Michael Jackson 1958-2009 - His Contribution to Sega

Michael Jackson has just been confirmed to have passed away tonight in a hospital in L.A. at the young age of 50. No matter what you think of him as a person, he was an incredible talent and for those who were kids during the 80's and 90's: his music was a huge chunk of our childhood.

And as any Sega fan would know, Michael Jackson and Sega got along rather well, collaborating on many projects such as The Moonwalker arcade, Mega Drive and Master System games..

..not to mention his supposed involvement on the Sonic 3 soundtrack.. (click image for the video)

Here's a rather neat mix of the Sonic 3 credits music and Stranger in Moscow (and check out that photo!):

..his cameo in Space Channel 5 Part 2..

..and judging from the auction of his processions a while ago, he owned a LOT of Sega arcade machines at the Neverland ranch, possibly provided by Sega themselves as a thank you because you gotta admit, the Genesis in America may not of had the jump start in the market it had if it was not for his name associated with it in this infamous commercial.

R.I.P Michael.



EDIT: Someone linked to this wonderful piece of Sonic art. Don't know of where it came from, but it deserves a show:


and here's a collection of brilliant Sonic/MJ mixes by the ever clever Yuzoboy in one tribute vid:

Sonic is 18 today!

Yep, today 18 years ago Sonic was released on the Mega Drive. Just for one day let's forget about the iffy state the Sonic franchise is in right now and set our minds back to when the character first arrived on the scene. Dig out your Mega Drive if it isn't still set up and stick that cart in for a good session of rolling down hills, running around loops, bouncing around in a psychedelic world where fish transform into birds, and bopping robotic animals and egg shaped blokes on the head. If you don't still have a Mega Drive, you could always play it on your Saturn, PS2, Gamecube, X-Box, X-Box 360, PS3, Wii, PSP, iPhone..

(Just don't play the Game Boy Advance one.)

If you haven't seen it before, have a read of this article about a Sonic Birthday event I went to as a kid back in 1997.


While Sonic might not be having a big party this year (or at least one we know about), I'm sure he is most likely CUTTING THE CAKE as we speak.

Sonic the Comic Video Retrospective

There is a lot online to be read about the history of the American Archie published Sonic comic book series, but the British Sonic the Comic series that ran between 1992 and 2001 is rarely talked about outside of a small percentage of the gigantic Sonic fan base. Luckily Youtuber BlackDogBrew has gone out of his way to give us a massive video retrospective of the comic for those who have always been intriged about it. When I mean massive I mean massive, got a couple hours to spare? If not, the very first video gives you a nice summary of the comic's history, before it gets into the stories of each character. Either way I've embedded the entire playlist above.

Sega Fan Art Showcase: Space Harrier

You know what the world needs more love for? Space Harrier. Crusty old Nintendo games like Kid Icarus and Ice Climbers get piles of it, so why not crusty old Sega games?

Another work of genius by Persona of the Mecha Fetus Blog.

This is just fantastic. By Ryuzo.

I get a Saturday morning cartoon vibe from this piece by Shimmergloom.

...followed by the comic book adaptation. By Coldfrozensoul.

Those bots were badarse. By しずくちゃん.

MTV Sonic & Knuckles advert disguised as a programme.

Sega in the 90's was 'in' with the MTV generation thing, as seen in this episode of Rock the Rock in which a bunch of kids all with their own international stereotype compete for $25K (just about enough to afford a Sega Multi-Mega/CDX at the time) by playing Sonic & Knuckles located in Alcatraz of all places, though really it's just a 30 minute commercial. Still, it's vagley worth sitting through for the look at the development of the game about 10 minutes in at Sega Technical Institute. See if you can spot the Sonic Extreme concept art! I think I actually remember seeing T-shirts promoting this Sonic & Knuckles contest once. Most embassering moment for anyone involved? The bespeckled kid trying to chat up the female presenter. Oh dear.

Sonic & Knuckles, splashing in a puddle..

