More clothes with Sonic on 'em

Here's some stuff I got a few months back that I took photos of but didn't get around to uploading here. Some bloke at a car boot sale had tons of Sonic promo gear, mainly t-shirts and hooded fleeces, but also caps, of which he only had one of left, and some Virtua Tennis...things. I bought up two of everything, but probably should have just made him an offer on the lot, as seconds after I walked away some obese woman did exactly that. I decided to keep one lot sealed up for the loft collection, and the other lot for wearing.

More photos after the jump..

Is something afoot with the classic Sonic range?

So we're now in November, and the Sonic statue and vinyl figures from first4figures are still not out. Play.com has the statue listed for the 7th of December, but judging how they have given us random dates before only for it to be pushed further away, something tells me they have no idea when it will be available. As for the Vinyl toys...they don't even list them anymore. The Vinyls are still on play-asia, where they are still listed as nothing more than "Q4 2008". They list the statue as December. First4figures website says the same, so here's hoping.

On another note, remember how those classic Sonic plush toys that were released had a tag that stated "collect all four!", which included an image of Dr.Robotnik? We eventually got the Knuckles toy, but there has been no sign of the Eggman at all, not even an image of what it looks like? There's no evidence of it's existence even on the Impact Innovations site, so it looks like we'll never get one, let alone all of that other stuff they had planned, like USB drives, race track sets and radio controlled cars. Now would be a perfect time to release them, just in time for Christmas. What could possibly be a better present than a cuddly mad scientist that traps animals in machinery? I've always wanted one of those.

Meanwhile, a action figure of Sonic the Werehog (that new form of his in the upcoming game Sonic Unleashed) has been popping up on Ebay. All I know about it so far is it's a pre-order bonus in Australia, and apparently is "only in Toys R Us" in America. The toy isn't particularly brilliant (see above), but this might just be the start of a new toy chain, so who knows what will come from it? The werehog (shouldn't that be "Hedge-wolf"?) kind of reminds me of My pet Monster, so maybe they should do a Sonic version of that, complete with breaking chains.

Splendid Japanese Sonic plush toy of 1991

After my last plush toy find at a car boot sale led to this abomination, I was convinced that finding some of the nicer, older Japanese toys would be quite a long stretch (although I did mange to find a small Japanese one a while back with a SegaSonic tag on it which wasn't too bad). To my surprise the other week I found this one sitting amongst someones junk. I recognized it from one of Rhia's many photos of her collection and it was only a quid. An over abundance of photos ahoy (after the jump)!

Visualshock! Speedshock! Soundshock! The Mega Drive is 20 today.

On this day in 1988 the Mega Drive was released in Japan. It was actually about 2 and a half years from this point before Sonic The Hedgehog debuted on the system. Just take that into perspective for a moment: 2 and a half years was very much the Dreamcast's entire life span (if you don't count all those shmups released here and there afterwards, but I'll be going into the Dreamcast more next month for the Dreamcast's 10th Birthday) and yet in this time the Mega Drive had barely even started and would only get stronger and stronger from there on. It was Sega's most successful console in Europe and America, and longest living on the market worldwide. It was also the only console that managed to shake up Nintendo's stranglehold on the gaming market at the time and force them to push themselves to make their own 16-bit console. If it wasn't for the Mega Drive, Nintendo would of most likely of sat on the NES for much longer and wouldn't have felt pressured to make even better games which to the most heated and most exciting console "war" in it's history to date.

The Mega Drive still lives in many forms. The games are available on the Wii's Virtual console, on many Sega collection discs released, and in dozens of TV plug in and handheld devices, like this recently released tiny console that has 20 games built in and even a cartridge slot for the original. Mega Drive systems and games are also still sold in Brazil, where it even got some brand new games like a suprisenly well done port of Duke Nukem 3D.
Still, there is nothing quite like playing these games on the original hardware and you don't as much classy than the original model. The Mega Drive looked and feeled like a truly powerful and slick piece of hardware at the time, especially compared to the plastic lump that was the NES. It was also dark and not very toy-like at all, which was quite unusual for a console. There were many different kinds of Mega Drive models released in later years (The Wondermega, MegaJet, Mega Drive II and 3, the list goes on) but this will always be the most iconic.

