The planets have aligned. We like promotional photographs. We like Ulala. We like SEGA. We lov… like Richard Jacques. We also like concrete, grass, metal railings and trees, we just never go into that much public detail about our liking of concrete, grass, metal railings and trees.

Here’s everything that’s good about the world squashed into two cubic metres of existence.

We’re fairly sure the expression on Richard’s face there is what’s known as a “shit-eating grin” and he could quite possibly be wanking. Whereabouts of right hand – UNKNOWN.

PREVIOUS WORLD’S GREATEST SEGA PHOTOGRAPHS:

Sonic cosplay man

The Sonic bin

You cannot go wrong with a game in which Ulala transforms from her Space Channel 5 Part 1 costume into her Space Channel 5 Part 2 costume. Anyone who says otherwise is a LIAR and a FRAUD, or someone who spent the tail-end of 1999 waiting for PS2 to come out rather than importing Japanese Dreamcast games at massive expense.

Look at her. She’s amazing. She’s exactly like the original Dreamcast Ulala artwork. It’s the real Ulala. It is HER.

Taking screenshots of Ulala is a dream come true. The quality of the game doesn’t matter – we’ve had more fun taking screenshots of Ulala than playing any game from the last year. Taking screenshots of Ulala – 10/10.

He is BACK! The one, the only, the incredible elasticated FLAG MAN!!

To the left!

To the right!

To the back!

Now, come on! You do it! Everybody do the FLAG MAN!

Every SEGA/Sonic site is at FULLY ERECT DEFCON 1 STATUS at the moment, thanks to some clever children finding assets for what would appear to be a multiformat release of Sonic Unleashed. It’s the best leak ever – loads of hi-res screens and magazine cover art, and even a video. Heads will “roll” over this.

This is something that’s been bothering us for quite a while now. We remember reading a quote by Shigeru Miyamoto about how Super Mario World was ONLY possible on the Super NES and being rather skeptical. While there actually are some bits of it that can’t be done on the NES (the boss fights, that huge Bullet Bill in the very first level that comes in and scares the shit out of you), his example was simply a disgusting case of passive-aggressive SEGA-HATING: (taken from hint book/Nintendo propaganda booklet “Mario Mania”)

Yes, whatever you say, Shiggy. We’d like to introduce you all to this- a homemade port of Super Mario World to the NES made by some enterprising Asian hackers:

It is, sadly, the only NES game we really like, as we don’t have the attention span for things like Contra or Rad Racer. This has caused a life-long alienation from internet forums where people sit around and talk about how great the NES is/was.

The game itself is very impressive, and enjoyable to play:

Even if there are parts where you get stuck and have to reset.

Look, there’s Yoshi! Ready for mounting.

…oh…

…OH…

BAM! And we’re off!

Shit. It’s hard to take screenshots and control a semi-buggy NES game at the same time.

So that’s it- Yoshi does everything he does in the SNES version; eat berries and enemies and spit fireballs. When you get hit he doesn’t run away as fast, which is fine with us because his “running away” animation in the SNES version always made us think Yoshi was running to the nearest bottomless pit to commit suicide or something and made us feel uncomfortable.

So much for believing you, Shiggy!

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.

Think there’s just one umpire? THINK AGAIN! SEGA Superstars Tennis has a choice of two umpires – that’s twice the sound, twice the words and twice the recording studio time with the voice-over artists. This is no mere game – it’s a labour of love.

Here, we are selecting the female voice. It’s like having a female in your flat. You can say “How many slices of bread are left, love?” Then you can make her say “Fifteen, love” and it’s like you’re talking to a woman!

Now attempting the male voice. You can say “Would you like anything to drink, Dave?” Then you can get the score to 40-40 and the man will say “Deuce” so you can serve up the man a glass of juice and it’s just like having a friend. What a game.

Here is a selection of loading screens. Some are quite pretty! You often find yourself thinking “I hope the next mission takes ages to load, so I can get a really good look at the loading screen.”

They’re educational as well. This one is telling you how to play the next mission. Make sure you pay attention!

Beautiful logos.

Logos we have learned to love and trust.

Some have slightly butchered names due to certification reasons (blame Germany), but it’s still right in spirit.

This is the one you’ll see the most – the loading screen of Superstars mode.

As you can see, the ball at the bottom-right bounces up and down as the game loads. It bounces smoothly, too! It’s not one of those jerky loading indicators you often see on inferior products.

After each mission, you have the option to replay it or return to the main menu screen. Which option will YOU choose?!

Another demolition complete. But do we REALLY want to go back to the mission select screen? Or have we just pressed that button by mistake?

Just in case you change your mind, the game kindly asks you if you are sure. Superstars Tennis cares for you, like no one else ever will.

It’s not only before a game you can set controller configuration – you can even do it DURING!

Is this the most user-friendly game EVER?