Updates suspended for the foreseeable future as we struggle to marry two facts:

FACT A: It’s on PS3 therefore it MUST be shit.

FACT B: It’s by SEGA therefore it MUST be amazing.

ADDITIONAL FACT C: We’ll be sitting in the bathroom rocking backwards and forwards for a while pooing and weeing on ourselves trying to decide which editorial stance to take.

The only option is to pretend these are Xbox 360 or PC screenshots. Yes, that’s it. VF5 will be announced for Xbox 360 next week! That’s clearly what’s about to happen. That’s why they took all these new screenshots. Look, they’re in widescreen just like Xbox 360!

The truth is too horrible to consider.

We can’t go saying something on PS3 looks good.

All we can do is…

…maybe we could say that only SEGA is good enough to make PS3 games look good? Because SEGA’s better at programming and stuff.

That could work as an ‘angle’ to make this seem like a happier day.

Even then it feels wrong.

Maybe we should pretend VF5 doesn’t exist?

It’s just all too much. You know SEGA’s original 2001 masterplan had this down as a Dreamcast 2 launch game :(

Not just for having the most Spanish-sounding names you could possibly imagine, but also for spearheading SEGA’s push into Spain – with the opening of a new SEGA office in Madrid.

VIVA (the men in charge of) SEGA ESPAGNA!

Jose is standing in front of Shadow. This means he’s evil, so is probably in advertising or marketing.

Javier is standing in front of Sonic! So he’s the good one, and probably does something useful and popular like handing out the mail or petty cash. This is such a beautiful photo we’ve made it desktop size. Together they are… SEGA SPAIN! Vamos SEGA Espagnol!

“WE ARE ENCHANTED TO ON BOARD GIVE TO THE WELCOME TO JAVIER AND JOSE” (THE PRESS RELEASE FED THROUGH BABELFISH, AS THAT’S BEEN FUNNY SINCE WE FIRST GOT THE INTERNET IN 1995):

SEGA RETURNS To SPAIN

SEGA of Europe announces the opening of their new Spanish office, agreeing with 15 anniversary of Sonic.

SEGA Europe Ltd., today makes the opening public of their new office in Madrid, Spain.

The return of the emblematic Japanese company to our country obeys to the consolidation strategy as one of the main publishers in the new generation of platforms of electronic entertainment adopted by SEGA and supposes a recognition to the growth and potential of the Spanish market.

SEGA of Spain begins their walking with an equipment of Marketing and Communication, headed by Javier Rodriguez – Director of Marketing – and Jose Herráez – PR Manager -. During the stage of implementation of the Japanese company in Spain, including the next campaign navideña, the SEGA titles will continue being distributed by Atari.

“The Spanish market has received great relevance in the last years and it has become one of most important of Europe.” It affirms to Mike Hayes, President and COO of SEGA Europe. “The opening of a seat of SEGA in Spain is a logical step in our strategy of growth and we are enchanted to on board give to the welcome to Javier and Jose.”

Javier Rodriguez, Director of Marketing of SEGA of Spain, affirms. “SEGA is an emblematic mark that has written whole chapters in the history of the videojuegos. SEGA of Spain is born with the ambition to settle down as one of the marks leaders in the new generation of videojuegos. The opening of the Spanish office supposes an exciting challenge and our plans for the future are going to excite and to surprise all the sector of the videojuegos.”

On SEGA® SEGA Europe Ltd.
It is the European division of Japanese the SEGA Corporation, one of the companies leaders in the edition of software of entertainment for consoles, PC and moving bodies. For more information, it visits www.sega-europe.com

The order has already been given for someone to take photos of SEGA Spain’s office. It’s probably a little red brick building with pinatas outside and a dead bull in the car park.

This is the back of a man’s sister’s chair. He says the design looks a bit like Dr Robotnik, although she insists it’s meant to be flowers.

Beat that.

This is a photo of a sign in the car park at SEGA Europe. Someone’s being a parking space nazi. You can see some interesting uses of capital letters.

This out-bores our update about the SEGA Park carpet by some 25 percent. We’re sorry about this for many reasons. Has anyone got a less interesting SEGA photograph than this?

