Sega's "Yakuza" hits US, Europe this summer

Okay, so I usually don’t do straightforward game announcements here, but Yakuza has been getting a lot of buzz among the Japan-gamin’ community. And the complex nature of the game — it’s a deep adventure game in the style of Sega’s groundbreaking but flawed epic Shenmue — meant that nobody was really sure if it […]

Okay, so I usually don't do straightforward game announcements here, but Yakuza has been getting a lot of buzz among the Japan-gamin' community. And the complex nature of the game -- it's a deep adventure game in the style of Sega's groundbreaking but flawed epic Shenmue -- meant that nobody was really sure if it would make it out to the US.

But it will. In Yakuza (aka Ryu Ga Gotoku, or "like a dragon"), you play a Japanese mobster trying to rebuild his life after ten years in the can. Unfortunately for his plan to go straight, he gets drawn into a web of murder, intrigue, &c.

It's a bit of a change for Toshihiro Nagoshi, who is best known for the saccharine-sweet Monkey Ball games. (But if you go and look at his picture on his blog, you start to think, maybe the yakuza life is more up his alley? If I randomly saw him on the street I might surreptitiously check for the missing pinky, you know?)