Race them all the way! The Broken Sonic track set

Despite the utter disappointment of there still being no sign of the Dr.Robotnik soft toy Impact Innovations promised us on the boxes of their other soft toys, not to mention the constant delays and doubtful release of any of First4Figures range of lovely vinyl figures and that statue, the odd piece of stuff from this classic style Sonic range has crept out into the wild over Christmas. If you've stumbled into a busy GAME store lately you may of seen the console carry bag things with Sonic on them that sell for about £12 and £15 each, but there is also a racing track set, much like the one Impact had early designs of on their website a while back, out there which as far as I know is only available in Debenhams stores at the moment.

Gotta love how they wrote "SONIC BROKEN" on the box. I'm sure you guys will read a lot into that.

And by 'at the moment' I mean 'good bloody luck finding it' as just about none of the stores have any left as they all sold out just before Christmas day. The website has nothing but a blank "Sega" category left either. It sold for about £12 and if they had any left from boxing day onwards it would have been in the sale. I checked out 3 different stores in the last week hoping I might get one cheap (or at least see what it even looked like, as there is nothing online of it) with no success until today when I found one amongst a box of returns junk in the Lakeside store.

It had a card stuck on it stating that "Sonic doesn't move" and it's price being dropped to £6. I took it to the till where they said it was not sorted out by the staff yet but they let me have it without the option to return it anywhere, with another half slashed off, so i got it for £3. It says it's broken, but sod it; for that money it doesn't matter and I only really want it for the figures anyway.

Here's all the junk you get in the box..

.. and here it is set up. It didn't look Sonic-y enough for me so I stuck some badniks on the track for Sonic and tails to crash into (had they worked, that is).

So what's it like? Well, nothing amazing really, but the characters are pretty neat. The track is about as basic as you can get, with nothing to distinguish it from any other car racing track set, and you get two controllers with a Sonic logo on them and two buttons that both do the same thing for some reason. Really basic stuff, and as with just about any of these kinds of car racing sets, it only works when it feels like it, which is barely ever: most of the time the cars just twitch a little but sometimes they would suddenly spring to life until they get stuck in the crossing path and topple over. Why they still use those fluffy lumps of wire at the bottom of these things to connect to the track is beyond me, as it's clearly a totally unreliable and downright rubbish tech.

Just pretend they're moving. I had to 99% of the time.

Still, the characters themselves aren't too bad. The Sonic and tails are good likeness and look far better than the wonky prototype images. Instead of sitting them in cars Sonic Drift style they have wheels for legs and a big white lump which I guess represents the speed lines to support them. Sonic also appears to have bags under his eyes on my one. If you replaced the wheels and lump of white with normal standing legs they'd actually make rather respectable little figures of the pair, especially compared to some of the wonky eyed figures we got back in the old days. I also remember having a radio controlled Sonic car which was a bit shit: it was just an ugly purple car with some Sonic related stickers slapped on it.

If it wasn't for the lump of white separating their legs from their bodies, these toys would be rather sweet.

Well I've typed far too many words about these now, but either way they seem to be rather elusive at the moment (at least until everyone starts returning them when they can't get the bloody thing to do anything) so this a sort of WORLD EXCLUSIVE first set of photos online of the thing...I guess. Exciting stuff. Have a happy new year and look forward to lots more photos of Sonic crap coming your way soon. This is now officially the only website on the Internet that is not bitching and moaning about the state of the Sonic series!

No, really, Japan still likes Sega Pt. 1

Right, as one or two of you may recall, I did promise an article ages ago about my trip to Japan, specifically about Sega stuff there (because noone wants to know about the arduous cultural stuff and the epic journeys I entailed climbing up mountains, walking around a volcano and staying in a very dodgy capsule hotel in Osaka’s probable red light district). Well, I finally got around to writing the article which, like Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, definitely isn’t worth the wait but should be mildly enjoyable none the less!

^ Authentic photo taken by me. ‘Deckss’ was the name given to this huge department store-esque complex assembled in Odaiba.

Staying in Tokyo for a rather significant portion of my trip, I did get a chance to visit the Sega Joypolis located in the Odaiba area (which is an amazing area in itself, built on land ‘reclaimed from the sea’, adorned with the rather awesome looking Fuji TV building amongst various other things).

^ An actual picture of the actual tickets I used on my actual visits. I love that the first one is dated 10^th of May, when I only arrived on the 9^th. Clearly I waste no time.

In fact, I actually went there twice as I ‘book-ended’ my Japan trip with Tokyo and figured why not go again? Now, I have to say, the Joypolis isn’t amazing. It isn’t bad either mind, but it wasn’t quite as mind blowing as Sega World London. It was fairly pricey, though.

^ Picture definitely stolen from some guy on Flickr. Cheers!

Sega Joypolis Tokyo is effectively a rather elaborate arcade, adorned with lots of games (both video and prize-earning) and the occasional indoor amusement park ride, which were actually rather nifty. However, each one cost £4 a pop I believe, which was somewhat steep having also paid an entrance fee of around a fiver as well. Add rides to arcade prices and if you’re on a cheap travelling budget, you’re basically not eating for a few days. Stingy rant aside, what were the ‘rides’ like? They were pretty good, actually. There was this ‘Bullet Ride’ sort of roller coaster thing that was actually quite frightening in that I was almost fully confident that the thing was going to break and I would fall to my death. Definitely added that extra fear factor, that’s for sure. Quite fun mind, but what was far better was The House of the Dead 4 Special.

