JC and WallE are back again with a new episode of The Bitcast. This week in the news, the duo talks about some exciting news for the Max Payne and Bully franchises from Rockstar, the upcoming movie news for Rampage and address analyst Michael Pachter’s thoughts on the next XBox launch.

This week, The Bitcast introduces The Long Grind, a new segment featuring a longform review of a huge upcoming or classic title. This first edition of The Long Grind will feature The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for this episode and the next three weeks.

In the Topic of the Week, The Bitcast crew examines the classic Mario and Sonic franchises, as well as others, that have gone drastic reboots and remakes and continue to evolve both in gameplay and graphics.

In their Now Playing, WallE talks all things Sonic Generations while JC tackles the thug life of Saints Row: The Third. Make sure to subscribe to The Flickcast iTunes feed to get your weekly episode of The Bitcast automatically downloaded. Also, be sure to follow us on @thebitcast and JC at @thejohncarle and WallE at @JWWallE on Twitter.

Sonic the Hedgehog is a seminal video game character. Who knows what the world of video games would look like today if not for the little blue speed ball. So it is with that respect that the venerable Sonic Team has made the newest and most nostalgia heavy Sonic game short of bringing it back to 16-bits.

Sonic Generations is a love letter to all things Sonic, providing game that takes you through the entire Sonic history. The game revolves around a mysterious being that is disrupting space and time. As a result, modern Sonic comes face to face with his classic self and the two speedy hedgehogs go on an adventure to set right the Sonic universe.

Gameplay:

There are two main gameplay types in Sonic Generations. The first is a classic super speedy 2D Sonic platforming style of level, and the second is a more modern 2D-3D hybrid style that is common amongst today’s Sonic games. The game has a pretty nifty story explanation for the two types levels, making the switch in gameplay between Acts natural. Each Act One is run by classic Sonic in his typical fashion and each Act Two by modern Sonic.

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Up until now, we have seen some pretty outrageous characters, insane levels and some astounding levels of violence associated with Anarchy Reigns. But there was really no context behind it. Now, SEGA reveals to us, along with three new characters, just why this group of horrific mercenary psychopaths have come to clash.

In a futuristic city, a group of bounty hunters is on a man hunt. The trailer is however pretty confusing though since it is hard to tell really who are the good guys and bad guys. It seems like assuming Jack would be the hero of the game since he was revealed first both as a playable character and in the story trailer.

At the same time, Leonhardt looks to be a good guy as well even though he is seen standing aside the villainous Nikolai. It will be interesting to see how everything players out once Anarchy Reigns is actually released.

Check out the full story trailer after the jump.

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Every time we hear about an announced comic book movie being tied in to a game, we get a little nervous. There have been so many failed attempts with it in the past. Between Iron Man 2 and most recently Thor: God of Thunder, SEGA hasn’t had the best track record with them. Knowing they’d be publishing the action adventure based Captain America: Super Soldier, the cringing was understandable.

Fortunately, Next Level Games, the people who brought us Super Mario Strikers for both the Gamecube and Wii as well as Punch Out!! for the Wii, tossed a mighty star spangled shield at us and bucked the trend to produce a fun classic beat ‘em up that fits well into the Captain America mythos and uses the movie signature in a positive way.

Gameplay:

Captain America: Super Soldier takes place in an “open world” much like that of the classic Metroid. We use the term loosely because players have the option to back track and explore the European castle to find hidden collectibles but the majority of the game can be done without ever needing to turn back. The size of the level is fairly impressive too with both a castle to explore and the underground workings below it.

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The world of first person shooters runs rampant in the video game industry but there are very few third person shooters that receive the hype of Gears of War. Military shooters constantly clone Call of Duty hoping to unseat the champ and futuristic sci fi shooters like Resistance look to topple Halo. But Gears of War has gone largely unchallenged. Until now.

Enter Binary Domain, a futuristic cover based third person shooter where players must survive an onslaught of machines that just don’t seem to want to die. Not only does Binary Domain from SEGA look amazing but it doesn’t look to be a Gears of War rip-off either. Aside from the obvious difference in enemies being crazed robots as opposed to creepy underground monsters, the environments are also drastically different too. Binary Domain is more reminiscent of  with fairly clean city that hasn’t had the waste of war laid fully upon it yet.