I sure do hold on to some pointless stuff. Pretty self explanatory: Wellington boots with the Sonic & Knuckles logo on them. Yep. They do exactly what they say on the tin, or rather...boot.

Now that I think about it I should have taken a photo of one of the boots with Sonic 3 sticking out of the top of it. Only then would these boots truly be complete. That or Sonic 1 so I could make a rubbish 'GET BLUE SPHERES' joke invovling heavy rain drops or something. Oh well.

The I Have a Dreamcast EP

Posting this both here and the Dreamcast Junkyard because it deserves to be heard!

The I Have a Dreamcast guys have released the EP as a free download! They had a live performance of the album, and some more DC playing goodness last night. There are 8 tracks in MP3 format in the download:

The Pianosaurus - Green Hill Drone
Bicycles & Gravel - A Song for the Dreamcast
Gemini Cricket - Dreamcast Vision
Grey Milk - Venice is Dying
Bicycles & Gravel - Curious Console
The South Will Rave Again - I Fell in Love Playing Marvel vs. Capcom
I Have Read Other Books Besides The Catcher in the Rye - To Beat, From Gum
Captain #1 - Bring Sega Back

Oh, I'm so making some Dreamcast videos with these songs in them. Amazing stuff.

The Sonic toy that cannot smell or walk anymore.

The broken Sonic toy theme continues! You can use that as a metaphor for the demise of the Sonic franchise if you want to jump on the already over flowing band wagon of Internet hatred. Me? I couldn't give a toss, to be honest.

So far this year the boot sales have been pretty shite, rummaging through piles of the same old rubbish just to find anything remotely interesting, even a Mega Drive game that isn't football or something, but last week I did find this tragic looking Sonic toy sitting in a box full of other beaten up old toy for 40p.

It's one of those bendy limb type things, only this one has clearly seen better days. For starters as you can plainly see he has lost his nose. Maybe he took a whiff of [insert recent Sonic game here] and it fell off! Oh ho! Witty!

He also has a broken leg (those wires they stick in these things are pretty fragile). Maybe that's why [insert game mechanic from recent Sonic game you don't like here] was in [insert recent Sonic game here]! Will people read this blog more if I slag off Sonic some more?

It's a good thing I already have one of these then isn't it? Here's the one that's been sitting in the loft for years, and while this one also has a broken leg, it hasn't been occasionally fed to a dog.

Looking at it from the front you would think this Sonic is lacking a head of spikes too, but here they are at the back, rather small and blunt to please the health and safety goons. You gotta love his huge happy eyes though, which are actually aligned for once rather than having one eye a lot bigger than the other making him look a bit deformed.

The cutest Sonic clothes you'll ever see.

Awwww! Look at this widdle suit! You probably can't tell from the photo but this is tiny. It's sitting in the loft within my collection, and apparently there was matching tie that went with it which I cannot find. When I was a lil' kid I wore this once or twice at family parties. No, you're not seeing any photos.

It's by Marks & Spencers, like a lot of the old British Sonic clothes were. It's that same texture as that nice tie I've got that sort of glistens in the light, which is generally quite difficult to take good photos of. It's smothered in images of Sonic and little illustrated renditions of the green hill zone, which feature chunky white rings for some reason.

I'd imagine these rarely come up anymore so I thought I'd give it a show off. To be honest I think the only reason we kept it is because it was one of the more expensive pieces of Sonic clothing from back then. Obviosuly I didn't keep all the Sonic clothes I wore! I do remember having a jacket covered in sweet Sonic patches (different to those adult size ones I have), that when it didn't fir anymore, my nan stitched them onto a new bigger jacket. Bless!

A photo of the Sonic chess set

Speaking of Gaya Entertainment's line of classic Sonic stuff, they have more than just concept art for the chess set now, with this photo above (click to enlarge). They seem respectable enough molds and bonus points for using the old design of Amy Rose, but I still think it would have been 10 times better if the other side of pieces consisted of Robotnik, Metal Sonic and a bunch of badniks. The rings kind of look like those cheap ring shaped crisps you'd get from Happy Shopper at School lunch time.