Over on Twitter I’ve been asking people to come up with their best SEGA adaptions/parodies of films, books, plays, tv shows, etc… we’ve had a vast array so I’m putting the list up here.  This is only a small snapshot of the hundreds I’ve been sent!

Honey I Shrunk the Alex Kidd
Boogie NiGHTS
Stir of Ecco The Dolphin
O Bonanza Brothers Where Art Thou
My Name Is ToeJam & Earl
The Three Samba De Amigos
Phantasy Star Trek
Hedgehog Day – Sonic constantly replays the same zone over and over again.
Crazy Taxi Driver
Sonic & The Lord of the Secret Rings
Office Space Channel 5
On Golden Axe
Jimbo and the Jet Set Radio
I Am Sam-ba De Amigo
Bleak House of the Dead
Ice-Cold in Alex Kidd
Beauty and the Altered Beast
Virtual On Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Altered Beastmaster
Chu Chu Rocketeer
Desperate Housewives of the Dead
Clockwork Orange Knight
Vanilla Skies of arcadia
So I Married an Golden Axe Murderer
Napolean Dynamite Dux
Speed Enduro Racer
Final Fantasy Zone: Opa-Opa Within
Star Trek: Deep Space Harrier
Cliffhang-on
Butch Cassidy & Alex Kidd
Virtua Police Academy
Feel the Magic: Kyle XY/XX
A NiGHTS Tale
Kill Billy Hatcher
Little House of the Dead on the Prairie
Ristar Wars
Twelve Monkey’s Balls
Alex Kiddulthood
Mighty Moprhing Burning Rangers
American History Sonic X
Rez Miserable
Karate Kid Chameleon
Seaman on fire
Shen-mulan
Typing of the Things to Do In Denver When You’re Dead
Crouching Tiger, Panzer Dragoon
Phantasy Starship Troopers
OutRunning Man
Eternal Champions of a Spotless Mind
Sonic Rush Hour
Con-duit Air
A Night Trap on Elm Street,
Days Of Thunder Blade
Fatal Pan’s Labyrinth
The Secret World Of Alex Kidd
Baku Baku To The Future
Puyo Pop Idol Fever
The Day After Burner Tomorrow
Fried Green ToeJam-atos
I Love You, Vectorman
Some Like It Chaotix

And if you want to know the terrible ones I came up with: -

Driving Miss Daisy Fuentes Pilates
Let’s Tapocalyspse Now
Snow White And The Seven Chaos Emeralds
The Perfect STORMRISE
OutRun Lola OutRun
War of the MADWORLDs
Valkyria Chronicles Of Riddick
The Hogfather
Jet Grindhouse Radio
The Dark Knight Of The Wind
The Last Phantasy Star Fighter
12 Angry Hedgehogs
Cat Bay-ou-netta – Okay perhaps not that one…

Can you do better??

Faster. Higher. Stronger. Colder. Playable.

There are 20 days to go until the Summer Of Sonic 2009, but whats it all about Alfie? Well I’ll tell you – and don’t call me Alfie.

Its an International Sonic Convention thats what, now in its second year which is taking place on Saturday August 29th at the Old Truman Brewery Boiler House on Brick Lane, London.  We’ve SUMO Digital coming down, Nigel Kitching and Nigel Dobbyn from Sonic The Comic coming down,  Lee Brotherton/Bentley Jones is going to be there and performing for you, there’s going to be competitions, music, a quiz, surprises, fanart, cosplay and oh so much more yet to be revealed. *

Need another insentive? Okay I’ll give you one.

Summer of Sonic 2009 will be giving the first public previews in the UK of Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games on Wii. Oh and on DS as well.

Its just a shame we won’t be showing Sonic & SEGA All-Star Racing at the event too, that’d be truly awesome. Oh. Wait a moment. WE ARE. So thats THREE games getting their first public play in the UK at SoS

There are two methods of entering the Summer of Sonic 2009 convention – both methods are free of charge and the community boys are in the process of sorting the advanced tickets for the event, but what is the benefit of advanced tickets?

Advance Registration:

The SoS staff recommend this option if you want to be assured of a place in the convention hall. With advance registration, we take your contact details (which we need to collect for legal/safety reasons) ahead of time via email and send you an e-ticket. This e-ticket will reserve your spot in the hall, act as a fast-track method of entering, and will entitle you (whilst stocks last) to a special little treat being cooked up by myself.  Though if you’re coming from overseas and don’t get one I’ll be having some backups created and I’ll post you one out myself especially because I’m nice like that.

