Hail, Knights!

This week we have for you a two-part update: a brand new Danger Mission to test your nerves, and a special Prize Box promotion!

Danger Mission: Ghosts in the Machine

Knights of Haven – we seek the brave and the bold! A faint distress call has sounded from deep within Cradle. Spiral HQ has traced the origin of the signal to an ancient junkyard — a labyrinthine graveyard for long-forgotten machines and scrap parts. It may be a trap; it may be someone is in need of our assistance … in either case, you must venture down, down, down, and discover …

Oh did we mention also this machine graveyard is haunted? It is haunted, with ghosts. Of machines? In machines? Both? You’ll have to find out! Report back.

Steel yourselves, Knights – for there is a mystery at hand, and your Knightly honor requires your answer to this call. Unravel the mystery, and delve ever further into Cradle!

Also, if you find any cool stuff down there, you can keep it.

Surge Prize Boxes

SURGE!

Prize Boxes, that is: From now until September 24th at 10:00 AM, we are giving away Surge Prize Boxes free with select energy purchase!

(sorry about the all-caps SURGE up there — if you’re from the 90s, that may mean something to you, otherwise, move along!)

Surge Prize Boxes can contain: Variant trinkets, Surge costume gear including the brand new Flak Jacket and Draped Armor styles, and possibly even the very rare Hacked Aura accessory.

Each box also has a chance to contain a piece of bonus equipment, such as a Slot Upgrade or Heat Amplifier.

Remember: Surge Prize Boxes require no key to open, and all items inside are delivered free and unbound.

For a full list of available Surge Prize Box items, click here. For more information on the Surge Prize box promotion and official promotion rules & details, click here.

On Dangerous Missions…

In case you are new to them: Danger Missions are high-level areas intended for skilled players, available in the Prestige Mission section of the Mission interface.

Attention fans of Sonic and/or surprisingly violent woodland critters! What’s better than a sale? A permanent price drop! It’s like a sale, only forever.

Thus, we have a permanent price drop on Sonic Adventure for XBLA/PSN, as well as the Sonic Adventure DLC, and, on XBLA, Happy Tree Friends! I would just call it a “Sonic on the Dreamcast” themed price-drop, but then there’s the Tree Friends, and if you think the inclusion of Happy Tree Friends is random, then then wait until you play Happy Tree Friends because you don’t know from random.

Here’s the low-down:

PSN:
Sonic Adventure: $4.99 (price reduced by 50%)
Sonic Adventure DLC: $2.99 (price reduced by 40%)

XBLA:
Sonic Adventure: 400 Microsoft Points (price reduced by 50%)
Sonic Adventure DLC: 200 Microsoft Points (price reduced by 50%)
Happy Tree Friends: 400 Microsoft Points (price reduced by 50%)

Enjoy a new, cheaper Sonic Adventure! Enjoy happier, cheaper, Happy Tree friends!

Important Note #1: Free Stuff Friday will be starting a little bit late this week, due to a scheduling issue. We will begin an hour later than usual, at 11:00 AM US Pacific Time. (You’ll have to figure out what that is in your local time.)

Important Note #2: We will not have a Free Stuff Friday giveaway on September 21st, as all of the people who are able to run the giveaway will  be out of the office. We work hard to ensure that someone is around to do the giveaway each week, but this is just one of those rare weeks that it won’t work out. To help make up for it, we have twice the normal amount of prizes this week! Free Stuff Friday will resume on September 28th.

On the Block

1. Hell Yeah! t-shirt (size M or L), flash drive, and chainsaw poo hat.

2. Hell Yeah! t-shirt (size M or L), flash drive, and chainsaw poo hat.

3. Hell Yeah! t-shirt (size M or L), flash drive, and chainsaw poo hat.

4. Jet Set Radio hoodie (size S-XL), lanyard, and CD soundtrack.

5. Jet Set Radio hoodie (size S-XL), lanyard, and CD soundtrack.

6. Jet Set Radio hoodie (size S-XL), lanyard, and CD soundtrack.

How it Works

1. You must be following us on Twitter to be eligible. (If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can create one by going to http://www.twitter.com and click the green “get started — join!” button in the center of the page.)

2. At random times on Friday, we will announce the prize we are giving away, a word or phrase, and what number of response you need to be to win. Send us a direct message (DM) via Twitter and be that number to win the prize. (@ replies do not count as entries!) We only accept one direct message per person per prize!

Example:

We tweet “GIVEAWAY: Sonic T-shirt, size L. Be the 15th person to DM “Sonic Adventure” to win!”

You see this, and want to win it, so you send us a direct message that says “Sonic Adventure”. If you are the 15th person to do so, you are the winner!

Quotation marks do not matter, capitalization does not matter, but spelling does matter!

3. All followers are eligible to win all prizes, unless a restriction is noted. Restrictions are usually due to the prize being region-locked. For example, US games that won’t work on UK gaming systems. There may also be age restrictions due to the rating of the game.

4. We will announce the winner on our Twitter feed once eligibility is confirmed.

Other Assorted Information:

• Free Stuff Friday duties alternate between the London and San Francisco offices and are done during business hours (usually mid-morning) in our respective time zones.
• No, you can’t know what number message you were – so please don’t ask! We will tell you that the information is classified!
• If you have questions during the giveaway, please contact us with an @reply. As you can imagine, we get a whole lot of direct messages during the contests and there is a very good chance we will miss your question if it is sent as a DM.

How to Send Direct Messages on Twitter

Due to a change in our account status with Twitter, you should be able to send us direct messages without us following you if you are using the Twitter website. However, third-party applications may not allow you to.

There are a few ways to send us a Direct Message on Twitter. The easiest way is:

1. Log in to your Twitter account.
2. Click on the person icon and select Direct messages from the drop down menu.
3. You’ll see a pop up showing your Direct message history. Click the New message button, highlighted below.
4. In the address box, type the name or username (SEGA) of the person you wish to send a message to.
5. Enter your message and click Send message.

You may also select the “direct messages” tab from your Twitter homepage, and select SEGA from the drop-down menu at the top of the page. Again, if you don’t see our name there, it’s probably because we’re not following you. Let us know, and we’ll follow you. If you still have questions on sending direct messages, please visit Twitter’s Help Section.

There are also many Twitter clients that you can use instead of using the website. These include TweetDeck, Twitteriffic, Tweetie, and Twhirl. Each of these programs works differently, so you’ll want to figure out how to send a direct message on the program you use. If you want to send us a test message, we’ll let you know if we received it or not. Please make sure your message says “test” somewhere.