Those 'Sega Gals' Return

Oh the humanity!

Waaaaay back before I read or wrote for this blog, Gagaman wrote about some awesome Sega Gals capsule toys. Since finding and reading that post, I knew I had to get me some Sega gals! So, after a few months of occasionally checking ebay, I found the first series of six for a cool $24. As Gagaman already covered Ulala and Arle, I'll share the other four famous gals.

First up is one of my favorites from the first series of gals, Sarah Bryant of Virtua Fighter fame, specifically Virtua Fighter 4. I'm not an expert on action figures, but the paintjob is very nice. The gloss used for her body suit makes for a great feux leather.

"Better run home to Mama now."

The next gal is a classic, the female newman Nei from Phantasy Star II. Nei was easy to assemble, until it came to cutting her tiny claw weapons from a little model mold. One wrong move and she would have broken a nail!
Behind Nei's thigh, in the photo above, is a concept drawing of her. While you can't see it, the resemblance is uncanny. Almost as though she were ripped from the game and placed into a capsule toy machine.


Our third gal (yeesh, I feel like I'm hosting a Miss America pagent) is a lesser known from the 1992 Sega arcade game Arabian Fight (did you catch the cheesy thing they did with the title?). Ramaya isn't my favorite of the series, mostly because I have no clue who she is outisde a breif mention in a Wikipedia article and a few screen shots. Also, her feet were hell to get on. You can still see that they're not fully attached. Poor gal...


Finally we come to a Sega gal who had such a strong presence in her game, yet appeared for only a brief few seconds. It's Red Ring Rico of the Dreamcast's Phantasy Star Online! Rico mostly appears in text form throughout the game, speaking to the player via old journal entries. It isn't until the final boss that [SPOILERS] Rico's soul escapes from the defeated Dark Falz. As one who played PSO, I have to admit that I rarely read the optional journal entries from Rico. So once I reached the final boss, I assumed Rico was actually the villian of the game and not a victim. Watch Rico in her blink and you'll miss her appearance.


Here are all the gals, happy on a shelf together.


Overall, the 'Sega Gals' capsule collection is excellent. Very few duds, if any, and it can be found at decent prices. Even individual figures only sell for $5 to $8 each.

Sega's project Needmouse Badnik Challenge

Ok, so now Sega is really pulling at my heart strings with their project Needlemouse hype. While I'd love for them to just give us a darn screenshot or video already, they made me very happy by revealing a piece of concept art a couple weeks ago of a classic badnik. Shell Cracker from Sonic 2, to be specific:

Now as you may already know, the badniks were always one of my favorite elements of the classic Sonic games: they were like the Pokemon of my childhood I suppose. Every zone had about 3 or 4 unique designs that did unqiue things and more often than not looked totally bad-ass or just plain silly, bit very well designed either way.

Now Sega's blog has decided to set up a challenge to get people to send them at least 100 pieces of badnik fanart, asking for one badnik you'd like to see from any of the original games (Game Gear titles, Sonic CD and Chaotix included). They want these posted in the comments section of the blog entry by Monday morning. 


The reward? A screenshot or video? bah! Not yet! But we will get concept art of the first zone, a reveal of the final title (all bets from the community have been on Sonic the Hedgehog 4) and 'something else special'. So probably more concept art then. As a treat they have also posted concept art of another badnik that is defiantly in: Motobug!


God dammit, I hate getting excited for a new Sonic game, it always leads to disappointment! Mind you, the return of the badniks is just the right thing to give me some faith in this: even if the game doesn't turn out to be the return to glory we hope at least those awesome little bastards are back. Check out my fanart showcase on badniks, and this toy set I own featuring a bunch of badnik figures, if you haven't seen them already.

Either way I'm entering something (if just as an excuse to draw a badnik) and will post it later. Post your entries here in the comments (though don't forget to post them at Sega's official blog too)! For references, the badniks section of Sonic Retro's wiki is very handy.

Edit: Well here's my quick attempt at drawing one of my old favorites Ball Hog:

Sonic Spinball @ Alton Towers in February

I'm sure many of you have probably already heard about this by now, but it couldn't be more appropriate to mention here, what with all our nostalgia fueled posts about London's old SegaWorld park and the reveal of Sega Republic in Dubai. While it's hardly the same as having a new Sega park here in the UK again, it's about as close as we're gonna get at this point: a Sonic Ride at Alton Towers!


Apparently this ride has been here for years already under the name 'Spinball Wizard', so naming it after the Mega Drive pinball game makes perfect sense. No photos of how it will look after the re-theme are out yet, so we don't know to what extent it'll be Sonic themed though the press release does mention the ride will contain 'Sonic's favorite music' so with any luck Green Hill Zone tunes will be blasting out of it rather than say...Bentley Jones. Ugh.

A Sonic themed room in the Alton Towers hotel is also planned, which again we have nothing but this cheesy photos of the derp-derp-derp Sonic costume guy above. The deal with Sega is set for three years and the lanuch of all this is the 13th of Feb. The logo of the ride is a nice touch: it's a sort of re-make of the original Mega Drive game logo. Kind of.

