We have a fun release out for The Conduit – starting today, a new contest is available across Acidplanet.com which challenges fans to create music remixes of The Conduit! The tools and tracks have been provided courtesy of Acid Planet and the fine folks at High Voltage Software. Even if you aren’t the remixing type, you’ll find 66 individual instrument tracks of game audio straight from The Conduit that can be downloaded after simply registering on the Acid Planet site.

What can you win? Well, the Grand Prize winner will walk away with a pro version of the ACID Software suite, five premium collection libraries to assist in your future music creation, merchandise from High Voltage Software, and an inclusion on an upcoming CD release for The Conduit.

The contest is out today, so get the tracks, start mixing with the Acid software and submit by June 11th to be eligible to win. Head to Acidplanet.com for the full contest rules as well as helpful information on how to get started.

The other week we posted up an entry detailing the news that Valkyria sales had jumped pretty remarkably in both the US and Japan – with an anime on the Japanese side, sales here in the states, word of mouth and the DLC buzz driving interest, Gamasutra reported that the game flew up to #5 here in North America and took the top spot among all games in Japan.

Numbers for the next week also went out just a few days ago, and it’s worth noting that Valkyria is still holding on strong in both the US and Japan. In the land of the rising sun, the game ranked in at #3 among PS3 sales, and here in the US Valkyria defended its #5 spot, ranking for a second week in the top five and this time selling even higher than Guitar Hero, which was one notch ahead of Valkyria the previous week.

We’re coming for you next, #4.

It’s also worth nothing that all three Valkyria DLC packs ranked pretty high upon release, with Behind Her Blue Flame and Edy’s Mission spearheading the front, and Hard Mode EX just behind them. If you or your friends are curious about what you get in each pack, be sure to check out the spotlights we did for them just before they hit the network.

Finally, you can pick up Valkyria on Amazon for just $39.79 this week – if you don’t already have a copy, it’s another good chance to grab one following other sales of the game at retail. What’s that? You say you don’t have a PS3? We’ve just given you the perfect excuse to go out and get one.

Thanks again to all the fans and community members who continue to promote the game and tell their friends! You guys make all the difference.

A new batch of screenshots for Virtua Tennis 2009 on the Wii have just gone live – you can check them out here on our flickr page!

Considering the graphical differences of the next-gen versions as compared to Wii, what do you guys think?

The Conduit launch date of June 23 is approaching fast and we’ve got an all new trailer to help make the wait a bit easier. The newest release features new information specific to the Story of the game, providing an excellent look at the back story and featuring some new gameplay footage, enjoy:

Let us know what you think of the trailer here across the blogs, or on our forums!

Just announced, Wacky World of Sports is due out for the Nintendo Wii in late 2009! This is an all new game, featuring some very strange events, taken directly from actual real world sports! How strange you ask? Here’s a quick rundown of the top real sports from the official press release:

Wacky World of Sports takes players on a trip around the world to take part in some of the lesser known sports of countries like Italy, the Netherlands and Australia. The ten sports featured in the game all start easy enough but the more advanced a player becomes the more extreme the sports become! Tuna Tossing has been a popular sport down under for a number of years, but just how far can a tuna be thrown in the comfort of the living room? Drag out an old armchair to take part in Furniture Racing, but make sure Grandma is not still sitting in it because those chairs are fast! And if that’s still not bizarre enough, how about ironing a shirt while sky diving in the Extreme Ironing event?!

In addition to the trailer, we’ve also received a group of screens. Check out the two below, or head on over to our Flickr and view the rest!

So Sega Community, tell us what you think… too wacky?  Not wacky enough?  Let us know!

Perhaps all you need to know about Cyber Troopers Virtual On Oratorio Tangram is that it is a game wherein giant mech-robots fly around colorful arenas destroying each other with a wide variety of creative weapons.

Okay, this may not be all you need to know, but it is certainly a key talking point. The game is out now on XBox Live Arcade, and you can play it over XBox Live against other players to your heart’s content.

