Sonic Spinball @ Alton Towers in February

I'm sure many of you have probably already heard about this by now, but it couldn't be more appropriate to mention here, what with all our nostalgia fueled posts about London's old SegaWorld park and the reveal of Sega Republic in Dubai. While it's hardly the same as having a new Sega park here in the UK again, it's about as close as we're gonna get at this point: a Sonic Ride at Alton Towers!

JSRF Gets Larger Than Life

The world of Jet Set Radio merchandise is a small one. Even the most avid collector could only fill a single shelf with what Sega has to offer. Thankfully a company thought outside the shelf by applying the JSRF license to large-format repositionable wall graphics!


LTL Prints, the company responsible, was founded in late 2008 by by entrepreneurs Kendall Schoenrock and Carsten Petzold. Taken from their own "about" page: "We set out to create a platform for creative expression that would bring larger-than-life repositionable wall graphics to empty walls everywhere," according to LTLprints founder Kendall Schoenrock. "And we are working with the worlds' premier artists, designers, and brands to literally CREATE a new medium."


VP of Marketing John Doffing was nice enough to get me in touch with Kendall and Carsten, and I was surprised to find out that both LTL Prints and myself are located within in the same city (Philadelphia)! What more, I was a short ten minute subway ride from their HQ! So taking an extended lunch break, I headed on over to LTL Prints. Once there, I was greeted by Kendall and Carsten and was able to have a look about. The printer they use is enormous, think "the grand piano of printers", while the walls of their office was covered in a variety of images available on their online catalog.

Sonic race track revisions, or just better paint jobs?

Just over a year ago I posted probably way too much text and too many photos of the 'Super Sonic Racing System' set and it's broken Sonic and tails slot cars. Well Debenhams were having a 75% off sale and still had some sets left over so I picked one up for a measly £4.50 to replace my broken set. Seems the pain jobs on the cars of this set are much better than my previous set. Either it's a luck of the draw how good the set you get is or they sacked however gave Sonic bags under his eyes and the colours all sloppy and not quite matching the artwork.

Have a look for yourself (new one on left, old on right):

There are some other subtle differences too, like the pole holding the two back wheels are longer and the characters seem to be more up right (espcially the Tails of which the old is practically facing the floor) but that's just me going into autistic levels of comparison. I haven't tried the set to see how many minutes it will actually work, but to be honest I probably won't bother. Now if the track had a loop and rings likethe original concept art that;d be a different story...

Bayonetta Developers = Nostalgic Sega Nutters

Unless you're a Sega fan who has been sitting in a locked room with your fingers in your ears yelling "La-La-La-La!"(something many of us considered doing when it was announced that the Dreamcast was being discontinued) you'll know that Bayonetta releases today in the US and this Friday in Europe.

Minor spoilers below

Developed by Platinum Games and directed by Hideki Kamiya (of Devil May Cry fame), Bayonetta may seem like a third party game with Sega merely acting as publisher. But after thirty minutes of playing the game, one will notice a slew of Sega references. The name "Eggman" comes up and Bayonetta collects halos which look very similar to a certain Hedgehog's source of energy. Sega music also plays a major part of the game. Borrowing from Sega's rich collection of classic arcade tunes, Platinum has created some seriously sexy remixes from Fantasy Zone, Space Harrier, After Burner, Hang-On and OutRun. To accompany these remixes are impressive 3D levels inspired by these classics.

Sega Memories DeviantArt Group

Where have I been then? Not writing Sega memories articles that's for sure, poor Barry has been doing all the work lately! To sort of make up for it, today I set up a group on DeviantArt to collect all the best fan art I can find on the website, much like what I've done here before with the Sega Fan Art Showcase articles. If you're signed up to the website you can send in suggestions to add to the collection too. I still haven't got quite my head around every element of this newly made feature of DeviantArt, so bear with me, but there's already a small lump of art collected up to see.

AoStH Volume 3 DVD Spindashes into Early 2010

TVShowsonDVD.com has recently reported that the long awaited third and final volume of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog will be released sometime in early 2010. Unlike the previous volumes, volume 3 will be exclusive to the Shout Factory online store. The reason for this exclusivity is that previous volumes did not sell well in retail, so to save some pennies the set will only be available in one place.

