As part of our coverage of all things Sega, I’m very happy to pass along a story of one of the most intense experiences of my life – the Sega Olympic Winter Games Press Event. The event, which took place early last week, was an opportunity for some gaming press to come check out our two Olympic Winter Games themed titles, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games and Vancouver 2010™ – the Official Videogame of the Olympic Winter Games, within the setting of an official Olympic Games training area in Park City, Utah.

As a bit of background, Utah hosted the Olympic Winter Games in 2002 and Park City adapted one of it’s existing snow parks to host two key events during the games, Bobsled and Ski Jump. The facility is still around today, hosting tournaments, qualifiers, and allowing athletes to start and train in both events. In fact, I was not aware until the trip that Utah is one of two bobsled tracks in the entire United States (the other in New York). The Utah Olympic Park is officially recognized as having highest elevated ski jumps and the fastest bobsled track in the world! And, we were going to experience both first hand in the form of zipline and an actual bobsled run!

“Don’t you dare beat my score mister…”

Our event space had us squarely at the top of the bobsled starting point, so while we were running our event, we had a lot of international bobsled teams walking through the space. I thought this was especially cool and took a lot of time talking with the athletes about their sport and checking on what they thought of the games. Vancouver 2010™ was getting a lot of attention from the bobsled groups, and I even had a few people mention they’d like to play it before heading into Vancouver, as a bit of a preview for the track. By the end of the sessions, the athletes started challenging their international counterparts on who could get the best bobsled course record before heading out to do it for real in the day’s qualifying runs.

This event was one of the first times I’ve had a chance to play Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games and it really is a lot of fun, especially when you play alongside some competitive people. In preparing for the event, I got a taste of this in challenging our PR Manager, Tali Fischer, to some score attacks while were unlocked some events for play. Our game of choice? Figure Skating, which I gladly took on to prove my worth and hit a score so high she never beat it after that initial run. She may see it otherwise, but I write the blog, so I get to have the final word on it. So there.

“David Allen bet me $10 I wouldn’t do it, so yea, I’m not backing out!”

Not only does the Olympic Utah Park host athletes, they also offer extensive opportunities for regular people like me to come by and tour the grounds of the park. For our Olympic Winter Games tour, we started the day with a tour of the facility and offered some pretty high level access into areas of the park. The tour covered both the ski jump and bobsled areas pretty extensively and gave us a preview into what sort of crazy stuff we signed up for. First up, zipline.

At this point I want to side track slightly and offer some thanks to Tali and one of our brand managers, David Allen, as they are a big reason I conquered my fear of heights and attempted this crazy zipline in the first place. Basically Tali, like me, is afraid of heights and David bet Tali that she wouldn’t do either event for a total sum of $10. This is a long running bet/counter-bet that’s been going between them and all the while Tali was totally nervous of the experience, but wasn’t going to back down. If she could do it, I could do it.

I am undeniably afraid of heights and as you can see from the photos, this was no joke. Tali was first to go and I nervously watched the outcome to prepare myself mentally. To give you a sense of the fear I was feeling, the actual set up was a bit nerve racking. The first stage is strapping in and you are forced to lean against a door, unable to see the ride down. Next, the ride operator pushes a button, the doors clang open, and you are faced with 1,500 feet of pure terror, or so it would seem as Tali screamed all.the.way.down. Eesh, I thought that was supposed to make me feel better.

When it was my turn, I nearly backed out before the button push, but it was too late. The result was pure exhilaration and not at all what I was expecting. The Zipline was basically a big slide, with no bottom, going 50mph, and hanging from a wire. Ok, so not much like a slide, but it certainly wasn’t the sudden drop I was fearing. Despite my initial fears going in, I went back and rode the zipline two more times after. Other people on the tour did the same, once they got over the their fear of strapping in and going for it.

“Steve, can you see into the future?”

