Following our 5 days of fanart for Sonic Black Knight, we have another group of great selections. Another big congratulations for everyone who submitted their art. We have some very talented Sonic fans!

Look for new art to be posted tomorrow!

Phantasy Star has a dear place in my heart. It was my first exciting experience with an online world with the Dreamcast version of Phantasy Star Online, and I’ve worked on Phantasy Star Universe since launch and beyond. Within the SEGA community team, we have very different backgrounds with Phantasy Star. We thought it would be fun to play Phantasy Star Portable as a multiplayer session and post our impressions.

From the first boot screen to the character builder, I was back in familiar territory and ready for some multiplayer action with the team. Phantasy Star Portable offers a pretty faithful version of the Phantasy Star Universe, right down to the attacks, animations, and levels. Starting Unsafe Passage, the starter mission from PSU, we moved out to find our rewards and level our characters.

Of our play session, I had two things I really enjoyed – the way loot is addressed and the charge attack mechanic. The Charge Attack is a throw back to Phantasy Star Online and allows you to time your attacks for greater benefit. Unlike Phantasy Star Online, the charge attack mechanic is not required, and you can defeat foes with rapid button presses. However, with a bit of finesse, you can time attacks to return power points (resource for bigger attacks) and add increased damage with a critical hit on each successful strike. This gives the combat a much more tactical approach in how you dispatch enemies and maximize your damage output. Very fun!

In regards to loot changes, I was very happy to see how items were distributed and it really hit home for me what Phantasy Star Portable was all about: teamwork. In Phantasy Star games of the past, if an item of value dropped (instantly viewable as a red box) all play stopped and it was a race to acquire it. This meant ranged players didn’t see rewards and there were often squabbles about who deserved what and the inevitable discussion of fairness. What’s the change? To appeal to teamwork and fairness, items that are found are given to the entire party! This allows for less concern about loot grabbing and more focus on the encounter at hand.

I really enjoyed our play session and am anticipating the release of Phantasy Star Portable on March 3rd!

Ruby Eclipse
I’ve been looking forward to Phantasy Star Portable for some time now, and when I got a chance to play all the way through an early build, I was stoked. I think one of the best parts about Phantasy Star Portable is that they’ve changed the entire game to make it more like Phantasy Star Online. In our multiplayer session, it was a lot of fun teaming up and seeing some of the rebalances they’ve made to the game. My favorite addition to multiplayer gaming? Definitely the new rare item distribution system, which gives each and every player in the team a copy of a rare when one is picked up. No more fighting over who called a weapon or item – the system is genius, and I can’t wait to get some hardcore multiplayer games going on with friends once the game hits the streets next week.

Kellie
This was my first time playing any Phantasy Star game, so I was really eager to see what it was all about. The graphics were really good (better than I expected, actually) and I had a lot of fun playing the game with everyone. I guess any time spent playing videogames at your desk with your friends is fun, though. As a newbie, I found the game pretty easy to pickup and managed to get my bearings and movements down with only a few tries. It was helpful to have knowledgeable friends to play with, but I think I would have figured everything out with only a bit of extra time. I could see myself getting really absorbed in this game on my own, but playing with a group of friends adds a whole new level of fun. I’m sure that there are a lot of finer points about the game that I haven’t learned yet, but that just makes me eager to play and explore more. If you’re new to Phantasy Star, there’s no need to be intimidated. You’ll be able to pick it up and get sucked in right away.

Edward@SEGA
My first few hours with Phantasy Star Portable were like driving my old familiar car which had suddenly been tricked out and updated. All the little things I’d wanted to change over the years got an upgrade—-even though it looks and feels like Phantasy Star Universe in a lot of ways, this game is not just optimized for the PlayStation Portable; it’s incredibly at home on it. Playing in a group really brought this out.

Our intrepid SEGA Community Team didn’t hit anything too challenging in our foray into low-level missions, but nevertheless the PSP feels like the perfect platform to run around with a small group & kill SEED-infected monsters. We actually managed to clear a fair amount of low-level stuff in a short amount of time and the faster PA leveling made me just -ecstatic-. I’m really looking forward to seeing kind of group-play on a larger scale. The classes for Portable (more on this in future posts) allow for so much more flexibility in terms of how you build your group, and the idea of having a readily adaptable group of players for running against the big bosses is really appealing… Can’t wait!

In the past few months, we’ve been reaching out to community and fan-run websites to support the great work they’re doing and to connect more closely with our fans and customers.  One of the first groups to approach us was GamerTag Radio, and their leader Godfree, who was putting together a huge community event/party in Miami called “Community Vibes IV”. He asked us to contribute some swag for prizes, and we were more than happy to do so. Now that the event has passed, we’ve got some pix of people enjoying SEGA stuff.

Here are some people enjoying some of the Sonic comics that we sent over. The one on the left is #191, and the one on the right is #194.

We also sent over some games, including Golden Axe: Beast Rider that you can see on the left side of this photo. Looks like a great games package!

GamerTag Radio also did some live recording from the party, and you can listen to that podcast on their site. There are also a whole bunch more photos on their Flickr feed.

It looks like a fantastic party, and I’m so glad that SEGA could be a part of it.

