Some fantastic new screens for the new Iron Man game from SEGA have surfaced and we’re sure you’ll agree it’s shaping up to look pretty cast-iron…

I hope all you Xbox 360 owning beat ‘em up fans will be
picking up your copies of Virtua Fighter 5 this weekend. I’ve got mine!

If anyone fancies a few rounds over the weekend, I’ll be online at different
times (in between shopping, eating and the X-Factor), so hunt me down. My
gamertag is “Mad Gerald”.

And if anyone manages to beat me in a humiliating manner (to
be honest, it’s not that difficult on account of me being a bit of a rubbish
gamer), I’ll raid the SEGA goodie cupboard and send you some freebies.

We are excited to announce that Samba De Amigo(tm), the Dreamcast classic that helped to create the now-popular rhythm music genre, is coming back! Created exclusively for the Wii(tm) home video game system, this vibrant and addictive new game lets players shake to the beats of a samba-infused soundtrack comprised of popular new songs as well as fan-favourites from the original game.

Playing as the grinning, sombrero-topped monkey, Amigo, players shake the Wii Remote(tm) and Nunchuk(tm) like maracas, in time with the visual beats of the music on-screen. The perfect party game, Samba De Amigo is packed with lively stages and a host of colourful characters. More details about this exciting new title including a full song listing as well as new special features will be revealed over the next few months.

Developed by acclaimed developer, Gearbox Software, Samba De Amigo will be exclusively available for the Wii in Spring 2008.

This is my first official blog post as a member of the SEGA Community
team, so hello all! I’m really excited to be working for one of the
best gaming companies on the planet. As I’ve been playing their games
for over 20 years, I thought it only right that they should give me a
job. We’ve got some great titles coming out in the next few months, and
I will be giving you the inside info on some of these and much
more.

Anyway, on with the
news.

Not sure if you saw the news
story, but Sumo Digital are currently hard at work
on a new
game for us; SEGA Superstars
Tennis. Due for release in early 2008, SEGA Superstars Tennis is
one of those fun, pick-up-and play games where traditional tennis rules
are thrown out in favour of all-out fun and frolics on the
court.

Currently,
info is a little thin on the ground (a bit like my hair), but what we
do know is:

• More than 15 playable
  characters from SEGA’s army of gaming idols including Sonic, AiAi,
  Ulala, and Amigo.
• Each character will have a unique
  ability.
• Exhibition and Tournament
  modes.
• Different courts in some very familiar
  locations such as Green Hill Zone and Carnival
  Park.
• It’s coming out on loads of formats: PS3,
  Xbox 360, PS2, Wii and DS.
• You can play your online
  buddies with the PS3 and Xbox 360
  versions.
• There’ll be loads of unlockable
  extras.

We’ll bring you more info on
how the game is coming along soon. I’ll see if I can sneak into
Fortress SEGA and nab some exclusive pics and videos for the
blog.

In the
meantime, what SEGA character would you like to see make an appearance?

The Ford RS200E is an 80’s rallying legend, no other Group B car came close to the RS200 in the one year it had in competition (before Group B was abolished). After 1986 when Group B had been cancelled many Group B rally cars found homes in rally cross, sprints, and hill climb events. This RS200 is the Mach 2 Racing Pikes Peak version with a recorded 840bhp!

The original Group B RS200 was good, but this RS200 is sublime. The whole car has been re-engineered from the ground up and all round performance and ability has been pushed way beyond anything Ford had ever intended. It is an honour to have this car included in the car line up for SEGA Rally, and I can hand-on-heart say this is the fastest car in the whole game, can you keep it on the track though?

There is an interesting little story about this car which you may find entertaining. When we were taking our research photos of the car prior to building the in-game model, the sound guys were recording engine samples for the in-game sound effects. To cut a long story short the car is run on a rolling road while the sound chaps record the exhaust and engine noises at various engine revs. Just as one of the Art Team went around the back of the car taking shots, the car lunched its gearbox and spat most of it out of the back end. Fortunately the Mach 2 Racing team were able to fix the car and we were able to complete the sound recording a few weeks later.