Saying that, this is what I currently own and is my favorite model of the lot: The Multi Mega. At about half the size, with both the Mega Drive cart slot and a Mega CD disc drive, it is a wonderfully small but robust system. Combine this with a good scart cable for my LCD telly and a extra Master System converter makes it the ultimate retro system for me. The CD drive actually conked out on it a little while ago but I made sure to get it fixed, mainly because I'll never find one of these cheap again, I reckon. Did I mention it came from a car boot sale for £6.50? I probably did, because it's probably the best gaming related purchase I have ever made.

One of my other favorite things about the Mega Drive has to be it's controller. It's possibly one of the most comfortable to hold ever made, has a fantastic d-pad and great feeling buttons. Every thing about it just comes together beautifully. The six button controller they released later was a bit small for my tastes, but many claim it to be their favorite controller of all time.

Some things I can never say i liked was how Sega of America handled the Mega Drive. Simply put, the "Genesis" is a pretty dumb name, and the advertising, while very effective, was pretty obnoxious, often making up utter codswallop like "blast processing". I guess in that case I can see Nintendo fans who grew up in the US of A found Sega to be quite annoying and quite difficult to take seriously. Sega Europe were far more clever with their advertising (if a little batshit at times, see my Pirate TV articles), which is probably why is was even bigger over here still, although it also helps that Nintendo of Europe always were and always will be incompetent.

But in the end for me it was the games that really made the Mega Drive for me. The variety and quantity on offer was just something else. The excellent video above by youtube user Alianger does a very nice job at summing up what the Mega Drive was all about. If you don't have time to dust off your Mega Drive today to give it a play, at least watch this 10 minute epic.

Sega Fanart Showcase: Space Channel 5

Haven't done one of these in a long while, have I? Even though racketboy already did a Space Channel 5 art showcase, but he barely scraped the surface of just how much great art fopr this game there is floating about. The game is still well known despite not having a new game in years, mainly thanks to Sega giving her cameos in many of their recent games like Sega Superstars Tennis and the new Samba De Amigo. With any luck they may be considering giving Ulala the come back she truly deserves with a brand new game one of these days. Until then though, here's some brilliant art by the games many talented fans. Eniotna in particular has too much great SC5 fan art to include here, so I've just featured my favorites of his here.

- Bonjour Ev'rybody - by ~Eniotna

- Pudding Desu - by ~Eniotna

More after the jump..

I'm a terrible man

Long time, no post, I know. I've actually been back from Japan now for nearly two months, and I still haven't really got off my arse to sort out my article about the surprising prevelance of SEGA within Japan. What can I say, I am a tad lazy. It may be a little while yet before you see said article, but in the mean time, let me update you on the awesomeness that is Samba De Amigo for the Wii.



It has Sonic in it. That's a pretty groovy addition. Furthermore, Ulala of Space Channel 5 fame is included. I am really enjoying SEGA's recent trend of pretending the Dreamcast was the most succesful console in existence, and including references to it in its newest games. First we had SEGA Superstars Tennis, which was filled with fan service, left, right and possibly even centre, and now we have Ulala in the new Samba De Amigo game. It's like it's all coming together (just pretend Sonic & The Black Knight doesn't exist).

Okay, I realise this entire post is a big cop out on my part, but it is basically to inform you that I have intentions to make an article at some point. In the mean time, here is a small teaser image;


You saw it here first, Sonic is encouraging middle aged Japanese men to spend their hard earned yen in a very noisy gambling arcade, whilst he rocks out on a guitar and so on.

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 Art Book of Sheer Beauty Part 3: Wallpapers!

The same images you just saw the scans of, but now as wallpapers. They are all 1280 X 1024, so if they're too big just shrink and if they're too small, sorry! I could maybe make bigger sized versions of some of them if anyone wants them, but for now these will do.

More wallpapers after the jump!

Japanese Sega Art Book of Sheer Beauty Part 2: Scans!

As I promised here are some full scale scans from that wonderful Sega game illustrations book.

Here's a scanned example of one of the pages, which not only contains all that lovely felt-tip pen colored art from Sonic 1, but also talks of the characters' "charming and saucy nature". Hmm. No doubt the PAL Sonic 1 box art was nicer, though. More scans after the jump.