Dreamroom UK 2011 is Today!

Watch live streaming video from gagaman at livestream.com

Today is the day before the 12th anniversary of 9/9/99 and because I won't have time to livestream tomorrow just before barry's one I've decided to dedicate today for my show!

I will be starting at 1pm UK time (7:00am Eastern Standard Time) will take a couple hour break somewhere between 3 and 5pm, then return continue on into the night! That's a lot of Dreamcast gameplay!

So make sure to come and visit at the video link above sometime today for the celebrations! Then tomorrow it will be Barry's turn for him to treat you to some Dreamcast gaming goodness!

EDIT: It's over! Thanks to everyone who popped in! If you missed out you can watch it in the 'Dreamroom UK 2011' folder here. It was running for roughly a total of 8 and a half hours! Here is a list of the games that were played throughout the day:

• Mars Matrix
• Segagaga
• Gundam E.F.F vs Zeon DX
• Marvel Vs Capcom 2
• Rush 2049
• Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
• Alien Front Online
• Daytona USA 2001
• Power Stone
• Pro Yakyu Team de Asobonet!
• Zombie Revenge (complete play-through of arcade mode)
• Densha Deo Go! 2
• Sengoku Turb - Fanfan I Love me Dunce doublentendre
• Fast Striker
• Heavy Metal Geomatrix
• 18 Wheeler

Summer of Sonic 2011 - Videos Part 3!

Here's the last of the footage I took on the day. My camcorder batteries ran out so I couldn't get as much as i would have liked but still. here you will see us joining the signing queue for Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka, of which we got to watch Never Mind the Buzz Bombers while in it. There is also footage of Frobman Sonic Heroes animation (watch the whole thing here) which I took so he could have video of how well it went down. Finally there some footage of the second Q&A session with Naka, Iizuka and Senour followed by a bit of the birthday cheer that was recorded for Sonic Generations. Enjoy!

Just remember: Even Iizuka, director of Sonic Adventure, hates Big the Cats fishing game.

Summer of Sonic 2011 - The Cosplay Contest

So here is (most) of the cosplay contest in a huge 22 minute video! I didn't get all of it because one of my camcorder batteries ran out half way through and at one point I thought I was recording and it turns out I wasn't, oops! Either way you can see most of the people that went up on stage to compete for the prize of the 20th Anniversary statue, including quite a few of my mates dressed up as Eggman Nega, Tails and Professor Pickle! The contest was on quite early in the day compared to previous years (about 2:30 in the afternoon) so i think a few cosplayers didn't make it in time to the contest, and there were many others that didn't go up on stage like Ulala and the SegaGaga guy. One more short video to go, coming soon!

Summer of Sonic 2011 - Videos Part 1!

So here's the first of three videos of the day itself! Here you will see where we arrived at about 9:30 to join the huge queue! That was just the queue for those who had reserved, the other queue for those who had not was even longer and some people were waiting outside until well into the afternoon, eep!

As we walk in I check out the merchandise stands just as Naka, Iizuka and Senoue took the stage for a Q&A (the first of two they did on the day), plus I have a quick chat with the Sonic the Comic Online guys and some cosplayers. You'll also get to see some karaoke including Darren Indeed from Sega Shiro's friend Daryl singing quite possibly the most miscellaneous Sonic song they could have picked! Plus there was an awesome Sonic the Comic inspired animation, which you can see in it entirely on Youtube here.

The next video will be the cosplay competition!

Summer of Sonic 2011 - The Party the Night Before

There was a party about 10 minutes away from Camden Center from 6pm that me and Stacey headed to the evening before. It was £15 to get in and all food and drink was included (until the tab ran out anyway) including Sonic and Shadow themed shots! Didn't try the Shadow one but the Sonic one was extremely minty and lovely, had a few of those. I had a big bacon cheese burger and Stacey had a Japanese dish called a Gyoza which she almost squirted all over a guy sitting beside us..

 ..who just so happened to be Mike Pollock, AKA the current voice actor of Dr. Robotnik! He was playing it very low key, chatting to people who came along knowing who he was, but we had been sitting next to him for ages not realizing who he was!

