We haven’t played Twisted Metal or God of War. So we’re level.

Taken from Jaffe’s Twitter thing. If you’re wondering, UKR does sort of have a Twitter thing – a reader who knows about all the things the young people are into signed it up ages ago before it was cool and turned it into a posts feed.

ABOUT THE UKR “TWITTER THING”
It’s not us. It’s not done by us and we’re not in charge of it. So if it turns into a gay porn highlights reel tomorrow don’t come crying back here with your tales of ripped arseholes.

You remember, blue skies in games. It was the good thing we did once. Listen to it and read about it here. It’s surprisingly awesome.

There is no accompanying imagery or press materials.

This is what the Japanese version of Sonic & Knuckles looks like:

Below is a close up of the writing beneath the logo:

I bet having the sun laugh at you would be soul destroying and EXACTLY like that time at school when the classroom erupted in ecstasy after you mistakenly expected it to only come out as a trump.

Ironically, this was the very first thing I ever sent in to Zorg but it never got featured. This was probably due to it being too rubbish. I may as well start as I mean to go on though.

You heard it here first – Rockstar Games has no intention of making games with blue skies. Apparently they’re happy with brown cities full of junkies and whores.

A few weeks back while bored after Christmas, and with nothing on the telly I decided to write to Rockstar Games about their back catalogue. The email was perhaps a bit strong in its choice of language, but I didn’t really expect a reply anyway so I thought it might be fun to vent. The email went as follows:

From: Karl

Age: 27

Message:

As a long-time gamer, I have made purchase of many Rockstar Games products, starting with the original GTA for the Playstation (which was a shoddy port, sadly). I note with interest that Rockstar are keen on pushing an edgy, ‘adult’ image. But I feel your company has a lot to answer for. Not in a Jack Thompson, “videogames made my chid into a feral killer” kind of way. But the success of the GTA series has led to a lot of other companies following the money and now the market is saturated with crime games, rubbish free-roaming games (True Crime: Streets of LA, anyone?) and other assorted “adult” tat.

Is there any chance of Rockstar bucking the trend, and perhaps pushing out a cheery little happy game where nobody gets kerb-stomped? You could put it out on the PS Network and Xbox Live, and I bet that the media would be intrigued by such a volte-face. Or even on the App Store – you’d make a killing (no pun intended).

I find myself agreeing with this man’s ideas – http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2005/11/blue-sky-in-games-campaign-launched.html It’s not about prudery. It’s not about censorship. I’m not against blowing “gangstas” away in games. I’m just one of many people sick of the deluge of games in this genre.

How about starting a reverse trend, Rockstar? Although I don’t think I will hold my breath.

However, about a week later I received this reply in my email inbox:

Hi Karl,

Thanks for your message.  While we appreciate your point of view, we do stand by our catalog of titles as one that is indeed diverse and varied for many tastes.  For every Grand Theft Auto title in our history, there is also a teen-appropriate Midnight Club racing game or a lighthearted title such as Bully or a Red Dead Redemption epic and dramatic western or even our occasional E-rated releases such as Table Tennis and the music-making title, Beaterator.  We have always geared our releases to be cutting-edge, progressive entertainment and yes, many of those experiences are catered towards mature players – but hopefully you’ll stick with us and look forward to what we have lined up for 2011 and beyond including L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3 and more.

Cheers,

Rockstar Games

I would like to take the opportunity to reply to Rockstar Games by saying like fuck i will.

THE DREAMCAST LOGO, THAT’S WHAT!

Spotted in the skies over Norway. “Bizarre spiral” and “computer generated” are relevant enough keywords to convince us it’s Dreamcast related. Possibly the Dreamcast coming back through time from an alternate future timeline where it ruled all and became self-aware and developed time travel. Something like that. It would make a better film than Terminator Salvation.

If this turns out to be viral marketing for “2012” this post will be retrospectively deleted, so don’t spend too much time on your comments.

“You’ve probably been sent this a million times this past hour but this is clearly proof that Sega is bringing back the Dreamcast in 2010 and has announced this by scaring the shit out of some Norwegians with an impressive publicity stunt. Since it’s from the Daily Mail website, I’d give it half an hour before Jan Moir accuses it of being “unnatural” and suggesting that’s why it died out quite quickly” – Chris.

This is SEGA Rally. The new one. The one that’s out in a month and a bit. Featuring the bluest of blue skies possible. So blue, in fact, you have to download an extra pack of colours from Xbox Live just to get all these beautiful shades.

That’s a high level cirrostratus, mainly composed of ice crystals.

A cirrocumulus at around 20,000 feet. These are usually found at sunset.

A very thin layer of altostratus. A mid-level cloud that forms between 7,000 and 20,000 feet.

