RubyEclipse and I are heading to New York City tomorrow to help get the SEGA booth ready for New York Comic Con.  Lots of people have said that they’re coming to see us there, and we’re totally excited to meet all of you. Here are all the details you’ll need to have a SEGA-tastic time!

The NY Comic Con is Feb 6th-8th in the Jacob Javits center, and we’re in booth 1457, which is toward the back of the show floor, on the left side. You can print out a convention floor map to help you find your way.

We’ve got lots of stuff going on, including hands-on time with The House of the Dead: Overkill, Madworld, The Conduit, and Sonic & The Black Knight. When you come to our booth, make sure you get a card (they’re business card sized) to keep track of the games you’ve played. Once you’ve played The House of the Dead: Overkill, Madworld & The Conduit, you’ll get a free t-shirt (while supplies last)! You’ll also be able to pre-order a copy of Madworld right from our booth.

We’ve got autograph sessions with Platinum Games (the developers of Madworld) and High Voltage Software (the developers of The Conduit) happening all weekend. Platinum Games signings are Friday 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM, Saturday 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM, and Sunday 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM. High Voltage Software signings are Friday 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM, Saturday 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM, and Sunday 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM. As a special treat, on Saturday ONLY we will have some of the voice actors from The Conduit available for autographs from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM and 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM.

As if all that weren’t enough, there’s still more! If you come to NY Comic Con dressed as a Valkyria Chronicles character, you’ll get a free copy of the limited-edition Valkyria Chronicles art book (while supplies last)! Brush up on the details, and then show us your best costume! If Phantasy Star Universe is more your thing, come to our booth prepared with the answers to these trivia questions, and we’ll hook you up with some Phantasy Star swag!

Even if you don’t know trivia or don’t like costumes, we hope you’ll come by and say hello. We’ll be taking plenty of photos and videos during the day, and detailing the day’s experiences here in the blog each night. We’ll also be updating our Twitter feed throughout the day from the show floor, so follow us now if you aren’t already!

See you in New York City!

We’re really pleased that 1UP has named Empire: Total War one of the Most Wanted PC games of 2009. They cite the “gorgeous sea battles” and the “huge scope of the game” as just some of the few reasons they are looking forward to it. With all the features and strategy of the game, “there is definitely enough here to keep us excited throughout the year”.The February issue of PC Gamer (page 36) also lists Empire: Total War as one of the “Top 9 of 2009″, calling it “the most advanced Total War game ever”.This game really has something for everyone. If you’re a history buff, a fan of multi-player games, a fan of RTS games, or just a big PC gamer, I think you’ll really enjoy this game.BTW, if you haven’t seen the system requirements that were released earlier, here they are:Operating System: Windows XP 32(service pack 2), Windows Vista 32 OS.Processor: 2.4 GHz Single Core Intel or AMD equivalent processor.System Memory: 1GB RAM (XP) 2GB RAM (Vista).Graphics Card: 256MB DirectX 9.0c compatible video card (shader 2.0 or higher).Sound Card: Directx9.0c compatible sound card.Windows compatible mouse & keyboard.15 GB free uncompressed hard drive space.What are you looking forward to the most for Empire: Total War? Tell us in the comments.(Edited to update information on PC Gamer.)

After lots of lost sleep and even more caffeine, last night I finished the latest episode of the Phantasy Star Universe Community Podcast! This time around we catch up on all the latest news in PSU, take a look at the current Winter Mission Carnival event, and include the usual shout outs, song requests, mystery tracks, and random movie spoofs. (Beware the Lapuchas…)

The overall theme this time is Sonic Unleashed, and the episode also includes a special review of the game. As usual, the first person to PM myself or Lucente on the boards with the continents our mystery tracks come from will score themselves 1,000,000 free meseta in the game.

Please remember that this show has always been something that Lucente and I do in our free time, and does not reflect the views of SEGA as a company. Bland semi-legal jargon out of the way, we hope you guys enjoy it!

PSU Podcast – Episode 4