Soon after a Wii with Gamecube games was set up on a the big projection screen, and everyone took turns playing versus modes in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Sonic 3, Sonic 2, Sonic the Fighters and Sonic R. I had a go three times and won two of them: My round in battle was luck I think, and I still remember the track layouts in Sonic R too well, but had no idea how to play Fighters well haha. The video above mainly shows random gameplay throughout the night with me (maybe a little tipsy) rambling, shouting and even singing to some of the tunes, oh boy

The guys from Sega Shiro were also there, check out their big post on the night too, where they have a video of me playing Sonic R amongst and lots of photos!

Summer of Sonic coverage continues next week!

This Sonic collection is AMAZING.

Sonic Collectibles is rapidly becoming one of the best websites to check out for videos and updates about Sonic bits and bobs, updating far more often than we get to and with videos of individual pieces of rare merch popping up on the youtube account semi regularly as of late.

The owner of the site and channel Pete has just recently uploaded a 20th Anniversary video showing of his entire collection (I assume) that is all set up in a room full of glass boxes that honestly makes the one at Summer of Sonic look a bit feeble in comparison because they are just so cram,med full of ultra rare and exciting stuff!

I've been watching the Youtube account for some time and figured Pete's collection must be rather large but I could have never expected this! Almost anything you can think of is here: one of those 10th Anniversary wine glasses, the Super Sonic plush, loads of the Australian Sega World stuff, and many things that are one (or two) of a kind like an original SATAM group shot cel painting, a commissioned painting of Sonic by Milton Knight, and a statue that was owned by Tom Kalinske, CEO of Sega of America during the 90s!

Of everything on show here I think one of the main things I truly envy and adore is the Japanese classic Eggman statues and smaller toy he owns (see from about 10:55 in the video). Those are simply outstanding.

Summer of Sonic 2011 - Video of Swag & Signed Things!

Sega Memories' Summer of Sonic coverage starts here! Here's a video I put together today showing what I bought back from the event, as well as what I took with me to get scribbled on by famous Sonic type people! Next video will be of the party we went to the evening before!

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!

Super Sonic Statue Unboxing Video!

Will post some more photos and impressions soon!

Dreamcast Doujinshi Manga Comic

Cross posting this from the Dreamcast Junkyard, seeing as it is a Sega related comic though not an official one, and may be considered a not very common collectible to find on Ebay.

Probably the weirdest thing you'll ever see me feature for DCJY InsideOut, and actually a bit NSFW although unlike most Doujinshi (fan comics) it's not a flat out hentai porn comic, but it is in places a tad perverted with quite a few er..well you'll see. You have been warned.

The comic features short stories based on Shenmue, Space Channel 5, Code Veronica, Soul Calibur and many others, but they're pretty much all resort to rubbish and just plain weird jokes. The art is mixed, sometimes pretty decent and other times wonky.

Because  Maken X features in the Doujinshi I also decided to show off a Official  Maken X manga I bought years ago, which is just a tad more gory than I  recall the game being. So yeah, this one is defiantly not for the younger lot or easily offended this vid. :P

Streets of Rage Fleetway Comic Original Artwork

Hogfather on Youtube has got to be one of the most hardcore Sonic collectors on Youtube, it's a real shame he doesn't have a blog with photos of his stuff too. Not only does he own a massive collection of Nigel Dobbyn's Sonic the Comic artwork, but just recently he has uploaded a video of a collection of original artwork from S.T.C's Street of Rage comics, and had a chat with the artist Peter Richardson about them too! Jammy sod. Anyway, here's the video:

Make sure you check out Hogfather's Youtube for many more videos of rare and one-of-a-kind Sonic and Sega stuff.

SOS '10 Videos Part 4: Crush 40 Live

So here we are at the last of the four SOS 2010 videos I will be uploading. Here we have some of the best bits from Crush 40's live performance at the end of this years Summer of Sonic. I didn't film the whole thing because I knew many others would be and with better camera and steadier hands, and I was right: just search for crush 40 on Youtube and you can watch the entire thing from more angles than you could possibly ever need.