Can’t see. Looks like a Photoshop 35mm Prime lens flare though

Cirrostratus again. No chance of rain today!

Looks like there’s a stratocumulus formation of mid-height rain-bearing clouds over the mountains.

Bloody cirrocumulus again. We’d like to see dark and moody altocumulus for the sake of variety.

Moving. A single lens flare effect is worth 1000 hours of CG footage.

Here’s something to bring us all together again – calling a man wearing a Sonic costume a cunt. Gather round, everyone!

“This guy was having a great time dressing as Sonic for a contest during the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, but he lost out to a small child dressed as Peach.”

“I mean the child was dressed as Peach, the man didn’t lose to him while dressing AS Peach. In shame he made his son wear the head.”

“I can only imagine at some point the kid is going to take the head and spike it a la Lord of Flies and sacrifice some old Genesis carts to get some great blue skies going. Words are hard.”

“These were taken at a surprisingly huge size available upon request if you want to really see the fibers” – Tenno.

It’s a plan for SEGA to make a new Daytona USA. He has thought it through extremely well and provided links to back up his reasoning.

Hey guys, love the site. With regards to the Blue Skies Campaign, we may be on the cusp of a major triumph. It seems like EA is no longer interested in the NASCAR license.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/25/eas-nascar-exclusivity-in-question-sim-series-on-hold/

What does this mean? Well, the International Speedway Corporation, owned by NASCAR’s France family, owns the Daytona USA trademark. They used it for a tourist attraction at the Daytona International Speedway, but the name was changed recently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Speedway_Corporation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytona_500_Experience

My theory here is that if SEGA grabs the NASCAR license, they can FINALLY have the means to make a new Daytona USA game, and they can probably team up with Image Space Incorporated to make a PC NASCAR simulator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_Space_Incorporated

Everybody wins!

Here’s what we do. We go on Sega America’s twitter and nag them to get the license.

http://twitter.com/SegaAmerica

I did my part, and they said, to quote, “sorry, can’t say one way or the other.” They didn’t deny it outright, so this is the time to strike! Help me out and soon enough, we could have the greatest moment in the Blue Skies Campaign! LET’S DO IT!

BY WAY OF AN APOLOGY
Here’s a shit-load of screenshots we’ve taken of the arcade version of Daytona USA running under that Model 2 emulator.

The Model 2 emulator is awesome. Very nice. It runs perfect, even on the cheap mass-produced computer that powers UKR.

The latest-generation UKR “Con” is powered by a Core 2 Duo E8200. There are three “gigs” of RAM in it, plus whatever Dell’s default cheapest graphics card was six months ago.

Adam Doree can’t get it to work though!

ADAM DOREE: “My PC is really precarious at the moment – I can’t afford any crashes or reboots as sometimes it decides to take FIVE CUNTING HOURS to successfully boot, so I have to wait till that’s sorted before revisiting the M2 emu which crashed me last time. Er, does this sound right though? The Daytona ROM I have is only 14.5MB? That can’t be right surely?”

Yes, Adam, it’s right.

It also runs SEGA Rally perfectly and anything else you can find the ROMs of.

There’s a bundle of Model 2 ROMs on the torrent sites.

We’ll probably have to explain to Adam Doree how to find those as well, if he ever gets a PC good enough to run it.

We never dreamed we’d be able to (a) play Daytona USA all day for free or (b) take screenshots and examine its glorious textures.

We only selected “Manual” for the purposes of taking this screenshot. In actual play, it was automatic all the way.

Offramp! What does that even mean? We’ve spent all morning reading the textures of the cars. Screenshot #5 up there shows a car sponsored by a record company called just “Records.”

That car is sponsored by SG8. AM2 was too busy making the world’s best-ever driving game to have meetings where it spent all morning thinking up clever names for things.

Driving up to Jeff is also a good way to spend an afternoon.

We’re not doing very well. It’s hard setting up the controller to work satisfactorily. That’s the only complaint.

Sliding, probably by accident.

Angular seagull!

Crash ahead!

Horses! When you’re playing for free, wasting a go by driving off the track to examine the surroundings is an OK thing to do.

SEGA was pioneering environmental power generation even in the early 1990s. That sky texture would make a lovely background for a blog about games, wouldn’t it?

Get it. Press F12 to take a screen grab. It dumps them in a folder automatically. Away you go.

And here we were thinking that all UKR readers existed solely within the confines of bedsits in South Wales, where they obsess about female regional newsreaders and construct elaborate fantasy scenarios where they do something newsworthy – like save a child from a burning car – and get invited into the studio for an interview about their right place/right time heroics.