And that’s it - the SEGA Rally cars - hope you enjoy racing them as much as I have enjoyed developing them!

Check out the official SEGA Rally website now at www.segarally.com

Read more SEGA Rally blogs - click here

When I first began researching potential cars for SEGA Rally back in late 2005, one area that I always thought would be successful for car content was Hill Climb events. These international events are where entrants compete against the clock to complete an uphill course. Many events are based on winding tarmac surfaces, but courses like the infamous Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado are a 12.4 mile rough cut gravel surface, that winds up the side of Pikes Peak to a height of 14,100 feet.

Many cars entering these fearsome contests are bespoke home made purpose built machines or very heavily developed factory customizations. We decided that SEGA Rally should have its own Pikes Peak Racer, so after a bit of research I discovered that the Open Car class entrants used what looked like off-road Formula 1 cars.

These vary a lot between competitors due to them being entirely hand-built specifically for the purpose of this event, so I also had to design our car from scratch. Fortunately I had just completed the Baja Dune Buggy, and I had built that car around a tubular space frame (exactly the same build process used on Open Pikes Peak Racers). So I stripped the Buggy of all external body parts, lights, spare wheel etc and then set about re-profiling the overall scale and space frame shape. The Buggy is also a 2 seater so I had to reduce and completely re-design the cockpit space (Open Racers are single seaters).

Once I had correctly proportioned the main frame I set about re-working the suspension and open wheel style front and rear wheels/tyres. The final task was to build the lightweight body panels and front and rear spoilers; these were the cherry on the cake as all Pikes Peak Racers need excessive front and rear wings to create the necessary down force required.

So what you see is the final result, I think it looks bonkers and quite unlike anything else in SEGA Rally (nothing like the original Buggy model anyway!) In-game the Pikes Peak Racer is insanely fast, possibly one of the fastest cars in the game. The power-to-weight balance is crazy as the car doesn’t weigh anything but has massive amounts of BHP. The thing to bear in mind when racing this car is that corners come up very quickly and you’ll need to be very handy with the brakes.

As this is an in-house designed car, we had complete freedom over the livery design and colour way. We chose to use the Vision Racer as the main sponsor as it fitted in with the general feel of this car; the colours of the logos are strong enough to be visible on the minimal bodywork and extreme angles and shapes. Vision Racer also supply us with the high tech driving seat-ware that we use to display SEGA Rally on at shows and press events, so the space frame basis of the Pike Peak Racer kind of fits in with the space frame technology of the Vision Racer simulations hardware.

Check out the official SEGA Rally website now at www.segarally.com

Read more SEGA Rally blogs - click here

Read more about Vision Racer at www.visionracer.com

You may be surprised to see this in our list of cars, and you will  definitely be surprised at the pace of this little giant-beater. Most  people will be very familiar with the MINI re-invention, and most people will  be familiar with the uprated and performance orientated Cooper S version.

           

The  version we chose has the full GP body modifications and increase performance enhancements, the gutsy and enthusiastic 1.6 supercharged engine in this flyweight  will be more than a match for many of the bigger hitters in SEGA Rally.

The  thing that wins me over about this little car is the pure functional aggression  it looks to possess, the deep front and rear bumpers, fully formed side skirts,  rear roof spoiler and large alloys completely transform the original cutesy MINI  into something athletic and purposeful. I spotted one on the road a few  weeks ago and it looked simply superb, but that could have been the fact that  the driver was sliding it round a roundabout grinning like a small boy with a  new toy.

