In the next couple of days I get to rejoin the PC gaming sphere with my first full upgrade in over four years. With two years having passed since the last major PC release I played (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), I've got a lot of catching up to do. The midyear sales helped me to amass a backlog of the best PC gaming has had to offer during that time (Company of Heroes, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Supreme Commander and Crysis to name a few), so I imagine I'll be pretty busy breaking in the new hardware. If you're looking to make the jump to some new hardware, check out the Uber Value PC thread on the forums for some worthy advice.

This week, I thought we'd take a look at a few things Sega could do to regain their former glory as one of gaming's superpowers, look at Segagaga, a Japanese game that lets you do exactly that and revisit the awful Way of the Warrior for the 3DO.

Rescue Mission

Sega has many IPs ripe for revival, like Streets of Rage

I was first introduced to home console gaming in the summer of 1990 with the Sega Master System. My early gaming years were heavily influenced by the Sega Mega Drive and games such as Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage II and Toe Jam and Earl. Sega's business strategies were questionable in the early to mid 90s, with ludicrously overpriced add-on products like the Mega CD and 32X wasting financial and development resources. Sega's 32-bit Saturn had a woeful debut outside of Japan (where it was actually Sega's most successful system), and the Dreamcast, while initially successful, fell to the PlayStation 2 hype machine. Sega quickly wrapped up plans to produce new home console hardware, and became a third party licensee.

With the strong software line up on the Dreamcast and their vast repository of franchises, most people, including those in the company, expected Sega to experience a great deal of success quite quickly. The company experienced some success with Sonic Adventure 2: Battle and its Sega Sports line up, but they were easily overshadowed by Electronic Arts, whose mantle they sought to claim. As time has passed, the sales and quality of Sega's internally produced titles has become spotty and inconsistent. Sega is spreading itself too thin; they're pursuing licensed IP at the expense of their own brands, pursuing external partnerships while staying silent on their internal developments, and still relying too heavily on Sonic the Hedgehog, while not giving the franchise titles the development time or resources they need. The arcade and pachinko businesses, which used to prop up the home console business, are in serious decline. While Sega is currently experiencing some profitability, they can do much better.

They could be making a killing out of arcade ports like House of the Dead 4

So I began to think about what I'd do if I were in charge of Sega – say in a Segagaga-like situation. The obvious step is to start making the most Sega's most popular IPs. The company attempted to do this in recent times, but focused on After Burner and Alien Syndrome (the former only fun in the arcade, and the latter not at all). What about Streets of Rage, Wonder Boy, Shinobi or Phantasy Star? Shinobi was a successful release on the PS2, Streets of Rage 2 and Wonder Boy have been well received on XBLA/Virtual Console, and Phantasy Star Online has been praised over a number of formats, but what about releasing new titles that go back to these series' roots? Some of these games don't need fully fledged, multi-million dollar budgets; the Bionic Commando Rearmed treatment could suffice. Heck, in the case of Phantasy Star, the first two games in the series were already remade for the PS2 – why not port those over? Well, provided Sega still has the damn source code – the company is notoriously bad at keeping its original code (hence why you'll probably never see a direct port of Panzer Dragoon Saga). A crossover project that celebrated the history of Sega could be good – Sega Superstars Tennis was obviously intended to do this, but it didn't go far enough, relying far too much on contemporary Sega characters and not packing in enough variety.

Sega's not quite as license friendly as they used to be

Sega's arcade division is still strong, but many of its titles have not made their way home. After Burner Climax, Virtua Cop 3, House of the Dead 4, Rambo, Star Wars Trilogy, Outrun 2 SP DX, 2Spicy and Virtua Fighter 5R are all pretty much ripe for porting to home systems. A Virtua Cop collection featuring the three games of the series could be done on the Wii pretty easily, especially since Ghost Squad and House of the Dead 3 (both Chihiro board titles) were ported with minimal fuss. Sega has recently founded a Chinese studio – surely they would be the best for producing a glut of arcade ports. I'm also surprised we've never seen a third Daytona USA or Sega Rally from AM2. Many Western gamers are hanging out to play these games, but don't have access to arcades – home ports of these titles should maximise the investment.

I discussed at length the steps Sega could take to reinvigorate Sonic the Hedgehog earlier in the year, and those points stand true. Every time a new Sonic game is revealed, fans go through the same cycle. The spirit of Sonic needs to be recaptured, and I think that Sega may have to license the character to another developer in order to do so. The success of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is testament to the character's ongoing appeal; why not pitch a more conventional crossover game? Rather than the inevitable Luigi & Tails at the Winter Olympics, bring the characters together in a traditional platformer that plays on the strengths of the early Sonic games.

Maybe if I win Lotto...

Sega's expansion into the West and use of licensed IP has bore some fruit, but they can go further. The Marvel licenses they've secured are popular and have the potential to be big if they are prepared to dedicate the resources to them. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk were both terrible games developed very quickly (less than 9 months for Iron Man, I hear) – working more closely with Marvel on the sequels should ensure higher quality games. Continuing to develop partnerships with developers in the West could also solve the issue of under-utilised IPs or lead to the development of new ones, such as Condemned with Monolith.

