Report: Sonic 2 HD contains a keylogger

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Turns out the magnificent Sonic 2 HD alpha has some keylogging tomfoolery running under the hood as part of the software’s ironic use of DRM to protect the engine – it’s been reported on Kotaku, and has also been followed up on by Sonic Retro.

The recommended fix is to delete all the program files and ro take out the registry entries inserted by the software – Kotaku’s piece above lists where in the registry the entries are currently sitting. The reports above suggest there’s no evidence of the keylogging phoning home as yet, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

It’s… disappointing that this kind of thing has followed in the wake of an extremely promising project. Fingers crossed the team takes care of things and development continues… or maybe Sega can give the game their blessing and help with finishing the development with the existing team to get a release on XBLA, PSN and a PC-based distributor like Steam. Now that would be something really special 🙂 They could look at making Bombergames’ Streets of Rage Remake receive the same treatment while they’re at it, too!

Thanks to CG over at the Madboards for giving me the heads-up. I’ve also updated my previous posts with the details.

Jet Set Radio HD on the way, Skies of Arcadia and Shenmue next?

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Huge thanks to CG over at the Madboards for the heads-up – according to Gematsu (here and here), a Sega source has unofficially confirmed that HD ports of Shenmue 1 and 2 have been finished up for well over a year, pending a decision on where the franchise will be going.

Unbelievable news.

No technical details have been leaked, but given past Dreamcast HD ports, I’ll make the assumption we’ll see a widescreen-enhanced 720p port of Shenmue 1 and 2 coming via PSN and XBLA. In a perfect world, Sega would also make the games entirely bilingual so we can swap to Japanese audio. As amusing as the terrible dubbing in the first game was, it’ll be nice to play it in Japanese with English text – to date I’ll admit to having played through the Japanese version of Shenmue on the DC a few times, and there were a couple of spots where I struggled owing to my rubbish command of Japanese… though some perseverence won out 🙂 To my credit, I don’t recall hitting any FAQs for those playthroughs either, which I thought was cool.

Shenmue 2 is another story – there wasn’t a localised version available in the US owing to some exclusivity rights courtesy of Microsoft, but in PAL territories we (unexpectedly) won out with a Japanese language/English text localisation which was fantastic to play through. While the Xbox port apparently looked a bit nicer, the language was locked to the English dub, which is a downer in my view.

Where the stories get interesting is that it suggests Sega are sitting on the games while they decide what they want to do with the franchise, perhaps indicating Shenmue 3 may actually see the light of day? As long as they can port the Yakuza game engine to the XB360, that would probably give enough tools to allow Shenmue a release on current platforms without too much legwork.

Beyond this, the news on Skies of Arcadia is an extra splash of awesome – Rieko Kodama’s amazing RPG deserves a HD port at the least, and a full remake with all the trimmings preferably (or perhaps a sequel?). The game was arguably one of the best RPGs of the previous generation, with the superb Valkyria Chronicles taking in plenty of motifs that subtley (and not-so-subtley) hint at its inheritance of Skies’ DNA (the other big contributor is of course the Sakura Taisen series; given the development team behind Valkryia Chronicles though, the above historical linkages make perfect sense).

If the news of these HD ports prove true, it would would mark a remarkable return to form for Sega, demonstrating the company’s ability to start treating its strong back-catalogue with the kind of respect they deserve (perhaps the first time post-corporate takeover/bail out), especially by returning to the fanbase that did its best to keep the company afloat during its difficult years. Sonic CD on PSN/XBLA, Sonic Generations, Sonic 4: Episode 2, Jet Set Radio HD, Shenmue 1 and 2 HD, Skies of Arcadia HD, Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown… and now the possibility of Shenmue 3?

Bring on the blue skies.

Although following the progressive manner in which they approached Sonic CD, it would be amazing if they followed suit with Bombergames’ superb Streets of Rage Remake v5. Now that’s a title that would be amazing to have in sprite-blocky glory on my PS3.

Streets of Rage Remake hits v5.0 Final!

BomberGames’ epic Streets of Rage Remake project hit v5.0 Final earlier this month!

This is an amazing feat, and the game is work of art. As a huge fan of the Streets of Rage series, having spent countless hours playing through the originals (especially through SoR2 on Mania level!), this game is a masterful tribute to the series, combining new characters, accumulated specials, tweaks, remixes of old levels, and plays perfectly, just like on the Mega Drive.

All the details are on their announcement page – grab it and enjoy it (currently available for Windows/PC). The only way it could be better is if it was on PSN and XBLA and distributed by Sega, because the authors deserve wide exposure of this project and remuneration for their efforts. In turn, the game demands being played on a big screen on a console 🙂

Thanks to elvis over at Aussie Arcade for the heads-up!

Enjoy!