More news on this when it pops up, including photos with any luck!

JSRF Gets Larger Than Life

The world of Jet Set Radio merchandise is a small one. Even the most avid collector could only fill a single shelf with what Sega has to offer. Thankfully a company thought outside the shelf by applying the JSRF license to large-format repositionable wall graphics!


LTL Prints, the company responsible, was founded in late 2008 by by entrepreneurs Kendall Schoenrock and Carsten Petzold. Taken from their own "about" page: "We set out to create a platform for creative expression that would bring larger-than-life repositionable wall graphics to empty walls everywhere," according to LTLprints founder Kendall Schoenrock. "And we are working with the worlds' premier artists, designers, and brands to literally CREATE a new medium."


VP of Marketing John Doffing was nice enough to get me in touch with Kendall and Carsten, and I was surprised to find out that both LTL Prints and myself are located within in the same city (Philadelphia)! What more, I was a short ten minute subway ride from their HQ! So taking an extended lunch break, I headed on over to LTL Prints. Once there, I was greeted by Kendall and Carsten and was able to have a look about. The printer they use is enormous, think "the grand piano of printers", while the walls of their office was covered in a variety of images available on their online catalog.

An example from the LTL catalog, laptop sizes go for $14.99

Carsten revealed to me that JSRF was VP of Marketing John Doffling's idea. “we did JSRF as the first video game license for one simple reason: cel-shaded characters look AMAZING as big wall graphics and I personally LOVED this game! I approached SEGA directly to make it happen, and we just launched!" said an enthusiastic Doffling, "I personally am a huge fan and proponent of VIDEO GAME ART, and this new medium is a perfect way to bring this artwork to consumers globally."

Before I left LTL, I asked what other Sega licenses they were considering. Carsten turned the question around and asked what I'd like to see. Of course, any Sega image would look awesome on a wall (with the exception of maybe Silver the Hedgehog), but I limited my requests to Virtua Fighter, Outrun, Space Harrier, HangOn, After Burner, Panzer Dragoon (Saga and Orta), classic Japanese Sonic art and the original Jet Set Radio (which LTL actually has some images of, though they aren't seen in the catalog... yet).

Before leaving, LTL was nice enough to let me choose a JSRF image from their catalog to place on my wall and to share with all of you! Of course, I chose my favorite character Bis (aka Bisu aka Rhyth aka Mew) holding an iconic yellow spray can. Take a look at my hanging process below:

Note that LTL's prints are fabric, not vinyl, so there is no fear of ripping. The adhesive will not damage walls or stick to skin or any other surface in the way that a usual sticker would.



Upon applying Bisu, I discovered that she was crooked and that her arm was going behind the shelf. Thankfully, LTL promises that their prints can be moved 100 times without losing adhesion. So after a few removals and readhesions, Bisu was in place!

Special thanks to LTL Prints. Head on over to look at their extensive JSRF catalog. Even the electric police fences got their own page!

Sonic race track revisions, or just better paint jobs?

Just over a year ago I posted probably way too much text and too many photos of the 'Super Sonic Racing System' set and it's broken Sonic and tails slot cars. Well Debenhams were having a 75% off sale and still had some sets left over so I picked one up for a measly £4.50 to replace my broken set. Seems the pain jobs on the cars of this set are much better than my previous set. Either it's a luck of the draw how good the set you get is or they sacked however gave Sonic bags under his eyes and the colours all sloppy and not quite matching the artwork.

Have a look for yourself (new one on left, old on right):

There are some other subtle differences too, like the pole holding the two back wheels are longer and the characters seem to be more up right (espcially the Tails of which the old is practically facing the floor) but that's just me going into autistic levels of comparison. I haven't tried the set to see how many minutes it will actually work, but to be honest I probably won't bother. Now if the track had a loop and rings likethe original concept art that;d be a different story...

Bayonetta Developers = Nostalgic Sega Nutters

Unless you're a Sega fan who has been sitting in a locked room with your fingers in your ears yelling "La-La-La-La!"(something many of us considered doing when it was announced that the Dreamcast was being discontinued) you'll know that Bayonetta releases today in the US and this Friday in Europe.

Minor spoilers below

Developed by Platinum Games and directed by Hideki Kamiya (of Devil May Cry fame), Bayonetta may seem like a third party game with Sega merely acting as publisher. But after thirty minutes of playing the game, one will notice a slew of Sega references. The name "Eggman" comes up and Bayonetta collects halos which look very similar to a certain Hedgehog's source of energy. Sega music also plays a major part of the game. Borrowing from Sega's rich collection of classic arcade tunes, Platinum has created some seriously sexy remixes from Fantasy Zone, Space Harrier, After Burner, Hang-On and OutRun. To accompany these remixes are impressive 3D levels inspired by these classics.




Pretty sweet, eh? You can also check out the level that goes with it here. Who says the classics are dead? Originally composed by Sega's Hiroshi Kawaguchi, tunes like Splash Wave and the theme from Space Harrier are given new life in the world of Bayonetta. It's AM2 fan service to the extreme!



