Summer of Sonic 2011 - The Party the Night Before

There was a party about 10 minutes away from Camden Center from 6pm that me and Stacey headed to the evening before. It was £15 to get in and all food and drink was included (until the tab ran out anyway) including Sonic and Shadow themed shots! Didn't try the Shadow one but the Sonic one was extremely minty and lovely, had a few of those. I had a big bacon cheese burger and Stacey had a Japanese dish called a Gyoza which she almost squirted all over a guy sitting beside us..

 ..who just so happened to be Mike Pollock, AKA the current voice actor of Dr. Robotnik! He was playing it very low key, chatting to people who came along knowing who he was, but we had been sitting next to him for ages not realizing who he was!

Soon after a Wii with Gamecube games was set up on a the big projection screen, and everyone took turns playing versus modes in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Sonic 3, Sonic 2, Sonic the Fighters and Sonic R. I had a go three times and won two of them: My round in battle was luck I think, and I still remember the track layouts in Sonic R too well, but had no idea how to play Fighters well haha. The video above mainly shows random gameplay throughout the night with me (maybe a little tipsy) rambling, shouting and even singing to some of the tunes, oh boy

The guys from Sega Shiro were also there, check out their big post on the night too, where they have a video of me playing Sonic R amongst and lots of photos!

Summer of Sonic coverage continues next week!

Summer of Sonic 2011 - The Cosplayers!

The cosplayers really outdone them selfs at this years Summer of Sonic. There were lots of them and many were of amazing quality and there was a lot of variety in the characters they chose to dress as (no army of Shadow the Hedgehogs this time) including some really unusual ones! I suspect there was so many because they found out that the winner of the cosplay contest would take home of the those not-for-sale 20th Anniversary statues! Mind you, not all of them went up onto the stage, there was just so many! I will be posting a video of the cosplay contest eventually, though it was quite difficult to film this year.

I have dozens of photos I took on the day. I didn't get photos of everyone but to start off here was one of my favorites:

How are ya how are ya how are ya! It's only Wes Weasley from the Adventures of Sonic cartoon! How cool is that? More after the jump!

This Sonic collection is AMAZING.

Sonic Collectibles is rapidly becoming one of the best websites to check out for videos and updates about Sonic bits and bobs, updating far more often than we get to and with videos of individual pieces of rare merch popping up on the youtube account semi regularly as of late.

The owner of the site and channel Pete has just recently uploaded a 20th Anniversary video showing of his entire collection (I assume) that is all set up in a room full of glass boxes that honestly makes the one at Summer of Sonic look a bit feeble in comparison because they are just so cram,med full of ultra rare and exciting stuff!

I've been watching the Youtube account for some time and figured Pete's collection must be rather large but I could have never expected this! Almost anything you can think of is here: one of those 10th Anniversary wine glasses, the Super Sonic plush, loads of the Australian Sega World stuff, and many things that are one (or two) of a kind like an original SATAM group shot cel painting, a commissioned painting of Sonic by Milton Knight, and a statue that was owned by Tom Kalinske, CEO of Sega of America during the 90s!

Of everything on show here I think one of the main things I truly envy and adore is the Japanese classic Eggman statues and smaller toy he owns (see from about 10:55 in the video). Those are simply outstanding.

Summer of Sonic 2011 - The Glass box of Merchandise!

Now it wouldn't be Sega Memories coverage about Summer of Sonic without an in depth look at the 'rare merchandise' glass box that has been there every year, now would it? That is what we are all about after all! That and it also wouldn't be Summer of Sonic without me trying to steal said glass box, with the help of Ruben once again!

Hit the jump for photos galore of what was contained inside this year!

Summer of Sonic 2011 - Video of Swag & Signed Things!

Sega Memories' Summer of Sonic coverage starts here! Here's a video I put together today showing what I bought back from the event, as well as what I took with me to get scribbled on by famous Sonic type people! Next video will be of the party we went to the evening before!

GamesMaster Presents Sonic Magazine - Video Preview

GamesMaster Presents Sonic finally arrived in the mail! So I picked up the camera and put this preview video together. Enjoy!

A response to Sonic Retro's 20th Anniversary Photos..

Sonic Retro posted photos both here and here of games laid out in a "20" and seeing as retro is all about the games and we're all about (mostly) the merchandise, here's my response to it with toys and statues! More angles of this on the photostream.

Check out the latest S.T.C Online!