Binary Domain, as seen from the trailer, looks to be quite the challenging game too as players won’t be able to just take out enemies with a few well placed pop shots like they can against mortal enemies. These robotic threats look like they can keep a licking and keep on ticking. After blowing off limbs, these mechanical attackers will continue coming at players, much like certain zombie games interestingly enough. This definitely changes up the pacing seen in most third person shooters thus far.

Take a look below at the weapons trailer for Binary Domain and stick to the Flickcast for more on this February 2012 release for XBox 360 and PlayStation 3.

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With Captain America: Super Solider coming out next week, SEGA brought forth one last set of character dossiers to look at before the game’s release. From what we can see, Captain America: Super Solider is already visually more impressive than Thor: God of Thunder, which is a huge plus. Maybe because Chris Evan’s face is more obscured than Chris Hemsworth’s was in the Thor game but this title doesn’t leave us cringing when we see the trailers on TV.

What we are most curious about is the actual gameplay of Captain America: Super Solider since we haven’t gotten any advance hands on time with it. When we get our review copy next week, just in time for Comic Con, we will find out if developer’s promises live up to the hype they have given us for the game. While Thor: God of Thunder was a poor God of War / Dante’s Inferno ripoff, Captain America: Super Solider looks to be more of an action platformer instead of just a simple beat ‘em up.

We are looking forward to giving you our full review of it next week. Until then, enjoy the final look at the characters coming to Captain America: Super Solider for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Nintendo DS on July 19th.

In this all new behind the scenes feature for Captain America: Super Soldier, Game Director at Next Level Games, Brandon Gill, talks about the balancing movie, comic and video game in the creation of Captain America: Super Soldier.

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With the Captain America: The First Avenger film racing towards us, we are also quickly approaching the July 19th release of the game Captain America: Super Solider. SEGA, presumably knowing that this game has to be a whole lot better than Thor: God of Thunder, has begun their hype machine releasing tons of new information to help people get ready for this important release.

First, take a look below at some screens and character descriptions for some of the game’s villains Baron von Strucker, Madame Hydra and the numerous snipers that Captain America will encounter.

Baron von Strucker

Baron Wolfgang von Strucker was born into Prussian nobility with familial association to the secret society known as Hydra. Ambitious, arrogant and harboring a particular distaste for the lower-class, Strucker quickly rose through Hydra, becoming proficient in both combat and tactics. Intercepted documents suggest he is pursuing development of advanced weaponry known as the “Satan Claw” for personal use.

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Last week, we brought you the E3 Live Action trailer for Rise of Nightmares from SEGA.  Today, we let you see the game in action.

From what we can tell from this gameplay trailer for Rise of Nightmares, the graphics resemble that of other first person horror titles like Condemned with dark, gritty overtones along with the gore levels of House of the Dead. The animations look solid as the shambling attackers bring their constant threat to the player.

One thing that stands out as out of place in the trailer is the disembodied arm of the player when using the chainsaw. When using other weapons, the player’s arms are always there but in the snippets featuring the chainsaw, the player’s arms are floating in air. Hopefully this visual will be fixed by the game’s release as it is a strong visual disconnect at the moment.

The hardest part about seeing Kinect titles is that the gameplay footage is only half of the experience. Even more so than games using a controller where players are used to standard experiences like platforming, shooting and traversing though a level, the Kinect is bringing these to players in a new way. It will be interesting to see just how they play out when Rise of Nightmares is released later this year.

Check out the trailer after the jump and stick to The Flickcast for more on Rise of Nightmares from SEGA.

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The spree of hacking attacks against video game publishers continues. This time around Sega is the victim. Today, the company has confirmed that personal data from 1.3 million user accounts was stolen during a recent security breach, according to reports.

During the attack, hackers were able to obtain email addresses, encrypted passwords, birth dates and names of Sega Pass network users. The hackers did not access credit card data, however. As a result of the attack, Sega’s Sega Pass network has been taken offline.