Virtual On was a 1998 arcade game which also came out on the Dreamcast (there was also an earlier arcade version, which came out on the Saturn as well): it’s a 3D fighting game where players select the mech of their choice and square off against one another in a variety of unique arenas.

Rather than trying to replicate the feel of the many other late-90s fighting games, Virtual On in its arcade incarnation used dual arcade sticks to control the mechs, hewing closer to the feel of classic tank-style arcade games. The resulting game is one with fast-paced action and highly stylized & colorful graphics, but with a very analog core to it, where there is a physicality to piloting around big robots and having them blast each other to little polygonal bits.

So, how does the game–particularly its controls–translate to the console? The Saturn and Dreamcast versions both had twin arcade stick peripherals, but there is no “twin sticks” controller available for the XBox 360. (Well, there is technically another option here–to do what one fan did, and just create your own dual-stick controller. While we can’t officially endorse dismantling your controller and wiring it to empty candy boxes, this is most definitely an impressive piece of work).

Actually, it might be worth noting that the standard-issue XBox 360 controller has twin sticks, and this release of the game was designed with this in mind. More importantly, the XBox Live Arcade release also allows you to customize your controls as much as you like. Using the sticks for movement and the shoulder buttons and triggers for dashing and weapons seemed most natural to me, and playing this way, you can do everything you need to without having to move your hands off the controls.

There is also convenient practice mode for the game, which actually has fairly detailed settings to help you train in both the basics and more advanced techniques.

The game maintains its arcade look, but with upgraded HD graphics. It looks terrific–bright colors and fluid animation, with vibrant battlefields whizzing through space set against backdrops that recall something as wickedly cybernetic/psychedelic as Rez. You can play through the game’s single-player mode and square off against surprisingly well-captained AI opponents, or, of course, you can play the game over XBox Live Arcade against other players.

If there’s something familiar about the mechs in Virtual On, it might be because famed Japanese mecha designer Hajime Katoki helped craft the game’s robotic avatars–Katoki also worked on the Gundam anime series, and his robotic designs have a very distinct flavor to them. Virtual On features 15 playable “Virtuaroids” (mechs), each with unique weapons and styles, and each of these mechs has fully customizable colors. It’s a blast just to select your “Virtuaroid” and see its robotic parts writhe and transform as it accelerates through a launching tunnel and towards the combat arena.

There’s great minor touches too, like the Dreamcast system embedded into the backs of the various mechs (if your mech whispers to you that it’s thinking, you’ll at least know why). Similarly, if you want to give your mech a custom paintjob and name you can save it to your hard drive and then, in the mech selection screen, select your creation using an icon that looks like the old Dreamcast VMU. Another fine touch: at the end of each match, there is a short replay showing the death sequence of whoever lost. These are surprisingly fun to watch and the camera AI seems to do really well in capturing the poetics of getting blow apart in dramatic fashion.

Virtual On Oratorio Tangram is out today for XBox Live Arcade — this is truly a unique game from SEGA’s arcade heritage and it’s great to see it available for download.

We are happy to report that a patch update has been produced which should resolve the issues with crashing in the grand campaign as well as other issues you may have encountered with clicking units and the like. This update is scheduled to release today and will do so automatically through Steam once you are connected. It is advised that you have updated your video drivers and other system drivers as necessary.

Patch details for this will be available for review in Steam by clicking on the “My Games” tab and then right-clicking on your Empire: Total War game and selecting “View update news”. Here is the complete list of fixes and corrections which will be included in the patch:

CRASH FIXES

- Fixed crash when disbanding generals unit.

- Fix for crash on trying to merge ships from port into ships next to port.

- Fixed rare crash relating to boarding.

- Fixed crash to do with reinforcing armies.

- Fixed crash on revolution video attempting to play.

- Fixed crash for double clicking on sinking ship on campaign map.

- Fix for crash on merging units but moving into fort before army arrives.

- Fixed several crashes related to rakes.

- Fixed crashes relating to battles when running Czech or German versions of the game.

