Well the contest is over and I’m pleased to say that through hard work and a dilligence MetalSonic75  trounced everyone with a Mii/Shadow combo to win both DS and Wii tables as a result he’ll be getting his hands on autographed goodies from a certain Naka-san and Ogawa-san.

Congrats!

Apologies for this delays on all this guys; in recompense I’m extending the deadline and giving you until FRIDAY 4TH APRIL now to submit your times with proof (video prefereably) to blogs@sega-europe.com. At the moment MetalSonic75 is MILES ahead of everyone on both versions and looks like scooping both prizes - only YOU can do something about it! Updated tables below including vid of the new DS sprint leader time:

WII SPRINT TABLE

[1] Metalsonic75 (Mii) - 9.267
[2] —ArchangelUK’s Time —(Shadow) - 9.400
[3] LadyHedgehog18 (Shadow) - 9.542

DS SPRINT TABLE

[1] MetalSonic75 (Shadow) - 9.098
[2] Sonic Stadium: Sonic_Freak (Shadow) - 9.342
[3] Charles Barton (Sonic) - 9.399
[4] Sonic Yoda (Shadow) - 9.417
[5] Sonic Cage Dome: Mike Taylor (Sonic) - 9.438
[6] — ArchangelUK’s Time — (Sonic) - 9.448
[7] Shadow Urtheart (Sonic) - 9.455
[8] T-Bird (Sonic) - 9.628
[9] Sonic Stadium: Dreadknux (Sonic) - 9.654
[10] Sonic Spriters Network: Roareye Black (Sonic) - 9.789
[11] Sonic Spriters Network: Violet (Sonic) - 9.861
[12] Diogo (Sonic) - 9.886
[13] Fastfeet Media: Foreversonic (Shadow) - 9.891
[14] Emerald Coast: Vger (Shadow) - 10.010
[15] SEGA Sonic Radio: Roarey Raccoon (Sonic) - 10.10

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.

I was beginning to fear people had forgotten about this, but the M&S Sprint Challenge (not just any sprint challenge, but a M&S sprint challenge) has gained new entrants - with YouTube video proof!

LadyHedgehog18

and

MetalSonic75

If you see he’s very cleverly used a Mii character, there’s nothing to say you can’t do that! :) 

Remember the winner of the Wii version will win a Sonic & The Secret Rings skyscraper poster signed by Ogawa-san himself!  The updated tables are below- keep sending in your entries to blogs@sega-europe.com.

 WII SPRINT TABLE
[1] Metalsonic75 (Mii) - 9.287
[2] ArchangelUK (Shadow) - 9.400
[3] LadyHedgehog18 (Shadow) - 9.542

DS SPRINT TABLE
[1] Sonic Yoda (Shadow) - 9.417
[2] Sonic Cage Dome: Mike Taylor (Sonic) - 9.438
[3] ArchangelUK (Sonic) - 9.448
[4] Shadow Urtheart (Sonic) - 9.455
[5] T-Bird (Sonic) - 9.628
[6] Sonic Stadium: Dreadknux (Sonic) - 9.654
[7] Sonic Spriters Network: Roareye Black (Sonic) - 9.789
[8] Sonic Spriters Network: Violet (Sonic) - 9.861
[9] Diogo (Sonic) - 9.886
[10] Fastfeet Media: Foreversonic (Shadow) - 9.891
[11] Emerald Coast: Vger (Shadow) - 10.010
[12] SEGA Sonic Radio: Roarey Raccoon (Sonic) - 10.10

There was due to be, yesterday, a Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (out Feb 22nd on PS2 and Wii) community day but it had to be aborted alas.  Still a couple of the guys were going to meet up ay our regular community haunt the Euston Flyer so I naturally decided it was prudent to leave work early and meet them.

Now, those of you in the know will be aware my birthday on Saturday didn’t exactly go to plan, actually that’s rather an understatement, so imagine my surprise when I entered to find “a couple of the guys” was actually pretty much a full turn out.  The get together was actually a surprise birthday party for me, wool kept over my eyes with the aid of Dave K and a certain Ninja.

