Daytona USA is finally getting the console port it deserves.

Sega have been doing a lot to keep fans happy lately, especially on the downloadble games front. As of late they have brought us the Saturn classic Guardian Heroes, two more Dreamcast games including the mega-rare Space Channel 5 Part 2, and later this year we will be getting Sonic CD. Best of all, they have actually been putting quite a lot of care and love into these ports unlike those sloppy Mega Drive re-releases from a while back. This trend of goodness is continuing with Daytona USA, announced just yesterday and due for release very soon to XBLA and PSN.

After they released Sega Racing Classic in arcades a couple years ago, a HD re-release of Daytona USA with the licensed name and some of the music removed, it looked as though if we were ever to get a proper port of this game on consoles, it would be without that iconic cheesy music. However they have managed to acquire the license for this download edition and it looks to be an arcade perfect port, which has been around 17 years in waiting!

Daytona USA was and in many ways still is the ultimate arcade game. While most arcades replace old games with those with newer graphics or simply anything with a dance mat on it, Daytona can still be found in many arcades everywhere as people still love to play it. Even people that are not fans of racing games or casual gamers can easily jump into the seat of the cabinet and have fun playing it, it's a timeless classic.

Console wise we got a Sega Saturn port that visually was sloppy to say the least, but still played as close as you could get to the arcade game at the time. They tried to 'fix' this by releasing Daytona USA C.C.E a year later, and although it looked better most of the music was replaced and it didn't feel the same for some reason. Many years later we got Daytona USA 2001 on the Dreamcast that included online play (except here in Europe) and while it looked even better than the arcade game in many respects, the controls of that version were almost completely different. It was still fun, but nothing like the arcade one.

So now in 2011 Sega are giving us the port we always wanted. It looks identical to the model 2 arcade game and they appear to have removed any pop u that that version had. It will have online for up to 8 players, very much like how many of the arcade machines were linked up for 8 player. The achievement list includes many of the easter eggs that were in the arcade including making the Jeffry statue animate by hitting the special button, and there is even a karaoke mode!

What else can we expect from Sega in the future with developments like this? A real dream would be to get some of the arcade-only follows up on consoles, such as Daytona USA 2 and Scud Race, but who knows if that's possible at this point. As a Sega fan prove to them this is a good idea and buy this release. We've waited long enough for a port this good, show them they are doing the right thing and maybe they'll keep this ball rolling!

Sonic Generations Europe Collector's Edition: OH MY GOD.

...

So yeah, would you look at that. Sega have just revealed the European collector's edition of Sonic generations and boy is it something special. Here is Sega's announcement copy-pasted:

Celebrations continue in Europe for Sonic the Hedgehog’s 20th anniversary with an impressive collector’s edition for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation3 versions of the upcoming Sonic Generations game.

The Sonic Generations Collectors Edition combines limited edition collectables based on the upcoming game, as well as assets handpicked by Sonic Team to celebrate Sonic’s 20th Anniversary, which provide the ultimate celebration of Sonic for fans new and old.

Included in the collector’s edition is a collectable figurine featuring both Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic, an exclusive, individually numbered commemorative “Gold Ring”, and a “20 Years of Sonic Art” book, containing never before seen sketches and images from the past 20 years. Also contained in the Collector’s Edition are the ‘20th Anniversary Sonic Soundtrack’ featuring a selection of tracks handpicked by Sonic Team, and the ‘History of Sonic: Birth of an Icon’ documentary, an exclusive collection of interviews and footage charting Sonic’s life from inception through to becoming one of the most iconic characters in videogame history. Limited edition lenticular packaging and bonus additional downloadable content for the game are the final components that make up this unique collector’s edition for Sonic Generations.

So there it is. A statue, a gold ring, a soundtrack, a documentary DVD, downloadable content and an art book! It looks as though this is going to be Europe only for some reason, at least for the moment anyway, sorry Americans.

Take my money Sega, all of it.

EDIT: It has appeared on Amazon UK now for the price of £85. The retail price is apparently £99.

Mega Drive/Master System Stand: I'm nuts.