DVD producer Brian Ward assures fans that this will still be a factory produced DVD and not a DVD-R like the on-demand shows coming from Amazon.com. As for the packaging and extras, nothing has been revealed just yet. There is a chance that in cutting costs, the set might be reduced to being in a simpler DVD case, but the menus and video quality will remain the same. I've e-mailed Milton Knight to see if another drawing lesson or the recently released pilot footage will appear. If he writes back, I'll post it here.

Edit: Milton wrote back! There is a possibility that volume 3 will contain an additional bonus feature! I won't spoil it here as I don't want to overstep anything between Shout Factory and Milton. ;)

Volume 3 will be the final batch of 90's era non-Japanese Sonic cartoons on DVD

European AoStH fans who have the region free complete series are probably wondering why us Yanks won't just import that. Well, the Americans who already own two-thirds of the series probably would prefer to just get those final 21 episodes online within the country rather than rely on international ebay auctions.

The Old Sonic Adventure Website is Still Awesome

In terms of advertising, today's games share much in common with the games of ten years ago. Print, video and web are all heavily utilized methods of getting a game's name to the masses. While television and print adverts of the past stand up well to (and in some cases exceed) today's tv and print ads, one form of advertising has greatly evolved; website advertising.

Web advertising of today features streaming HD trailers, interactive interfaces, mini-games, countless connections to social networks and in-depth development diaries. Compared to gaming websites of the past, today's gaming websites technically blow them out of the water. But don't let flashy interfaces and slick buttons turn you completely off to old school gaming websites. Today I want to share a real gem of a website: the Japanese Sonic Adventure website!

Okay, it doesn't look like much. But that list of links feature a treasure trove of low resolution images, tiny video clips and hilarious Sonic Team snapshots of the golden years. Rather than go on and on about the website, I invite you to check it out yourself. After you check it out (or before, your choice) I will present:

Eleven Awesome Things on the Japanese Sonic Adventure Website!

Happy Thanksgiving!

There's also this video, not for the feint of heart. For the full story of Sonic's Thanksgiving Parade debut (and pop), check out this awesome article from X-Entertainment.

Gobble gobble!

New Classic Sonic 2" figures

Just spotted these on play.com, with a pre-order date of the 20th of this month. Classic styled and just 2 inches tall (still bigger than the Sonic & Knuckles set I have) , they cost £4 each at the moment though I should imagine a box set of all three will show up at some point too. Wouldn't it be nice if they made a whole collection of these with Robotnik, Amy, Metal Sonic etc? For now though we just have the usual Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. Still, they look nice enough, decent Christmas gifts at least.

They also have the RC Racers and Track set that I showed you before up on the site for under a tenner. I wouldn't really recommended the track set unless you really must have the little figures that come with it: I got my set for much cheaper as it was faulty, the track is nothing special. The RC Racers however are quite nice.

Oh, and the 12" statue? Good luck getting that now, it's price is shooting upwards!

New First4Figures Sneak Peek

It hasn't even been six months since series 1 of the Sonic the Hedgehog vinyl toys hit stores, and yet First4Figures (F4F for the sake of brevity) is now revealing what may come next! The F4F Facebook group has revealed sneak peeks at an upcoming figure, and all signs point to Metal Sonic... again!

While F4F has yet to dip their toes in the evil robotic hedgehog waters, Jazwares has already released the awesome 10" Metal Sonic as well as the chibi-kawaii Juvi Metal Sonic. Is too much Metal a bad thing? Of course not! The F4F Metal Sonic could be one of two things: a large $100+ statue, or one of thee figures to appear in series 2 of the vinyl series. My hopes go towards series 2, as that would also mean two more figures. A Sonic CD reunion perhaps, complete with pink tutu Amy and a jolly Eggman. The figure would also have to be unique, in a dynamic pose, possibly sporting purple-pink flames shooting out from his behind.

Wouldn't this pose make an awesome vinyl toy?

I, and the fans, could also be completely wrong and we are in fact getting the little known Hyper Metal Piggy: