Meanwhile at the Junkyards..

As you may now I write for a few other blogs other than this one. Ive been writing for the Dreamcast Junkyard for a good few years now and recently I joined the team other at the Saturn Junkyard too. This is nothing more than a plug for some articles I wrote recently at both of those in case you missed them, as they do relate to collecting Sega stuff too.

Firstly at the Saturn Junkyard as my first article for the blog, here's a whole bunch of photos of my Saturn collection. I've been buying a lot for this system lately since i got myself a white Japanese Saturn and the 4MB RAM cart that lets you play all those brillaint Capcom fighters. It far more up to date than this photo from a while back, anyway.

Then at the Dreamcast Junkyard I've displayed a bunch of photos of the Segagaga box set I recently got in the post, which contains a nice pin set of all the console logos and a rather sweet t-shirt design. The game is about as much Sega fan service as you'll ever see in one place. I'll be writing more about the game there soon.

Now you know why most posts around here end up being about Sonic merchandise!

Sega of Americas Holy Grail

I'm sure if you browse gaming blogs you will have already seen this by now (most likely at Kotaku where they made up some rubbish about Sega forgetting all about it, either from mis-reading or an excuse to take a pop at Sega AKA gaming's whipping boy), but I can't NOT post about this archive of Sega's back catalog that they store at the American offices. Apparently it holds just about every game Sega has ever made or published, as well as all their consoles and peripherals. It truly is a beautiful sight to behold, and they have even more games stacked behind the ones shown in the photos!

A whole draw full of what look like Dreamcast GD-Rs. They even have a list for them all.

More after the jump!

Tiny Sega keychains of awesome

As you may of noticed, I have managed to stumble upon quite a few bits of Japanese Sega junk in recent months, from Gashapon Sega gal toys to that art book and the little NiGHTS pre-order bonus. A little while ago (the last few posts have mostly been backlog) I also got my hands on this set of Japanese Sega keychains. They were quite cheap and there was two sets all selaed up amongst them, although one of the designs shown on the card (a white Sega Saturn) was missing. Even though they're keychains you could easily take the chain part off and keep them as little figures, which I've done by sitting them along my Dreamcast game shelfs. They're rather neat, I must say. Photos after the jump!

Sega History Collection

This collection of consoles arrived in the post today. A member of the racketboy forums by the name of GrittyKitty sold me this whole lot for just $20 (about £10 in my money).

But no, I didn't just get the console bundle bargain of the century, as these are not the real consoles. Rather, they are miniature toys of them, about one 50th of the original size! Did I fool you? Nah, you probably already looked at the other photos and know I mainly post about stuff like toys at this blog. If I did get a stash of real consoles like this, though, you would probably hear about it anyway! More photos after the jump.

Memorable Moments in Sega Gaming 2

Continuing from where I left off quite a while ago, here's five more installments of my personal most memorable moments in my Sega filled life of gaming. You can see the previous chapter HERE.

#6: Sega Rally - The Instructors

Sega seem to always do things in a way that's makes them more memorable to me than say, games by just about anyone else. Take rally games, or more specifically the voice that instructs you on which turns are coming up in Sega Rally

“Long medium left! Easy Right! CAUTION! Hairpin right! Long easy right, Maybe!“

Maybe? Some help you are. Then as you go around the track a second time, it’s still a “Long easy right! Maybe!”. Surely he can confirm now we’ve been round the track one lap what that part is. Moron. When you play the sequel with the female instructor, she sounds more like she’s saying “Long easy right! Baby!” Heh. Best part about this feature was making them shout “whoa!” every time you bump into the sides. That’ll teach them to be unsure about the next turn. Hang on, I’ve run out of time. Oh well. GAME OVER YEAHHHHHHHHHH!


More after the jump.

Today is Sega Saturn Day!

Why is today of all days Sega Saturn day? Because Father Krishna says so, that's why! His blog The Saturn Junkyard, has been up and running for a whole year today, and unlike this place it updates very often with great content like interviews with the creator of Radio Sega, and info all the latest remakes/ports of Saturn games to pop up in Japan a lot recently. He even has a little chat box thingy on the side of the blog, which is nice. I've drawn up a quick Segata Sanshiro in it's honor:

I still remember when I got my Saturn. I got it on my 10th Birthday in November 1996, if I remember correctly. This was probably the most Sega induced time of my life as soon after this Birthday me and some school mates went up to visit the newly opened SegaWorld (see the previous articles about that). It came from Argos and was £200 with a bunch of bundled games: Sega Rally, Manx TT Superbike, Sega Ages, Sonic Jam and Bubble Bobble Collection. I still remember soon after a mate telling me of a rumor that the Saturn could play Mega CD games, which I tried out and ended up having to get the system replaced! Doh!

Being a Sonic nut at the time (my birthday cake that year had Sonic Pogs sitting on it, for petes sake!), Sonic Jam was a dream come true: All 4 mega Drive titles, which had already given me hours upon hours of fun, all on one disc with lots of added options, modes, difficulty settings and best of all: a time attack feature. It was, and still is, the best collection of the original Sonic games ever made: far better than Mega Collection which was just a bunch of ROMs slapped on a disc.

Sega Ages also filled me with mountains of joy: finally I could play After Burner just like the cabinet they had down the theme park along the seaside at home. I didn't have any interest in the Playstation: as far as I was concerned it didn't have Sonic or any of Sega's arcade games which, living by a seafront full of arcades, were something I would alway want to blow my pocket money on, so owning them at home was just what I wanted.

This is my collection at the moment. Most of these games were bought back when the console was out, many of which were being flogged off as the Saturn was slowly fading from selves. Outside of Ebay the games are pretty hard to find now, but a few have popped up at Car Boot Sales from time to time, including Guardian Heroes, Street Fighter Collection and House of the Dead.

Oh, and make sure you check out the latest issue of Retro Gamer, it featured an article on one of the saturn's defining games NiGHTS, as well as a great article on the Official Sega Saturn magazine, all the issues I bought of which I still own and is my all time favorite game magazine.

Memorable Moments in Sega Gaming 1

Now while I said this blog would mainly be about the non-gaming side of Sega, I think I can make some exceptions. Mainly, the kind of memorable moments in Sega games that are the reason I love Sega games in the first place. here's the first of many of these I plan to write up.

#1 Saturn Bomberman - Footie Level

Fact: Saturn Bomberman is THE multi-player game of all time, and the best of the franchise to date. Not only do you get countless different characters to pick, all sorts of options and full stats at the end of each match telling you who blew up who, you also get some totally unique stages to fight on. One of these is of a Football theme, with a goals on either side. Once most of the blocks have been cleared and everyone is running around like Looney’s kicking bombs at each other, there’s a clever trick I discovered. You can actually kick the bombs into the goal’s, and when you do, a high-pitched voice shouts “GOOOOAL!” as fire engulfs two lines of the whole stage, the one’s net to the very middle line. Anything that walks through these lines as the flames fly across the screen are doomed, and of course, if you don’t move out of those lines when you kick the bomb, you’ll be doomed too. Still, this proves to be a very useful tool in taking out other players when there’s no where for them to get trapped. Lure them to the center, kick a bomb into a goal, and leg it. This game is still a multi-player favorite in my house, and whenever I start up a Series of matches on it, most of them are on this level. Fun~


More after the jump.