- Fixed crash on moving army into region of faction player has military access and then cancelling military access.

- Fixed crash on trying to exchange ships between 2 fleets.

- Fixed crash on spamming move orders to puckle guns locked in melee combat.

- Fixed hard lock on inviting host to their own MP game.

- Fix to prevent loading of mod causing crash post patch.

- Various end turn crash bugs fixed.

- Fixes to crash bugs relating to completion of revolutions.

- Some fixes relating to merging and disbanding.

- Fix for several crashes in land battles.

- Several crashes relating to attacking cities fixed.

- Several load save game crashes fixed.

CAMPAIGN

- Armies now placed correctly on battlefields in relation to campaign.

- Fix for nearby ships sometimes not being included as reinforcements for battles.

- Fix for incorrect numbers sometimes showing on trade routes.

- Units with limits on how many can be recruited now show how many are available.

- Various fixes relating to rakes and infiltrating.

- Fixes relating to problems moving armies/merging into army’s right next to settlements.

- Various trade bug fixes.

- Fix for moving agent from settlement moving army instead of agent.

- Fix for several bugs relating to military access and armies being in regions.

- Fix for tattered flags appearing on fleet/armies even when at full strength/fully repaired.

- Fix for sallying out armies breaking siege at times even when losing the battle.

- Fix for bugs relating to capturing ships on returning to campaign map from naval battle.

LAND BATTLE

- Improvements to path finding have been made.

- Some fixes to units not garrisoning buildings.

- Fort gate ownership made clearer with faction flags appearing at the gatehouse.

- Fix for problem relating to artillery unlimbering after being ordered to limber.

- Fix for puckle guns moving on their own in some circumstances.

- Fix for big slowdown in unit movement on some battle maps in the Road to Independence episodes.

- Fix for missile cavalry not reloading when out of combat.

- Jaegers now have muskets instead of incorrect rifles, Prussian Jaegers keep rifles.

- Quebec episodic land battle fixed ground type in deployment area

- Fix for unrealistic numbers when ending a land battle by quitting on the battle results screen.

NAVAL BATTLE

- Several fixes for ships clipping into each other.

- Improvements to boarding have been made. Crew is more fluid in attack and more resolute in defence. Men survive long fall and officers join in the boarding attack.

- Crew uniforms improved to make identification of the crew type and faction easier.

- Defending ship is not allowed to fire cannons anymore during boarding procedure.

- Improved naval grouping UI and group movement made.

- Improvements made to ship collisions to reduce chance of ships getting stuck.

- Fix for sail damage not being shown when volumetric effects turned on.

MULTIPLAYER

- Various fixes for joining games/game lobby issues.

- Fixes for problems relating to spectators being kicked/locking up on other players joining games in certain instances.

- Long riflemen and winged hussars removed from early era battles.

- Fix for insufficient funds always showing on unit cards even when enough money is available.

- Player name is now displayed on unit tooltips.

- Team chat is now displayed in a different colour.

AI

- Basic fix for AI being unable to move army by fleet.

- Aggression of factions in campaign improved, as well as tweaks to diplomacy.

- Improvements to campaign AI relating to its waging of wars, recruitment and movement of armies.

- Improvements made to battle AI to make it more reactive, use buildings better as well as squares and rakes.

- Siege battle AI improvements made.

- Improvements to naval AI to make it bunch up less, its use of galleys and long range units such as bomb ketches.

MISCELLANEOUS

- Delete save game button added to save game list.

- View replays button added to single player Play Battle menu.

- Various sound fixes and improvements.

- Various incorrect text messages fixed.

- Fixes to various graphical glitches with display of walls.

- Fixes made for stuttering videos.

- Fix for several game option settings not being saved correctly, including settings such as floating flags.

- Fix for unit voices/attack confirmation being heard for all units in an alliance instead of just for the player’s army.

- Armor and shield values are now added into melee defense value shown on unit cards.

- Lots of other small and minor bug fixes.

BALANCING

- Land unit recruitment cost in campaign has been increased, with higher cost on higher difficulty level.