I had presents, a smashing card and a cake. A CAKE! Hopefully Rory will have a picture of it somewhere, it was a crafted by Mrs T-Bird and featured an iced Shadow on top (it was also delicious FYI). 

I was rather taken aback by all this stuff done just for me, so I took the opportunity to tell them the prize for the Mario & Sonic 100m sprint challenge. The winner of the Wii table will get a large skyscraper style poster of Sonic & The Secret Rings signed by Ogawa-san.  The winner of the DS table a Sonic Heroes t-shirt… signed by Yuji Naka!

All of a sudden DSes were being removed from jackets and bags and other hidey-holes and people started desperately trying to improve their DS times.  Some with more success than others if truth be told.  Now I know some of you are saying “yeah yeah, I’ve gone sooo much faster I can take them any time” but perhaps you’d like to prove it?

Send in your video clips on YouTube and general M&S related fun to blogs@sega-europe.com remember. What are you waiting for??

The result of all this was that we have a new leader! I’ve even been knocked down to third (we’ll see about that…), Sonic Yoda used Shadow and managed to clock a time of 9.417 moving up from eighth to top the table, Mike Taylor also made a massive improvement whilst Roareye Black finally gave up on Waluigi and joined the Sonic club posting a much improved time.

New tables are below:

DS SPRINT TABLE
[1] Sonic Yoda (Shadow) - 9.417
[2] Sonic Cage Dome: Mike Taylor (Sonic) - 9.438
[3] ArchangelUK (Sonic) - 9.448
[4] Shadow Urtheart (Sonic) - 9.455
[5] T-Bird (Sonic) - 9.628
[6] Sonic Stadium: Dreadknux (Sonic) - 9.654
[7] Sonic Spriters Network: Roareye Black (Sonic) - 9.789
[8] Sonic Spriters Network: Violet (Sonic) - 9.861
[9] Diogo (Sonic) - 9.886
[10] Fastfeet Media: Foreversonic (Shadow) - 9.891
[11] Emerald Coast: Vger (Shadow) - 10.010
[12] SEGA Sonic Radio: Roarey Raccoon (Sonic) - 10.100

 WII SPRINT TABLE
[1] ArchangelUK (Shadow) - 9.400

Firstly you can check out the new M&SATOG DS Trailer below or from our YouTube account.

Last Monday I was host at the Wii flat to several bloggers sites and in the afternoon a bunch of Sonic community guys where we hung out, ate nice food and drank nice beverages all whilst playing the game.  The general consensus was that it was a blast and some of us are meeting up again tomorrow to play M&S and hang out.

Now one of the things I asked people to do before they left was to place a 100m time on Mario & Sonic DS. Why would I do that? Well nothing on these blogs is without being part of some kind of terrifying scheme.  I want to find out who the fastest person out there on Mario & Sonic is.  So I want you to send in your video clips on YouTube and photos of your times (and general M&S related fun) to blogs@sega-europe.com.

I’ll be running this on both DS and Wii versions - the fastest person will win a prize pack after a couple of months of playing lets say and I’ll keep the contest open probably indefinitely - obviously I myself don’t count.

As we didn’t have any Wii’s at the Wii flat (they were locked in a safe as it happens) I could not get everyone’s time but you have to beat.

WII SPRINT TABLE
[1] ArchangelUK (Shadow) - 9.400

DS SPRINT TABLE
[1] ArchangelUK (Sonic) - 9.448
[2] T-Bird (Sonic) - 9.628
[3] Sonic Stadium: Dreadknux (Sonic) - 9.654
[4] Shadow Urtheart (Sonic) - 9.831
[5] Sonic Cage Dome: Mike Taylor (Sonic) - 9.843
[6] Diogo (Sonic) - 9.886
[7] Fastfeet Media: Foreversonic (Shadow) - 9.891
[8] Sonic Yoda (Sonic) - 9.971
[9] Emerald Coast: Vger (Shadow) - 10.01
[10] Sonic Spriters Network: Violet (Sonic) - 10.093
[11] Sonic Spriters Network: Roareye Black (Waluigi) - 10.337

Lots of people used Sonic it seems, but don’t think its not possible to get to the top of the tree with other characters.  I’ve had 9.559 on DS with Shadow so… get sprinting!

