I’ll never settle on a consistent naming pattern for this site, will I?
The other day while snooping around Manchester, I popped into weird variety store Afflecks for a bit – and found some kind of Puyo Puyo game for SEGA Saturn. Truth be told it’s been there for years, but I never thought to pick it up due to the likely language barrier; particularly as I quickly established it wasn’t a conventional Puyo game, but rather an RPG of some kind.
Well, I’ve bought it now, anyway. So maybe I should talk about what I’ve played of it, since information on the game seems particularly niche. Continue reading →
Sonic Mania released last week! I love it, to the point I’ve now done eight runthroughs of it; and like, 7 of those were with all emeralds!
Suffice to say, I think it’s the best Sonic game ever, but I couldn’t really think what to write about it when it came to doing a review that hadn’t already been said. So I decided to write something else that’s already been written about a million times; Mania’s callbacks and easter eggs! That being said, I’m going to try and delve a bit deeper than some of the others I’ve seen on this topic. There’ll definitely be some more expected, ‘obvious’ stuff on this list, but hopefully I can point out some neat bits you might’ve missed!
…that or ones I’ve completely misinterpreted in my hunt for fanservice. So in no particular order, let us begin!
(This should be obvious, but this comes with a huge spoiler warning. This list is no-holds barred, so if you’re say, a PC user who wants to go in with all of this as a surprise when the game launches next week, then look away now. Go. Seriously, lads.)
The last main episode of my YouTube venture, Tracker Talks, was me talking about how I thought the latest Sonic games were going to be revealed. Fast forward, and now Sonic Mania is tantalisingly close (or out, if you’re reading this after August 15th), leaving us to turn our attention to that… other Sonic game. The 3D one.
Sonic Forces’ pre-release has been… interesting to say the least. When the game was revealed, the magic of having a new Modern Sonic game quickly wore off when people laid eyes upon Classic Sonic. And then we started getting more details, some gameplay, the surprise of a custom character creator thing… and if you follow me over on the Twitterverse, you’ll know I’ve not been particularly kind to Sonic Forces. Continue reading →
Did you read my guide to setting up SEGA Model 3 emulation? Well, if you did, good job. You can now play a wealth of SEGA arcade classics that were previously locked away in arcades, from the comfort of your own home.
That said, I’m still on a Model 3 high myself at the minute, so I’ve decided to throw together a quick guide to some of my favourite small easter eggs and details in Model 3 games. These are basically just my opinions, so don’t expect an exhaustive list; but there’s some stuff here that’s incredibly easy to miss or just generally pretty obscure. And I live for these kinds of ridiculously hard-to-find details!
And fair warning; the vast majority of these relate to Sonic the Hedgehog. Sorry, it’s just what I do. Continue reading →
UPDATE 22/05/17: Turns out Supermodel’s distributed through the site forums now. Oops! Keep an eye on this thread for updated versions. I’ve replaced the version linked in this article with the new build, but with my config setup still intact.
Just a heads up, this build may report as malware on Avast. I let it through and my computer hasn’t melted though, so I’d say it’s just a false positive.
Oh shit, I have a website! This place died quite a death, huh.
Well, now I’ve been asked to write stuff. And since I’ve nowhere else to put it, it gets to go here! Sorted, lads.
WHAT IS THE SEGA MODEL 3?
It’s an arcade platform! The successor to SEGA’s beloved Model 2 board, that being the thing that brought us classics such as Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2, Virtual-On, and so much more.
Daytona USA 2: Battle on the Edge, one of the Model 3’s darlings.
Comparatively, the Model 3’s kind of… forgotten. This is mostly due to the fact that many of the games on it were never ported. Some, such as Virtua Fighter 3 made it onto the Dreamcast (though many consider that one butchered), but on the whole some of the best titles on the board such as Daytona USA 2 and SCUD Race are sadly locked away to the arcades.
Kicking off this review with a Puyo Puyo reference? You betcha.
For those unaware, Hatsune Miku is a “Vocaloid,” basically a piece of Japanese software produced to emulate human vocals for music producers, and given an avatar to represent them; in the form of an anime-style character. There’s more Vocaloids than there are bloody Pokemon nowadays, but the ones I mostly know are the ones from Crypton Future Media; those being Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Megurine Luka, MEIKO and KAITO. Miku is by far the most popular Vocaloid with an insanely huge fan following in Japan and nowadays across the entire world; to the point she’s performed live concerts (using holograms) and even performed on David Letterman in the US. Hot damn.
“Can’t hold me down! Spinning, spinning and turning, oh!”
In the time it’s taken for me to write this, the 3D Classics series ended, and then 3 extra Mega Drive titles were announced for it. That, and Shenmue 3 got announced. Shit.
Out Run needs little introduction at this point. Yu Suzuki’s revolutionary driving game is well-documented amongst the halls of video game legends, and overall is considered a beloved title amongst SEGA’s arcade library. I was surprised when I heard it was to be ported to 3DS; mostly because of the rights issues the inclusion of the Ferrari Testarossa in the original arcade version provided. I was plenty aware of the ways around the issue other ports had taken, but before the announcement I wondered; would the SEGA of today bother porting the game?
I should have remembered it’s M2 handling these ports. Alas, Out Run is on 3DS, and I can immediately say it’s pretty bloody essential. Continue reading →
I promised this wasn’t going to be a SEGA Blog, and yet here we are.
3D Fantasy Zone: Opa Opa Bros. was released on the 3DS last week, almost coinciding with the release of the shiny ‘new 3DS.’ Besides Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Fantasy Zone was my first purchase for my new system, and with good reason. For those unaware, the SEGA 3D Classics range on 3DS is helmed by the studio M2, and the whole range has been pretty damn good. Arcade perfect ports of games such as Space Harrier and After Burner II, as well as some Mega Drive titles like Streets of Rage and, of course, Sonic the Hedgehog, all with a staggering set of options and extra features.
Out of all of the 3D Classics available now however, and especially of the ones I own, the one I have the least prior experience with is Fantasy Zone. The most exposure I’ve had to this series is Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa Opa on the SEGA Master System, which was fun, but nothing I played for more than five minutes. Still, for some reason I leaped at this 3D re-release, perhaps because supporting M2’s stellar work is something I have little issue doing. Continue reading →
It’s everyone’s favourite needlemouse! And some rejects!
Oh good, my first article on here is Sonic the Hedgehog themed. We’re off to a great start, aren’t we? I’ve already banged on about why I love Sonic and the like, so let’s cut to the chase; June 1993 saw the release of Sonic’s first foray into arcades outside his cameo in Rad Mobile courtesy of AM3, and that was SEGASonic Arcade. I have no idea why SEGA is incorporated into Sonic’s name for this outing, nor do I care; point is, the game’s remained somewhat elusive over the years since SEGA hasn’t really bothered giving us a way to play it legally. SEGASonic used a trackball as it’s method of controlling Sonic, which isn’t exactly fun to emulate with modern controllers; indeed, this is why it never showed up on the Sonic Gems Collection, as was apparently intended. Saying that, after dabbling about with the ROM settings in MAME a bit, I did actually manage to make the game at least playable with an Xbox 360 controller, and so I could finally experience this thing in a way at least slightly closer to how SEGA intended than with the default emulator settings. Continue reading →
Tracker_TD 