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.

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?

As we reported last week, Sega’s “hidden” title, referred to as “Project Needlemouse” has been revealed to be Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 and will be coming to the XBox Live Arcade, PlayStation Store and WiiWare.  Included with that announcement was a trailer that showed only a very tiny bit of actual gameplay footage.

Now, a video has surfaced on the internet over at Gamevideos.1up.com with footage of actual game play from a press event. As this footage should not have hit the internet, it is not of the best quality but it does give a great indication of what Sonic 4 will actually play like as it holds true to the series’ original side-scrolling roots.

Notably absent from this game are the cast of Sonic’s best buddies like Tails and Knuckles as well as the entire cast of random extras like Big The Cat and Shadow who piled on to the series as it started to lose quality. While there is still tons of information to be revealed on it, take a peek at just what Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 looks like so far.

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It started 19 years ago. A little blue rodent ran his way on to the Sega Genesis system and into our hearts with Sonic the Hedgehog. Since, he has gone through some ups, like Sonic 2 and 3, and some downs, like Sonic Unleashed.

But still, everyone has hope for the little guy who went toe to toe with Mario during the early console wars and just missed. Recently, Sega has been referring to a project under the codename Needlemouse which was revealed yesterday as Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 1.

With a recently launched site, Sonic 4 will make its ways to all the major systems as a downloadable game in episodic format from the XBox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare… and according to the ellipsis on the website, possibly another format as well.

Sonic 4′s website features a variety of countdown clocks, some specific to character reveals and various content like concept art, that will reveal more about the upcoming downloadable title in the following days. But, for now, take a peak at the teaser trailer that brings Sonic back to his 2D sidescrolling glory, the way he was meant to be seen.

Stay tuned to The Flickcast for more information on our favorite Sega mascot and his new game as it becomes available.

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I probably spend as much time playing brand spankin’ new video games as I do replaying my old favorites, not just because of nostalgia but just because they’re awesome games. Which is why it’s exciting to hear that Sega will be releasing a Sonic Classic Collection for the Nintendo DS next year, according to Kotaku.

Many Sonic classics have already been released for systems like the PS2 and Xbox, but what’s exciting about this collection is that since it’s on the DS, you’ll be able to take them anywhere. The collection will include classics Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles.

The game will also have a nifty “save anywhere” feature, which is a relief for those of us who used to just leave on their Sega Genesis  for hours on end while we had family dinner and did homework. The Sonic Classic Collection will ship in March 2010.