The Conduit had a lot of hype behind it. The game's development represented a certain openness to the gaming community. High Voltage saw a problem and wanted to be the first to tackle it; be the first to make a "hardcore" Wii game and realize the dreams gamers had for first person shooters. So we watched, with baited breath as the game developed, impressed along the way by the community's opinions and input. The end result? Aside from great controls, meh.

It appears High Voltage is aware of this as they updated their blog and spent quite a bit of time talking about the Conduit 2. From what they wrote they seem to agree the The Conduit had some flaws; particularly in terms of art direction and an overall lack of gravity to the game's events.

At various points throughout the development of C1 we would discover something new about the technology, build a new graphics feature, and then have to make hard decisions as to whether or not we had time to rework existing art content to take better advantage of the latest features...The result was a game that is fun to play and is solid overall, but never quite manages to excite its audience with inspired visions of a darkly futuristic world that’s being torn apart by aliens.

The post goes on to talk about the developers commitment to not add content to the game unless they are a hundred percent in love with it. They also mention refinements the've introduced to Quantum 3 engine that will further help improve the game's art work. You can check out the rest of the post via the link below.

[via The Conduit 2 - A Message From High Voltage]

Just a heads up, Sega's sky fighter arcade hit is coming to an Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 near you April 21st and 22nd respectively for an estimated $10. The current release dates apply for both North America and Europe.

To be honest I never played the arcade game myself but word on the street is that this gem is a classic, so if high octane, ludicrous combat is your game then by all means get your dog fight on when the game hits XBLA and PSN this April.

Combining more modes of play than all of our reviewed titles of February, Aliens vs Predator is all about the embodiment of the franchise, doing it justice in the videogame realm. Does it succeed, or does it blunder as many pundits have expected?

The promise AVP brings is one of every possible solution the movies have offered, from every perspective. Play as a human marine, the hunter Predator, or the huntee Xenomorph. Three single player campaigns, all relatively short at 4-5 hours a pop, are intended to deliver the experience of each species. It almost works.

As a human, big guns and well lit rooms are the second greatest motivator against the alien menace, right behind fear. The “Rookie”, a Silent-Bob character whose face we see at the end yet managed to out-survive even the greatest of threats, is the players’ avatar, one who wields any weapon at the ready. His arsenal is large, from a weak pistol to an auto-aim machine gun, there are more tools of the trade than you need worry about. But when situations get dicey, it’s best to run, because a pack of Xenomorphs will rip the physically puny homosapien to shreds quickly. This campaign is the most standard and easiest, and undoubtedly the one most players will enjoy because of the familiarity with being human.

The Predator is similar; walk on two legs, have access to weapons, albeit fewer but more powerful ones, and physically the strongest force. Yet while the human campaign is riddled with poor acting, it’s at least fun to play because you’re the lowest of the low, and it’s a struggle to survive, especially on harder difficulty settings. As the Predator, all players get is a low-on-ammo supergun, the ability to cloak, and giant mitts. Picking off unsuspecting humans is easy, but there’s no hiding from the Xenomorphs, and fisticuffs is not enjoyable in the slightest. There is nothing about the Predator that makes players feel like the big, bad hunter. Instead, the entirety of this campaign is spent hopping about quietly like an unarmed Sam Fisher, prancing around so you don’t get your skirt wet.

Finally, playing as the Xenomorph is absolutely spectacular. Physically powerful but also easy to kill, the Xenomorph can crawl on any surface, and does so quickly. Sneaking up on unsuspecting humans is satisfying at first, but gets old because it really is too easy, and more suited for multiplayer (where that satisfaction returns with each concurrent execution). This campaign also revolves mostly around hand to hand combat, but as a fast moving and weak creature, it’s much more exciting because any mistake can lead to a quick death. This campaign also happens to be the most interesting in terms of the plot, but no one’s going to win any awards for the writing or acting.

Multiplayer is really the boon of AVP, which becomes apparent in the campaigns when things get tiresome, undoubtedly one of the reasons for their brevity. Using the same levels as seen in the single player, multiplayer pits all the species against each other in a selection of different gametypes. Balancing is done surprisingly well, where all the strengths and weaknesses of each species is apparent and easy to take advantage of. Flying around levels as the Xenomorph is incredibly exciting, especially when your adversaries pick up on your tactics and are prepared shortly after, allowing for a never ending tug of war struggle for points. This experience is mostly unique to multiplayer in most first person shooters, and it’s a relief to get something new and fresh like it.