Chalk this up as one of the craziest Sega related purchases I have ever made. The game shop I bought it from said they paid £600 for this back when the Mega Drive was the best selling format at the shop (15 years or so ago I'd imagine), and I got it for the starting bid of £50 one morning a week ago on a whim on eBay.

My dad picked it up all the way from Chester yesterday (he does a delivery job driving all over the country, so he picked it up while he was up that way), just in time for the consoles' 20th Anniversary since it's American 'Genesis' (ick) launch. To say it's big would be an understatement, it's 190cm tall and 56cm across, so about the size of our freezer. At first it looked a bit like the Leaning Tower of Pisa until this morning I figured out that you have to twist each shelf around until they lock in place. It's currently sitting in a room that isn't used much because there is no way it's going up those stairs, and there probably isn't anywhere to put up there anyway.

It has a big square weight at the bottom so it doesn't fall over, and Sega logo stickers on every side. It's not really much to look at until you fill it up with games though, right?

I have just over 100 Mega Drive and Master System games in all, and this thing can hold up to 140 (160 if you include the very top, though they'd probably fall off when you turn it up there). But enough talk, more photos! Click to enlarge yadda yadda..

Sega of Americas Holy Grail

I'm sure if you browse gaming blogs you will have already seen this by now (most likely at Kotaku where they made up some rubbish about Sega forgetting all about it, either from mis-reading or an excuse to take a pop at Sega AKA gaming's whipping boy), but I can't NOT post about this archive of Sega's back catalog that they store at the American offices. Apparently it holds just about every game Sega has ever made or published, as well as all their consoles and peripherals. It truly is a beautiful sight to behold, and they have even more games stacked behind the ones shown in the photos!

A whole draw full of what look like Dreamcast GD-Rs. They even have a list for them all.

More after the jump!

Darn, even more GD-Rs, although according to the writer of the Flickr page they could very well be early builds or prototypes. You whats to guess they have some copies of Propeller Arena and maybe some betas in there?



Goddam that's a lot of Saturn games! The rest are PS2, Xbox and Gamecube games, and when looking quite close up it seems they've kept a bunch of games that were not produced by Sega too.



This appears to be where they keep all their PC releases, of which they seem to have a lot of copies of. There appears to be at least six piles of Sonic 3D there alone, and what do you know: I didn't know they ported Virtual On to the PC.



Even more Saturn games and shelfs full of Japanese and PAL Dreamcast games. Someone wipe the drool from my gob please..



There's a Dreamcast award of some sort her that in the full size photos reads "Sega Dreamcast: 1 million units sold, November 25 1999". Also a bunch of master System games, loads of PS2 and even more of those big PC boxes.



A whole slew of Mega CD games here, many of which I've honestly never even heard of (Bouncers? Wild Woody?). The 2nd shelf seems to be a Nintendo stash, and who knows whats in those hundreds of CD spinals at the bottom. One can hope it's original source codes that they could use to port classics to modern systems. If you find Chu Chu Rocket in there can you port it to Wiiware please?



A tall pile of PAL Dreamcast and on quote "some burns". Having a closer look at these burns shows they they have a propeller Arena demo, a whole bunch of E3 anf TGS demos and even some betas and alphas! Right near the bottom of the pile is "Dee Dee Planet Final". FINAL? Holy shit. If you haven't heard of Dee Dee Planet, it was a Death tank style Dreamcast game that never got released. All we ever saw of it was this video.



Piles and piles of peripherals and consoles, all of them never opened from their boxes. Oh how i would love to have a supermarket sweep through this room..



Finally a photo of an entire wall of shelfs. In the bottom corner they have every Pico game, a bunch of Japanese mega CD and Saturn games, GBA games, even more "burns" and much, much more. It's just so much to take in. Incredible.

Boot Sale Season Returns: Megadrive Goldmine

The big car boots sales a short drive away finally started up again recently, and I went today after months of desperately trying to find bargains on Ebay. Anyone who knows me well enough will know of my jammy-git luck with finding some crazy cheap gaming stuff at them, like a game Boy Advance for £1, a Playstation 2 Slim with 16 games for £55 and my Sega Multi-Mega which set me back a measly £6.50, but these kinds of things very rarely happen, between week after week of the same old common shit (Read: Sports games. Anyone would think no ones buys anything else at these places). Oh how I have missed them for awesome shit like this raid I got today..

