Happy New Year for 2011!

All the very best to you for this coming year, wherever in the world you are!

Paper Mario World 2 is out now!!

Further to my previous post on the subject, I am very pleased to announce that my newest Flash online game, Paper Mario World 2, is now complete and is available to play online for free in my MarioSonicGames.com website.

It is the sequel to the very popular original Paper Mario World game, which is a Flash version of Nintendo's "Paper Mario" and "Super Paper Mario" games that also contains elements of the "Super Mario World" games.

The new game is much larger than the first one with 25 fully side-scrolling levels, and it has a checkpoint/restart function, features an original final boss level plus a special bonus level, and has a much smoother difficulty curve.

Play it here:

  Paper Mario World 2 online game

Download it to put in your own website here:

Paper Mario World 2 game download

(You might also like to check out these other great Mario and Sonic games that you can play online and download for use in your wesbsite - Free Mario and Sonic games)

Oh christ, another Sonic staute from First4Figures..

First4Figures have just revealed on facebook that they have another large Sonic statue in the works which will be ready for pre-order on the 28th of December, and it's none other than Metal Sonic, with glowing eyes! We haven't seen what level the stand will be based on, Now hold on guys, what about the Super Sonic? They still haven't even charged me for it yet let alone sent it out. The wait is becoming unbearable. With that in mind expect this new statue to be shipped out by 2015. Maybe.

These things cost so much, but really: if I was only allowed to own a few pieces of Sonic merchandise, a set of these statues would be them. Plus Metal Sonic is personally my all time favorite character from the series so resisting this will be very difficult. My poor wallet!

WANTED: Flash Games Programmer to work for me

I need a skilled Flash/ActionScript Programmer to work for me making some new exclusive Flash games next year. I will pay the top end of the market rate.

If you're up for the job, please contact me via the email link in MarioSonicGames.com.

Thank you.

Paper Mario World 2 is coming soon!

Big News!! The long-awaited sequel to the hugely popular MarioSonicGames.com exclusive Flash game Paper Mario World is almost complete - it is currently undergoing final testing in the Newgrounds site.

Paper Mario World 2 is bigger than the first game, is fully side-scrolling, has a checkpoint/restart feature and has a smoother difficulty curve - although as with the first game, the new one gets very hard after a while and only the very best gamers out there will be able to fully complete it.

Check out this blog again soon for more details!

Mega Jazwares Update

Sorry I haven't been here in a while, but I have a whole lot of Sonic Toys to show you!

Big has a box and Froggy has a picture! The background is Big the Cats house. Isn't that neet? PERSONAL STORY ALERT: I was at Toys R Us going all like "oh boy i'm going to get Big!" And so I got one and when I was in the car Froggy was missing! He was not in the box at all. Comment if you want to see my misprint.

Clear Purple Espio! I like to call him Invisible Espio. He is exactly like the first one except his color. He is very cheaply made because when I got him out of the box I bent his shoulder and his arm snapped right off! I want to assume this was a shipping problem >_>

They said they where going to make more 5" and they did! Meet Sonic with the white and red Whisp! The Whisp look amazing! Their sculpt is VERY accurate... unless the white one is Yacker. Yacker is at the top of the box. So Merry Christmas getting this.

All Star Racer Tails! You know how I said a sensed creative stop motion with the little one? Well I sense VERY creative stop motion. He has curved hand so he can grasp the handle bars. His plane is a great sculpt and it even came with that little Tails logo. I just wonder how he will fit in the plane?



Jet the Hawk! He is the finale of the update because he is the first one of his kind. He comes with his trademark board and goggles. His sculpt his very well made I must say. His beak looks a little chubby to me if you asked me. But I would buy this figure.













And ROUGE THE BAT is coming out in 2011!



Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Big and Tails from Sonic Gear.

Sega Fan Art of the Year 2010

Now that the Sega Memories DeviantArt group has been around for about a year, here are some of my personal favorites that are featured at the gallery and were submitted to DeviantArt throughout this year.

Depths of South Island by gsliverfish

Outrun by JustinZiarko

More after the jump!

