Here’s some of the stuff we’ve been sent. You might think this is the ‘easy option’ but in fact it’s amazingly tiresome cutting and pasting the best bits out of emails. It’s too much like our day job.

If any of the below stuff is from you, you are one of these:

THING ONE: SOME PHOTOS OF THE NEW ZEALAND XBOX 360 ‘LAUNCH BUS’

“New Zealand’s Xbox 360 pre-launch idea. Instead of a big party we got a custom bus filled with the units they put in the shops. Twenty of them, with released games like PGR3, CoD2, DOA4, Kameo, Tiger Wood and a demo of the final build of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.”

“They also had giveaways (trucker hats, armbands, lanyards) and some chick dressed up as Joanna Dark (no photos of her).”

THING TWO: A LINK TO THE ‘RUB RABBITS’ FLASH GAME

http://www.the-rub-rabbits.com/minigame/en/index2.html

THING THREE: A HUGE PSP AD BANNER ON A BUILDING IN MANCHESTER

“I took it in Manchester. Feel free to do what you like with it.”

THING FOUR: A REINTERPRETATION OF THE ‘EMILY BOOTH’ MAGAZINE COVER

“Hidden message in the Emily Booth cover.”

THING FIVE: MAN IN JAPAN SPOTS SEGA iDOG AND iFISH

“I spotted the now infamous Sega product Homestar in a shop in Japan today. Lo and behold, what was next to it? The Sega Toys duo of iDog and iFish. I’ve got no idea what they do but it’s nice to see Sega catering for the iPod generation, right? Plus they were in a sale too! That makes me sad.”

THING SIX: THOSE OLD PHOTOS OF GIRLS AND GAMES CONSOLES

“Just wondered what you thought about these piccies…”

http://www.siliconera.com/2006/03/04/the-girls-of-gaming

THING SEVEN: EMILY BOOTH ON TV!

“Well i don’t know if this is good or bad news but Miss Booth can still get some kind of televised work. She can now be found on some crappy Sky quiz channel called iplay, on channel 166 i think. Oh my surprise when her face popped up at 3 in the afternoon when i was flicking through the channels. Well its like the world has turned full circle with her back on unknown television but at least on LiveTV she nearly got her kit off!”

“No wonder she has been selling her fanny encrusted wares on Ebay, times are truly hard.”

“I have enclosed some poor pics that i took with my Sony Ericsson, also it would appear that times are hard for Nipper the dog also, as he appears to have taken up a part time job outside of HMV with her.”

“Hope you enjoy, sorry if it’s nothing to wank over.”

THING EIGHT: POPSTATION SPOTTED

“Exclusive PSP Redesign spotted!”

“This was probably not worth the soul rending effort it took to actually get the photo off of my fucking phone.”

THING NINE: LARA CROFT, DESIGN LEGEND

“I received this email from the Tomb Raider mailing list. So far as I can tell, the first Tomb Raider game is a candidate for BBC Culture Show’s Design Quest whatever. Not being Brit I have no idea what that is, but it may be worthy of your interest.”

“Somewhat amusing:”

“‘Equally important to its success was the skill with which the designers and animators at Core Design depicted its central character, Lara Croft, as a post-feminist heroine’.”

“…Says the BBC site, refering to the original misshapen Lara of course.”

“Also since when are videogames considered cultural?”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/cultureshow/designquest/vote/

THING TEN: TWO SEPARATE EMAILS ABOUT GIZMONDO

On the way back from E3 last year I ended up sitting next to a Gizmondo PR. I pretended to be asleep or absorbed in my plethora of handheld consoles in order to avoid having to speak to them, but I did listen in when he was speaking to some European web journo sitting on his other side. During that conversation I found out that the PR’s favourite game ever was the vertical shooter that was exclusive to Gizmondo because “all these new games are rubbish. I like them old school. Alpha Blaster (I just made up the name, I can’t be bothered to remember it or look it up) is brilliant because it’s old school.” I also found out that his favourite game from the show was Okami. He said it was “the first game on the PS2 that I’ve seen that actually looks any good. I haven’t liked anything else on PS2 till now.”

Yours,
An anonymous industry person.

EMAIL 2:

Just a quick word to say I used to work at the Cheadle’s office of Gizmondo and the story put forward so far is completely true.