“We are deeply sorry for causing trouble to our customers. We want to work on strengthening security,” Yoko Nagasawa, a Sega spokeswoman, said. As yet, no group has taken credit for the attack.

With all this hacking going on, you have to wonder who’s next?

One of the greatest sci-fi horror films of all time is undoubtedly James Cameron’s Alien franchise. Though the series seemed to lose focus as sequels progressed, there is no denying the gasp inducing moments that still hold up over twenty years since the original film’s release. Not surprisingly, there have been a number of movie tie-in video game titles as well. While some were critically received better than others, there is no question of the selling power of the franchise that has created over 20 titles over a handful of different consoles.

In Spring 2012, SEGA will be unleashing the next installment in the Alien series with Aliens: Colonial Marines. Written by Battlestar Galactica writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, Aliens: Colonial Marines will follow the events of the film series, specifically those of Aliens as a search and rescue team of marines tries to find Ellen Ripley and the rest of the missing crew from the Aliens film.

Aliens: Colonial Marines will be a first person tactical squad based shooter. Players will control a team of four marines, each with specific skills and weaponry that they can control by issuing commands as well as swapping on the fly between teammates. The game will also feature two player split screen co-op gameplay and four player online co-op as well. Competitive multiplayer has been announced but details are yet to be revealed.

Take a peek below at the first screens and trailer for this upcoming title and stick to the Flickcast for more on Aliens: Colonial Marines as more information becomes available.

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So back in 2010, Microsoft debuted the next great technology, where they let people be their own controller. No more holding plastic gizmos to get characters on screen to perform actions. Instead, they just had to do it themselves and their character would follow suit. People could bowl or play soccer in Kinect Sports, river raft and traverse obstacle courses in Kinect Adventures and improve their dance moves with Dance Central… and then there was a drastic shortage in titles for the Kinect that anyone really cared about playing.

This E3, Microsoft intended on showing people this wasn’t the case when they announced a slew of new Kinect games and the implementation of Kinect in other existing titles and franchises. One of the stand out titles in terms of curiosity is Rise of Nightmares from SEGA. Now, the horror survival genre is nothing new. Games like the early Resident Evil and Silent Hill perfected the formula early on. It has even made its way to the first person with titles like F.E.A.R. and Condemned. But never before have those trying to survive been forced to fight their way out with their own two hands… and feet… and even head.

Rise of Nightmares promises to not only let players use their body as the controller, but it also acts as the weapon to. It’s one thing to punch a zombie’s face off, but it’s a whole other thing to headbutt it clear off. This is definitely a game we will be keeping an eye on and will hopefully be getting some hands on preview coverage with in the coming months.

Check out the live action teaser trailer and in game screens below and stick to The Flickcast for more on Rise of Nightmares coming to the XBox 360 for Kinect.

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While Thor has hammered the competition in theaters, it looks as though this will not be the case for the console release of the tie-in game Thor: God of Thunder. Archaic visuals alongside punishing and repetitive gameplay place Thor: God of Thunder amongst the list of failed movie to game tie ins, though the story doesn’t directly coincide with that of the Thor motion picture.

Gameplay:

Thor: God of Thunder attempts to model itself around other successful action games such as God of War or Dante’s Inferno. Players make their way through specific pathways in levels where they hack and smash through redundant hordes of faceless drones.

Thor uses standard melee attacks alongside his powers of wind, thunder and lightning and hammer throws to defeat these enemies. The downside to these god powers is they aren’t exactly very powerful and Thor’s Odinforce (think of it like Mana or Action Points) quickly depletes, leaving him with only a few sparks to shoot off over the course of combat. The rest of the time, players can simply button mash the standard attack button until grapple options become available.

As mentioned previously, Thor combats larger enemies by actually climbing up them and attacking specific spots on their body to inflict more damage. This, much like the rest of combat, becomes quickly repetitive in finding a way to dodge enemies until they are stunning to where Thor must repeatedly beat their armor off of them to uncover their weak spot. Though different enemies have different spots that must be destroyed, the principal doesn’t change.

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