Then they meet the newsreader in the “green room” and become friends. They decide to go out after the show has “wrapped” and head off for a night on the town. Being a local celebrity, the female newsreader gets into all the coolest bars for free and most of her drinks are free as well. She gets very drunk and eventually consents to sex.

But that is not true. Some of you go abroad and do interesting things other than sitting there with your trousers open waiting for Meridian TV’s Sarah Lockett to cross her legs.

This reader went to Bolivia, for example.

“I have photos of a ‘Dreamcast 2’ bed spread. Found in the jungle village of Rerrenabaque, Northern Bolivia, it features what is clearly blue skies and sunshine too! It is none other than a subliminal message from SEGA’s Dreamcast 2 promotional squad. They get everywhere!”

“Unfortunately it wasn’t particularly comfortable. But then it is hard to be comfortable in one of the most humid parts of the world, even without 1000 mosquito, tick and sandfly bites” – Alan.

This update is the companion piece to Alan’s Bolivian Battery Special, as featured on upcoming metallurgy blog Idiot Toys. Alan has basically saved today from being even less interesting.

Yes, THE Richard Jacques! The Richard Jacques of Metropolis: Street Racer fame, the Richard Jacques of Headhunter fame, the Richard Jacques of OutRun2 remix fame and the Richard Jacques of Sonic R fame/notoriety.

If you want to verify the authenticity of this interview, you’d better contact Rich though his MySpace page – as his answers are so mental it might look like we’ve just made this all up. But we haven’t. It’s all 100 percent pure Richard.

Here’s what RJ had to say.

UKR: Hey Rich. How are you?
Richard Jacques: I’m fairly well thanks, considering. Thank you for asking.

Where are you?
I am currently in Magical Sound Towers, a division of the Magical Sound Factory, where I currently reside with my many composing monkeys.

What were you doing an hour ago?
Reading this email with horror / glee.

What will you be doing tomorrow, say, at about 2.00pm?
Reading this interview once you publish it, no doubt. Actually I shall be having a slide guitar lesson.

Which supermarket is your local supermarket? Just in case we happen to be in the area and standing outside it?
That is a really tough question. Because, you see, I am almost equidistant between Somerfield and the Co-Operative, which admittedly are both a bit sort of pikey supermarkets, but the Co-Op does a good line in biscuits, whereas Somerfield always has Chicken Kievs on special. What is one to do? (actually Rich shops at a really posh online supermarket so it’s more like Fortnum and Mason for him, bowler hats optional of course).

What sort of items are in an average Richard Jacques shopping basket?
Hmmmm. Now that is personal. Well, obviously cheese. I like cheese. In fact I love cheese. Cheese as in the food, cheesy music, cheesy people, cheesy peas, cheesy feet, no wait, I made up that last one. Lots of red meat, fish, poultry. Some tinned sweet corn. A stamp. Sarah Lee chocolate gateaux. And a copy of Official Sega Saturn Magazine as well as a copy of Official Dreamcast Magazine. Am I still dreaming?

What sort of normal music do you like? Bet you’re into really edgy bands we’ve never heard of!
Because I spend so much time in my Magical Sound Factory, I usually just listen to Morris dancing music, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and Enka, which is Japanese old people’s folk music. It relaxes me, you see.

You’re credited as providing “composition, remixing and surround mixing” for SST – how much music have you actually contributed to SEGA Superstars Tennis?
All of the above. I did all the front-end tracks and jingles and the like. Then working with my team in the Magical Sound Factory, my assistants Marc and Rik helped out on the surround mixes of all the tracks in the game, and the remixes of Space Harrier and Virtua Cop. So basically we did all of the above.

The original tracks, like the Green Hill and Scrap Brain tunes – are they just recorded or have you recreated them?
Sadly, we weren’t allowed to touch these tracks due to copyright reasons. But pretty much everything else has been ‘touched’ by me.

Do you get original sound files from SEGA? What format do they come in? Do they come on dusty old tapes with SEGA logos on the boxes?
They actually arrive via horse and cart, and the format is 78rpm long playing records. A bit like the format your granddad once had. Or you grandma / great aunt / uncle. Except with better music on it – the Grime Thorpe Colliery Brass Band don’t know Splash Wave. Yet.

So once I open up a box of dusty old 78s, (complete with black and white coal drawn SEGA logos), we go through a thorough mastering process, to ensure no one has embedded “kill Cliff Richard” within a satanic message, and really bring that 8 and 16-Bit goodness up to date. Occasionally we eat walnuts during this particular part of the process. Or sometimes dried apricots, but only on leap years, like this one.

The SST theme tune is very enjoyable. Sumo Digital said you can sing along to it, like “SEGA! Super-stars, la la lah!” – did you have any particular lyrics in mind?
Yes, and the first lyric that springs to mind is “HOW DARE THE GUY WRITE ON THAT THERE FORUM A FEW WEEKS AGO SAYING THAT YOU CAN’T SING ALONG TO THE MELODY IN THE MAIN THEME.”

