GamesMaster Presents Sonic Magazine - Video Preview

GamesMaster Presents Sonic finally arrived in the mail! So I picked up the camera and put this preview video together. Enjoy!

GamesMaster Sonic 20th Anniversary Magazine Special

Well didn't this pop up out of the blue! To celebrate Sonic's 20th Anniversary (I suspect you'll be hearing that a lot in the next few months but especially this month), GamesMaster has just released a special 130 page magazine dedicated to nothing but Sonic! I only heard about it today via twitter and pretty much ran over to WHSmith to see if they had and sure enough they had a whole pile of copies. It's £8 but trust me it's worth it. Hit the jump to see more..

For starters, the mag comes with a bunch of nice freebies: a set of four badges, a sheet of stickers and a huge double sided poster. The stickers are all sprites from the first game, some even from the 8-bit version. The poster is one side Sonic generations, and on the other a collage of almost every rendition of Sonic from every game in his history!

As for the magazine itself, there are tons of articles, including my personal favorite that features loads of the early Sonic concept art. yes even the "Madonna" and sonic the rabbit art! I don't want to spoil too much but it really is a wonderful tribute to the series, I've been flicking through it all afternoon! This very much makes up for the lack of the chess collection mag, ta very much!

As I said the mag is £8 and out right now so if you're in the UK grab this while you can. Once again the Sonic fandom gods are glowing down on us Brits for some reason, haha. For you non UKers though, this website will let you order the magazine from anywhere in the world (for the most part) if you're willing to pay a little extra. Wouldn't be shocked if this sold out due to imports in fact! :P

Sonic Chess set Magazine is cancelled! :(

Oh bum. Look what showed up in the post this morning..

So yeah, looks like the Chess set magazine that was up for subscription some time back has been flat out canceled. All we get is a LED light key-chain? It doesn't even have Sonic on it, it's not even Sonic blue! Oddly enough the website along with the subscription form is still online so unsuspecting new visitors will think it's still available.

Boo! I was looking forward to this although I guess on the bright side it's a relief on my wallet as if they did ever get around to making the whole set it would have cost a pretty penny and they never took any money in advance, but I would of liked to of had at least one issue and some of those freebies out of it before they quit the idea. :(

UPDATE: Well this odd. According to peeps on Sonic Retro a couple copies of the first issue of the magazine were found and bought in random locations, presumably a test run though it seems silly to release them at all if they have no intention of doing any more, and so few copies of said issue at that. :T

Japanese Magazine Weekly Famitsu Goes SEGA Crazy

Weekly Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu is giving SEGA an awesome cover spread and 88 pages of coverage! Check out all the characters crammed on that cover! I see Ryo, Beat, Ristar, Waldo...

The issue is said to be chock full of interviews and new bits of info regarding future releases. Tsuyoshi Sawada, the man behind the Shining Force games, hints at a new title that is said to contain elements from the originals. The new Platinum Games title, Binary Domain, is also going to get a good deal of coverage. The issue will also contain a Yakuza series retrospective, featuring interviews with the development team. Of course, all of this will be in Japanese, so the best non-Japanese speakers/readers can hope for is a lot of pretty pictures.

UPDATE: The magazine was available to by at Play-Asia, but it appears to be sold out because I bought the last copy. Sorry!

Sonic Chess Set magazine in the UK!

Sometimes it is rather awesome being a UK based Sonic fan. In the last few years especially, what with Summer of Sonic, the Sonic Spinball ride at Alton Towers amongst other things. Now not long after we got a new sticker collection, we have one of those subscription based collectors magazines of Sonic, of a new chess set not to be confused with the chess set released some time ago, in fact I would say this set looks more interesting! See more after the jump!

While this is modern style Sonic characters as opposed to classic ones in that £35 set, you get a lot more characters here when the set is over. In the classic set you get Sonic, Tails, Knuckles Amy and a bunch of rings and emeralds. I mean they are nice sculpts and that but at least put some bad guys on the other side or something!

The new set, judging by this image above showing the whole collection in card form, is far more characters including a whole bunch of unique badniks and chaos! You also get a Super Sonic, Metal Sonic, Robotnik, Rouge and Shadow. The badniks appear to be their Sonic 4 looks which makes sense. The more badniks the better if you ask me!

Of course the snag is you cannot just buy this collection, you need to buy each piece one by one with the magazine. As with these kinds of magazines the first issue is cheap but the rest are about £7 each which means this will finish at quite a bit more money than what the classic set will cost you. Still, with each piece you are getting a magazine with some Archie Sonic comic strips and other info plus on the website you get some freebies with your subscription including a keychain, a clock and a shoulder bag.

This is currently a UK and Ireland only offer, sorry other Sonic fans! We got lucky once again bahaha! Safe to say I've subscribed and will post photos of the first delivery once it shows up! You know, to ind you non-UKers up a bit.