Overkill fans, it’s about time we made good on a promise. Remember back when so many of you asked us for more pictures, media, and especially some of the groovy music tracks in the game? We said they were coming – and here they are!

The Kit has screenshots, character art and sketches, wallpapers, and some MP3 tracks from the game -Washington’s Theme and the very awesome Zombie Shuffle. As a fan of the series, I put this together with some hidden extras too, but you’ll have to follow your House of the Dead lore to find your way to the extra goodies… Once you download it, extract it to make sure you can take part in our little scavenger hunt.

Enjoy, and hope you’re all having a blast with Overkill! We took a slightly different approach in making this Fan Site Kit unique, so I’d love to hear what you guys think of it.

Sonic and the Black Knight is nearly here and we thought it would be a fun to release some of the Fanart created by fans. This art came from Sonic fans who were tasked with creating their favorite scene from the Sonic series. While the winners have already been selected, we really loved the art and wanted to share it with everyone in the community. Each day we’ll be releasing 25 random selections from the contest submissions.  Take a look and let us know what you think, be sure to click in for each image as most  are much larger than the thumbnail in the blog.

Look for more art tomorrow and for the rest of the week!

The Polls are now closed! Thanks to everyone in the Phantasy Star Universe community that voted to choose what the next event will be called. At the end of three days of voting we have a clear winner with Shred the Darkness. Thanks to everyone who participated, look for more information on Shred the Darkness as we get closer to release!

Throw aside that $99 Guitar you had to pick up to really get into Guitar Hero. Forget the extra $200 you’d spend on the band kit for Rock Band. Let’s Tap! is bringing some sweet beat-tapping action to the Wii, and the only peripherals you need – those two things we call hands – are entirely free.

If you’re unaware of what Let’s Tap! is all about, it’s the pioneer game from studio Prope, created by this guy called Yuji Naka that some of you may or may not have heard about. (If you don’t, it’s about time you played some oldschool Sonic the Hedgehog!) It’s a Wii exclusive – and the first Wii game ever where you don’t actually hold the controller at all. Instead,  Let’s Tap! uses vibrations that the wii-mote picks up when you tab an object it’s sitting on – a box or a table, for example. Obviously, Let’s Tap! is all about tapping, and includes tons of different games and styles to play – one of which is this rhythm based tapping game:

(I love the music in this video – old school 8-bit meets electric guitar is total win.)

Good times ahead at 1:30 on.

Let’s Tap! is arriving this summer, but I’m already pretty stoked for the game – next we’re going to be taking a look at the other modes of play, which are as varied as the game is unique.

Tap racing, anyone?

Today, we’d like to extend a unique opportunity to the entire Phantasy Star community: you can help us name the next event, coming soon across both Playstation®2/PC and Xbox 360® servers!

The upcoming event, which is closely tied to the storyline of Ambition of Illuminus, features another fight against the infamous SEED. Players must work together to repel the threat of total annihilation – Details are scarce at the moment, and will be available as we get closer to release. To help us get closer to this release date, we need your help in choosing the name of this upcoming event!

How to participate? Head to our forums and vote on one of the following names you think sounds the best.

Dark Erosion
Shred the Darkness
Shadows of Gurhal
Guardians of the Light

Simply head over, login, and cast your vote for what you’ll be fighting for!

If you haven’t been keeping an eye on IGN lately, there are 30 good reasons to start! For the last couple of weeks, and leading up through the next, IGN has 30 different exclusives about MadWorld! Each week, we’ll pick out a few that we thought were the coolest and highlight them here – this round was a tough batch to pick favorites for, but here they are:

#1: MadWorld: The Storyline

The big thing we’re often asked about MadWorld is “What’s the story like? I think it’s awesome that you can run around stabbing signposts through people, but why exactly is Jack in this city, anyway?” IGN has a great post up with an in-depth look at the story, and the reasons why Jack enters the bloody game known as Death Watch.

#2:  Meet the Commentators

Ever heard of Greg Proops or John Dimaggio? Old enough to remember the Who’s Line is it Anyway? series with Drew Carey? Do you recognize the name Bender from Futurama? Get to know the two Death Watch commentators, who you’ve probably  seen and heard many times before, but just never realized!

Greg and John talk about their time recording the lines for MadWorld, what it was like teaming up together, and their favorite video games.

A fun bit of trivia on these guys – One of them was actually the announcer for the Pod Races in Star Wars: Episode I…

#3: Bloody Deaths

Alright, so let’s be honest. When it all comes down to it, MadWorld rocks the gaming scene for a number of reasons, and the brutal – yet entirely comical – deaths are a big part of it. This is IGN’s Friday feature, and they’ve got videos to show off a number of the awesome ways you can take someone out in MadWorld. They also talk with developers PlatinumGames about the way the game was designed around interactive props like a CAUTION sign and the Rose Bush. (Seen more commonly as a wall of spikes.)

The features will continue each day on IGN as we get even closer to the launch of the game! More of our favorites will also be here next week, so keep your eyes peeled for tons more MadWorld each day!

Check out our Percival trailer for the upcoming Sonic and the Black Knight game, shipping March 3rd.