SEGA has announced that they will be working together with Steve Aoki, the world-class EDM artist, DJ, and producer to host a virtual concert event celebrating Sonic’s 30th birthday. The concert will premiere on November 30th, 2021, which will also be on Aoki’s birthday, funny enough.

The digital concert will be set in the classic Sonic universe with iconic environments that players will know and love, such as Green Hill Zone, the Chemical Plant, and so much more as they listen to EDM-style Sonic tunes. This sixty-minute concert will not only feature original songs from Aoki himself but remixed versions of fan-favorite Sonic tunes from the SEGA Genesis 16-bit era, all the way to Sonic games of today.

This is not the first time that Steve Aoki has done a collaboration within the video gaming industry. Aoki has also done the music (and been a non-playable character in) for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, and has also, surprisingly, become a playable character for Speedy Ninja, an endless runner mobile game that challenged players as they ran through perilous forests and went over bizarre objects. Aoki has also been in the ranks of the top 50 of the top 100 DJs of the world, and he currently owns a portion of the esports organization, Rogue which has players competing across several different titles, including League of Legends.

For those wanting to tune into the concert, Sonic fans and music lovers alike can tune in either on YouTube or on Twitch. This is said to be only the start of Sonic’s 30th-anniversary celebrations, so who knows what else may be in the wings? If we’re lucky, there may be 30th-anniversary editions of the original game remastered, but it does seem unlikely. At least for now, there are a variety of Sonic games on the Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox, and even on Steam that fans can enjoy.

What Sonic songs are your favorite? Let us know in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter!

SOURCE: PRESS RELEASE

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Today on COG Considers, let’s talk about style and the way it can save otherwise deeply flawed games. Let’s be honest here–a lot of our most beloved games aren’t beloved because they’re flawless examples of game design. We love them because they’re cool. Metal Gear, Sonic the Hedgehog, Devil May Cry, Halo, and Mass Effect are some of the most popular gaming franchises out there, and one thing they all have in common is a strong, cohesive vision that holds the games together (until the very end of Mass Effect 3 descended into controversy, anyway) and makes them legendary. It’s not exactly revolutionary to say that people play games because they’re cool and have good writing, but what if I tell you that sometimes, people play games only because they’re cool and have good writing?

Modern gaming in general likes to focus on photo-realistic graphics and responsive action commands to build player immersion and that all-important sense of style, but you don’t necessarily need fantastic controls or cinema-level visuals to create a good gaming experience. In fact, you don’t even necessarily need a good game to create a good gaming experience. Cult classic titles like Drakengard, Koudelka, and Pathologic have mechanics that range from dull and repetitive to actively trying to sabotage the player, but people still appreciate and even enjoy these games. They aren’t fun, but the worlds they create, the characters they follow, and the stories they tell stick in our memories regardless. As of writing, all three of these games have gotten sequels or remakes that aimed to make them more enjoyable. These attempts succeeded, but something was lost along the way, particularly in the case of Pathologic, which was made obscenely difficult intentionally. It goes to show that style alone can make a game stick in peoples’ heads, even if the title is a nightmare to actually play.

Of course, good gameplay and visuals can take a game from cult classic territory to smash hit. Case in point, NieR: Automata, which brought Yoko Taro’s existentialist musings, envelope-pushing themes, and twisted characters into the spotlight. There is much more to NieR: Automata than its stylish presentation and philosophy, but it exists because Square Enix noticed Yoko Taro’s style in the Drakengard and NieR games and gave him a better platform. For a more recent example, GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon is also a fusion of excellent style and excellent gameplay. Though this title is still in Early Access, I adored every moment I spent with it, including the parts where it made me screech with frustration.

I’ve played a lot of games over the years, most of them because I thought the idea was cool. Sometimes the devs took full advantage of that and handed me an expertly crafted game that felt amazing to play, and sometimes they really shot themselves in the foot. Either way, the fact remains that I remember ‘cool’ games much better than games that market themselves purely on mechanical excellence. How about you?