Here's a big blue box full of Mega Drive junk I bought today. What's in it, then?Find out after the jump!



A rather dusty Mega Drive Mark 1, some dodgy third party controllers (One with a dead Up button), but best of all, an official six button controller and 26 games!

Not the usual Fifa rubbish I always normally find though, but quite a lot of unusual games that I have honestly never seen in the flesh...er..plastic before. Marzin Wars, Bio Hazard Battle, Dragon's Revenge, and a game I had never even heard of (not even when playing heaps of emulation) called Cyborg Justice, to name a few.

The highlight of the collection was cropped out of that last picture on purpose though...

ALIEN FOOKIN SOLDIER.

This was literally sitting on top of the box when I first glanced over, which me me run over towards it. I asked him how much the games in the box were. His answer? "The whole box is a tenner, mate."

Yes, £10. There was a total of 30 items in the box, making them cost about 33p each. Yes, I shat my pants. Not literally of course. The Mega Drive games I found today didn't even end there. On Sunday's I generally go to around 2 or 3 boot sales that are all on pretty near to each other, and I managed to find some more that were not the usual shite:

Been looking about for these three for a while (I tend to avoid buying MD games from Ebay). Cost me £5 for the three, which seemed pretty high compared to that previous miracle, but Psycho Pinball was pretty darn mint with a cardboard sleeve over it, and I miss that good ol' Aquatic Games (the music from it has been stuck in my heads for years).

Then at another boot sale I got this lot. Ecco 2 cost 50p, and the others cost 20p. Digitized Micheal Jackson screeches for 20p. How could I resist? I also bought a PS2 GBA game for £4 each, but that is NOT TEH SEGA. They were Midway Arcade Treasures 1 and Super Mario Bros 3, by the way.

Here's Alien Soldier running on my HD telly. Oh how good does this game feel to play on something other than a emulator. The beautiful music booming out of the telly for the first time made my jaw drop. I still utterly suck at this game, though; I always die at that snake boss thingy. Odd thing I noticed about the PAL version: the engrish seems to have been cleaned up. The intro actually makes a bit of sense now, and "Visualshock! Speedshock! Soundshock! Now is the time for 6800 Heart on Fire!" was missing from the title screen. Oh well.

I'm not making a big deal over finally finding a copy of this game!

Honestly!

Sega is sending us a Love letter

(See the trailer in better high-res here.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Sega make the best FMV trailers for games out there. I swear more often or not the cut scenes are the best things in their games now a days, just look at the intros to Sonic Next-Gen, NiGHTS Journey of Dreams, and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. Even if the games themselves aren't their best (especially in the case of Sonic next-gen, which turned out to be a complete pile of rubbish) but you gotta admit they have clearly hired a brilliant animation studio to do this stuff. Now they've put out a trailer for Sega Superstars Tennis, and inside I cried with joy watching it.

This game has so much going for it it is really difficult to see how it could possible NOT rock my socks off. Check out this info from Eurogamer:

* Playable characters include Beat and Gum from Jet Set Radio, Ulala and Pudding from Space Channel 5, and Alex Kidd. Yes, that's what I said. ALEX KIDD.


* Stages include Green Hill, Scrap Brain, the House of the Dead mansion, and Coconut Beach from OutRun!

* Mini-games based on House of the Dead, Puyo Pop, Space Harrier and Virtua Cop!

* Based directly on the Virtua Tennis 3 engine, and developed by Sumo Digital who have been pretty much the best to happen to Sega for years with their console ports of Outrun 2 and Virtua Tennis 3.

* Unlike those games, this game is going to be on almost every console out there: X-Box 360, PS2, PS3, Wii and even DS! Oddly enough there's no PSP or PC versions, though.

* Legendary Sega musician Richard Jacques has composed the theme music. The game will also feature tons of classic Sega music.

This game is truly Sega giving all us long time fans a great big hug. After all the changes they have gone through in the years since they quit the console market, this shows they haven't forgotten about their roots and what made them so great in the first place. It's coming out in the UK this march, so it's not even that far away! If you're a Sega fan I can't really see there being any excuses not to buy this, seeing as it's on nearly everything and has fan service up the wazoo!