The problem was never the people in the development studios (well apart from maybe the Swedish studios who didn’t actually release or finish anything) all the ex-Warthog staff, and to be fair the studio managers as well were constantly fed reports that ‘everything was fine’ and that ‘this is just a small mishap’. Of course if a company doesn’t even talk to their employers, let alone about the state of business, then employees themselves have no way of knowing how desperately bad things are. After all the company had just signed a 14 year lease on the studio building and had invited designers around who were planning to remould the studio into the theme of a giant Gizmondo with curvy desks and floors. oohh..fancy!

I think one of the more laughable situations for me personally however was when a time came around where the company basically admitted that the people in head office had no idea what they were supposed to do ( I suppose when you fill the company with models, cars, race horses and what not it may get a tad confusing). As a result everyone in the company had to fill out a form detailing exactly what they’re role was within the company and whom they were answerable too (I guess the horse was at a slight disadvantage). At this point we were assured that any staff cuts would be purely in the administrate roles at Head Office. Maybe the clever people in charge got confused, maybe they thought the Head Office was in fact in Cheadle, however the very next week the whole studio was given a months notice.

When the rumours of redundancies first surfaced the person in charge of Human Resources (I.e the person who is supposed to represent and look after the employees throughout the company…but maybe she forgot that as well) thought ‘sod it’ and went off on her holiday knowing full well the situation everyone was in. Not once did anyone from head office show any concern for the employees in the development studios, nor during the ‘consultancy period’ did they think to further ‘consult’ staff about what was going on (they were all too busy covering their secretary’s in silly-string for Christmas cards).

All in all a interesting experience! Although I can understand how the company might have been able to convince investors at the time (being able to show them a product and a couple of games and saying ‘look! we -are- making something really!’) I dread to think that somehow the people responsible will move on to other projects in the future and secure even more investor money to continue their manipulative lifestyle (and maybe buy the remaining 398 Ferrari Enzos!),

Also you might be interested to know, not happy with playing the world once, rumour has it that Carl Freer is in the process of starting a new company! http://www.xeromobile.com/. (http://www.gizmondoforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5469&st=0) Not sure what they are about yet however they seem to be very keen to gather investors at present. Another Gizmondo like scam I hear you say? Most likely, I suppose $3.45m salary isn’t enough and the guy does still have to keep with insurance payments on his $115,662 car.

I’d prefer to stay anonymous for now thanks.

THING ELEVEN: “VITAL INFORMATION CONCERNING MICHAEL JACKSON AND THE DESTRUCTION OF PLANET EARTH”

“Check this out. It’s the fucking shit.”

http://www.hcn.zaq.ne.jp/cabic508/rsf/

“Your servants, Phil and Muffin”

FINAL THING: A SONIC THE HEDGEHOG WINAMP SKIN

“You’ll probably like this:”

http://www.winamp.com/skins/details.php?id=147154

“Yay!”

Yay for you. Nice work, scouts. See you in [time period until we can be bothered to do it all this tiresome cuttin’ an’ pastin’ an’ image resizin’ again].

ONE FINAL CONCERN
We’re worried we’ve spunked too much good stuff in one update, which will lead to the internet’s “interesting reserves” being fully depleted by summer. So we might never do this again.

Have you lot got nothing better to do than put “Sega” into search boxes and see what comes up? Yes? Great! Keep them coming. It’s like watching telly with a ten year delay.

SONIC 3 / MICHAEL JACKSON VIDEO INVESTIGATION!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbVM-l2Oku4&search=sonic%20jackson

SEGA MEGADRIVE AND MEGA CD ADS HERE:
Fun with Google video!

“DON’T COPY THAT FLOPPY”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9045861006530293045

TWAT BREAKS XBOX
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7711764065622137607

SATURN SHENMUE
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2974855159516349841

“TECH CLOSEUP”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=506187630670416005

SOMETHING ELSE ABOUT SHENMUE
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6706024784856398709

SEGA SOCCER RPG
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5321818938998613520&q

Quite old, but you can’t have seen all of them. TOMORROW: Sega Scouts!

Given how inescapable Final Fantasy is, its publicity machine has always been relatively low-key. You can’t see merchandise of Cloud and Zidane and The One That Looks Like Jamie Oliver on the shelves like you can with games such as Pokemon and Dragon Quest. Then, one day, you wake up and Ebay looks like this.