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Earth Day is coming up, but how are you supposed to celebrate when we’re all supposed to stay indoors? The pandemic means that large gatherings outside are frowned upon, if not outright banned, and that means the big tree-planting efforts are hard to participate in. Though let’s be honest, most of us gamers were just going to donate money from the safety of our own homes anyway. Whatever the case, Shaw chose the perfect time to unveil a new Earth Day initiative: the Tree Spree Challenge. All you have to do is plant a tree in a game of your choice, screenshot it, and post the pic on social media with #ShawTreeSpree, and the internet giant will match it with a real tree.

Gamers, this is our moment! If you’ve ever wanted to give back to the planet, prove that you’re better at planting trees than anyone else, or just an excuse to decorate your Animal Crossing island, Minecraft homes, or Stardew Valley farmsteads, now is the time to do it. Flood Twitter with the evidence. Let’s get as many trees out there as possible. Last time, the challenge ended with a total of 4,000 trees, but we think you guys can leave that number in the dust.

The event’s call to action states that: “People can post a screenshot of their in-game tree on social using the hashtag #ShawTreeSpree, and Shaw will plant a tree in real life for them, too. The initiative will run until the end of Earth Month(April 30th) and is open to any game where you can plant a tree.”

How many games can you plant trees in, we wonder? Now is an excellent time to find out.

The Shaw Tree Spree Challenge will run from April 22nd (Earth Day) to April 30th, 2021.

How many trees did you plant? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.

SOURCE: Press Release

The post Shaw Tree Spree Challenge Dares Gamers to Plant Trees For Earth Day appeared first on COGconnected.

It’s all SNK news today. After a brief delay of their announcements, they hit us with four updates at once. We got our first trailer for King of Fighters XV, the reveal of two characters for Samurai Shodown Season Pass 3, the reveal of King of Fighters XIV Ultimate Edition, and then we went way back to the early 2000s for King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match, which is being ported to PS4. This is the remake of the King of Fighters 2002 arcade game that was ported to Dreamcast, PS2, and Xbox.

King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match boasts the largest roster of characters in the KoF series with a total of 66 playable fighters. SNK says that the gameplay has been rebalanced and graphics improved quite a bit from the original release. The fighting strategies have also been improved, but no details of how are given. Perhaps they are adjusted to fit with the more modern games’ playstyles. King of Fighters 2002 used a feature called MAX 2, which enabled players to use special moves more easily and unleash attacks that can only be used in MAX 2 mode. There will also be an online mode where players can participate in ranked, casual, and custom matches, which players can change the rules of.

As fun and exciting as new games are, there will always be an audience for the classics like this one. There is no solid release date, but SNK says that it is “coming soon”. King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match will be coming to PS4 hopefully in 2021.

Are you more excited for KoF 2002 UM or the more recent games? Let us know in the comments below.

SOURCE

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Unfortunately, only one of those games has been… well, good. I’m talking, of course, about The Simpsons: hit and Run, a Grand Theft Auto clone that fit perfectly into the zany world of Springfield, with an original story featuring reality TV, alien abductions, and mind-altering cola.

Still, with the number of games The Simpsons inspired – like The Simpsons Wrestling, The Simpsons: Road Rage, or Night of the Living Treehouse of Horror, it’s not unnatural to think that the series has had more unrealized projects. After all, the series has been on the air for a whopping 31 years at this point, almost to the day, and has inspired everything from movies to theme parks, but out of all those projects The Simpsons: Bug Squad may be one of the weirdest.

Unlike most Simpsons games, Bug Squad didn’t intend to put you in the shoes of any established characters, instead putting you in the shoes of… well, a bug. The game was never commissioned, but a test build was recently uncovered in a Dreamcast dev kit, giving us a bugs-eye view of Evergreen Terrace. Story details are scant, and the video has no sound, but the biggest take-away is how good to looked on a visual level for its day. In fact, the tech was even pitched to The Simpsons for use in the show itself.

Co-founder of the developer Red Lemon, Andy Campbell, said: “We had a great coder who had developed an amazing cell shading engine for DC. I knew Fox pretty well, so this was a demo we created and I pitched to them. We were never commissioned, so this was technically never an official title in development.”

“This was a trip down memory lane. The tech was great, developed by a guy call Rich Evans, great coder. Bug Squad concept came from Jamie Grant if I remember. A great art team built the models. The tech was also pitched as a production tool for the show itself. No game made though.”

Let us know what you think in the comments, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

SOURCE

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