Hi guys, following my victory at last over Sonic 1 I’ve had to update my profile “facts” if you’re interested - but what I’m on here today about is that I’ve just uploaded over 60 photos to our Flickr account of various bits of merchandise (mostly Sonic related).

This all comes from a massive box of items that were owed me from the main SEGA HQ which was dragged into SEGAAUK HQ last Friday. I never realised there were so many Sonic X t-shirts created, o_0* now naturally most of you will be too big to actually wear such but at least you can see all these Japanese/US designs. There are also some real oddments that might interest you.

Take this one for instance - it’s a T-shirt emblazoned with the Sonic 06 logo - but clearly shows artwork for Sonic & The Secret Rings. FEEL THE HEAVENS TREMBLE!

And look at this, it’s a DREAM KEY - 3.0 even - we’ve still got loads of these at SEGAAUK HQ, they belong to the Customer Support boys. So if for some reason you ever need one… (we’ve got 3.1 as well).

There are other things too though Sonic related, I recently bought Sonic Jam on the Saturn solely for the “museum”.

Then there’s mini finger skateboard - remember those? Well it was actually a give away for Sonic Riders and it’s travelled a long way to get here.

Clearly the best though, ignoring my Shadow plushie OBVIOUSLY, is this sketch we received in the post as a thankyou to the Community Team (*cough*me*cough*) for the work done with NiGHTS and NiGHTSintoDreams.com.

Great isn’t it? You can check out all 101 (crumbs)  items of “SEGA Merchandise”on our Flickr account at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/segaeurope/sets/72157604344751201/

AAUK

You ArchangelUK? Busy? Surely not!

Yes, I’m very busy working on about 12 different fronts at the moment what with Iron Man, Hulk and Samba lurking on the horizon to name but three.

At this time I thought I’d take a moment out from my usual disgruntled octopus impressions behind my desk to have a chat about some things that are going on at SEGAAUK HQ atm. Firstly I’m endeavouring to add to our little museum of merchandise, I’ve been taking photos of things and you can see them on our Flickr page. Please note most of the things currently on display are actually mine. Heh heh.

As you know, I’m the Sonic fan in charge of all manner of things Sonic at SOE Online, but one thing that has always eluded me was the finishing of earlier Sonic games, something I’ve never made any secret of. But last week (albeit on my 360) I finally completed Sonic 1 - a personal bane of my existence. Wooooooo!

Something I’m particularly working on at the moment is a grand plan, so grand it should really get an extra e slapped on the end and become grande. Come to think of it I’m actually working on several grande plans at the moment, the first is a certain rather large Sonic based get-together you may (or may not) be aware of at this stage…

The second however relates to what will essentially be Sonic City 3.0, yeahh, since A Race To Name interest broke Sonic City and took out a rather large sway of sega-europe.com in the resulting explosion, SC has been offline. Whoops, perhaps A Race To Name wasn’t that good an idea of mine after all! ^_^*

What I’m doing at the moment though is sorting out the site tree, putting together what will be the proposed layout of the new Sonic City and what it will contain. Naturally, I’m taking the opportunity to put in everything you’ve asked for and all the things I want to add in as well to make Sonic City truly great. It was great before I know, but I want this to literally be SUPER Sonic City.

So yes I’ve listed down things like mentioning the comics and cartoons, lost characters/games, etc though whether this will happen will depend upon the powers that be. *Thunder/Lightning~!*

What do you think? Let us know. More soon…
AAUK

A quick little heads-up to you guys, the Mario & Sonic sprint contest will be ending on April 1st.  Unfortunately due to the demands of my many SEGA masters I’ve not been able to update the tables but I’m going to do so tomorrow if I possibly can.  Keep those coming in - the draw for the Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity SEGA Pass newsletter contest will also be made then.

Does anyone remember SEGA Splash! Golf?

No?

Well you might at any rate, a trailer came out for it some time ago.  The premise is that you have a variety of humans playing golf and you live out their lives in a cel-shaded environment with Sonic, Tails and even NiGHTS available to be your caddies - the caddies having the ability to give you special shots.  It looked really nice.

Well I’ve been asking questions as I wondered where the heck it went, apparently the game is out now in the East on PC, however it is only for the “Asian Markets” and will not be appearing over in the West.

Boo hiss.

So if you want this game to come out over here, all I can say is start making noise.

Got some great stuff coming up for you this week - the Chronicles poll for instance?

It’s great to know even those involved knew so little about Brawl, I was speaking to Richard Jacques on some things not necessarily relating to The Club Q&A (a coming soon to the main blogs, FYI) and he just found out Super Sonic Racing was included in the game - no one had told him!

Those deal-breakers and their ways - shine on you crazy diamonds!