For Sonic's Anniversary Sonic the Comic Online have released a new issue featuring a fantastic story where Sonics and Robotniks from the past, present and future clash! It's full of fan service to both the original S.T.C run as well as the games series too: take note of what Kintobor is wearing in it for example, if you get that reference then you know your stuff! There is also another chapter in the House of the Dead series: it's great to see more sega franchises represented on this fan created comic, it's harkens back to the earlier days of the Fleetway comic. :)

Happy 20th Birthday Sonic! Exclusive wallpapers!

Sonic is officially 20 as of today! Sega has a genuine treat in store today on X-Box Live and Playstation Store with a demo of Sonic Generations, long before the games release! It's only going to be availble for 20 days though, so make sure you get a lot of play time in! There will also be sales on all the Sonic games available on XBLA and PSN, so you can buy Sonic 2, Sonic Adventure and more yet again, but cheaper!

As for us here at Sega Memories, I've cooked up these wallpapers for you all to enjoy! There are three unique illustrations in total, each in three different resolutions including 1080 HD TV size, so hopefully I have most bases covered in that department.

1280 X 1024
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This Saturday is all about Summer of Sonic and throughout next week I will be bringing you all the coverage of it I can muster including plenty of photos and videos!

Let's Take a Look at Sonic #226 - The Genesis Saga Part 1!

Just a day until Sonic's 20th, and this arrives in the mail: Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog #226. This issue is better known as being part one of the hotly anticipated Genesis saga, which throws the main cast of the Archie continuity back into the SEGA Genesis days of Sonic. In the previous issue, #225, the Eggman of the Archie continuity (who looks like the modern Eggman of the games but has a back story so complicated I've yet to wrap my head around it) unleashed a resurrected Death Egg on the Freedom Fighters. After a bit of fighting, Eggman killed a well known character from the SatAM days and powered up a device that enveloped the universe in white (hmm, sounds like something that is happening in Sonic Generations) and rebooted the entire universe. As such, when issue 226 kicks off Sonic is acting as though he is from the Genesis era (with a modern design), running through Green Hill and bopping badniks which he seems to be encountering for the first time.

Sonic Merchindise: an official Sega website

So this website has just popped up. It's owned by Sega so it's possibly an official shop for (or just a website linking to where to get) Sonic bits and bobs, with any luck some exclusive stuff like soundtracks. So far there is nothing there but a e-mail subscribe form to be sent e-mails when the site updates including offers, and links to both a twitter and Facebook page for it. It states it's a UK website though who knows yet if it will be UK only or wordwide. I guess we'll know in due time.

F4F Reveals Sonic 20th Anniversary Statue, And Now the Bad News...

... it looks to be a contest giveaway prize, to be handed out by SEGA of Europe. Per the F4F website: "These are incredibly limited and will not be available for purchase so if you manage to snag one, you’ll be very lucky! He stands at about 10 inches tall." Hey SEGA, why not send us two? One for us to keep, and one for us to give away? Heh heh.

You can see more views of the statue here. F4F has also announced that they have renewed the Sonic license worldwide, so those in Europe and in the States will have little problem ordering statues and figures. F4F is also teasing a new statue, the teaser pic can be seen on their facebook wall and it looks to be Knuckles punching/digging rock.

GamesMaster Sonic 20th Anniversary Magazine Special

Well didn't this pop up out of the blue! To celebrate Sonic's 20th Anniversary (I suspect you'll be hearing that a lot in the next few months but especially this month), GamesMaster has just released a special 130 page magazine dedicated to nothing but Sonic! I only heard about it today via twitter and pretty much ran over to WHSmith to see if they had and sure enough they had a whole pile of copies. It's £8 but trust me it's worth it. Hit the jump to see more..

Long Overdue Plug: Fuck Yeah Sonic the Comic

Sometime late last month I joined Tumblr and along with my personal tumblr blog for my art and junk, I decided to set up a blog dedicated to Sonic the Comic. In true 'fuck yeah' tumblr blog tradition, there won't be long articles like you get here but rather regular single image updates of random panels, art, letters and more from the history of the comic. Everything from Decap Attack references Richard and Judy, a love letter to Amy by a kid in Graphic Zone (of whom has grown up and found the blog, stating he hid it under his bed and his mum must of sent it in!), a scratch and sniff STC sticker I found in my shed, STC mistaking Sally Acorn for Tails in a wig and much more daft stuff like that.

The site has only been up a few weeks but it has already got it's fans, including Sonic Retro who gave it a glowing review. By the way I have a big Sonic the Comic related post coming here soon!