           

I’m also particularly pleased with the livery on this car; we wanted something loud and  proud as the car has such a unique character.  Our Licensing Manager  secured an agreement with Marshall Amplification and it just fitted perfectly,  I did originally go with black paint but the whole car looked de-saturated so I  added a touch of deep blue to the base layer and the Marshall stickers just kind of popped off the  surface perfectly.  I don’t have many favourite cars in SEGA Rally as I  have developed a strong connection to all of them, but this car in this livery  just looks so right.

Check out the official SEGA Rally website now at www.segarally.com
 
Read more SEGA Rally blogs - click here

    You may have noticed that we have a few Peugeot’s in our car selection; this is principally because Peugeot have always been at the forefront of most major motorsport competitions for a number of years. They have a particularly strong heritage in WRC, rally raid events, hill climbs and international rallycross competitions. The Peugeot 405 T16 Rally Road is the most famous version of the 405, and the rally 405 Turbo 16 was very different from the road-going 405.

It was built in a coupe body style in mid-engine  configuration, had constant four wheel drive with an electronically-adjustable  centre differential like the 205 T16, as it was based on the same technology.  Only two examples were ever made, one raced hill climbs with the other competing  in the infamous Paris-Dakar Rally.

What I like about this car is the sheer size of the thing it’s a  proper rally monster, because of its weight and size its good competition for  some of the other larger vehicles in the game. As we have the Peugeot 205  T16 Evolution 2 (1986) in the main Masters Championship I thought it would be nice  to have matching liveries. So the 405 T16 wears the original Yellow  Peugeot Rally Raid colour scheme, and unlock livery 2 on the 205 T16 is in a very similar style. Team play anybody?

Check out the official SEGA Rally website now at www.segarally.com
 
Read more SEGA Rally blogs - click here

We’re continuing to push through Alpha and make the iterations that we feel the product needs. Two of those areas: world art and character art, will give you a brief taste of what our artists look for as they progress and what kind of changes they make artistically to strengthen the content.First, Eric Kohler (Art Director for Condemned 2: Bloodshot) will give you a peek at some early model work and how he goes about providing feedback and paint-overs to iterate on the models.

1. Before the Character Artists begin to work on a model for in-game, they first generate some concept work. The cute fella you see here above is a generic enemy that you’ll run into fairly early in the game. Eric first meets with our Game Designer to understand the needs of gameplay for the character.  He’ll then start to crank out some concept pieces.  Once the final concept piece is agreed upon, Eric will meet with the specific Character Artist to go over any particular needs for the model and creation will commence.

2. While the model is being built, Eric will swing by and review it with the modeler in progress. Once the model is complete, in this case - the high-poly count model, a screenshot is provided for the paint-over process.

3. The Art Director now makes his paint-over pass, tightening up the proportions and accentuating the muscular and bone structure of the model. The image above represents a typical paint-over that Eric Kohler would give to the modeler. The Character Artist would then move forward with the changes, again getting feedback from Art Director Eric as they continue forward.

4. The next phase will be the updated model now with the textures in place. Eric will now provide feedback to the Character Artist on the revisions that he’d like to see made.

5. The Art Director will now do another paint-over showing what areas he’d like to see touched up. Even though he can convey the feedback in words, images and sketches can bring across so much more feedback. Key points that the Art Director wanted to see modified in the case of this enemy are:

a. A few extra tuffs of hair to counteract the balding look, helping him read more as a younger guy.

b. Thin out his chin and jaw to help make him look thinner. Maybe the neck as well if necessary.

c. Reduce darks in the face and the rash along his chest and back.

d. Crank up the red throughout his body to give his skin a more ruddy, irritated look.

e. Add the belt to his armf. Add a few tattoos above the elbows.