Whilst you’ve likely seen it around YouTube etc, the Smash Bros. Dojo today confirmed that Green Hill Zone appears as a stage within Smash Bros. Brawl.  There are also three cameo appearances within the level which adds to Shadow’s appearance as an assist trophy.

Tails, Knuckles and… Silver(???) are running around in the background with Tails in the lead of the three. Even though they are background cameos the Dojo kindly proved they had been lovingly recreated. Of course this means I’ll have to update the Sonic City profiles again. Blast.

Prower > McCloud. (So there.)

That fountain of knowledge Wikipedia is claiming that Shadow appears as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.  This has not been shown by the Dojo yet, however with the game already shipped in Japan the information has appeared online and could well be valid.

With Sonic appearing in the game it shouldn’t be too big a surprise, though I’m still hoping for a King Dedede reskin as Amy as that makes the most sense to me.  Hammers unite, etc. Hey, I’m still upset they’ve not seen fit to add Krystal into the game - staff fighter, female, a new Star Fox character to replace Falco? Ticks all the boxes. Bah, I’m rambling.

Apparently Shadow uses Chaos Control to slow down opponants, presumably before going off somewhere to blow things up like the bad ass he is.

If anyone has proof of any of this let us know.

A little random maths title for you there…

While we wait patiently for a new studio album from them (hint hint Jun) Crush 40 fans can keep up to date with the activities of Mr Senoue and Mr Gioeli on their new official mySpace page.

http://www.myspace.com/crush40official

See it says “official” in the url. Fancy that.

Of course we’ve just had a new track off of Crush 40 on the True Blue album which was sitting on my desk this morning (along with the NiGHTS: JoD triple soundtrack).  When I gain the use of a time machine to access a greater than 24 hour day I shall review the album track by track on Sonic City.

All owners of Sonic plushies should be on the look out as a notorious thief of Rouge proportions (no, not those proportions) has been sneaking around our offices trying his best to steal my Shadow plushie.

This individual has been heard as saying that he does not possess such a styled plush in his collection and has on several occasions tried to sneak it back to his hideous lair. We assume his lair is indeed hideous, however photographic evidence cannot be provided at this time.

There he is….

He goes by the name of “Miles Jacobson”, apparently getting him to say his name backwards banishes him to another dimension but we haven’t tried this yet.

You may know him as the Managing Director of Sports Interactive - which surely you’d've thought means he can afford a plushie of his own.

All Sonic fans should beware this man - look at him, he’s obviously eyeing up your collection right now!

 Lock up your merchandise - he walks amongst you….

The full listing of new Sonic CD “True Blue” has been announced, the title is at this moment scheduled for release on January 29th in Japan only but I know a minor issue like that won’t stop a lot of you so here is the track listing:

01. LIVE & LEARN (From Sonic Adventure 2)
02. IT DOESN’T MATTER (Sonic Adventure 2 Version)
03. ESCAPE FROM THE CITY (From Sonic Adventure 2)
04. HIS WORLD (From Sonic The Hedgehog)
05. SUPER SONIC RACING (From Sonic R)
06. SONIC - YOU CAN DO ANYTHING (From Sonic CD)
07. SONIC BOOM (From Sonic CD)
08. SONIC SPEED RIDERS (From Sonic Riders)
09. RACE TO WIN (From Sonic Rivals 2)
10 SONIC X THEME
11. RIGHT THERE and RIDE ON (From Sonic Rush)
12. SONIC HEROES (From… er, yes…)
13 WHAT I’M MADE OF… (From Sonic Heroes)
14. SEVEN RINGS IN HAND (From Sonic & The Secret Rings)
15. HIS WORLD (Zebrahead Version)
16 IT DOESN’T MATTER (Sonic Adventure Version)
17. OPEN YOUR HEART (From Sonic Adventure)

It also features four bonus tracks in the form of -

18 A NEW VENTURE (Surfin’ S.R.A. Remix)
19. ANGEL ISLAND ZONE (SSBB Remix)
20. SEVEN RINGS IN HAND (Crush 40 Version)
21 OPEN YOUR HEART (Crush 40 vs. Bentley Jones Remix)

Personally, those last four tracks are a pretty exciting prospect - to those of you wondering who in the blue blur Bentley Jones is, he is of course the artist formally known as Lee Brotherton.  Well, I’ve had a word and he’ll hopefully be popping up in a couple of weeks (if not sooner) on Sonic City to talk about what he’s currently up to, the new remix and other things. Stay tuned.

The only thing I’m disappointed by is the lack of the Gunnar Nelson and the Team Chaotix theme from Sonic Heroes. It’s a disgrace! Sing along now: “TEAM CHA-O-TIX they’re detectives, you want on your siiiide…”

Yeah.