The Rundown: Dec. 16, 2008

Fallout 3 PS3 gets patched, Stormrise web site launched and all this week’s Marketplace releases get detailed.. Last updated 9:47 pm, Dec. 16.

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Sega’s Games Convention Plans

SEGA Europe and SEGA Germany are getting ready for Games Convention 2008, in Leipzig, Germany next week and today announced some of the things they have planned for public and industry consumption.

The new Samba De Amigo game will make its public debut next week, along with two Sonic games: Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood on the DS and Sonic Unleashed. SEGA will also showcase Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, Beijing 2008, Dinosaur King, and Space Siege.

Industry types will want to visit Sega’s booth in the Business Center (Hall 1, Booth I31), where the company will provide access to developers from Japan (Platinum Games), the UK (Headstrong Games, The Creative Assembly), and Australia (The Creative Assembly Australia), who will show off their latest games.

Games to be shown in the business area include Total War, Alpha Protocol, Platinum Games’ and Bayonetta, Madworld, Golden Axe, Valkyria Chronicles, and Stormrise – an all new strategy game designed for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.

SEGA Reveals Stormrise

SEGA today announced the development of Stormrise a real time strategy game for the PS3, PC and Xbox 360. Stormrise marks The Creative Assembly’s first foray into developing a console-based RTS title . The game is slated to ship in 2009. Stormrise does things a little differently than most RTS games: you control troops from the front line, instead of the traditional way of controlling the units from a detached view point. Stormrise also allows units to be commanded in the air, across rooftops, on the earth’s surface and even underground .According to Sega, the experience is heightened by a simple yet effective control system tailored specifically for consoles, which allows easy unit selection, rapid navigation and precise deployment.

Set on an earth devastated by a catastrophic event centuries ago, Stormrise sees the Echelon and the Sai battle to survive on this hostile and uninhabitable wasteland of a planet. The Echelon survived the event through self-educed hibernation, while the Sai learned to adapt to the new environment. Having evolved in vastly different ways, the differences between the two factions have caused animosity and hatred between the two races and the future of the planet is now hanging by a thread. Stormrise is in development at The Creative Assembly’s Australia studio and will be released in 2009.