6. We now finally get to see him in action in the game with his new, improved form…

Secondly, in the area of world art, we set out with some loftier goals than we had with the environments of Condemned: Criminal Origins. We strived for more diverse environments. We also pushed harder for what we deemed as ‘medium detailing’.  There are the large aspects to creating environments such as the scale of structures, interesting shapes while keeping them realistic, even compositional approaches using lighting. In the fine details, there is the richness of textures, the realistic feel to prefabs such as chairs, tables, windows and the polygonal count. In ‘medium detailing’, Courtney Evans, World Art Lead, and the World Artists worked to get a stronger realistic cohesion between the large elements and the fine details: how the wiring from an overhead light runs along the ceiling, how the molding works with the architecture, how the outlets built into the walls fit into the time period of the environment.

Courtney Evans, a very impassionate man when it comes to world art, takes you through a series of images and shows you the progression of the development of an area in a level of Condemned 2: Bloodshot

Courtney Evans, Lead World Artist

At this point in development we’re starting to add a lot of atmosphere to our levels. Atmospheric touches are pretty quick to make - it’s not as if any one thing takes a lot of time but added together they can have a big impact on how a level feels. Here’s an example of how we’re approaching a factory level.

1. Here’s an area of the level before we start our pass. It was initially modeled by Senior Level Designer Derek Chatwood and textured by Senior World Artist Geoff Kaimmer. There’s a nice cool feel to the first-pass lighting, but you can see there’s no sky beyond the windows, and the railings are pretty square and rough.

2. We’ll then add the sky. The sky is pretty warm in tone, but it needs to be that way to stay consistent with the previous level, where there’s lots of stuff on fire, so we’re going have to change the lighting around in here to reflect that and keep that sense of cohesion.

3. Here we’ve changed the lighting and the fog to better reflect the color of the sky. We’ve also made the primary light in the room more directional, more downward with very little light hitting the ceiling to better simulate a skylight.

4. Now we’ve added some volumetric beams of light simulating dust and smoke being illuminated by the skylight. This effect uses a new shader & shading method our programmers, Principal Software Engineer, Engine Architect John O’ Rorke and Senior Software Engineer, Graphics Greg Seegert made, that pre-calculates a volume’s density (using…  science) so it can render quickly but accurately from any viewing angle. This lets us fill the room with a nice, thick dusty atmosphere that works from on the catwalks looking across or looking up from the floor below

5. Now here’s the level as it currently stands. The railings and catwalks have been remodeled by Geoff, putting in bends and curves, and the lighting’s values are tweaked a little. Further atmosphere will be added when we put in screen overlay effects, more wear and tear to the walls, and more trash. (Almost any level can be improved in our game by adding more trash.)

After that we’ll fix bugs, like the window frames that are vanishing in the distance. However, by then we’ll probably have thought of six more things we want to do to the level to make it better… we’re never done until they rip the game away from us and tell us to stop.

…And it is usually me who has to rip the game away from the content guys and tell them the time is up and that they need to stop. It’s part of my job as Producer - the luckless individual who has to yell STOP so we can make sure we make our dates and budget.

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be bringing on some gameplay updates through Alpha from our Lead Game Designer Frank Rooke and also some animation highlights from our Lead Animator Rick Lico as we continue to work on putting out Condemned 2. Thanks for your time!

-    Dave Hasle

CHARACTER BACKGROUND

FINN
In his early to mid-thirties, Finn hails from the American South.  As a professional high-stakes gambler who rides his luck a lot harder than is good or safe for him, he finds himself drifting from city to city and country to country.

Always chasing the next big game, always managing to stay one step ahead of the law, always leaving behind a trail of bad debts and broken promises, it wasn’t until Las Vegas that his past - and the Mob - caught up with him.  He owes the Mob a cool half-million.

  If he can’t pay in cash, then they’ll take what they’re owed in body parts.  It looks like Finn’s luck has finally run out.  Or has it?  There’s another way out, a figure within his Mob captors tells him.  Something called ‘The Club’.  A game, played for the highest stakes there are; if he wins, he goes free, with his debts paid off.  Does he want to play?

Finn shrugs, indicating the situation he’s in - tied to a chair, surrounded by Mob thugs - does it look like he’s got any other choice?