Eighties Drive by Orioto

MEW by Wynturtle

SONIC COLOURS by Syaming-li

 The Creation of Metal Sonic by Nerkin

Ulala by Pyawakit

Mega Drive II Plush by Tavington

 Sega, Segaaaaaa by PersonaSama

Jet Set Radio 10 Poster by ArkadeBurt
 

Beat by Alveeus

Bayonetta 2D Shmup by jnkboy

Honey Girl by magicwinx01577

Alex Kidd in Miracle World by sarsanaga

 PSO FOmarl by sash0

Fantasy Zone by fuzzball288

Seaman by pirpintine

Must read Yu Suzuki Interview at 1UP

Yu Suzuki is the man. He has unfortunately been rather inactive in the gaming world ever since Shenmue tanked, but he is truly the king of arcade gaming, innovating the field time and time again during the 80's and 90's. James Mielke, who works at Q Entertainment has interviewed Yu Suzuki for 1UP and the first part, talking about the early days of his career amongst other things, is up right now with further installments coming up later in the week. It's defiantly worth checking out.

EDIT: Part two is up now. in this part we get a lot of info on the production of Shenmue, why Suzuki has been so quiet lately, and some rather fascinating insights into the production of Space Harrier.

Sonic Colours Pre-Order Figure...with Wisps!

If you are reading this blog, own a Wii and have not played Sonic Colours yet, why are you reading this blog? Go grab this game because it's actually rather good. Not even just rather good but rather brilliant. I know, I was shocked too. I haven't enjoyed a Sonic game this much from beginning to end since probably Sonic & Knuckles, and somehow even the writing and voice acting is light years ahead of "Watch out you're going to crash ahh!" of the Dreamcast days. Blimey.

As many may recall there was a pre-order bonus for this game in America was that now infamous Sonic hat (so much so that there was a whole ice rink of Sonic mad hatters tripping about for the games' launch), but elsewhere in the world we got this figure (above) instead. In Australia and possible some other countries the game came in a special edition box of the game with the figure, but here in the UK it was given in a little bag stapled together by some cardboard and was only available from the catalog store Argos. More after the bump..

 
Argos have also been selling the figure separately for £15, and I presume because of this the figures were not in stock until a week after the game release. Still, I did get the figure in the end, and for what is technically a freebie with the game it's not too bad, though there have been better Sonic figures recently.

 It's very similar to many of the Jazware figures with articulation in a lot of the same places, but it has chunkier arms, huge hands, slightly odd looking pupils and no mouth.

 

The hands also have little holes in them. All this is so the figure can hold the Wisp toys that come with it. You get a orange (ROCKET!), Cyan (LAZER!) and white (erm...boost?) wisp so one of the toys has to be a loner from Sonics' grasp. I tend to just balance the Cyan wisp on Sonics' head, that seems to do the trick.

 Not much to say about the wisp toys: the characters are simple so there was no way they were going to mess these up. They look enough like them so they do their job. It kinda makes me wish there was a set of the rest of the wisps now mind, especially that cube one. Still, these are the first lumps of plastic based on these characters so who knows maybe we'll see more in the future.

And finally just for comparison here it is next to the Black Knight toy and the regular 3" Sonic (or rather the one that came with the All-Stars Racing car), as height wise it stands somewhere between them. he stands a lot better than the Black Knight toy and it's lanky legs despite having the weight of the wisps in it's hands.

So I'm not sure if I'd say it's worth the £15 asking price on its own but included with the game it's a nice addition to the over abundance of blue hedgehogs gathering dust on my shelves, especially when said game was such a pleasant surprise. They even found a way to make the underwater levels FUN. What is this witchcraft Sonic Team have been dabbling in?

10" Sonic and the Sonic PVC 6-pack!

 As 2010 comes to an end, so too does a great year for Sonic toys! This year we saw toymaker Jazwares make a huge step up in quality and number of new figures. Meanwhile, First 4 Figures covered the collectible side of things with an awesome Super Sonic statue and a great collection of PVC figures. Today I thought I'd highlight two recent acquisitions: Jazware's 10" Sonic and First 4 Figures PVC 6-pack!

The 10" Sonic the Hedgehog figure is relatively new, having hit online stores within the past month. The coolest thing about this figure, aside from the impressive likeness, is that it is of the same line as last year's 10" Metal Sonic.

The figure shares the same dimensions as 10" Metal and resembles the most recent Sonic design, as seen in Unleashed and Colors. Personally, I really love this iteration! Not as lankly as what we saw in Sonic '06, and not as freaky as what we saw in the Sonic Adventure artwork.