PS: You MUST send in proof!
PPS: ALWAYS use a screen protector.

Hi guys, we’ve just put out the SOE trailer for Mario & Sonic DS which you can find below via our YouTube channel or alternatively if you’re one of our Facebook friends it’ll be added to our videos section there as well.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Blognik here in 2008, but what an end to 2007 we had: Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games destroyed all comers in the All Format chart and rode high at number one for a fortnight – amazing when you consider it was only available on the Wii. It sold more in a week than any other Wii game and would have captured the Christmas No.1 too but we simply ran out of copies!

I’ll be bringing you details soon of a little M&S internal competition we’re going to be having at SEGAAUK HQ in the near future, as well as something you can get involved in. More on this soon.

Sonic & The Secret Rings also dominated the Wii charts back in March snagging number one spot, whilst Sonic Rush Adventure got a whopping 92% from Official Nintendo Magazine and even snared a rare 10/10 from top fansite Sonic Stadium. PSP owners weren’t out of Sonic action either with Sonic Rivals 2 which is steadfastly refusing to budge despite massive pressure from the PSP Top 5.

Of course in 2008 we’ve so much to look forward to as well from Sonic: Mario & Sonic return this time to the DS on February 8th with new DS exclusive events such as Boxing and Dream Shoot (Coconuts makes a cameo ^_^) I’ll be telling you all about that soon enough no doubt.

Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity is coming your way and is currently slated for release on February 22nd for both PS2 and Nintendo Wii. I for one am really looking forward to this particular title – again expect information on this SRZG to come thick and fast in the run up to launch.

SEGA Superstars Tennis of course is another game featuring Sonic – expect blogs on the subject to move over to the main SEGA blog in the future incidentally. That’s currently down for March 28th and features Sonic, Amy and Dr.Eggman as well as other SEGA favourites such as Samba, Ulala and NiGHTS.

Speaking of our favourite androgynous jester his first game in 11 years finally hits European shores on January 18th in the UK and 25th everywhere else – conquer your nightmares once again, this time on Nintendo Wii.

Then of course there’s Sonic RPG – Bioware’s offering for the DS which we’ll find out more in time no doubt, including its confirmed title. I’m sure we’ll be hearing lots about that title in the near future.

And that’s all to come, of course there’s one more appearance Sonic is making this year: the Smash Bros. Brawl Dojo decided it was about time they gave us some more Sonic details but waited until Christmas Day to do it; firstly they confirmed a Jun Senoue remixed version of Angel Island from (like you need telling) Sonic 3, will feature as one of the tracks on the music player.

We also got more details about Sonic’s Super Smash move where our spiky mascot goes Super in order to dish out some S-Ranked punishment. The screenshots show a much clearer Sonic than the clip seen previously in the Brawl introductory video and from a personal, if somewhat nerdy point of view they have thankfully gotten rid of the “8 zillion emeralds” transformation and now just the seven emeralds in their recognised colours appear.

Here’s to accuracy!

That remixed track of Angel Island from Brawl by the way is apparently going to appear on new Sonic music collection CD “True Blue” which covers 15 years worth of Sonic music. It’s also rumoured to possibly contain the Remix Factory/Lee Brotherton remix of Open Your Heart which has been conspicuously absent since its announcement in 2006.

Now it being the season of giving, I was of course delighted to find that SEGAAUK HQ was bombarded with a series of gifts for me from terrifyingly obsessed community members and friends of the Blognik.

T-Bird was very generous in his presentation of not only the QI annual - presumably he’s hoping the next series (F) will feature Fang (Nack). I received a package from Australia from Sonic well known Sonic fan artist Elson “Darkspeeds” Wong who sent me a copy of his comic.