It’s Final Fantasy in a bottle, courtesy of Square and Suntory! This is exactly the kind of stuff we would have spent WHOLE TENNERS on when we were teenagers, despite not having enough money to even heat the flat. Now we can’t escape the certain knowledge that Hironobu Sakaguchi has wanked into EVERY SINGLE BOTTLE.

It really is Final Fantasy in a bottle, too! Here’s how your brain reacts when you drink it.

1) Initial repulsion and horror.

2) The palate begins to settle down. Now you can taste strange, pungent things. The brain struggles for some kind of familiar standpoint from which to judge the experience. Does it taste of aniseed like the sweets you loved as a child, or is it a more mature taste like when you grew up a bit and started to prefer the hard edge of liquorice?

3) As the taste buds finally sort themselves out, you decide that what you’re drinking actually tastes exactly like the time when you tried “Cookery” for yourself and mixed up every bottle in the spice rack with some fairy liquid (because the smell reminded you of dad on a Sunday lunchtime) and ended up really, really sick.

4) Reality comes back into sharp focus and all naive attempts at nostalgia collapse, as you realise that what you have is simply yet another energy drink the same as Red Bull, Red Charge, Red Line and Lucozade XS NRG, only this one has a packet of Jawbreakers dissolved in it. And spunk.

The ingredients are listed as parsley, sage, thyme, royal jelly and something in Japanese that we can’t understand because we don’t know the kanjis for “Company Chairman” and “Tadpoles.” Horrible as it is, it’s nowhere near as bad as the “Collectors Edition” set which comes in these poncey perfume bottles.

Final Fantasy Potion. Un fragrance pour un homme. Un fragrance pour un femme. Un fragrance de l’argent et le wee-wee blanc.

OK, not quite, but “The TNT Commercial Gaming Breakdown!” seems to be some sort of spiritual sequel, kind of like like Radiant Silvergun and
Ikaruga.

This sort of thing makes us glad Google video wasn’t around when we started doing UKR.

It’s just two posh teenagers poorly ad-libbing about games in their bedroom.

And occasionally in the kitchen. Thanks to our reader who appears to be called “roddie digital” for the link, headline and opening paragraph. Without him this page would not be here.

TWO TEENAGERS POORLY AD-LIBBING ABOUT GAMES IN THEIR BEDROOM AND OCCASIONALLY KITCHEN:
Here.

Well, the 106,199th best site in the world, according to this site. Which is either really EXCELLENT when you consider it is out of the top 10,000,000 or so websites on the internet or really SHIT when you consider that we are 104,021 places behind Penny Arcade. Anyway, thanks. We’re not quite sure how we can break in to the top 100,000 but a picture of Emily Booth dressed as a schoolgirl must be worth a few extra places?

Imagine a line graph, then imagine this at its very lowest point:

It’s an absolutely disgraceful game called “CarJacker: Hotwired and Gone” in which you play a black man in a vest who steals cars. If we’d made this up ourselves we’d be called MASSIVE RACISTS and would get on the front page of Metro. Things can only get better from now on for the video games industry, SURELY?

THE DEPTH-PLUMBING PRESS RELEASE:
IncaGold, the fast-growing publisher of PC leisure/entertainment games and mobile phone content, is pleased to announce the March release of “CarJacker: Hotwired and Gone” as part of IncaGold’s mass-market PC range in the UK, Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man.

If you like your action fast, furious and dangerous then “CarJacker: Hotwired and Gone” will present you with a plethora of challenges to test your mettle and see if you have the ‘bottle’ to fit in and survive on the other side of the law.

Fast driving at the wheel of some seriously powerful cars, avoiding the cops, hand to hand fighting and even bribing those who could make your life easier are just a few of the necessities of a normal day but there are plenty out there who will make your life tougher than you wish!

They say that crime does not pay but hey, you could soon change that if you have the means to survive and get ahead. Ten missions of dramatic action come to life as you begin to work your way up the ladder of shady dealings. To furnish your life of crime what better way to grab some easy, extra cash than to ferry willing punters around the city in your own yellow cab? Sounds too mundane? Well, the more passengers you can get in 15 minutes of mad cap driving then the more cash you’ll earn but the police are on every corner watching and waiting for you to break the law and don’t forget to top up on the petrol and don’t knock over too many pedestrians!

