EXCLUSIVE REPORT: “I have a Mega Drive power block with a broken pin on the bottom. It still works, I just have to pull the two lower legs apart each time I want to use it. That sounds a bit rude I guess, so it might fit on your site. Unfortunately I don’t have it with me so I had to draw it instead. I was going to use a SEGA font to make it look better but for whatever reason it won’t show up in MS Paint. I would’ve put all the voltages and stuff too but I can’t remember those. LW”

He’s lost quite a bit of weight, but those tell-tale glasses and that fearsome grimace give away his identity.

Losing the moustache has taken years off him too.

Who would’ve thought such an innocent could grow up to unleash such terror upon the world? More childhood Robotnik photos here. He seems to have lived a full and varied life echoing that of Geroge Harrison, apart from the bit where he becomes a techno DJ at the end.

Although DJ-ing in Union Street to a bunch of pissed-up squaddies on shore leave means he’ll be dead very soon.

Tomorrow: Dr Robotnik.

Someone sent us a photo of a SEGA Park sign they spotted on a London street. The sign was above a rubbish shop selling postcards and bottles of water to tourists for twice what you’d pay elsewhere. The angle of the photo suggested there might be a Sega Park and Casino to the left of the shot. We emailed back, asking what was to the left of the photo…

It’s a pub. We then decided to go and investigate for ourselves, seeing as it’s only round the corner from where we sit in an office and press F5 all day.

Here, in fact.

It doesn’t look like it was a very big SEGA Park and Casino. Perhaps that’s why it closed.

There is no sign of a SEGA Park and Casino above the sign.

There is no sign of a secret entrance in the street, either.

It’s blue though, and you can tell that the marble sides would’ve made a very grand entrance into the old SEGA Park. Imagine walking through those pillars into a world of SEGA fun!

To the right is a trendy ‘eatery’ where businessmen are having lunch. Probably a ciabatta, toasted, with an expresso and a beer. They are discussing the ways in which they’d like to have sex with the receptionist.

To the left is another trendy ‘eatery’ where businessmen are eating gastro pub food. Probably Thai, with a bottle of Kronenbourg. They are discussing salaries without actually telling each other what they earn.

Just to satisfy your curiosity.

Here’s another one of the logo. This is like that bit in Planet of the Apes where Charlton Heston sees a happy thing he remembers, but then it turns out to mean something bad has happened. The bad thing that happened in this case is that another ex-SEGA facility has been turned into something that isn’t about playing Daytona USA any more. The bastards.

It looks in good condition. Maybe one day we’ll summon up the courage to go in and ask the owner if we can have it for fifty quid and his help in taking it down.

They can then re-invest the money in some new signage.

1993 – when Sonic could sell products his name was on.

We recognise this one! It was on the box.

If you happen to have worked for SEGA in the early 90s and happen to have this artwork in a hi-res format on whatever kind of disc things were stored on in the early 90s, PLEASE GET IN TOUCH.

This one we recognise from somewhere.

Amazing! He’s like Tarzan and Superman rolled into one. And quite gay.

Moving. Genius. Storytelling at its finest.

Lots of inspiration for gay fan fiction there (we’re currently 50,000 words in and Richard Jacques has just got sucked through a portal into Sonic’s world…)

Now you don’t have to pretend to like the Sonic games released since 1995 any more!

“This used to be where it said SEGA PARK in big blue letters. Now it says… well, this. And there’s a big silver AMUSEMENTS sign above the door, just in case people are too thick to work out what a Leisure Exchange is. On the plus side though, the Quasar’s quite good – nice and big, with loads of good places to hide”

“Sonic’s still in the windows despite the place no longer being a proper Sega Park, probably because they’re waiting for some chavs to smash them with a brick so they can claim for new Sonic-free glass on the insurance”

“The view from the front door. This place used to be CRAMMED with machines – really interesting ones. Now, there’s a huge gap in the middle (like, HUGE) and all the machines have been pushed against the walls. There’s a sole pool table at the back, which the chavs use mostly for sitting on”

“The newest machine the place has, besides Virtua Striker 4 and House Of The Dead 4 (both of which we’re surprised even appeared in this tired old place) is this WCCF card game. No one ever plays it. But then, there’s never anyone in here. To be fair though, having this and OutRun 2 SP is vaguely impressive… it’s just a shame all the other machines have been lost in the process”

“These people are playing Virtua Tennis 2. There are two VT2 machines in the arcade, but one’s got a shit screen that’s all purple and warped. It used to have several sit-down beat-’em-up cabinets (Tekken 4, SVC Chaos, Soul Calibur II) but they’re all gone now. In their place is a Sonic Blast Man punching machine. Bleugh”

What does it even MEAN? Were we really so innocent as a nation in 1996 that stuff like this seemed all edgy and cool and risque? Or was SEGA just loads shitter than we remember?

We’ll have her geo-located to within six centimetres by home time.

To this day, we still don’t understand how fruit machines work. Why, for example, is that bit flashing and saying ‘multiplier’? What button do you press now? There are never any instructions on them. How do people learn these things? Is it the sort of skill you only learn in prison, like how to hotwire a car and how to make methamphetamine from household products?

Eight pounds was probably quite a lot of money in 1992. We can’t remember, due to being really young. Like, maybe only 20 or 21 if Vixen, Siren or any girls on MySpace want to know.

This one says SEGA on its ‘nose’ and has an ‘eye’ missing so looks really cute. This also looks like a girl we used to fancy at school. Maybe that explains the weird SEGA fixation? We couldn’t have Sarah Kendall, but we CAN HAVE SEGA PRODUCTS.

This is a different one, probably a more recent model what with the stylised retro-futuristic SEGA font that looks like it’s from the 60s when the 60s tried to imagine what the 80s would look like. .

Imagine having that font. Imagine using Word and having that as your normal font! Or imagine having a long-running SEGA-based web site and having that font so you could make a new logo with it.

We don’t often get excited over fonts, but wow. That’s one hell of a font. Even if you’ve only got a version that works on a Mac, send it to us. We’ll buy a Mac.

Actually, the usage of the term “old penny” here suggests this machine was still in service post-decimalisation, which took place here in 1971. Which means it pre-dates that time as it was constructed to use the out-dated coin. Therefore, we’re going to predict this machine was built in around 1965. Unless YOU know better…