We’ve been saying this all along.

Part of SEGA [GENESIS] Classics, coming soon to the PC.

Apparently, there’s a new game around called Alpha Protocol. It’s technically “by” SEGA, as in it’ll be SEGA sending it out to the shops, then SEGA that processes all the returns nine months later, then SEGA that admits it wasn’t a particularly good idea in an interview in Edge magazine 18 months later and that it’s also refocusing efforts on the latest micro-trend instead.

But anyway. There’s a SEGA Saturn in it.

Play, which is where we find out about games nowadays due to having pretty much totally “lapsed,” says Alpha Protocol is subtitled “The Espionage RPG” which is about the least-thrilling description imaginable. Apart from, perhaps, “Squad-based Espionage Management RPG”.

You can see by the way Sonic’s falling off the loop that the controls are a NIGHTMARE. Tails is in the lead, for god’s sake. You know it’s gone badly wrong when Tails is in the lead. He’s even going to get some rings. You’ll never see them again.

The ability to be able to press right consistently is a rather important part of the Sonic formula. It’s not OK to simply get all the colours looking right. More screenshots over on the SEGA US blog.

The new Doctor Who TV show is a mess. About one episode in four can hold its own against a mid-range episode of Quantum Leap, and that’s about as good as it gets.

It is no Babylon 5.

You’re not even allowed to say Doctor Who is rubbish, because then you’ll be told by a 45-year-old man that you’re somehow not getting the point. It’s infuriating. We file people who like Doctor Who in the same place we put people who like the Wii – the IDIOT CABINET.

Run around for a bit while some music and dialogue YOU MIGHT RECOGNISE OFF THE TELLY plays in the background. Charming. Good job it’s free. Video via VG247.

Karl’s made another game. This one’s a bit puzzling, as it’s got Cream in it but is also a bizarre combo of existing Sonic art with new bits stuck on top.

Karl, you’re too good to languish in the Sonic remake scene. Concentrate on your original in-house IP.

“The plot – Cream must save Sonic so that he can once again save Mobius. The only problem is that Sonic is trapped on a memory stick in the real world whilst Robotnik wreaks havoc. Featuring AMAZING DIGITISED GRAPHICS and a variety (well 2) of gameplay styles” – Karl.

It’s very, very hard. It reminds us of when mum had to come upstairs and ask us to stop us shouting “CUNT” very loudly when playing Green Beret on the Commodore 64.

DOWNLOADS:
Game here.

Karl, who must live in a place where time passes more slowly than it does for the rest of us thereby allowing him to spend more time messing about on a computer for the benefit of a handful of people, has knocked up another of his games.

This one’s called “Cynoids”. The first picture’s the how-to-play screen.

“Here’s my latest game, one that unlike the dreadful ‘Imagine: Blogger’ and ‘Minigames of Parliament’ I have actually spent a lot of time on this one. You canput it up if you want. It’s a proper old-school scrolling shooter, like they don’t make any more. It’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to making something of a commercial standard.”

“Also – the next game coming up (once I have recovered) is Sonic The Hedgehog – Reality Bytes, starring Sonic and Cream the Rabbit… :D” – Karl.

We made it to the second level. Then had to stop for personal reasons. We’re yet to try Karl’s “Imagine: Blogger”.

THE TEXT-BASED INTRO STORY, BY KARL

Story:
The screaming started early.

Like some terrible, horrible cosmic clockwork giant spaceships descended from the sky, blotting out the sun over landmarks from California to Marrakech. The entire population of Earth stopped to gawp at these monstrosities, great dark shapes above the clouds. The ships descended further, and that’s when the screaming started.

The Cynoid bio-ships were a mockery of science – half organic, half ship, much like the species itself. The craft mixed high-tech pulsar weaponry and bleeding edge killware with docking bays made out of writhing, tumorous flesh.

These ships disgorged their deadly cargo, swarms of smaller ships and creatures of many different shapes and sizes. In London a man was torn apart by a floating flock of purple creatures covered in gaping maws. In Moscow the Kremlin was demolished by a skyscraper-sized leech-like creature with long spindly arms that leaked noxious fluid from its every pore. Paris was totally overwhelmed with purple maggots. They stripped the flesh from every living thing in the city within an hour.