Perform dangerous acts of car jacking, face up, fight and knuckle your way to success, and eventually seize power in the city by destroying the enemy gang. All of these and many other challenges could well take their toll if you are not tough, mean and astute.

Onscreen information, including city map, money counter, timer, health, felony and damage meters, are helpful tools to assist you in your goal for supremacy!

Fun addictive gameplay, with realistic simulated actions and colourful presentation, add up to one seriously compelling game but you must take care never to break the law … too many times!

Features include:

# Ten excellent missions, each with unique gameplay elements

# Mixed types of gameplay: action plus theft (TWO TYPES OF GAMEPLAY THEN, BOTH OF WHICH COULD REALLY BE CLASSED AS ‘ACTION’)

# Frequency scanner, wrench tool, picklock to help you carjack!

# Several luxury cars to steal

# 2 types of weapons (THIS IS JUST SPOILING US!)

# Hand-to-hand fighting

# Huge living city with lots of pedestrians & vehicle traffic

# When the going gets tough the tough get going (HOW IS THIS A FEATURE?)

“CarJacker: Hotwired and Gone” 16+ rating will be published by IncaGold and distributed by Pinnacle in March 2006.

This is from Alex and is amazing, as it clearly involved quite a lot of effort. It’s a very pleasing IGN-style review. Well done, Alex. You’re finally a WINNER at something!

The Godfather – The Game – The Review
By Randy Stankovicokowski

The Down Low

Of all the minority groups in the USA, perhaps the best-loved is the Italian. Sharp-suited, misogynistic and mono-browed, these greasy guys have always meant business. However, a shocking trend of recent games has seen the Italian race shunted over in favor of Black and Hispanic gangs. This is principally the fault of Rockstar North, who from their Scottsland base provide the top-grossing Grand Theft Auto games.

Thankfully, EA have seen fit to redress this balance by bringing us the Videogame adaptation of perhaps the best pictorial of the average Italian family to ever hit the celluloid: the Godfather Series. Scheduled for release in the fall of 2K6, this title is sure to sell like hot apple pies. Released on all the following formats – PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Nokia N-Gage, there’s no way that any of you hardcore gamers will miss this game.

It Got Game!

You start off playing the role of Vito Corleone, famously played by Marvin Brando, before he got fat and died. Your primary role is to babble incomprehensibly at your sons to bring about the downfall of the other families, and scare small children with orange peels. You can also take control of Sonny and Michael Corleone, but not the other one because he was a bald weasel anyways.

The Sonny Missions

As mentioned above, Sonny is a playable character. I don’t know about you guys, but I was real bummed out when Sonny was gunned down by those rival wops at the toll booth. Well this game allows you to change the story by letting you shoot your way out of it! You can then continue to play the whole game as Sonny. The most notable difference of the Sonny missions is that you have James Can’s distinctive curly hair, and you walk like a wise guy! All the NPCS (non people characters) actually call you Sonny too!

The Michael Missions

As mentioned above, Michael is a playable character. I don’t know about you guys, but I was real bummed out when Michael went through all films without wearing a Hawaiian shirt and using grenade launchers. In a moment of original genius the guys at EA allow you to change clothes so you can look like Michael’s cousin, Tony Montana! Plus Giorgio Moroder has supplied one of his Scarface tracks for the film! You can play the whole game as Michael. The most notable difference of the Michael missions is that you have Al Pacino’s distinctive conservative hair, and you walk like a square! All the NPCS (non people characters) actually call you Michael too!

The Secret young Vito missions

Apparently there is a rumor circulation that you can also play the role of the young Vito, played by actual real life gang member Robert Deniro. Not much is known about it at this time, but EA’s PR representative. Kendra Drakanowisisiki, had this to say “The Godfather game WILL allow you to play as the young Vito. All I can say at this point is that the NPC’s will address the young Vito with his ACTUAL NAME. It’s advances like this that won EA IGN’s ‘Most Innovative Publisher’ award for the last 20 years.”

Graphics

The graphics on this game are just great. You can even see the bruises on Michael’s sisters arms! The game supports an impressive 700 FPS in Lo-res mode, and a none too shabby 16FPS in ‘HD Mode’, which takes advantage of Microsoft’s XBOX 360’s HDMI hybrid signal booster Component analog booster socket. It is rumored to be a killer app launch title for the PS3, and will fully support the PS3’s ultimate emotional processing unit which will allow Michael Corleone’s brows to furrow in real time. Sofia Coppola’s jagged teeth are also crisply rendered, along with Andy Garcia’s sneering face.