Streets of what? Streets of RAGE!

What, an article that isn’t about Sonic? No, I’m not high, I just felt like being different. Variety is the proverbial spice of life. When I think of the good old days of Sega, one of the first things that comes to mind (once that blue hedgehog gets out the way) is Streets of Rage – or Bare Knuckle if you live in Japan. Which you probably don’t. Now you could argue that SoR was a bit of a copy of Capcom’s Final Fight (which presumably to Sega's dismay, got ported to the SNES). Well, actually you’d be right. But what a glorious copy it was! 

^ And what happens when you fuse these two together? Street Fighter... see what I did there?

More after the jump.



 

Like Final Fight, you wonder around the streets (…of rage!), beating up various scum in an assortment of different styles. Sick of just using your fists? No problem – just smash a phone box and you’ll be presented with an item! Be it food or a drain pipe, you’ll be able to make good use of it. Found an empty bottle? Crack it over your enemy’s head! Found an enemy? Throw him at another enemy! The fun never ends.

^ There are no screenshots of this game in 2 player on the internet - but the mode does exist!

Where Streets really shined was on the two player mode. Essentially it was the same as the one player mode, but with two merry violence-spewing protagonists as opposed to the one. You and your friend / sibling / neighbour / hostage would go on an epic brawl through 8 rounds of 2D madness. The sense of group accomplishment you’d get from double-teaming some denim-clad punk with a lead pipe and a baseball bat is second to nothing. And the best part? If there’s a disagreement between you and your partner, you can duke it out Street Fighter style. Not like some of these shoddy games where you can’t harm people on your own team, Streets of Rage allows you to beat seven shades out of your accomplice. Smack them round the e-face if they get out of line.

One of the best things about Streets of Rage was the hilarious special move. Picture this; you’re surrounded by a circle of thugs, each one increasingly seething, several with broken bottles, knives and various other goods for stabbery, who are slowly but surely closing in on you. You, however, are armed with nothing but some rather 80s clothing and a will to live. What do you do? You call the police… to fire a rocket at them. Yes, that’s right. By pressing the A button, you can use your special, which results in a police car driving on to the scene, its sun roof opening, and a police officer coming out with a rocket launcher. The rocket then gets fired in your area and burns your enemies to oblivion. Remarkably, you remain completely unharmed despite the fact in reality, it would have been a slightly suicidal move. And by ‘slightly suicidal’, I mean ‘irreversibly fatal’.

One thing that always disturbed me about this game as a child were some of the enemies. That Round 2 boss, with his Freddy Kruger / Vega styled claws was unnaturally tall. Actually, several of the bosses were. And they all looked generally disproportionate. What was the logic behind that? “Oh no, he looks like he’s been stretched by a French rack – now we’re in for it!”… yeah, not quite. But the main enemy I remember was the whipping women drones. Not because they were women with whips. No no. But because when you knocked them down, they released the most piercing and evil scream ever. It was like you had just thrown holy water on a banshee or something (I don’t know much about banshees or holy water, so I may have that combo wrong – the point was it was a horrible scream). Not so interesting tidbit; the Final Fight counterpart, if you like, of this generic woman thug, was not technically allowed to be a woman due to age-rating systems and anti-misogynist-violence laws. Capcom’s solution? She’s a he! Aptly named Poison, after the cross-dressing, hair-metal titans. So why didn’t Sega have this issue? Maybe they did, but the anecdote is assumedly less amusing.

I realise this wasn’t really a very well structured blog. It’s actually just me rambling about small bits of what I remember of one of my all time favourite games. If you’re bored and have a friend round, you should get your hands on SoR and get your 16-bit violence on. Or you could even check out Beats of Rage, the very well done home-made tribute game to SoR at http://www.senileteam.com/borinfo.php - you won’t regret it. Well, you might, but then that’d render your opinion invalid.

Memorable Moments in Sega Gaming 2

Continuing from where I left off quite a while ago, here's five more installments of my personal most memorable moments in my Sega filled life of gaming. You can see the previous chapter HERE.