Next up was bobsled, which as noted before is experienced on the fastest bobsled track in the world. The course takes less than a minute to complete, goes through fifteen turns and reaches speeds up to 90mph. Between this and zipline, most people were concerned about the zipline and the bobsled was expected to be just a fun ride. I think we all underestimated what we were getting into.

Steve Holcomb is our driver and guide to what will be an exhilarating ride down the course. Steve is part of Night Train, a four man team competing in the Olympic Winter Games and a past Gold medal winner in 2006. As driver, Steve is responsible for navigating the track along with his team at speeds up to 90mph. One of my own misconceptions of bobsled going in was that all members would be leaning to move the sled down the track, in reality each sledding team has a driver and three passengers to perform the running start and provide weight to sled going down. Luckily, this also means I won’t have to do much more than hold on for dear life.

After our extensive waiver signing and a thirty minute orientation, we are broken up into teams of three to assault the course and go for gold. What makes the bobsled arguably more intense than the zipline is the speed and force that you experience when flying down the track. As explained by our tour guides, once you hit the fourth curve, you are at max speed and hitting up to five g’s of pressure. That’s basically five times your body weight in pressure pushing down on you. Typing that in text is one thing, experiencing it is entirely another. As luck would have it, we managed to attach a camera to one of our riders and are thrilled to be able to show you the full ride!

“I have a new appreciation for the Olympics”

As a gamer, I get to vicariously live through the eyes of our characters and experience things I would never, ever see. For the Olympic Winter Games, this event has granted me a chance to gain a new appreciation for what the athletes experience on a daily basis and see that reflected in the games we are creating. From the competitive spirit of the games we play, to the events themselves, the Olympic Games truly are an amazing experience and something I hope everyone will enjoy.

Thanks for reading and look forward to any comments from the community, we also have a ton of other images from the event across our Flickr page, with some pretty exceptional views from atop the ski jump.  Enjoy!

Available now for Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console: the Sega Master System version of the  arcade classic space shooter, R-Type!

R-Type was a revelation in arcades when it came out in 1987, a brutally difficult side-scrolling shooter with fantastic graphics and incredibly creative monster & level designs. If you’re any kind of console history buff, the fact that this game was ported to the Sega Master System is worth noting:  like the Master System version of Golden Axe, R-Type pushed the limits of what 8 bits could do, and showed off the surprising color & sound of SEGA’s first flagship console.

As a side-scrolling shooter, R-Type does pretty much everything right. You can power up your ship repeatedly with a wide variety of weapons, making for lots of exciting on-the-fly strategizing amidst storms of alien firepower. More than almost anything else, though, it’s the boss fights that stand out — eye-popping full-screen monsters that look like something out of an H.R. Giger painting:

The other thing to note about R-Type is it’s relentless difficulty. Ranking at number 7 in an IGN list of toughest games to beat, R-Type was from the old school of Difficulty in Videogames: you learned by dying, over and over. Are games today too easy on gamers? That’s debatable, but certainly games like R-Type are evidence that gamers used to be made of sterner stuff: In my day, we died 20 times on the first boss battle just to learn his weak point. And we LIKED it.

There are a few things that make this relentless difficulty so endearingly fun. First, it’s accompanied by extremely smooth gameplay & the aforementioned eye-candy graphics. Second, eking your way through a shooter this difficult offers a genuine sense of accomplishment for finishing every stage — not to mention the entire game. The game does give you ample lives & continues to hone your techniques, so it really does feel like it’s up to you & your retro gaming skills to get through it all.

Also worth noting: this Sega Master System version actually contains an extra, secret level that isn’t available on any other version of the game. It is, frankly, astonishing that the arcade game was ported so well to the Master System, not to mention that a whole extra level was crammed in with it. Games like this are a big part of the reason I have such a strong lingering affection for the Master System, and it’s been terrific to see these classics showing up & getting some much-deserved love (even if it’s at the cost of hundreds of quarters worth of lives).