^ Picture again very much stolen from someone on Flickr. When I went there, they had actually moved things around a bit, but whatever.

Basically, HotD4S is an extra mission to HotD4. Everything was in Japanese, so of course I had no clue what the plot was or anything of that ilk – I was really just there to shoot some zombies. But what makes it different to normal HotD shenanigans? Well, first you go into a small darkened ‘cubicle’ thing and strap yourself in to the two seater chair (there were two of us, don’t worry; I wasn’t staring longingly at the empty seat beside me wishing I had a travel companion). Then the screen in front of you will light up and you will see some normal HotD tomfoolery, at which point you pick up your gun and get ready to blow things up. Now things finally get interesting. The chair rocks as you get hit and will move about to simulate what’s going on on-screen. Furthermore, there is fantastic surround sound and little bits of smoke emitted (although, it is very possible that didn’t happen and my memory just added it in it’s rose-tinted glory), at appropriate moments, sort of ushering illusions of that ‘4D’ concept that used to be so big half a decade or so ago. The best part however is when your characters are just walking along and hear something behind you, and woosh – your two-seater chair just swivels around to reveal another screen behind you, showing what would be behind you in-game. There’s a lot of switching from back and forth and it does a great job at immersing you in the experience. Unfortunately, if you’re a bit shit at HotD4S (like we were), the joyous experience doesn’t last very long. Still, it was pretty fantastic and I’d love to see one of these machines hit the UK (although I have a feeling that would be fairly unlikely).

Arcades are pretty standard everywhere in Japan and most of them seemed to stock the same games. Taito Drum Master, Pop N’ Music, Virtua Fighter 6, Tekken 6 etc. and Sega Joypolis was no different (although, they might have omitted Tekken 6 now that I think about it). However, one machine did stick out to me when wondering around the Joypolis, exploring its delights.

^ Picture couldn’t be more stolen from Wikipedia if I tried.

Yes folks. Here it is. A The Typing of the Dead arcade machine. You can bet yourself that I immediately stopped everything I was doing to have a go on this. Unsurprisingly it plays exactly like the PC version, except using Japanese words instead of English. They were written in standard English characters however, so I actually managed to get fairly far (although after a while, it was very confusing to be typing rakamijikosho and things of that ilk… and no, that just isn’t real Japanese at all). Surprisingly, this wasn’t the only TotD machine I’d see on my travels. Oh no. The name of the city escapes me right now (which is bad on my part, as we did spend a couple of nights there), but another machine randomly appeared in a non-Sega arcade of this aforementioned city.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take many photos within the Joypolis itself, so a handful of these are stolen from other places, but as expected, everything was adorned with Sonic’s smug mug. Indeed, this is an understandably common trend in Sega-branded arcades and was pleasantly received by me. However, for all the Sonic imagery on the prize-grabbing machines downstairs, not one of them offered Sonic plushes, much to my infinitely nerdy disappointment. However, the Joypolis Shop rectified this issue slightly, selling not only plushes, but Sonic confectionary amongst other random goods. The confectionary was actually a bit outrageously priced so I decided to leave it, but I did come back with this little beanie for the decent price of a fiver.

It had to be done, really. The little git now adorns my computer desk. However, the crowning moment of the entire Joypolis visit was this;

^Yes, I am aware of how hilariously cheesy this photo is.

Check me out, desperately clinging on to my childhood. Fantastic times. I can’t help but feel the Japanese Sonic costume man at Joypolis is a billion times more impressive that the hilariously deformed Sonic from SegaWorld London. Anyway, that about wraps up this instalment. Hopefully the next part won’t take too long to finish, but I make no guarantees!

Just a brief one

Okay, first things first, I am a bad person for neglecting Sega Memories for so long. I won't bother making excuses, but Gaga's posted some fantastic stuff whilst I've been off so it's not like you kids have been without. Anyway, I actually have a couple of updates nearly prepared to post (but not quite there yet), but in the mean time I thought I would follow on briefly from an article posted by Gaga a few days ago.

We all know that to a certain degree, Sonic clothes are ridiculous. And yet, despite that, I continue to think that anything stamped with the classic Sonic design is golden. They're ridiculous, but awesomely so. To that end, I thought those of you who have as many fashion issues as myself might want to check out the following link.

This shirt is awesome. Whilst trying not to be a secret advertisement for Play.com, they do seem to be the only people selling it. As overtly nerdy as it is, the shirt rocks mainly because it's a great picture that wraps around the entire t-shirt (nostalgic nerd memory #4359; this stock art of Sonic adorned the cover of the first issue of Sonic the Comic I ever bought. Epic as). Whilst perhaps not as amazing as the Uniqlo shirts (which I am still bitter I never managed to get one of those silhouette [probably sic] ones), it is a rather nice little item. Just be warned if you buy it, the shirt is not that grey colour, it's much more navy. It'd look better if it was that grey colour, but whatever.

So yeah. Go buy yourself a Sega related Christmas present. Just don't spill mulled wine on it, as it probably won't come out.

Sonic The Chess Set (hopefully) coming soon

We can add another item to the expanding list of classic style Sonic gear we will probably never see. A German company has revealed concept art of a Sonic Chess set, with the pieces featuring Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy (her Sonic CD look, a rare sight nowadays) and a bunch of rings and chaos emeralds, all sitting on a nice green hill styled checker board. Release date is apparetly sometime in Feb/March next year for 40 Euros.

Source: Sega Nerds