#6: Sega Rally - The Instructors

Sega seem to always do things in a way that's makes them more memorable to me than say, games by just about anyone else. Take rally games, or more specifically the voice that instructs you on which turns are coming up in Sega Rally

“Long medium left! Easy Right! CAUTION! Hairpin right! Long easy right, Maybe!“

Maybe? Some help you are. Then as you go around the track a second time, it’s still a “Long easy right! Maybe!”. Surely he can confirm now we’ve been round the track one lap what that part is. Moron. When you play the sequel with the female instructor, she sounds more like she’s saying “Long easy right! Baby!” Heh. Best part about this feature was making them shout “whoa!” every time you bump into the sides. That’ll teach them to be unsure about the next turn. Hang on, I’ve run out of time. Oh well. GAME OVER YEAHHHHHHHHHH!


More after the jump.

#7: Golden Axe - Those little Lemming Type Things

I’m fully aware Golden Axe was made quite a few years before the game Lemmings (the classic Amiga puzzle series in case you thought I meant the actual creatures), but as a kid I swore those little midgets that nick your magic potions and roasted chicken legs were Lemmings, as in those little guys with the green hair and blue tummy's. Their colour scheme is very similar and..I don’t know, they just reminded me of Lemmings. Whatever they are, they sure are fun to kick in the arse. Even more fun is kicking them in the arse over a cliff. Sometimes the goodies they drop will fall down said gaps too, though. Come back roasted chicken leg! There goes a wasted life I could of used being up that fat bloke with the hammer.

#8: Sonic 2 - The 2 Player Mode

Of all the games I have played with 2 players, this is the one I have played the most. There is so much that is memorable about it: The TV boxes that swap the players positions or accidentally give your rival an extra life, constantly jumping in the special stage to be in front of the two person queue for upcoming rings, the fact that someone can still win even if they were 2^nd place if they collected more rings and bopped more TVs, and of course THAT spike trap in Mystic Cave Act 2 which you always fall into.

It was here I got to playing Sonic 2 like an art form, executing dash attacks with a flick of the down and C buttons, and knowing the levels like the back of my hand. As a kid me and my sister would play this once every week on a Sunday afternoon just before we would sit to watch the Simpsons, followed by a bath, and getting our hair dried while Heartbeat was on before bed. We would almost always draw on the results, and the final special stage would be the decider. Ever since it has become a multiplayer staple in my house: if any of my mates pop over this is most likely to be pulled out first. It’s still a surprisingly deep, exciting multiplayer mode that I never tire of. Oh how tempted I am to get a X-Box 360 just for the online version of this mode on Live Arcade...

#9: ‘The Sega Drift'

Sega didn’t invent drifting, and they probably didn’t invent drifting in racing games either, but they certainly made an art form out of it. The first time I remember drifting in a game was in Daytona USA, and once you figured it out it felt so satisfying and rewarding, plus it prevented you from smashing into that mountain with Sonic carved into it. This trademark over the top drifting showed up in almost every Sega racing game since, such as Sega Rally, Sega Touring Car and Crazy Taxi. The Sega drift is taken to the Nth degree in Outrun 2, in which you could most likely drift forever if the track was a never ending turn, and you always feel in full control. It never, ever gets old. I love it.

#10: Alex Kidd - Rock Paper Scissors

I'll admit this now. I never owned a Master System, the Mega Drive was my introduction to Sega gaming and Enchanted Castle, his only 16 bit game, was my introduction to Alex Kidd. While the game was a mildly fun platformer, what really made it stand out was it's gambling aspect, which involved a game of Rock paper Scissors. Walking into any of the many little houses scattered around the levels will bring you to a stage being watched by a audience of fluffy animals and a rival who will ask you if you 'WANT TO RISK YOUR LIFE'.

You can flick through the three choices in a little thought bubble while the cute little build up music plays, and once that music is over, it's a case of either winning the item, which could be anything from a bike or a helicopter, or having a huge weight crushed on your head, leaving with nothing to do but waddle off in shame with your huge feet. You can even practice rock paper scissors against any of the games opponents in the options mode. Nice.