- Ship recruitment and upkeep costs have been increased in campaign.

- Various balancing and cost adjustments to improve multiplayer land battle balance.

- Ship costing improvements made for both campaign and multiplayer.

- Economic tweaks have been made to campaign to reduce amount of money made in later part of campaign.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

- We are aware of an issue with community created maps that results in a crash when someone without the map tries to join the game. This crash will be fixed in the next patch.

- Further work is being done on improving AI Naval invasion behavior and this will be included in the next upgrade patch.

- Some users may have difficulty accessing some of the older game save files. Should an older save not load after the patch it is advised by the development team that the campaign should be restarted.

Once your game has updated, you will want to make sure that your system drivers (video and sound cards) are updated to their latest versions. If you encounter any issues with the game after the update, you will want to contact Sega Customer Support by going to http://help.sega.com/, logging in using your Sega Pass account and then sending an inquiry using the following format as an example:

Subject: [Empire: Total War] – [Specific Issue or Error Description] (i.e. Crashing in RTI, cannot load saved game, graphical corruption in map, etc)

In the body of the e-mail, please provide a quick synopsis regarding the error you are having as well as the steps you take prior to getting that result. You will also want to include your latest system information using the DirectX Diagnostic Tool (start >run > type ‘dxdiag’ >ENTER) so that the support team then knows what your current system configuration looks like.

Last week, we teamed up with our SEGA Europe colleagues to start Free Stuff Friday giveaways via Twitter. In case you missed it, here’s how it works:

1. You must be following us on Twitter to be eligible. (If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can create one by going to http://www.twitter.com and click the green “get started — join!” button in the center of the page.)
2. At random times on Friday, we will announce the prize we are giving away. The first person to send us a direct message (DM) via Twitter will win the prize. (@ replies do not count as entries!)
3. All followers are eligible to win all prizes, unless a restriction is noted. Restrictions are usually due to the prize being region-locked. For example, US games that won’t work on UK gaming systems.  There may also be age restrictions due to the rating of the game.
4. We will announce the winner on our Twitter feed once eligibility is confirmed.

Make Sure We’re Following You on Twitter!

If you are currently following us on Twitter, please be sure that we are following you as well. You can do this by making sure that SEGA is in your “followers” list, or by going to DoesFollow and typing SEGA in the first blank, your Twitter username in the second, and pressing the “check” button. You can reverse this to be sure that you are following us. If you are following us, but we’re not following  you, please send a message to @SEGA and we will follow you. This is important, because only people we follow can send us direct messages (DMs), and DMs are the only way to enter the giveaways.

How To Send Direct Messages on Twitter

There are a few ways to send us a Direct Message on Twitter. The easiest way is to go to our Twitter page and select “message” under the “Actions” heading in the side bar. If you do not see “message”, this means that we are not following you. Please send a message to @sega to let us know, and we will follow you. When you click “message” you will be taken to a window where you can type a message and press send.

You may also select the “direct messages” tab from your Twitter homepage, and select SEGA from the drop-down menu at the top of the page. Again, if you don’t see our name there, it’s probably because we’re not following you. Let us know, and we’ll follow you.

There are also many Twitter clients that you can use instead of using the website. These include TweetDeck, Twitteriffic, Tweetie, and Twhirl. Each of these programs works differently, so you’ll want to figure out how to send a direct message on the program you use. If you want to send us a test message, we’ll let you know if we received it or not.

On the Block This Week

Enough with the how-to blah blah blah… let’s get to what we’re giving away this week!

We’ve got 8 Sonic comics, Sonic Chronicles for Nintendo DS, 3 SEGA stickers, an OutRun T-shirt, and a Valkyria Chronicles figurine still sealed in the box. We’re dividing them into prize packs. For more details on each pack, keep reading.

Pack 1: 2 Sonic Comics

Two Sonic Comics — #144 and 132. Any of our Twitter followers worldwide are eligible to win this prize pack.

CONGRATS to our winner, @rodiard!