SOS '10 Videos Part 3: The Cosplay Contest

There was just so many cosplayers this year that it was hard to include all the footage of them walking onto the stage to be judged into one video! Thanks Youtube for increasing your time limit to 15 minutes! I did have to cut out all the bits where people had to cheer for their favorites, as well as the part with the top 5 being voted down to 3. Still, you get to see every single cosplayer (bar the winning Rouge from last year who was there but didn't enter the contest) that attended the event here.

If this event was evidence of anything it's that there are a LOT of fans of Shadow, as more people dressed up as him than anyone else. We need more Sonics next year guys! Tomorrow will be our last video: the Crush 40 live performance!

SOS '10 Videos Part 2: Never Mind the Buzzbombers Quiz

Four our second video here is some highlights of the 'Never Mind the Buzzbombers' Quiz, a Sonic themed take on the BBC music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks, in case you wasn't aware. Like that show there was an intros round where one of the team had to imitate a Sonic tune and the others had to guess, and there were also some quick fire question rounds. It's not in the video but the winning prize was a rather spiffing Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics snowboard!

The highlight for me had to be when when one of the questions was about a comic I drew for Sumo Digital at last years SOS. You will hear my girlfriend shouting out about it! We have two more videos coming up this week of the cosplay contest and of course Crush 40's live performance!

SOS '10 Videos Part 1: Summary and Intro show

As promised I have a few videos of this years Summer of Sonic to treat you with. Of course there is already possibly hundreds of videos of the event online, many of which are most likely a whole lot less wobbly and covered in the backs of peoples noggins, but you may get some kind of enjoyment out of it with any luck.

We journey from the queue outside into the Pavillion where we check out the goodie bag, have a look around at what there is to check out at the booths and the like, then about 20 minutes after arriving inside the introduction show begins, featuring some guy doing the caramelldansen dance thing, which is a bit odd.

I also put together that artwork at the start of the video, which you can see in full below (click it)!

The second video will be online tomorrow!

French commercials! Why not?

Remember ages back when we showed you a European commercial that made the game Gear look as though it ran Mega Drive games? Well this commercial from France isn't quite in that leauge of false advertising but it's still a blatant lie. The ad is for Sonic Complication and features footage of Sonic 1, 2 and 3. Sonic 3 wasn't on this cart at all, it had Robotniks Mean Bean Machine as it's third game. Yeesh. The commercial uses clips from that 'Sonic the Ride' animation most of us saw for the first time on Sonic Jam, a collection that did have Sonic 3. Man there's been so many Sonic collections now it's hard to keep up.

Let's rewind a little to this commercial from France for Sonic 1. There's a few of these ads with some biker punk straight out of Fist of the North Star getting pummeled by random things (here's one for Moonwalker, and another for Revenge of Shinobi), but this one is most notable for the I presume beta footage of the game with some very odd differences like the first boss having a spinning red ball and a spring shooting out really far. I'm sure Sonic Retro already analyzed the hell out of this footage but for those who haven't seen it before it sure is bizarre.

I suspect both the previous and this slightly later campaign cost Sega Europe a lot of money, what with all the explosions and special effects. This one above kind of reminds me of the pretentious Sega launch ad we had in the UK, only this is for the Terminator and looks like it almost cost as much as the movie itself to make. Here's a similar one for that crappy Indiana Jones game, and another for Super Monaco GP.Throw tons of money into a commercial = make tons of money! That's the 90's Sega way! Didn't that tactic work out well? :S

Finally here's an ad of a doll being crushed by a over priced pointless pain to set up mushroom shaped lump called a Sega 32X. Oh, and the slogan for all these commercials translates out to 'Sega is stronger than you'. Probably because every commercial involves the player getting his arse kicked. I guess it's still not as obnoxious as the pissing contest Sega had against Nintendo in America..