Earth’s military forces were overwhelmed before they could be properly scrambled. Conventional firepower deflected from the hulls of the Cynoid ships like stones launched by an errant child. A battle unit in China faced up to a giant tank with a living, screaming humanoid face riveted to it. Their bullets pinged and rattled off its metal frame. Thousands of rounds chewed into the flesh on the vehicle, great chunks of bloody meat falling to the ground. One of its shining red eyes burst, viscous yellow fluid running down its cheek.

None of it did the slightest bit of good – the tank rolled over the whole regiment, bones crunching and bodies pulping under the vast wheels. Those who fled were blasted apart by the tank’s onboard armaments.

Amongst all this chaos the UN convened an emergency summit. The leaders of the greatest nations on Earth squabbled like a gaggle of petulant children, all blaming one another for their failings. Until Dr Aramosa called for science.

A thin, neat man in his mid-forties, with an eerily emotionless face and equally monotone delivery, he announced that he had a plan to get them all out of the mess they were in. Aramosa had been working on an experimental hard-fusion cannon. His speech nonetheless swayed the chamber, the leaders grasping at the little hope that was being offered to them.

Emergency field tests proved highly encouraging – the cannon could cut through the unidentified dark-grey metal the Cynoids built their tech from. The UN scrambled their tech bods to affix what cannons they could build onto space shuttles, reconfigured to be used as jet fighters and heavily armored to repel Cynoid fire.

They were able to buid twelve. Two of the ships combusted on takeoff, frying the crew and spewing flaming debris over Cape Canaveral. One more suffered from engine failure, and the plane dropped into the Grand Canyon. The pilot ejected, but was captured by a roving Cynoid drone, and taken away to be experimented on.

Of the nine left, you pilot one ship. Between you, you are humanity’s very last hope…

We don’t believe anything actually “leaks” these days, apart from our [GRAPHIC MEDICAL REFERENCE DELETED], but blue-themed blog Sonic Stadium is currently linking to the entire soundtrack of Sonic 4 – which has, apparently, leaked.

The music files are on the internet here, if you’ve got nothing better to do than listen to Sonic music for the next 20 minutes while Googling “Train2Game” to see if anyone else has slagged them off today [NO THAT’S PROBABLY JUST ME].

Here’s a slightly related bonus piece from the THE GREATEST SONIC THE HEDGEHOG DESKTOP IMAGES IN THE WORLD series to illustrate this glorious update. We could’ve just used a screen capture of the sites in question, but went the extra mile.

Can’t help it. This DOES look good. Doesn’t it? Surely we’re detached enough from SEGA these days to be able to judge things objectively?

Some words here and the rest of the shots here. We’re not risking exclamation marks until we play the thing, though. We’re still mentally fragile and can’t risk getting hurt again.

They’re embedded on the Sonic 4 site, so here’s a screen capture of just the one. It’s too late in the day to go writing captions for eight screenshots taken within 30 seconds of each other in the same level – ARE WE RIGHT PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO WRITE CAPTIONS FOR A LIVING?

Turn your speakers off if you’re going to click on that link. It’s a noisy bloody site. People will think you’re playing games instead of merely looking at them – an important distinction in many industrial tribunals.

Here’s one of those updates where it’s, what… 12.04pm? And we haven’t got anything else to do today so it’s EMAIL INBOX LUCKY DIP time.

The winner of EMAIL INBOX LUCKY DIP for today is game maker “Thor” who has made this odd little online game based around PlayStation3 “groundbreaking” “interactive movie” Heavy Rain. Or so he says. We cannot verify that fact for obvious reasons.

It’s called Press X to Jason.

Would anyone like to collaborate on making a game called “Imagine: Blogger”? We have already scripted out most of the cut-scenes.

In the game, you press ‘X’ to ask people if they are Jason. This quickly becomes monotonous and the replayability score is therefore 4/10. The graphics are mostly 2D and therefore it only gets 2/10 for visualability. Soundplay is 3/10.

As ever, the online scoreboard is riddled with cheats.