The novelty of this one wore off halfway through typing that headline, but we’ll push on with it anyway. Basically a man says this woman from Diablo III looks like Violet Berlin from very old games TV, which is a coincidence, as his dad used to teach geography to Andy Crane when he was in college.

Yes, that’s all there is to it. This woman is a bit like Violet Berlin, and the man who sent it in’s dad taught Andy Crane about oxbow lakes.

This woman is a bit like Violet Berlin, and the man who sent it in’s dad taught Andy Crane about oxbow lakes:

“You’re probably the only games news site to know Violet Berlin’s name (and her previous games role in Micro Machines 2 on the Mega Drive) without Googling or Wikipediaing or some other internet bullshit nonsense, so I thought you might be interested in this. Incidentally, my dad taught geography to Andy Crane when he was in college” – PenguinJim.

This incredibly evocative and thought-provoking art has now “gone live” on the Sonic 4 site. The piece, supplied untitled, echoes the stripped-down nature of the new Sonic product. The use of white space symbolises the game’s simple approach – the leaves of the tree represent the coming of spring.

As the tree renews itself each year, so too does the Sonic franchise. Let us hope the fruit it bears is not rotted and filled with writhing larvae.

Just imagine – that tree may scroll past while embedded in the background scenery. Makes you think.

A man called “Shark” sent in the two images you see crudely mashed-together below, claiming SEGA All-Stars Racing is guilty of copying and pasting the likeness of Italian singer Little Tony to represent Shenmue star Ryo.

Basically, we haven’t got any other material to use today and can’t face opening the Hotmail Account of Doom.

Here’s a bigger one of Little Tony, for your files.

This just in from our NIGHTMARE ALTERNATE REALITY correspondent. The man selling it claims it’s a “Collectable promo version” which hints at this being a legitimate licensed SEGA/Sony Music production.

There are still five days left on the auction at time of typing, if you want to risk finding out.

“I’m not sure you’re receiving my emails. Either that or you’re ignoring them? Nevertheless, here’s another find for you to upload on a slow day” – Phorenzik.

That’s the tracklisting. Click on it to remind yourself how bad music was in 1993.

The laughably useless “plot” area of the Sonic 4 web site is… very poor. As in, written by someone not entirely au fait with assembling words. We have screencapped it, for posterity.

We weren’t going to mention this at all, until we saw the use of “fly’s” in this bit. Putting the apostrophe there makes it mean something that belongs to a fly, or worse still, a shortened version of “fly is”.

Bizarre sentences, made worse through random comma placement.

“Then it was all a dream and mum came in with some fresh biscuits”.

PREVIOUSLY ON ‘LOST’.

Although… perhaps we are once again over-analysing a product aimed at children?

A prize to anyone who reads all the way through this one.

Now we can say “We told you so” when it turns out rubbish.

It looks like the manufacturer of whatever this is stole a bit of Ulala fan art off the internet, rightly assuming that only a few losers on a few gaming blogs would notice.

“I saw this in a shop today: a product with some anime girls drawn on the package to appeal to young girls, but one of them shall look familiar to you…” – Adamis.

Seeing as the only acceptable form of satire on the internet these days is the surprisingly high-brow option of making Hitler be angry about something, we thought we’d have a go at it.

So here is Hitler being angry that Cream The Rabbit is not a playable character in Sonic 4.

Turned out OK, even though we lost interest a bit near the end as Windows Movie Maker’s amazing anti-logic started to wear us down.

This is an astonishing find. This is one of THOSE FINDS. This is a man with a metal detector unearthing £24m of gold coins beneath the surface of a recently ploughed field.

Behold, a virtually complete SEGA arcade machine manual depository, from the glory days until now. Some of the PDF files are enormous – please only download the ones you really want, else poor old SEGA Total Solutions will find itself with a broken web site.

“Ever wanted a manual for a SEGA coin-op? Well SEGA is now giving them away for download in PDF/TIFF format if you go to this website. So, if like me you always wanted a poorly-scanned copy of the Daytona USA coin-op manual, SEGA has once again made your dreams come true!” – Simon.

There’s a 96MB technical schematic of the OutRun2 cabinet up there! This is from the OutRun2 SP parts listing manual. Such riches!

Lubrication advice, from the manual for the upright arcade version of Route 66. Simon, you have made what will be remembered as the best SEGA-related discovery of this new decade.

Go on, make it sound REALLY mundane.

The official Sonic 4 site is dripping with timers, as the SEGA of today loves doing that endless teasing thing to get children and teenagers who don’t know any better excited. There’s a trailer featuring literally ZERO gameplay footage up there at the moment.

And the plot is also revealed. You’ll never guess what’s happened.

We will be spending all of today making a video in which Hitler expresses his anger that Cream The Rabbit is not a playable character in Sonic 4. Can no one else have or do that idea, please? Thanks. What tool do people use for doing the subtitles?

Blimey, never thought we’d be typing those words in that particular order. Let’s try typing that again, and see how it feels…

Sonic The Hedgehog 4.

Felt pretty good. We’re probably supposed to be excited about this, but we’re going to hold off on the exclamation marks until we know who’s doing the development. There’s a chance it’s been outsourced to Backbone Entertainment, and we don’t want to be excited about something that’s going to turn out shit with button presses that lag half a second behind the action.

There are some screenshots and facts about Sonic 4 (typing felt nice) on Gamespot. We have not got around to reading any of the facts yet. We are too scared. We have not yet “come to terms” with this development.

VG247 comment-leavers point out that a trailer can be viewed over at Jeux Video. It shows literally THREE SECONDS of the new game and contains Comic Mischief.