Sega knows Jack
And sells him. In Samurai form.
Sega is expected to publish a console game based on the popular American cartoon series Samurai Jack this March, having announced its agreement with Cartoon Network/Warner Bros. over the rights, which must have been in place for some time if developer Amaze Entertainment's Adrenium Games studio is aiming to deliver on PS2, Xbox and Cube within a couple of months.
Samurai Jack: The Shadow of Aku is based on the highly stylised cartoon from Dexter's Lab creator Genndy Tartakovsky, who also directed the Star Wars: Clone Wars mini-series of cartoons.
For those who haven't seen the show (and that includes me - is it even on over here?), it tells the story of a warrior banished to the future by an evil shape-shifting wizard, on a world-wandering quest to find a portal back to his time. The 52 half-hour shows in the series focus on his encounters with new cultures and civilisations on the long road back to where he came from.
The game will see Jack applying his various signature moves and weapons to his adversaries the wizard's minions, as he roams around in an easy to control adventure solving puzzles and completing item-based quests. Not a hugely exciting premise, granted, but Sega is promising the same inimitable visual style and an atmosphere befitting the show, so fans should find it quite something - and given that the show is watched by more than two million folks (mostly adults) in the US, it stands to do pretty well.
We don't know what if any plans Sega has for Samurai Jack in Europe, but their press release doesn't mention any licensing issues that confine it to North America. It may well pop up on Sega Europe's next release schedule - and if not then we'd imagine its release here depends on the cartoon's appearance on UK/European TV.
Finally, it should be noted that all of this is unrelated to Samurai Jack: The Amulet of Time, a Game Boy Advance title published by BAM! in the US last March. Just in case you see that one hanging around anywhere...