One game to go down a treat at E3 this year was SEGA’s official game of New Line Cinema’s forthcoming movie, The Golden Compass.

It helps that the movie itself is shaping up to be truly awesome, of course, but those journalists who’ve seen something of the game have reacted with very positive commentary indeed. A preview of the game in the August issue of the Official PlayStation 2 Magazine, for example, says: “If there’s one game we’ve got all our fingers crossed for it’s The Golden Compass.”

Well, us too, as it happens. But then that’s a given…

It continues: “With such fantastic source material, developer Shiny has all the substance it needs to craft a fine PS2 adventure game.”

They speak no lie. Take a look for yourselves. And don’t forget to watch the making-of movie on the official game site if you haven’t already (click the Media section).

Hi, I’m Keith Burden, Lead Car Artist on SEGA Rally and over the coming months I’ll giving you an inside look into the vehicles we’ll be featuring in the game.

The first class and possibly one of the most important is the Premier Class cars. These consist of some top flight Rally fare; the Subaru Impreza WRX STi, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX, Ford Focus RS, Peugeot 206 WRC, Skoda Fabia, and Citroen Xsara Rallycross car.

The Subaru Impreza and Mitsubishi Evolution IX are iconic for any kind of Rally game, they are well known, cool, and possibly two of the most perfect high performance cars in the world (lots of bhp, big spoilers and enough room for the family - what more do you need?)

The Subaru Impreza was the ‘Master Car’, it was the first car to be built and has been fiddled and tweaked so many times it feels like years since I first started modeling it!  The other cars in this class were picked for their legendary Rallying heritage; the Skoda Fabia, Ford Focus RS and Peugeot 206 WRC were all massive players not just in the World Rally Championship but on the global and domestic rally scenes.  The Citroen Xsara is one of the most successful competitive rally cars of recent times so it just had to make an appearance in SEGA Rally (The Info Business Rallycross livery is my personal favourite!)

These are some of the cars that have formed the back bone of modern rallying, but don’t for a second think that SEGA Rally consists on your normal main stream Rally Car.  We have lots of unlocks, different car variant states, multiple liveries and more importantly lots of specialist car unlocks.  At this stage I can’t really divulge exact cars, but think about some of the true Rally (and SEGA Rally) classics and look out for some juicy bonkers motors thrown in for good measure.

All will be revealed in good time!

To find out more about SEGA Rally visit the official website at www.segarally.com we have videos, screens, downloads and much more. Plus, you can register to receive updates and exclusive offers.

In our SEGA Europe newsletter in June we ran a competition giving away 20 DS Stylus’ in the form of a dart to celebrate the release of our SEGA Presents Touch Darts Nintendo DS release; and not only that, we also offered every lucky winner a Virtua Tennis 3 mug so they could enjoy a nice brew while throwing their virtua arrows DS style.

We asked you the extremely tricky question of - What score do you receive in a game of darts if you hit the bullseye? The answer is of course 50.

Well, the competition closed on 15 June, and we’re happy to say we can now announce the winners below. If your name appears, congratulations, and we’ll be in touch shortly and send your prizes out very, very soon. If not, then better luck next time!

Winners:
Mrs Jane Burbage-Meaden (Dorset)
Christine Hindle (Birmingham)
Neil Kelly (Ellesmere Port)
Sam Dogra (Northampton)
Elizabeth Kidger (Hertfordshire)
Carla Knight (Pembrokeshire)
Linda Rumsey (Suffolk)
Ciara McDermott (Cheshire)
Caroline James (Oldham)
Will Broadribb (London)
John Beagrie (Aberdeen)
Nicole Terbach (Essex)
Russ Bevis (Lincolnshire)
S Purcell (Ireland)
Chris Peil (Derbyshire)
Steven Waring (Higher Broughton)
Victoria Harbourne (Shrewsbury)
Danny White (Wales)
Kelly West (Middlesex)
Barbara Cairns (Lancashire)

As we are moving ever closer to the return of the legend that is SEGA Rally, I decided to go off-road with the guys that are making the game to get an inside look at life working on SEGA Rally.

First in the series, I play co-driver to Chris Southall, Head of Technology at the Rally Studio. Based up in Solihull in the Midlands, Chris tells us all about SEGA Rally and how he ended up making games for a living.

Co-Driver Dave: Which games are you playing at the moment?
Chris Southall: PGR 3 (again), Forza II, Colin Dirt, God of War II, Shadow of the Colossus, oh and SEGA Rally 1995 (we have a dual cab in the corner of the room).

What is your role on SEGA Rally?
I’m the head of technology in the Studio, which means I am in charge of all the programming basically.

What real-life experiences have you drawn on to help in making SEGA Rally?
Well I played the 1995 version Rally A LOT in the Arcade, and then on the Saturn with that wheel you had to lodge under your legs! Oh, and I’ve sat in a few rally cars going quite fast in my time.

Who is the best SEGA Rally player in the office? And the worst?
Jamie (Lowes) - he has spent every day for 18 months working on the handling, which kinda gives him an advantage. I’m not telling you the worst.

Who are the best and worst real drivers in the studio?
Judging by karting events I’ve been at, Guy (Wilday) - the studio head. The worst would have to be Jan, one of our network programmers, who’s a reckless driver in his spare time.

Who is your all-time favourite driver? Why?
Nigel Mansell - mainly because of the eyebrows!

What car do you drive? Why?
To be precise it’s an A3 2.0 T FSI S-Line special edition - simply because now that I have kids the two-seater had to give way to something more practical.

What five vehicles would you have sitting in your fantasy garage? Why?
Firstly, a sky blue 1978 Vauxhall Chevette - fond memories of my first car.

Then it would have to be a Bugatti Venron for the autobahn, an RS6 to get to work in, a VW Transporter Sportline for holidays.

And lastly, a decent mountain bike for, well… biking up and down mountains.

What’s the fastest speed you’ve ever travelled in a road vehicle?
That would be about 150 in an RX8 I used to own, and I’m not saying where that was.

Name your favourite movie car chase?
That has to be the one in Taxi by Luc Besson.

What were your favourite TV shows as a kid?
I can’t really remember - the 70s was a long time ago, but the Great Egg Race & Tomorrows World were pretty good (sorry, I’m a bit of a geek).

Which toy could you never seem to put down as a child?
The BBC Micro I learnt to program on; does that count (once again, I play the geek card)?

If you could listen to one tune while you drive, what would it be?
This is maybe a bit sad but it was on the radio as I drove to work this morning - Stairway to Heaven (Led Zepplin)

You’re stranded on a desert island, which car part would you take with you, and why?
The rear view mirror, and I’m sure Ray Mears would agree

If you weren’t making games, you’d be…?
Hanging around Ton-Sai beach (Thailand) or up a mountain somewhere I hope.

Describe SEGA Rally in five words?
It’s really quite good fun.

Over the coming months well be talking to more of the fellas working on SEGA Rally.  So look out for our weekly interview, which will appear every Friday right here on the SEGA Europe blog.

To find out more about SEGA Rally visit the official website at www.segarally.com we have videos, screens, downloads and much more. Plus, you can register to receive updates and exclusive offers.