To apply for advance registration, you need to send an email to summerofsonic@googlemail.com with the following information.

• Your Real Name, and the names of those in your party (if you don’t wish to name everyone in your group, state your real name and how many will be coming with you – please remember that groups will need the person who registered present to be allowed entry!)
• Email Address
• Contact Telephone No.
• Address
• Next of Kin and Contact Details - Please Note: This is vital, it means a contact like your parents or gaurdian, family, etc essentially who to contact in the event of an accident. It CANNOT be someone attending with you and if you do not supply the guys cannot send you a ticket and the boys on the door cannot let you in. Very simple.
• Parental Consent if you are under 16 (please note that all persons under the age of 16 will be required to attend with a parent or guardian of 18 years or over)
• Your Agreement to the Terms and Conditions of Entry

If you like, you can also send us your ‘username‘, or online handle, with these details to personalise your e-ticket as a souvenir of the day. E-tickets will be sent out to your email address asap, which you will then need to print out (or note the ticket number) and hand to the volunteers at the door.

As an extra note there is no scipe to change the character on your ticket, what you get is what you get. No complaining!

Arrive on the day:

If you are unable to register your interest in the Summer of Sonic 2009 convention in advance, then you can arrive to the venue on the day and enter if there is available space. Please be aware that we cannot guarantee entry to the convention this way, and if the hall becomes full you will need to wait until a suitable number of people leave the venue before you will be allowed entry. Whilst queuing you will be issued a small form which you will need to fill in to provide the information listed above (Name, Contact Details, Address, etc). You won’t get a ticket and you won’t be guaranteed certain freebies (which may be limited in number), but you will be able to enjoy the day in the hall at your leisure.

For full details check out: http://www.summerofsonic.com/attendees/

Recently I moved and re-discovered this little gem; a SEGA Dreamcast alarm clock. This was a piece of promotional merch that was given to me around the launch of the Dreamcast in the UK.

The image was taken on my patio this morning – i should have taken an action shot with a flying ant!

I’ve uploaded some high resolution images to our Flickr account if you wish to see what it looks like in greater detail. I’ve also taken a shot of the rear!

The other week we had a press event we dubbed the SEGA Summer Sizzler – which you may read about tomorrow as I had a few of our contacts attend, like Play.TM and SEGA Nerds.  At the event we gave away some goodies to the eagar press and I rather cannily stepped in, used one of MtFN’s smoke grenades and nabbed some for you guys for future competitions.

Check them out:

- A new style of SEGA t-shirt
- A SEGA USB
- A SEGA water bottle carrier
- SEGA flip-flops
- SEGA hand fan

And here they are:

No seriously, I had a fantastic find in SOE Purchasing Team’s cupboard of wonderment – not to be confused with The Cupboard of Awesome, whilst I was allowed to pick bits out for Summer of Sonic giveaways. I was allowed to take the whole bag (much more than these), so you can expect these to be heading your way in the form of prize giveaways very soon.

Fancy a career with one of the games industrys most exciting, dynamic and creative companys?

SEGA has always been synonymous with great games and our plan is to continue to build on this great brand heritage. Combining creative talent from our worldwide development studios, rich arcade heritage, huge brand recognition and the determination to set new standards in interactive entertainment, SEGA is in a unique position to be one of the worlds leading software publishers and developers. As the European distribution arm of its Japanese parent company – a worldwide leader in interactive entertainment both inside and outside the home – the company is an exciting prospect.

Reflecting the fast-paced and ever-changing nature of the games industry, SEGA is growing rapidly – not just because of the success of our computer game titles, but due to our aggressive acquisition of prominent games developers (e.g., The Creative Assembly, Sports Interactive).

Its an exciting time for the company, with our London European head office and subsidiaries in France, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands and Australia the foundations are now in place for SEGA Europe to become one of the worlds leading software publishers and developers.

Combining the best of both worlds, SEGA Europe embodies the thrills, fun and vision of a fresh start-up, yet benefits from the security of ownership by SEGA Sammy Holdings.

If a career with SEGA Europe sounds like an opportunity thats too good to miss then contact us now, wed love to hear from you. All of our current vacancies including those of our development studios can be viewed at our careers page website: www.sega-direct.sega.co.uk.

Its normally MtFN who regales you with the FSF blogs but no – not today for the poor ninja is home feeling kinda sickly. Perhaps he suffered a wound by a poisoned shuriken? Personally I think its due to his insistence on putting soy sauce and wasabi on everything he eats and drinks myself.  Anyway we wish him well but that means it was up to me to pick the prizes this week and I think I’ve got quite a quirky little set for you.