You can see his little heart breaking, as he mentally weighs up the pros of eating sweets and playing games all day against the cons of being popular.

No free things or parties for you, Porky Piggywinkle. Best you can hope for is to get in the top 1000 of something on Xbox Live.

Coronation Street, the rubbish soap opera about the tedious lives of poor people who live in the North of England, featured Sonic The Hedgehog in its episode broadcast on Sunday August 27. They were playing it on PC, so it might have been an illegal ROM.

Although, as someone from SEGA told us this was going to happen about five months ago, it looks like a cleverly worked PR trick. Because even though it’s a laughably bad pantomime of a show, Coronation Street is watched by about 12 million people. Stupid people who can’t afford games consoles and think chips count as vegetables, but it’s still quite a coup.

PLEASE NOTE:
We’re not becoming one of those sites that’s just a list of YouTube videos. Promise. It’s a coincidence. We probably won’t do another one of these for six months now. We’re also quite proud of this one as it required (a) finding the episode, (b) downloading the torrent, (c) editing the relevant chunk out of it, and (d) putting the clip on YouTube. This is the first new technical thing we’ve learned since getting a DVD player in 1999.

They’ll be accused of dumbing down again, but we kind of like it.

SmackDown covers always sell.

We know! He will be here! We will be approximately ten metres away from him in the same room, signalling our sexual availability by dangling a red handkerchief from our back pocket.

THE PROPER PRESS RELEASE, SO THIS UPDATE LOOKS A BIT LESS WEIRD AND FRIGHTENING:

5th September 2006. GameCity is beside itself with excitement in announcing the confirmation of game music legend Richard Jacques, who will performing an exclusive live set at GameCity this October. Performing principally on pianoforte, Jacques will be treating the audience to a series of specially arranged renditions, forming a retrospective of some of the most loved SEGA classics.

Following his appearance at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Richard is delighted to be back performing in the UK. He says, “I’m really excited to be appearing at GameCity and highlight the role of music in videogames. It’s a rare event that makes game culture truly accessible to the public, but it’s so important that it’s done. I can’t wait.”

This unique concert event will take place at 2pm on Saturday 28th October, in the majestic setting of St Mary’s Church in the Lace Market, Nottingham – which will be candle-lit for the event. Whilst the precise contents of the set-list must remain undisclosed, we are able to reveal that “Sonic the Hedgehog Medley”, “Shenmue Improvisations” and “Outrun” WILL be being performed.

Phil Lamb, UK Product Manager at SEGA, commented: “Richard Jacques is a talented musician who has produced some fantastic music for SEGA over the years. Richard’s many contributions have complimented the games perfectly and have really enhanced the experience for the players. Having most recently worked with us on some cracking remixes on the soundtrack for OutRun2, Richard has proved to be a real hit with SEGA fans everywhere.”

In 2005, Jacques’ game music was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl for “Video Games Live” to more than 11, 000 fans of video games and orchestral and choral music. Not only was Jacques’ music selected for the world’s largest video game music symphony concert, accompanied by cinematics on the big screen and laser light show, but given his expertise and knowledge of live orchestra Jacques was also invited to arrange and orchestrate the special retro Classic Arcade Medley featuring over 20 games from Pong to Donkey Kong including such classics as Dragon’s Lair, Tetris, Frogger, Gauntlet, Space Invaders and Outrun. In addition, having scored games in the multi-million selling Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, Jacques was selected to arrange and orchestrate the Sonic medley, prompting high praise from Sonic creator Yuji Naka himself.

With the supporting bill yet to be disclosed, Jacques is already providing one of the hottest tickets for GameCity 2006.

NOTE:
“Performing principally on pianoforte” means Richard Jacques will be playing SEGA songs on a piano! We will be performing principally on our penises as Rich soothes us away into a candlelit dream world filled with SEGA music.

A friend of UKR is after a J2ME developer to help with a new mobile project.

If you’re interested, email us and we’ll forward your details in confidence. It’s a serious and proper project that sounds very exciting and will involve being paid, not just doing all your best stuff for free on the internet like an idiot.