Did i mention I just picked up a 32X recently, a well as a Pico? Oh wait, I've been a lazy bum and have been letting Barry do all the work around here recently, haven't I? :E

Mega Drive Complete Japanese game Library

I did one of these for the Dreamcast once, so why not the Mega Drive? I've been on a bit of a high for Mega Drive Japanese games lately, so for those collecting them here is every game released in Japan for the system in chronological order (according to the database over at Guardiana), with their front covers featured which I found from various sources (some games were hard to find the covers of, so the quality of the pictures varies) and some OC Remixes of Ristar and Streets of Rage for good measure.

Funny to think of how many games they got over there that we didn't, yet their game line up is actually missing quite a lot too, such as Vectorman. Many Japanese versions of the games are much rarer, especially most of the games from 1995. Maximum Carnage and Bart's Nightmare can be found here easily and aren't even very good games, yet the Japanese version fetch hundreds upon hundreds of quid. A bit silly, really.

There's something to be said about the boxart from Japan though: there is a lot of nice artwork to be found. Compare the likes of Jewel Master, Alisha Dragon, Strider and others to their Western counterparts, you have to wonder what was going through their heads. Still, there are some odd choices like the cover to the The Ooze, which try to stand out as some sort of newspaper article with no artwork or screenshots, and Bio Hazard Battle goes by the name 'Crying' for some reason. These kind of differences from the west and east don't tend to happen so much now.

A blog you'll want to check out if you're looking to start collecting Japanese Mega Drives would be Mega Drive Memories by Ian Wilson.

The oldest Sega Commercials Youtube can offer

You probably already knew this, but the infamous 'SEGA!' voice wasn't first used at the start of Sonic 1, but in fact many years earlier in commercials on Japanese TV as far back as 1983! Hunting around Youtube you can find plenty of just-about watchable recording of some of these relics of Sega advertising, starting with this collection of ads selling Sega's first ever console the SG-1000. Oh, and you may want to watch this with your fingers in your ears at the start, as they may hurt otherwise.

Apparently the girl goes by the name of Saito Yuko and was quite the popular TV type person at the time. I guess you could call her the first member of G.L.O.S: The Gorgeous Ladies of Sega (As Classic Game Room revealed in their Daytona USA review) as Sega have since had a whole string of girls as their advertising mascots over the years. There is also apparently an extremely nerdy pun in that last ad that will go over most people's heads even if they know Japanese. I'm only going by what people in the comments are saying, mind you.

Now this one is for the SG-3000, which was a sort of home computer version of the SG-1000 I guess, much like the Tera Drive which was a PC combined with a Mega Drive (that we got in the UK as the Amstrad Mega PC). What's with the giant teeth/brushes? Why do they light up like Christmas decorations? I have no idea what in the hell is going on but it's hilarious!Just look at that guys face about 10 seconds in!

Remember, Sega have made toys too! This rather elaborate commercial is for the Zillion laser tag game from 1987. A similar toy was released here in 1992 called the Sega Lock-On, though they changed the gun design which in Japan is the same as that of the Mark III/Master System light gun. There is another ad for it here. Zillion was quite a big deal for Sega in the eighties, with two games and even an anime by Tatsunoko.

Finally, I really couldn't resist posting this one just because of the voice. WEELEE! JAAAMP! TUNAAP! You should really check out Nazca88's channel, he has a pile of old Sega commercials and interesting Sonic videos from Japan.

Mega Drive Musical Madness

Put this together over the last couple of days. The mega Drive in the right hands pumped out some brilliant music, and this video is a sample of some of my personal favorites. I might make another one of these at some point if I get time, or maybe videos of the music from certain games like Decap Attack and Battle Mania 2.

Summer of Sonic '09: Video of Introduction

Well a lot of the video footage I took was pretty pants but here's a bit of it showing what I filmed just as I entered the building, having a quick look about, and then it cuts to the introduction up on the stage, which continues into the second video. I just missed the very start of that animation in which a windows blue screen popped up (getting huge laughs as everyone presumed the computers set up to the telly's crashed) but then that tails Doll from Sonic R popped up all evil like. Otherwise very little is cut out.

Sega Nerds already has a great video of the Sumo Digital Q&A session as well as a interview they did with them, so I probably won't be uploading my filming of that, but I do also have the Q&A session with the S.T.C artists which i will be uploading soon.