E3’s Big 4, Part 2: Major Sega Titles x2

In this part, the closed door screening of Shenmue and Black and White thanks to IGN Dreamcast:

Despite our campaign, Shenmue is still without subtitles. In the video we saw, the English was all dubbed over, with the character mouths still moving as if they the characters were speaking the original Japanese. While it has its flaws, the voice acting is actually pretty good. The major negative that sticks out in the vocal aspect is the Rasta Guy’s voice. That’s simply a very poor fake Jamaican accent. Overlook him though, and the game is still just as dazzling as ever.

The second title in the footage was Black and White. This game looks simply amazing, featuring dramatic real-time world effects (such as rain and fire), and very detailed characters. The movie showed the creation of people and villages, inflicting damage upon them with objects such as boulders and fire, and also shows the creation of the animal fighters. The control appeared to be done using a mouse, as the cursor’s movement was a little too curved and fluid to be done with a controller. The animals you create to destroy other villages were highly detailed, and you could interact with them using the hand cursor. During the display, a tiger monster was “groped”, and immediately pulled away from the hand, covered his groinal region, and gave us all a big “no way”. Along with the molestation came the manipulation of the humans, as the cursor grabbed a villager and sent him flying off about 10 feet, complete with a tiny scream emitting from the speakers.

Head over to Part 3 to see what Phantasy Star Online looked like.