As you can see, the figure is very articulated. The box touts over 12 points, with everything from joints to even wrists and ankles receiving joints. The one weak point is the figure's hands. While I really like the thumbs up and fist pairing, others may not like how this limits Sonic to giving a thumbs up, thumbs down and a punch. Still, for under $15 this is a great figure!

Sonic and Metal decide to relive old memories and pose in front of the Sonic CD box art

Classic and modern

My only complains about the figure is that they oddly chose to have the circle on Sonic's chest cut off just below the pivot point of his waist. Also, my figure had a small space between where Sonic's left eye met his muzzle. But those are two minor complains, overall this figure is a must have. Especially if one already owns the 10" Metal.

Next up is First 4 Figures PVC 6-pack! The pack collects series 1 and 2 of the individually released Sonic figurines, featuring the classic Genesis era designs. From my knowledge, this is the only way for Americans to acquire the set, as I don't think the individual figures were sold here in stores. Gagaman already covered Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Metal, so I'll show off Super Sonic and Amy Rose.

I never thought I'd say this, but Amy Rose is my favorite of the set! Why? Because it's the classic Amy as seen in Sonic CD! I always thought it was a shame that classic Amy never carried over to the Dreamcast games, as the tennis shoes and tutu combo are the bomb. I secretly dream of a world where big black sunglasses, tutus and big bulky tennis shoes make a return.

 Super Sonic is pretty cool, though I prefer the levitating screaming Super Saiyan powering up pose to this. It's almost like Sonic is shaking his fist at those kids who won't stay off his lawn. Or maybe he is vowing revenge on Metal Sonic after catching him in the act with Amy Rose. Must have been Stockholm syndrome:

DRAMA!

The Sonic PVC 6-pack can be found on First 4 Figures website for the reasonable price of $30. When you figure that each figure sells for $5 each and that the Super Sonic and Metal Sonic are quite hard to find individually, it's a good price. These definitely get the "Buy it!" recommendation from me.

Stay tuned to SEGA Memories, I have a very cool item on the way from Japan that I can't wait to write about!

Bonus photos:

Sonic Colors is out now on the Nintendo Wii and DS

"Sonic Colors" for the Nintendo Wii and DS is out in North America today. (It was released in Europe on November 12th.)

It is a platform game in the classic Sonic style, with a mix of 2D side-scrolling and 3D third-person action in the Wii version (a little like, although much better than, 2008's "Sonic Unleashed").

Both the Wii and DS versions have received very good reviews, with Metacritic giving around 80% to both, and IGN giving 8.5/10 to both, for example. In particular, IGN gave it an Editor's Choice Award and called it "the best Sonic game in 18 years". High praise indeed!

It's been a very good time for new high quality Sonic games just recently, what with the release of "Sonic the Hedgehog 4 - Episode 1" last month and "Sonic Free Riders" two weeks ago. Happy days! :-)

The Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love Premium Pack!

While SEGA's Sakura Taisen franchise is insanely popular in Japan, having a number of main series games and spin-offs spanning the Saturn era through to the Dreamcast and Playstation 2, it has had little presence in English speaking regions. The fifth game in the series, Sakura Taisen V: Farewell, My Love, hit the Japanese PS2 in 2005. It wasn't until 5 years later that the game received a very unexpected English language version. The PS2 received a handsome special edition box (America only from what I can tell) while the Wii received a standard version (which hit both America and Europe). While the game released back in March, it wasn't until this weekend that I got around to picking up a copy for $30 at GameStop, marked down $10.

So what does this awesome box contain? Let's take a look!

As SEGA Memories is all about the non-game stuff, I'll leave any gameplay impressions or story summaries out of this and just take a look at the paper goodies. Packed into the box is a large instruction manual, a classy art book and a poster.

The art book is unique in that it not only presents a number of character drawings, but also is presented as if it was a promotional flier for the fictional New York theater from the game.

The girl seen above is not Ariel, it's actually Gemini Sunrise the cowgirl and leading lady of the game.

Wow, they actually autographed it!

The end of the booklet features a few maps of the theater as well as a full employee listing.

Next up is the poster, featuring Gemini in her cowgirl garb. The drawing is done in watercolor and is just about the size of those posters that were included in SEGA Genesis games.

YeeHaw!

Overall it's a very cool package! While I have little to say about the series, as I don't know too much about it, the 1920's New York setting coupled with giant robots and cowgirls makes Sakura Wars: So Long My Love a game I very much look forward to playing! Now if only I could get my PS2 to work...