So yeah, basically, if you sing “SE-GA” along to the first 2 notes of the main melody, then “su-per-stars” to the next three notes, then you are rocking. How dare people suggest I don’t take my job VERY seriously!!!

Which SST track is your favourite?
Hmm, tough question. Space Channel 5 tracks and Passing Breeze from Outrun.

You should release them on iTunes. We could get all our readers to buy it and you might get in the charts!
Yes, I should! Hang on, how many readers do you have?

Enough to scrape a top 40 position in the jazz/classic charts. Did SEGA have to approve your stuff?
Yep.

Was anything rejected?
Nope.

YOUR DESERT ISLAND SEGA TUNE: Magical Sound Shower? Or something else?
PASSING BREEZE. Far superior composition to Magical Sound Shower in my opinion. I haven’t played this particular track half-way around the world for no good reason, don’t you know.

Is it possible to get bored of Magical Sound Shower? If anyone would be bored of it by now, it’d probably be you.
No one can ever get bored of anything to do with Outrun. Not even Yu Suzuki.

SST’s House of the Dead/Curien Mansion music is emerging as an early favourite. There’s something awesome about the organ. Do you like organs?
I love organs. Be it a Hammond organ, a cathedral organ, or a human organ. Organs rule.

Is that the original HotD music or a Jacques mega-mix? It’s great, whatever it is.
It’s the original that we mixed into 5.1 surround, so no remixing, just surround mixing. Great tracks though, very nostalgic. I’ve been playing lots of the HotD mini games and they are my favourites so far. Beat hitting tennis balls at fat zombies is what games should be about.

Space Harrier also rocks. Well done!
Thanks! And yes it does!

Are there any Sonic R tunes in SST?
No.

Did you ever raise the possibility of the inclusion of Sonic R tunes?
No. But Supersonic Racing does feature in Super Smash Bros Brawl on the Wii. So at least they like it.

How often do people come up to you and quote you the lyrics of their favourite Sonic R track? I bet it’s every day!
To be fair, it’s every other day.

There’s an unlockable track in SST’s Golden Axe zone called “Paternal Horn.” Where did that name come from?
Well, I’m not too sure but I know that track is from NiGHTS. So I guess that if you look into the Latin (Pater meaning father) it could be father’s horn, or father plays the French horn, or father goes out a-hunting with a massive hunting horn. You decide.

Do you ever listen to game music just for fun?
All the time. NiGHTS, OutRun, Panzer and Shenmue never leave my CD player.

Are you friends with fellow game musician Jesper Kyd or DEADLY RIVALS?
Jesper and I are very good friends. Your readers just have to cast their minds back to Scorcher and Amok on the Saturn. Plus he is Danish and therefore of Viking descent so you don’t mess with that kind.

Do you want us to start a hate campaign about him on the internet? We could ruin him and you’d get more work!
Actually, yes, that would be fine, thank you. Assassins Creed 2, please. Jade? Hello?

What are you working on at the moment that you can talk about?
Sonic Chronicles, plus three other game soundtracks and a feature film, none of which I can talk about. So don’t ask. OK?

Several years ago now, you casually mentioned you might create a theme tune for UKR. Every day we check our email, hoping that it might have arrived. But it still hasn’t. Has it got lost in the system?
It must have! But keep asking. You never know what may turn up…

So, now you’re done with SST you must have a lot of spare time. Do you want to meet up and hang out? We could go swimming.

I do like swimming but my local pool has been opened then closed then opened then closed. I blame the government. For everything. When it is open properly again and the boiler is fixed, I will go. You can go too if you like.

To the cinema?
Possibly.

What kind of films do you like?
All films but mainly Carry On. Hattie Jacques is a legend.

Do you like The Terminator?
She’s OK.

I’ve got the Region 1 special edition. You can come round and watch it. I’ll tidy up and get some beers in. What do you like?
I like Dysons with some Mr Sheen and Febreeze. Oh are you talking about beers? Well wasn’t Miles Dyson a character in Terminator 2? I’m just trying to link your random questions here. Is he the same guy that made the hoover and that new hand dryer? OK so drinks then. Just any man beer is good.

Is UKR a liability as far as you’re concerned?
Absolutely, just stop rifling through my bins. The council have enough trouble. And please make some Blue Skies in Games campaign t-shirts, maybe some people would buy them then! (none of that teal nonsense though, do you hear?)

Thanks, Rich!
Do Itashimashite.

Thanks again, Rich! We now know Richard lives “equidistant between Somerfield and the Co-Operative” so it’s off to Google Maps to narrow his precise location down.