Gameplay

EA’s The Godfather – The Game borrows elements from the classic Italian Triollogy and adds a lot of new ones! The cars in the original Godfather were pretty lame, being old and not so fast. Well thanks to sponsorship from Chevrolet, Nissan and Subaru, you can now drive some of the latest and greatest cars in the new and original ‘race for preps’ section. Basically, when walking round the ‘envirosphere’ of the game you can actually steal Cheverolets Nissans and Subaru’s and then burn a rival family at the lights! The winner gets double preps which in turn increase their ‘Whack value’. Unfortunately these cars can’t be damaged though due to Chevrolet, Nissan and and Subaru not wanting their cars reflected in a bad light. However, you can still run over everyone in the game, and a well-placed sniper shot will blow your opponent’s car tyre out!

I spoke to EA’s PR representative, Vonda Kraziak about the versatility of this game, and she had this to say “It’s advances like this that won EA IGN’s ‘Most Innovative
Publisher’ award for the last 20 years.”

Summary

This game is the best EA game since Harry Potter. It’s just too awesome for words. Every one should have this game! It is rated Mature but it’s important to educate the young about slippery Italians, I think. Do your younger brother a favor and get this game! It’s almost worth it for the soundtrack, including tracks from Pimp Diddy and Big Daddy Fuckedup. I always use scores out of 10 for my reviews, because that’s what all the best reviewers do, and considering this is my 7th review I think that qualifies me.

Final Verdict

9.6/10

*^~Randy’s Game of the Month Award Winner – Gold~^*

HIGHLY COMMENDED RUNNER-UP:
Someone who calls themselves “Desk Desk” when on the internet emailed us a clip of the Adam and Joe radio show, where they talk about how The Godfather game rides roughshod over the grave of the movie. “Desk Desk” wins 50 UKR Respect Points. Alex gets the cards for the hot review, so has to take the massive risk of sending us details of where he lives.

Thanks for the free promotional The Godfather business cards, EA. You really ought to have someone check the requests before you get them printed up and sent out, though.

Yeah, have THAT EA! Feel our mild wrath! We’ll absorb your marketing budget, then slag the game off when it comes out. Without even playing it! It’s our standard two-pronged anti-PR technique. That’s what you get for not supporting the Dreamcast. Although, to be fair, we weren’t that upset about not getting to play FIFA 99, 00 and 01 at the time.

DO YOU WANT THEM?
If you want to own this unique piece of UKR memorabilia, simply email us in a review that’s you slagging off The Godfather game. It can be really short, or long and rambling and meaningless like on IGN. The best one wins.

Some days we feel like Sega is doing things specifically for our entertainment. Like today:

“Let’s get out the Sonic costume and do some photos for UKR!”

“They’re bound to do an update about this! I look so stupid! Ha ha ha! Look at me! I’m Sonic The Hedgehog!”

“Let me wear it for the next one!”

“Bend your knees more, Steve!”

Thanks, Sega. Next week, could you dress up like Cream The Rabbit and wee on us in the bath?

We’ve been sent photos of an amazing thing. It’s a… we can’t even tell. But it says SEGA on it, so is amazing. Now we’re going to have to source and buy one which usually takes a year and costs no less than 100 pounds, then ends in disappointment with us trying to pretend it’s better than it actually is.

“Thought you might like this one” says OFFICIAL UKR SEGA NEWS SCOUT Ivan. You’re damn right we like it, Ivan. WE LIKE IT A FUCKING LOAD! It’s like you’ve been reading our internet diary or something. Have you been reading our internet diary? Spying on us, Ivan? Only you seem to really know the sort of things we like. Funny that. Seems like a bit of a coincidence, mate. BACK OFF, OK? BACK OFF.

The name “translates as the ‘SEGA Body Action Game Souson Horse Racing'” Ivan says. Which means he knows a bit of Japanese. Yeah, now the tables have turned, Ivan. We’re spying on YOU. We’ve got your email address which means we know your surname. We might just start posting on the internet as “Ivan Mecking” making wildly inaccurate posts about your personal life and what you’re into. Like, we might sign up to Gaming-Age as “Ivan_Mecking” and post lots of messages asking for help installing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2005.

The quest to own one begins.