The Space Harrier segment is just as wild as the Hang-On segment. Just before the gameplay kicks off, Bayonetta tells us to:

Oh, we're ready! Help Sega out and buy Bayonetta today.

Mario and Sonic game releases due in 2010

Looking through the official Mario and Sonic video game release schedules for this coming year, the first thing that stands out is that there aren't very many releases scheduled! However, the second thing that stands out is that these few releases do look to be of the very highest quality indeed! This is a really good thing, trust me - quality is way better than quantity, every time!

There is only one new Mario game currently scheduled for a 2010 release, but given that it is Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii, I think we can all forgive Nintendo for that, lol!

Nintendo promise that it will be an even better Mario experience than the first game, which will take some doing in my opinion - it's not easy to improve on virtual perfection! Nintendo also promise that this game will be a lot more challenging than the previous one. Not so sure that's such a good thing myself, but whatever - the "Big N" know what they're doing. The release date is still to be confirmed.

Update 24/02/10: Nintendo announced today that Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be released on May 23rd.

There are three new Sonic games currently scheduled for release in 2010, and they are:

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing - A Kart racing game featuring Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Amy Rose, Big the Cat and Dr. Eggman plus Alex Kidd, Billy Hatcher, Ai Ai from Super Monkey Ball, Amigo from Samba de Amigo, Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue, Beat from Jet Set Radio and Zobio and Zobiko, the zombie couple from The House of the Dead EX plus Banjo and Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie! Due for release on the Xbox and PS3 on February 10th, and on the Wii and DS in early March;

Sonic Classic Collection - For the DS only, this promises to be a little gem, containing the first four ever Sega Genesis / Mega Drive "Sonic the Hedgehog" games, namely: Sonic the Hedgehog from 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 from 1992, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 from 1994 and Sonic & Knuckles from 1994, complete with reportedly enhanced Sonic & Knuckles "lock-on" features for the earlier games. Due for release on March 10th;

And finally, an as-yet unnamed Sonic main-series game currently referred to as Project Needlemouse - All that is currently known is that this will be a 2D side-scrolling platformer very much in the style of the classic original Sonic games, with an emphasis on speed! Yes, Yes, YES!! It's been far too long since Sega made a "proper" Sonic game! I want it NOW!!

Anyway, here are some totally awesome free Mario and Sonic online games for you to play while you're waiting for the above games to come out, all courtesy of the famous MarioSonicGames.com site:

  New Super Mario Bros. Flash

  Super Mario Sunshine 64

  Ultimate Flash Sonic the Hedgehog

  Sonic the Hedgehog Rivals Dash

  Super Mario Kart Racing

  Super Mario Kart Xtreme

(See also here)

Mario and Sonic game releases due in 2010

Looking through the official Mario and Sonic video game release schedules for this coming year, the first thing that stands out is that there aren't very many releases scheduled! However, the second thing that stands out is that these few releases do look to be of the very highest quality indeed! This is a really good thing, trust me - quality is way better than quantity, every time!

There is only one new Mario game currently scheduled for a 2010 release, but given that it is Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii, I think we can all forgive Nintendo for that, lol!

Nintendo promise that it will be an even better Mario experience than the first game, which will take some doing in my opinion - it's not easy to improve on virtual perfection! Nintendo also promise that this game will be a lot more challenging than the previous one. Not so sure that's such a good thing myself, but whatever - the "Big N" know what they're doing. The release date is still to be confirmed.

Update 24/02/10: Nintendo announced today that Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be released on May 23rd.

There are three new Sonic games currently scheduled for release in 2010, and they are:

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing - A Kart racing game featuring Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Amy Rose, Big the Cat and Dr. Eggman plus Alex Kidd, Billy Hatcher, Ai Ai from Super Monkey Ball, Amigo from Samba de Amigo, Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue, Beat from Jet Set Radio and Zobio and Zobiko, the zombie couple from The House of the Dead EX plus Banjo and Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie! Due for release on the Xbox and PS3 on February 10th, and on the Wii and DS in early March;

Sonic Classic Collection - For the DS only, this promises to be a little gem, containing the first four ever Sega Genesis / Mega Drive "Sonic the Hedgehog" games, namely: Sonic the Hedgehog from 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 from 1992, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 from 1994 and Sonic & Knuckles from 1994, complete with reportedly enhanced Sonic & Knuckles "lock-on" features for the earlier games. Due for release on March 10th;

And finally, an as-yet unnamed Sonic main-series game currently referred to as Project Needlemouse - All that is currently known is that this will be a 2D side-scrolling platformer very much in the style of the classic original Sonic games, with an emphasis on speed! Yes, Yes, YES!! It's been far too long since Sega made a "proper" Sonic game! I want it NOW!!

Anyway, here are some totally awesome free Mario and Sonic online games for you to play while you're waiting for the above games to come out, all courtesy of the famous MarioSonicGames.com site:

  New Super Mario Bros. Flash

  Super Mario Sunshine 64

  Ultimate Flash Sonic the Hedgehog

  Sonic the Hedgehog Rivals Dash

  Super Mario Kart Racing

  Super Mario Kart Xtreme

(See also here)