Of course, if I were the head of Sega, Shenmue would not be forgotten. Yes, it's self indulgent, but we the people need to know how the story ends. One could test the waters for Shenmue III with a Shenmue collection on the Wii with minimal fuss, and even take the opportunity to polish up a few of the original game's lesser points (i.e. excise the dub). If the company is not prepared to produce the third part as a game, then it could easily be adapted to a manga or OVA. Sega has dabbled in anime production many times before, and the company employs enough artists to put together a decent manga. The story is already written, we just want to see the rest of it.

Sega needs to realise that they are in a tender position. The nature of their business is changing, and they can no longer rely on their old operational model. At the same time, there is still the potential for them to recapture their position as a market leading publisher. I believe that Sega can catapult themselves to the head of the field, but it will require fresh perspective and a hell of a lot of good games.

Big in Japan

Now you know the truth about Japanese game developers

The main topic this week was about rebuilding Sega into a powerhouse publisher. Funnily enough, Sega published a game about this right at the end of the Dreamcast's life. Segagaga was labelled a "Sega Simulator" by its creators, and was a sort of simulation/RPG hybrid. The situation in the game wasn't too far removed from the reality of the time; SegaCorp is in the pits, left with only 3% marketshare, having lost all of its ground to the evil DOGMA Corp (a parody of Sony). As a last ditch effort to prevent takeover from DOGMA, Sega launches 'Project Segagaga'.

Project Segagaga involves enlisting the help of two teenagers, Tarou Sega and Yayoi Haneda, to change the fortunes of the company. Sega's guide, Alisa, gives the two kids a tour of the company, including the Tera Drive, the super computer that forms the heart and soul of Sega (with 4096 512-bit processors clocked at 333GHz and 512 terabytes of RAM). The basic premise is to tour the Sega development studios, hire new developers and put them to work on making exciting new games.. Developers are recruited through defeating them in turn-based battles. Instead of having traditional RPG attacks, your character will yell insults at the developers, not unlike the sword fights from The Secret of Monkey Island.

The game has a lot of jokes at the expense of developers, in a couple of instances referring to them as being subhuman freaks that have to be locked behind gigantic steel doors. Executives get a bit of a serve too, with one militaristic character insisting that the company should only produce nearly identical games based on popular trends. There are three development studios to conquer, but much of your time needs to be divided between recruiting developers, managing projects and managing the company. Many of the titles that Sega produces in Segagaga are parodies of other popular titles; examples include Final Pharmacy VIII, Mortal Wombat and Sega Lolly Championship. There are many others, but they play on Japanese puns which are lost on the majority of us.

Segagaga is a celebration of Sega's history, with many classic characters showing up in the game, either in their original form, or as major characters (Alex Kidd works in a nearby game store, for example). The game's exciting finale is a horizontal shooter which has you fighting every piece of gaming hardware Sega has released. Tez Okano and a small team of developers from Hitmaker produced Segagaga on a shoestring budget (1% of the budget of Shenmue), so it's not an über-impressive piece of software, but you have to respect the commitment and dedication they had. An official English release of Segagaga is practically impossible (Sega's not interested, the game is difficult to market, and they have lost the source code), but some independent translation projects are under way. It's an amusing, yet interesting concept, but difficult to enjoy in its current untranslated state.

You Played It, You Can't Unplay It

Some periods in gaming are best left forgotten

Almost every game developer was looking to cash in on the success of Mortal Kombat and its controversy in the middle of the 90s. Games such as Time Killers and Primal Rage tried to emulate the violence, while Street Fighter: The Movie took the same visual approach, but none of these could come close to touching Mortal Kombat. Naughty Dog, then a two man operation, took it upon themselves to copy the best elements of Mortal Kombat and take them a bit further with Way of the Warrior for the 3DO. The results were less than successful, to say the least.

Way of the Warrior follows the typical tournament centric story of mid 90s fighting games, with 9 fighters showing up for various personal reasons (mostly revenge). The winner of the tournament earns the right to be immortalised in the "Book of Warriors". The characters are generally reliant on stereotypes, such as Shakey Jake the bourbon swilling, knife wielding Aussie, or Major Gaines, the steroid pumping soldier. With a shoestring budget, the Dogs couldn't hire too many professional martial artists to play the parts of the fighters; many of them are friends or family members of Andy Gavin or Jason Rubin, adding to the overall dodginess of the project.

The power of the 3DO made Way of the Warrior look deceptively good in promotional screenshots; the truth was that they game's animation was somewhat limited, given the amount of moves the characters had. This left the animation looking extremely jerky. However, Way of the Warrior's janky control and laughably bad fatalities are the biggest stains on the product, rendering the game nearly unplayable. The soundtrack, which consists of tracks from White Zombie's La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1 makes the action bearable for the briefest moments. The game was quickly overshadowed by the arcade release of Mortal Kombat 3, and the 3DO releases of Samurai Shodown and Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, before the system's decline erased it from the public conscious.