The catch is that matchmaking is garbage. While initially just broken, it’s currently slow to find any game, especially specific gametypes when searching for a quick match. The lobby itself comes from some pre-internet age, and it takes so long to get a game that, in my tired state, I literally fell asleep waiting for a game to start. I was not laying down, but sitting upright, mind you. Often it takes so long to find a game that people will just drop, and there are no dedicated servers to join or host on PSN. This almost makes the exceptional multiplayer void, because who wants to play when it takes forever for the game to get going?

“The wait has been worth it. It is time for an RPG to go beyond fantasy and space,” said Sean Ratcliffe, Vice President of Marketing for SEGA of America. “The genre needs a shot in the arm, and renowned developer Obsidian has delivered. Alpha Protocol will be the absolute best it can be, and we look forward to revealing fresh aspects of it to the community in the upcoming months.”

In Alpha Protocol, players assume the role of rookie spy Michael Thorton and are given unprecedented control over the development of his abilities and interactions with other characters. Customizable character skill-sets, attributes and weapons all play an important role in allowing gamers to tailor Thorton to their play-style.

SEGA has also released a new trailer, titled 'A Man Alone':

While we're still waiting for Yakuza 3 to land here in the States, Sega is already gearing up to release Yakuza 4 in Japan. Today, it released a new Japanese trailer for the game, but get this -- it's over five minutes long. It's packed so full it's almost too much. There's plenty of punching, kicking, running and even a little walking!

Oh yeah, it's all in Japanese too. Nevertheless, it's pretty sweet and worth watching if you've got the time.

Reports have come in of broken Facehuggers that were shipped with the Hunter Edition of Aliens vs. Predator. Sega has announced that it will replace the broken models in North America only at this time.

"It has come to our attention that some of the exclusive Facehugger models included in the Aliens vs. Predator Hunter Edition have suffered damage in transit to North American retail," the company said in a statement. "We apologize for any inconvenience and are happy to provide replacements for any customers who received damaged products."

There's still no word on if this will apply to Europe.

Remember the last few 3D Sonic games and how they were generally, well, terrible? Sega may have thought so too as it turns out that Sonic Team, the original developers that brought about both the series of 2D Sonic games that launched Sonic to super stardom and, later, the terrible string of 3D games that all but destroyed said super stardom, will not be developing the recently announced Sonic 4. That task will fall to the Osaka based developers Dimps.

Dimps, it turns out, has quite a pedigree. Apparently they had actually worked on the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS released Sonic games under the Sonic Team name. They also developed the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series on the PS2 and, more recently, helped co-develop Street Fighter IV.

Since we have had to endure 3D Sonic games the likes of  Sonic Unleashed for so long already, its about time we get this dying legend back to his element with some capable hands at the helm.

[via Kotaku]

Bored waiting for BioShock 2, or, if you're like me, is there a huge f**cking snowstorm going on outside? Then stay indoors and download the Sonic & Sega All-Stars demo. It's up on Xbox Live now. It may be a cheap racer, but if it's anything like Sega's other All-Star games, it's probably good for a quick laugh.

The full game is out February 3.

The spy espionage role playing game Alpha Protocol has been delayed yet again, moving back its tentative spring release to summer. Originally expected for an October 2009 release, Alpha Protocol has had an interesting development history to say the least - given that the game wasn't officially delayed until it had passed its retail date  - leaving us to wonder if it was even going to see the light of day.

According to MTV Multiplayer, the reason for the game's delay was to give it time for more polish as SEGA's Assistant Producer, Matthew Hickman had this to say: "We had a few reasons for doing it. One: We wanted to position it better, give it a lot of time. The main reason: We really wanted to polish the game up, make it everything Obsidian planned it to be, and give the consumer a very polished game.

"We added a couple of other things. Tweaks in lighting here and there, added the inventory comparison screen so you can compare what you're buying to what you have equipped. Just bringing the whole quality level up."

It's probably a good thing too as said in MTV's assessment that the game that it has "a lot of work to go" and that "the graphics remain pretty raw and there seem to be AI issues still to be worked out."

[MTV Multiplayer] via VG247

The AVP demo released earlier this week. Unfortunately, it was also plagued with massive matchmaking issues. Developer Rebellion has apologized for the problems, adding that a patch has fixed up the PC version.

"Unprecedented demand for Aliens vs. Predator following the release of the cross-platform demo yesterday morning brought to light matchmaking issues on the PC platform resulting in players having to wait to join games, or even not find games at all," the developer said in a statement issued by Sega. "We're really sorry that this issue tainted a day in which we saw many people get hands on with AvP for the first time and we're hugely gratified by the positive feedback to the game."

The Xbox 360 was not affected by the issues, and a fix is also on the way for the PS3.

[via VG247]