And here we are – ALL items are worldwide

This week’s goodies for our Free Stuff Friday are:

1) A Japanese Let’s TAP box
This box is a much sturdier, if slightly plainer customer than its European cousin – these were used by Naka-san and co when we announced Let’s TAP was coming to the West in London oh so long ago. Still, not something you can normally get your hands on!

2) A The Incredible Hulk game guide by BradyGames
Covering PlayStation 3 and XBox 360,  this very handy strategy guide will help you find those pesky canisters, comic books and other collectibles/unlockables.

3) SEGA Rally (2006) On PC/DVD
“Rally Racing Unleashed!”  The last title from SEGA Racing Studios is a little gem and no two laps will be the same as when you tear up the track it STAYS torn up! This version is for the PC, requires a DVD-ROM drive and minimum specifications as follows: Windows XP/Vista, Pentium 4 2GHz or equivalent AMD ATHLON 64. 1GB RAM, 5GB uncompressed free hard drive space.

4) A signed Happy Tree Friends Bobble-Head
“Better than a poke in the eye!” according to the message signed on it by the show’s co-creator Kenn Navarro, the featured character is Flippy… who looks mighty vicious/  You’ll have to move fast to get him on Friday – GET THAT LEAD OUT SOLDIER!

5) A SEGA T-Shirt (Medium)
This requires some explanation, but this is a T-shirt from the SEGA Europe company conference which we had last Thursday! As part of the “team building” exercises we split down into teams and took part in “It’s A Knockout” style challenges involving inflatables,  etc.  Anyway we pounced and managed to nab a variety of spare t-shirts from the event for you guys which we’ll be giving out over time.  This shirt is “paprika” apparently which is the colour of the team that won s0 you could say it is intrinsically full of win. (If you’re interested Martin was on the ‘Leaf Green’ team, I was on the ‘Prairie Dusk’ team and the Captain was on the ‘I’m off to watch Oasis in concert’ team.)

6) A Jet Set Radio Future music sampler CD
An eleven track sealed sample CD of the soundtrack to JSRF, including “Exclusive Original Mixes” by the The Latch Brothers, as well as tracks by Richard Jacques, Hideki Naganuma, Russel Simins, Cibo Matto, The Prunes and Scapegoat Wax.

Remember, you need to be following us on Twitter to join in Free Stuff Friday – not sure how? Check out the SEGA Frequently Asked Tweets.

Back on the 12th June two teams from SEGA participated in the MCV / Xbox 360 over in Barnet, London. It was a rare trip to North London for us SEGA people, who work in Brentford, but somehow most of us made it to the Xbox Power League at the bright and early time of nine fifteen.

It was seriously hot when we arrived, and the lack of clouds suggested this wasn’t going to relent for the rest of the day. With matches not starting until 10:30, we took a rather long and gruelling warm up, which in hindsight was probably one of the world’s worst ideas. By the end of it, I was completely knackered, even though I’d only been in goal! I guess fitness has never been my forte during my working life.

My team, the aptly named Lucky Coin Tossers, were playing in Group Ten, while our sister team AFC SEGA took part in Group One along with our studio colleagues from Sports Interactive. The first match, between these two teams, got off to a flier, culminating in a 4-4 draw. The Lucky Coins Tossers much anticipated first match followed.

Goalkeeper Nawaz’s view of AFC SEGA vs. Sports Interactive

After kicking off and scoring what will probably be forgotten as the best team goal of the tournament, we folded quickly to our foes from Testroniclabs, mainly due to hilarious defending at free kicks and woeful goalkeeping from none other than me. The end result was 3-1 and the high hopes we’d been harbouring looked more than a little creaky. In order to stop this from happening again, we opted on sticking our man mountain of a defender Istvan in nets, while I’d play up front in the next game.

AFC SEGA came up trumps with another 4-4 draw in their second match and then it was our turn to do battle on the pitch against Liberty City Swingers of Rockstar Games. Our decision to switch myself with Istvan paid dividends when I scored in the first minute and we continued to press. After they scored an equaliser, we bagged a penalty and another, before I rolled off gasping for breath. Captain Haddock finished them off in true style to end the game 4-1 and the dream was still alive!

Running around obviously made me feel ultra queasy as I had no idea about the next few minutes and we were on again, this time against Volatile Games. This game was a midfield battle, where both teams found it difficult to get shots at goal. In the end of soaking up some extreme pressure, including a heart stopping strike on our woodwork, the game ended a respectable 0-0. After our first three games – all of which were only eleven minutes long, and one of which I’d stood in goal and let the ball fly past me – we all felt exhausted, so lunch gave us a well earned break. It also gave us plenty of time to get our muscles stiff before our next match against Toystore FC.

