Saturday 22 October 2011

Sonic Tomy Gacha Capsules: Russian Roulette with Toys

I've seen these little Sonic toy capsules quite a bit over the past year. They're at Target, they're at Wal-Mart and they were at the local "$5 or Less" store. It was at the last location I finally caved and picked up three, in hopes that I wouldn't be screwed over with two werehogs and a Shadow. So just what are these things? Well, think of those 50 cent toy dispensers, mark the price up eight times and instead of your chance resting on what the bottom toy capsule is, your figure depends on which capsules you blindly grabbed. Each capsule contains one of six figures: Sonic, Super Sonic, Metal Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow and the Werehog. Each figure must be built, and usually consist of three to five parts. I think most people think that there is a method to picking the best capsules, but really grabbing the first three or every second one that rolls out of the box will have equal chances of getting a good one.
After the break, lets see what I got! Did I get screwed over? Or did I snag three Metal Sonics, thus winning a jackpot (if you apply slot machine gameplay to the capsule toys).

Thursday 20 October 2011

¡Samba de los Muertos!

Anybody who has seen my XBOX avatar knows I'm a Samba de Amigo nut. I paid real money for the virtual sombrero, I own both versions of the Dreamcast game and have three different sets of maracas. One thing I don't have, however, is this sweet fan made shirt entitled "¡samba de los muertos!" for sale at MeatBun.us for $24. I'm usually not one to pick up fan made shirts, but for this one I may make an exception. Only thing is, I'm torn between the black shirt (seen above) or the white shirt (seen below).

Thursday 13 October 2011

Daytona USA is finally getting the console port it deserves.

Sega have been doing a lot to keep fans happy lately, especially on the downloadble games front. As of late they have brought us the Saturn classic Guardian Heroes, two more Dreamcast games including the mega-rare Space Channel 5 Part 2, and later this year we will be getting Sonic CD. Best of all, they have actually been putting quite a lot of care and love into these ports unlike those sloppy Mega Drive re-releases from a while back. This trend of goodness is continuing with Daytona USA, announced just yesterday and due for release very soon to XBLA and PSN.
After they released Sega Racing Classic in arcades a couple years ago, a HD re-release of Daytona USA with the licensed name and some of the music removed, it looked as though if we were ever to get a proper port of this game on consoles, it would be without that iconic cheesy music. However they have managed to acquire the license for this download edition and it looks to be an arcade perfect port, which has been around 17 years in waiting!

Sega Daytona USA 4 player arcade

Daytona USA was and in many ways still is the ultimate arcade game. While most arcades replace old games with those with newer graphics or simply anything with a dance mat on it, Daytona can still be found in many arcades everywhere as people still love to play it. Even people that are not fans of racing games or casual gamers can easily jump into the seat of the cabinet and have fun playing it, it's a timeless classic.

Console wise we got a Sega Saturn port that visually was sloppy to say the least, but still played as close as you could get to the arcade game at the time. They tried to 'fix' this by releasing Daytona USA C.C.E a year later, and although it looked better most of the music was replaced and it didn't feel the same for some reason. Many years later we got Daytona USA 2001 on the Dreamcast that included online play (except here in Europe) and while it looked even better than the arcade game in many respects, the controls of that version were almost completely different. It was still fun, but nothing like the arcade one.

So now in 2011 Sega are giving us the port we always wanted. It looks identical to the model 2 arcade game and they appear to have removed any pop u that that version had. It will have online for up to 8 players, very much like how many of the arcade machines were linked up for 8 player. The achievement list includes many of the easter eggs that were in the arcade including making the Jeffry statue animate by hitting the special button, and there is even a karaoke mode!

What else can we expect from Sega in the future with developments like this? A real dream would be to get some of the arcade-only follows up on consoles, such as Daytona USA 2 and Scud Race, but who knows if that's possible at this point. As a Sega fan prove to them this is a good idea and buy this release. We've waited long enough for a port this good, show them they are doing the right thing and maybe they'll keep this ball rolling!

Tuesday 11 October 2011

First4figures Knuckles officially revealed! Here we go again!

It's that time again! First4Figures has opened pre-orders for the forth in their series of highly luxurious and highly expensive Sonic statues, this time of Knuckles punching into the ground of the lava reef zone!

Much like the Super Sonic and still as yet to be released Metal Sonic statues, this one comes in both a standard run of 1,500 for $170 and a limited edition light-up version that is exclusive to their website with only a run of 500 that will sell for $190! These are available to pre-order now and the estimated release date is "Q2 2012" though I would bet on that slipping to "Q4 2012" as the same happened with all of the previous statues.

Personally? I think I may pass on the limited edition this time around. I think I will hold out until shops like Forbidden Planet have the regular edition. I don't think I can justify three of these statues for that kind of money in a row. They have yet to even take the money for the Metal Sonic one and to be fair I'd be happy with having two special ones of my favorite characters (Metal and Super) and two regulars for Sonic and Knuckles, as much as that lava effect is nice. So once this one is out who's next? Tails would be my guess and I know they've stated they are going to start a line of modern statues as well including Shadow, but I could live without those myself.

Monday 10 October 2011

Rollerblades with ATTITUDE.

As a little brat I used to go roller-blading from time to time at one of those indoor places where a whole bunch of kids would be roller-blading in a big circle with a disco ball and whatever music was in at the time. I played Bomberman for the first time on an arcade cabinet there, but that's got nothing to do with this blog so er...hey look Sonic roller-blades! Or roller-skates, whatever you want to call them.

DSCF5512

I had these at some point during my childhood but wherever or not I took them to that indoor thingy or if they gave you a pair to ride about in there I don't know. There was also a skateboard and a crash helmet from what I recall but the latter was only in adult size from what I recall, could be wrong though. I got the skateboard one Christmas but ended up takeing it back and using the money to get Sonic & Knuckles instead. More photos and rambling after the jump!

Belgium gets Sonic 20th Anniversary stamps!

That's right, stamps! Why not? Bpost have released a set of five stamps with pretty standard artwork of Sonic, including some with Sonic grouped up with Tails, Shadow and Amy. is this the first time Sonic has ever been seen on a stamp, excluding eBay bootlegs? Either way it's interesting to see what a push Sonic's 20th anniversary is getting. Spotted this on Tumblr via Albotas.

Sunday 9 October 2011

Knuckles statue from First4figures is next!

They released a pixellated image of this statue a while ago, and now it's revealed that Knuckles will be the next in First4figures line of massive (and expensive) Sonic statues! So far it doesn't look as though there will be a additional light-up limited edition like there was for Super Sonic and Metal, so this one will just be a regular slightly cheaper statue like the first Sonic one. Pre-orders for this one start in just a couple of days.

Speaking of the Metal Sonic statue, it's still not yet! It's due this month sometime however, though an exact date is not confirmed yet.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

10" Classic Sonic = Best Sonic Figure Ever

I apologize for the lack of non-Sonic SEGA posts over the past year, but you gotta believe me: it's not my fault! SEGA has been celebrating Sonic's 20th in a huge way, by offering up amazing classic figures, statues and books. Heck, we've yet to even see the release of Sonic Generations and we've already seen loads of awesome nostalgic merch. Thankfully, it appears Jazwares Sonic 20th Anniversary line is winding down, but it is winding down in a big way. They've released an excellent 10" classic Sonic figure!