Yes, you read that right, he’s gotten a comic published - “The Grand ASHWORTH Fortune” which even managed to impress my mum, which is rather like Superman praising the healing powers of Kryptonite. So, if anthropomorphic animals are your thing feel free to check out http://ashworth.darkspeeds.com/ as I’ll certainly be investing in the further ASHWORTH adventures. Lastly in a true example of shameless plugging Discoponies sent me a t-shirt emblazoned with the new Sonic Show logo plus TWO BAGS badges that presumably he wants me to distribute to high-ups in a sneaky way.

Sneak. Sneak. Sneak.
He also sent me a card with a very rude message in it. So nuts to that.

Thank you to all of you who sent in goodwill messages and such during the holidays as well as those of you who sent in cards and other items. We were pleased you enjoyed our little exclusive for Christmas, I’d best get on with trying to get you more stuff!

Well, we’ve not had any of those “interferences” for a while have we? This is largely due to the fact several clever sticks were able to decode the encrypted messages that were from Metal Sonic so we don’t have to worry about him marching into the office going “DESTROY!” and whirling about the place in his black shield knocking over cups, stacks of paper and destroying our mini-golf course.

If you were interested, the messages read as follows:

Instance 1

SONIC RIVALS 2

CONFIRMED - EXISTANCE OF METAL SONIC THREE POINT ZERO; PRESENTLY TRACKING TARGET ACROSS PENINSULAR HEADING NORTH NORTH-EAST.

OBJECTIVE: CHAO LOCATION.
LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
PASS NUMBER: SIX.

Instance 2

METAL SONIC TO DOCTOR EGGMAN:
AS REQUESTED HAVE LOCATED THE ULTIMATE LIFE FORM, HAVE INFORMED HIM OF THE SITUATION AND WE ARE OF ACCORD WITH YOUR WISHES
UNKNOWN INTERFERENCE ON THIS FREQUENCY; SELF-DIAGNOSTICS ENGAGED.

ADDITIONAL ENCRYPTION NUMERIC FOUR

Instance 3

PROCEEDING TO CO-ORDINATES…

INTERFERENCE STILL OCCURING ADDITIONAL
ENCRYPTION: PLUS TWO
SEEKING OUT SOURCE OF DISRUPTION AND WILL DESTROY.

Yes, well like I said thankfully he didn’t. You’ll take it from that the code was supposed to be 642 and the following people will have a Rivals 2 t-shirt winging its way to them as chosen at random by the office Chao:

P.Sims, Leeds
S.Shirley, Norwich
D.Maybury, Birmingham
P.Elthorpe, Middleton
J.Becker, Oppenheim, Germany
J.Cartlidge, Stafford
D.Rato, London
I.Reichert, London
B.Copeman, Bury St.Edmunds
and Adam “T-Bird” Tuff from PARTS UNKNOWN~!

Congratulations as well to our French fan C.Alberti of St.Sauveur De Monagut - he won the Mario and Sonic goodies bonanza from the opening of Sonic City, second prize winners have been contacted. 

The answers were that the three “royal” characters in the game were the trinity of princesses Blaze, Daisy and Peach - we would not accept Bowser and I’m sorry but Luigi? No, okay, just no.  As for the traditional home of the Olympics, that we either accepted as Athens or Olympia.

Don’t forget there’s still time to enter the Christmas Newsletter competition for the chance to win a bunch of Sonic X goodies as well as a limited edition statuette of our blue friend. We’ll be making the draw for that next Monday, the question was “What is the name of Santa’s reindeer in chief?” send your answer to blogs@sega-europe.com

I’ll be hitting you with a proper “Welcome to 2008″ blog very soon, stay frosty.

AAUK

What we have below is the first of a series of game play trailers that I’ve been giving out to Mario & Sonic websites and will continue to be doing over the next few weeks. Well, not over Christmas, but you kind of gathered that I hope?

Apparnently the new blogs don’t like YouTube atm, so you’ll find it at this link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw9fv_UC8JI

The various trailers have been doing the rounds, but now they are going to be put up here. I’ll also be getting in contact with winners of the Blognik 4×4 by the end of today too.