Not sure why Eliot is shooting at his own goal, but he obviously didn’t score as this game ended up 0-0.

This was set to be our toughest match of the group stage as they’d beaten everyone in the group. Although we conceded early, things were looking up as my striking boots sent us back to 1-1. However, they managed to finish us off and claim the victory, meaning we had to win our next game to reach the cup competition. By this point, delirium had set in and I’d really no idea of what AFC SEGA were up to. General hear’ say told me they were in a similar situation to us, needing to win their last game.

Fortunately, our final game was against one of the weaker teams in the group and we dispatched them 3-1, courtesy of another penalty from me, a goal from team captain Sadeghi, and a screamer from brand marketing manager Matt Eyre, the latter of whose celebration was reminiscent of the legendary Gabriel Batistuta. AFC SEGA joined us in the cup, but legs were getting extremely heavy.

Unfortunately, AFC SEGA were put out in the first cup round 1-0 by their opponents, while we met our doom against Shop To in a 4-1 defeat. By the end of it, I’m not sure anyone could’ve really functioned past the second round, so this may have been a blessing in disguise. It also gave us plenty of time to get stuck into the free bar! Getting home proved hazardous, as our injuries began to creep through. As I limped back to Wandsworth Town train station to my house I was feeling like the guys from Touching the Void, pretty much unable to walk.

It was all worth it though, and commendable of us to reach the cup competition rather than the plate. The tournament was thoroughly enjoyable and a great way to bring the industry together, so big thanks for MCV/Xbox 360 for doing this. SEGA will no doubt be returning for battle next year so be on the lookout for us if you’re going!

Can you see where we got beaten yet? Check out the rest of the tournament at www.gamesfives360.co.uk.

This news should’ve come last week, but Captain Fish Head took photos of the day and said he’d be able to upload them by getting his card reader. Alas, his claims that he’d bring in the card reader went on for several days when he announced (finally) that he couldn’t find it. Fortunately we found a card reader this morning so the photos could accompany the writing!

We often get asked the same or similar questions on the SEGA Facebook and of course the SEGA Twitter account.  In order to stop us in the Community Team from having to repeat the same things over and over again we’ve decided to put these here.  We’ll keep them updated as and when we need to. 

“Are you really SEGA?” / “Is [account name] an official SEGA account?”

Yes. Yes we are. The official SEGA accounts are

SEGA – Official SEGA community team for Europe and America
sonicgames – Official Sonic The Hedgehog
phantasystar – Phantasy Star
valkyriatribune – Valkyria Chronicles
totalwar – Total War series (Creative Assembly)
MarioSonicGames - Mario & Sonic
TheConduit – The Conduit
FootManLive – Football Manager Live
GameWorks – The US arcade chain run by SEGA
and si_games for Sports Interactive (Football Manager)

There are also accounts for Virtua Tennis (virtuatennis) and Shenmue (shenmue) but these are not as active, your main ports of call on Twitter for SEGA interaction are going to be @SEGA, @sonicgames and @phantasystar. Until such times as Twitter starts validating business accounts you’ll just have to take our word on it as official!

“Are you in America or Europe?” (aka “Why are you up so early??”)

We’re both; SOE based in London will be on the Twitter account during their business hours of 9am – 6pm (GMT/BST) after which SOA based in San Francisco will be awake and taking note of your responses between 9am – 6pm (PT). Please be aware we do have other stuff to do (so, so much stuff…*sigh*) so there may be periods of time where we’re quiet or maybe days when we’re not on at all. Needless to say we’re busy working to try and make things better for you guys.

“Who is actually on the SEGA Twitter?”

For Europe its usually ArchangelUK (AAUK), though Martin The Fat Ninja (MtFN) usually does Free Stuff Friday. Whilst over at SOA its mostly Kellie with occasional posts from ClumsyOrchid.

“What is “Free Stuff Friday” and how does it work?”

#FreeStuffFriday is our weekly giveaway on Twitter of SEGA related swag; SOA and SOE alternate every week in doing this contest and unless specified all items can be won worldwide. The only real exceptions are region-specific games and items that cannot be sent via international post due to the relevant laws. Please note: age ratings on games are also non-negotiable. If a game is 16+ for example we will need proof you are 16+ before we will surrender the game – sending it to “my friend/parent/guardian” will not suffice and there will be no substitution provided. We will reveal on the Thursday beforehand the items that will be up for grabs on the relevant Official SEGA blog so you can prepare yourself!