Pack 2: Sonic Comic and Sonic Chronicles for DS

Sonic Comic #145 and Sonic Chronicles for DS.

Only Twitter followers from the US, Canada, Mexico and Latin America are eligible to win this prize pack.

Congrats to our winner, @KirbyGCN17!

Pack 3: Sonic Comic and Valkyria Figurine

Sonic Comic #157 and Valkyria figurine (sealed in box).  The figurine inside is unknown (you won’t know until you open the box, if you choose to do so) but will be one of the figurines shown on the back of the package.

Any of our Twitter followers worldwide are eligible to win this prize pack.

Congrats to our winner, @xblazer01!

Pack 4: Sonic Comic and OutRun T-Shirt

Sonic Comic #100 and OutRun T-Shirt (size L).
Any of our Twitter followers worldwide are eligible to win this prize pack.

Congrats to our winner, @lgladdy!

Pack 5: SonicX Comic and SEGA Sticker

SonicX Comic #39 and SEGA sticker.

Any of our Twitter followers worldwide are eligible to win this prize pack.

Congrats to our winner, @shaunmcilroy!

Pack 6: Sonic Comic and Sticker

Sonic Comic #194 and SEGA Sticker.

Any of our Twitter followers worldwide are eligible to win this prize pack.

Congrats to our winner, @Squadala!

Pack 7: Sonic Comic and Sticker

Sonic Comic #191 and SEGA Sticker

Any of our Twitter followers worldwide are eligible to win this prize pack.

Congrats to the winner, @panicpuppet!

That’s All, Folks!

That’s everything we’re giving away this Friday, May 1st on Twitter. If you have any questions, please ask before Friday, as we may not get to them on Friday. Hope you’re psyched about all this cool stuff!

GUMBALL EYES!

Yes, there is Sonic Ice Cream – and it has Gumball Eyes. That’s apparently what they want you to notice first, judging by the capitals on the front of the package.

When a friend showed me this on Facebook earlier today, I did spot the gumball eyes first – not because they were gumballs, but moreso because they were embedded into blue hedgehog quills as opposed to being where they were supposed to be, which would be in that white area where one’s pupils normally go.

You’re getting very hungry…

Still, even besides the fact that Blue Bunny has forgotten where one’s eyes are supposed to go – or maybe it’s just really difficult to place them right – I can’t argue that they do make some awesome Ice Cream, and Blue Raspberry is sounding really good right about now. Plus, it’s Ice Cream, and I’d argue that what really matters about Ice Cream is how it tastes, not how it looks.

Want to find one around your hometown? I did some digging and it looks like this series started production in 2007, and you might still be able to get ahold of one. Sonicgear.org even has a tip for finding it:

“…It’s usually the older ice cream trucks that carry stuff like the Pink Panther ice cream and the Great Whitesickle, as well as candy, that has the Sonic ice cream.”

So there you have it. Sonic Ice Cream is still out there, and you might be able to pick some up yourself this summer to cool off as things get warmer.

Just remember – we warned you about the eyes.

Special thanks to Lizzy S. for the tip/picture! (Also: bonus points to anyone who spots the other obvious mistake with the Ice Cream.)

A spy has to have tools if he’s going to take on a mission of the utmost importance. Depending on the mission, a dossier might be issued to assist an agent in the field and provide detailed information about the current objectives.

Recently, I received a few dossiers for Alpha Protocol marked Confidential and containing some fun surprises. This is another fun bit of swag that we’ll be looking to get out to fans, and while that is being organized over secure networks, here’s a look at what’s inside…

Photos, secret keys, confidential CDs, and even an Alpha Protocol branded Leatherman are inside.

Here we have high resolution glossy photos from Alpha Protocol showing some surveillance from inside the game.

A confidential CD is locked with a secret code only revealed by a special light…

As you can see, there’s quite a lot of cool stuff – including a Leatherman tool with the Alpha Protocol logo. We want to get this stuff out there, so be on the look out for opportunities to get these cool Dossier packs!