final stretch this game is looking really sharp. The preview details the changes made to campaign mode, empire building will be quite interesting allowing you to focus your development on governmental, trade, educational or of course military technologies. The AI generals marshaling you and your opponents forces will help alleviate micromanagement and as enemies, will keep you on your toes with many unique strategies. The addition of gunpowder and cover are a big new addition to land battles, while the earlier total war games were great battle simulators, Empire really is a Napoleonic miniature war game come to life. And as we have been seeing for months, the naval warfare is truly a sight, there is nothing like watching a ship burning at dusk.

Also if you have not seen the Empire: Total War developer diary from earlier this summer, check out The Art of Dueling video, the fourth video on the page. For a strategy game, the use of motion capture of dueling stuntmen was a cool surprise to me, it will be great to see the bayonet stabbing soldiers clashing on the battlefield next spring.

-Chillaura

Samba De Amigo and Sonic Chronicles are going to be featured at the Nintendo World Store in New York this Sunday, September 28. We’ve got two full floors of the store dedicated to both Samba and Sonic, and we’re even throwing a special contest for our Samba players. Play Samba de Amigo, get the highest score for a chance to win a special Samba de Amigo themed iPod Nano!

Where is the Nintendo World Store? How do you take part in this afternoon of excitement? Simply head to the Nintendo World Store between 1pm and 4pm. Nintendo World Store is located in New York City, at 10 Rockefeller Center, New York, NY 10020.

Sonic fans, DS owners, and anyone looking forward to Sonic Chronicles can now check out the latest Behind the Scenes Video from the team over at Bioware!

You can also ask the developers a question directly over at Bioware’s page – click here to check it out!

Sonic Chronicles is only a week away! We’d also like to hear what your favorite teams will be – if you could pick four of any of the characters in Sonic Chronicles, what would be your favorite team, and why would you choose them?

Samba De Amigo has officially landed in stores today, so prepare your wii-motes and maracas and invite your friends over to play! We’ve also just uploaded our latest Samba Video, which shows off (among one of my favorite Samba songs) more of the two-player aspect of the game. You may also spot the mug of a familiar maraca-wielding primate – who can, apparently, break dance. Sweet.

(Note: Maraca-shaking, break dancing monkeys sold separately.)

We’d also like to hear in from all of you who have now picked up the game and are busy shaking those maracas to the beat! What are your initial thoughts and impressions of Samba so far?

Today is the day! We’ve reached the end of our contest and we are absolutely thrilled with the turnout. Over the past month we’ve received well over 350 submissions across both digital and mail submissions for the US territory.The quality of the art has been incredible, and we are going to have a very difficult time finding the best 20 submissions.

SEGA would like to thank everyone who took the time to create a special artwork for this contest. Winners will be posted soon, please check back for details. Best of luck!

Valkyria Chronicles enthusiasts and fans – and people who like free stuff – listen up! Next Friday, SEGA will be holding an exclusive Valkyria Chronicles event at the Sony Playstation store inside the Metreon in San Francisco! Here’s the scoop:

Where: The Sony Metreon, 101 4th Street, San Francisco, CA

When: 5 – 9 PM Pacific, Friday, Sept 26th

The event is open to the public, and if you’re in or around the San Fran area, you’re invited to stop by! For starters, they’ll be giving away free prizes, including the chance to win:

• Exclusive Valkyria Art posters signed by the Producer

• A Sony PlayStation 3

• Other free giveaways and drawings!

  

If you’re like me and haven’t picked up your PS3 for Valkyria yet, this could be a great chance to save yourself some cash, win some one-of-a-kind signed merchandise, and even meet Japanese Valkyria Producer Ryutaro Nonaka.

We’ll also be doing an exclusive interview with Nonaka-San at the event, and are opening the door to questions from the community! So, for everyone who can’t attend in person – post your questions here at the blog, and you might spot yours asked to Nonaka-San in the interview!

Update: Please make sure to have all questions posted here by 5:00 PM Pacific on Tuesday, September 16th.

I’ll be on-hand at the event to cover all the fun, and will be posting up a full transcript of the interview the following week. So, let’s get started: if you could ask Nonaka-San any question about Valkyria, what would it be?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Update!: The event had a great turnout, thanks to all those who showed up! The interview is now being translated to English, and once ready, will be posted here in an event follow-up entry, along with some of our many pictures – if you showed up, you might just spot yourself on the SEGA Blog!

As you may have heard in a recent online video, SEGA will be headed to New York for an exclusive Nintendo Store early release party for Sonic Chronicles! Get to the Nintendo Store between 1pm and 4pm on September 28 and you’ll be one of the first to play Sonic Chronicles, before it officially releases on September 30.

In addition to the exclusive release, we’ll also be giving away a very limited edition BioWare-signed Sonic Chronicles cover. These are not going to be given away anywhere else and are likely to be a great collectible.

If that’s not enough, and really, when is it ever enough, we’ll have a SEGA rep on hand to trade an exclusive Chao to your new copy of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. This Chao will be initially available from the fans who receive it from the store event, if you want to receive it afterwards you’ll have to trade it from one of the lucky few who received it!

So, now that I have your attention, where and when does this all take place? Read on for the full scoop:

Nintendo World
10 Rockerfeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Event:
Sunday, September 28th
1pm to 4pm

One of my favorite blogs SpriteStitch is at it again with their video game related craft projects. Many of you may be familiar with the concept of papercrafts, or printable 3-d paper models you can make yourself at home without tape or glue. There are tons of cool different designs out there, with people creating and submitting their own. Today SpriteStitch highlighted  the papercrafting trend with a Sonic and Knuckles papercraft hosted by one of the major purveyors of the artform CubeCraft.com I also discovered a pretty sweet Dinosaur King papercraft sponsored by the 4Kids television network.

You can click on the above image to download the template and the instructions to make your own Sonic, Knuckles, or Dinosaur King papercraft models. There are also a ton of other projects on there that should keep us busy for a while in between our voracious gaming/school/work/eat/sleep schedules.  I think ClumsyOrchid and I might have to race to see who can make the best StrongBad papercraft. Check it out, its relatively easy to figure out, all you need is a color printer, some scissors, and about an hour of free time (unless you are an expert, in which you could speed through a couple in an hour).

So the newest Sonic Unleashed trailer has been making its rounds of the internets over the past couple days. The trailer shows off some of the finer gameplay elements as well as a few new maps and areas that we havent gotten much of a look at either.

The other big news in this trailer is that it shows off more of the nighttime gameplay elements that have been speculated upon at most since their announcement months back. So, with no further ado, i present to you the new Sonic Unleashed Gameplay Trailer!

-EggShen