“I wish I could wear blue, I’m stuck now with this red.”

Have a real “Blast” this Christmas, see you in 2010

~ArchangelUK~

I was looking for a piece of Sonic Christmas art to sign off with when I stumbled across this work from 2007.  It may be slightly Sonamy (which may put a fair few of you off I’d imagine) but put your relevant shipper hats or rage hammers aside for the moment and its a really nice, sweet picture.

I’ve no idea who did it. But congratulations, thumbs up from me.

EDIT – Apparently its Tigerfog…

I know Japan’s ahead in timezones but this is ridiculous!

In all fairness we’re closing in on 2010, so its not that big a surprise that Sonic Channel have come out with their first wallpaper of 2010 which is rather nicely Sonic and shows the sketch style still but this time on a pad.

1280 x 1084 | 1280 x 800 | 1024 x 768

We see a lot of fanart at SEGA, just this morning I was chatting with the Brand Manager on Bayonetta and he showed me some wicked fanart from the Platinum Games forums – something we’ll hopefully have a feature on next year. A lot of Sonic fanart goes my way too from the community; some of it good, some of it bad and some of it…. well, some of you have issues(!)

However one thing that was brought to my attention was this crossover pic by Toughset on DevianArt with Valve’s Team Fortress 2 – something which I play most evenings with some of the other guys in the community (on the poor neglected 360 version before you ask) in any case this is a great representation of the cast picture but with the various classes replaced with pretty bang on Sonic universe equivilents.

Boink!

I come baring news regarding the original trilogy of Sonic games on Nintendo’s Virtual Console™ service!

We’ve hooked up with our friends at Nintendo to put together a deal for you that will bring you a whopping 40% off our best selling titles for the Virtual Console™ service this Christmas period, which I’m pleased to say includes:

Sonic The Hedgehog

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Sonic The Hedgehog 3

The deal starts Christmas Eve, December 24th but only for a limited time until January 6th 2010 – so act fast!

Don’t forget the other SEGA titles though which are also available with 40% off:

Gunstar Heroes	ToeJam & Earl	Puyo Puyo 2
Shining Force	Golden Axe	Altered Beast
	Streets Of Rage 2

As a special Christmas present, SEGA brings to you… a special winter themed trailer showcasing gameplay from the Billy Hatcher Blizzard Castle level. Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!

You saw this yesterday on the XBL Marketplace, but now its up on our YouTube!

Exclusively for XBox 360 (their home console), Rare’s Bear and Bird combination bring their racer, the Bolt Bucket to take on Sonic, Ryo, Billy Hatcher and SEGA’s best… AND YOU.

Yes, your avatar can join the fun personally in the “Avacar” and your All-Star move? Well… we all get by with a little help from our friends..

Working closely with the Rare Studio to bring the popular characters to life, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing sees Banjo and Kazooie taking their place on the starting grid alongside classic SEGA characters such as Sonic, AiAi, Amy, Knuckles and Ryo Hazuki. As well as mastering the drift system to get the best out of the tracks, and picking up weapons such as Sonic speed boots and homing rockets along the way, Banjo and his faithful sidekick Kazooie will be able to unleash their own unique All-Star move in a bid to cross the finish line in pole position!

Looks to me like something has appeared to download on XBL Marketplace… http://bit.ly/89FxdY & http://bit.ly/71kTD7

Dah-dah de-dah dah…Dah-dah de-dah dah…

Check out the latest preview from the guys and girls at Archie:

As I confirmed elsewhere (I couldn’t post on the blogs at the weekend, alas) Dreams Of An Absolution singer Bentley Jones’ new track So Much More will be the main vocal theme (appearing on the credits, etc) of Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing which will also be out on EP as a worldwide digital download on January 19th 2010, a limited edition run of physical copies will be available from BentleyJones.com.

I’m going to put together a quick bullet point list to cover all the details – including the chance to influence some creative avenues with the track!

• Fans have the opportunity to vote for the actual album art that will be used. Check this out here.
• Fans will also have the opportunity to star in the music video! More details of this soon.
• The EP will contain other tracks including a couple of non-released fan favorites and a couple of alternate versions of SMM not yet announced.
• The guitarist isn’t Jun Senoue, its Nick Jennison who BJ did an acoustic set with at Summer of Sonic 2009 (the full solo is epic btw) – Sonic Wrecks confirmed this at announcement.
• Richard Jacques is still involved, this has never changed. (I actually confirmed this on SSMB before S0L did… but no one took any notice of me! /cry)
• It’ll also be on all versions of the game – even DS.