To be in with a chance of winning you need to follow us on Twitter (@SEGA) and we will follow you in return. Then, at some point on the Friday – usually commencing around 2pm UK time for SOE – we will announce which swag pack we are giving away and a special code phrase – e.g “Knuckles The Echidna Rocks!”. You have to Direct Message us with this code phrase, so tweeting D SEGA Knuckles The Echidna Rocks!

Please note: using normal replies (going @SEGA) will not count and your chance of winning will be lost and whilst you may Direct Message as many times as you like we will only count your first DM. Likewise we will not be able to tell you how close you were or what number tweet you were.

In order to help those who don’t have lightning fast connections well often specify that a specific response (the 5th, 8th, 15th, etc) will win the prize. We then repeat the process until all the swag packs are taken.

“What is SOA/SOE/SOJ?”

We’ll often refer to the above, in fact its very simple – SOE is SEGA of Europe, SOA is SEGA of America and SOJ is SEGA Of Japan.  Likewise other departments would be say, for France SOF, Germany would be SOG, etc. Australia gets a bit confusing as we’ve already got one SOA, so sometimes that gets refered to as SOz.

“Will SEGA ever return to the hardware market?” / “I’ve heard you’re making the DreamCast 2…”

Never say never, but we’re a third party publisher now – and this is unlikely to change any time soon. There are no plans for a DreamCast 2.

“We want Shenmue 3/Yakuza n/Virtua Fighter 5R/a new Shining Force/etc!” (aka the @SEGA “Twee-mands”)

We know, we know! We do take note of these things and do pass on what you guys are talking about on the walls etc and feed back to the rest of the company and we do make enquiries when and where we can. However, please be aware that sometimes either we won’t be able to tell you anything, the answer will be that there are no current plans or simply “sorry, but no.”

We also ask if you’ve asked once you don’t ask continually… once we’ve given you an answer, well, we’ve given you an answer! Spamming us over something doesn’t exactly help anyone as you’re reducing the chances of us spotting other SEGA fan’s messages(!)

“Can you help me with this issue I’m having…”

We’ll help out anyway we can and if you’re coming across a persistent issue we’ll pass it on and make enquiries about it, however please be aware guys we’re the Community Team – not the coders of the games. We can’t whip up a patch for you in our lunch breaks you know! In cases like this we do recommend that its best you raise a ticket with the Customer Service teams and you can do that by going to http://help.sega.com for America and http://www.sega-europe.com/support for Europe.

“Why haven’t you released [game] on PSN in Europe but not in America?”

The situations between the two territories are different; suffice to say if we could release it we would. Sorry!

“Join my Spy Network/Music Site/Online Group, One Of My Tweets Is A Lie! etc”

Sorry guys, maybe we will on our personal Twitter accounts but @SEGA will not join these, could you please stop messaging us about them? Thanks.

Those of you that know me will no doubt be aware that I do love a good bargain. On top of that I do love my retro bits and bobs and all things gadgety (I don’t think gadgety is an actual word, but seems to fit so it’s staying). Now, retro gadgety things and bargains don’t normally go together, but this weekend they sure did for me.

Most Sundays during the warm summer months, I can be found traipsing around a local field at an ungodly hour (for a Sunday) sans-ninja outfit examining the contents of people’s car boots. Normally I come back with nothing more than an empty stomach; however this weekend was a bit more exciting and full of gaming goodness; SEGA goodness too.

So allow me to show off a couple of the bits I picked up.

First up is a SEGA / Bandai laser tag game called ‘Lock-On’ that was originally released in 1992. Check out Wikipedia for an article on these.

I’m not sure if these work or not; but they only cost £2 each, so no great loss if they don’t. We’ll be testing these out in the office soon; so keep your eyes peeled for a ‘Lock-On’ toting Ninja.

Next up is a nice haul of SEGA Mega Drive games – 58 in total; 46 of which are still boxed.

As you’ll see some of them are duplicates. If anyone would like to swap any of my duplicates on a one-for-one basis, drop me a message. And how much did this cost? A very reasonable £33; that’s about 57p a game.

Finally, not SEGA related, but something I wanted to share with you retro fans; check out my new belt!

I didn’t know this, but Noel Fielding of The Mighty Boosh has one. I paid a single gold coin for this; a bargain considering it was still wrapped when I got it and they cost £15 online.

I did buy a couple of other things, but if I show them, you’ll think I’m proper weird!

And before you ask, no, I’m not going to tell you where it was; you’ll all turn up!