To celebrate Sonic’s 20th birthday, and to keep with the tradition of ruining anything Sonic-related, Sega have decided to betray his roots entirely, by having him endorse a rival’s product.

Only available in America, off MadCatz’s (quite poor) site

It is called Sturmwind. We suspect that’s German for Storm Wind. It’s about horizontal alien attack and looks surprisingly OK, especially as its Wikipedia entry says it was originally meant for the Atari Jaguar CD.

Here’s the official trailer.

And here’s the press release, so we can say we’re still supporting the people who do this sort of thing even though we think they’re actually just a bit mental:

Recently, redspotgames revealed their latest Dreamcast title on “neues,” a news program on the German channel 3sat. There Max Scharl, CEO of redspotgames, presented Sturmwind for Dreamcast for the first time, including scenes from the game. But aside from a few clips in the background, this announcement was largely comprised of screenshots rather than video.

Since then, Sturmwind has been the recipient of wide-ranging international media feedback. The interest in this Shoot ‘em Up for the last Sega platform has taken hold not only in the Dreamcast scene, but far beyond. redspotgames has been thrilled to receive such interest from outside the target audience.

Now redspotgames, an indie publisher based in Munich and Duranik, a two-man developer team from Erlenmoos, Germany, present the official Sturmwind trailer on their YouTube pages. The trailer features several levels as well as some of the game’s impressive bosses. It has also been revealed that the environment is completely destructable and that the game will feature vertical scrolling sections in addition to the horizontal. Sturmwind is still on target for a Q2 2011 release.

Preorder can be made at http://www.redspotgames.com/shop. As the publishers note, payment is not required until Sturmwind becomes available.

Judging by the huge number of urine-based puns lined up in our email inbox this morning, you would all be MADE HAPPY today by us mentioning this – the SEGA weeing urinal game. It’s the most disappointing Japanese piss video you will see today.

From loads of places on the internet, over the past few days, via lots of people. Like, at least three. Thanks everyone.

Well, sort of.

It’s actually the Blaze “10-games-in-one” Megadrive system. But it’s new! I bought it from a real shop! Yesterday! Just like when Sega used to have consoles stocked in shops!

So… is it any good?

The box looks authentic, like a real Sega product. This is EXCITING!

The console itself is very, very light. The controllers are tacky and the d-pads are sharp enough to cause serious injury if carelessly hurled during a heated gaming session. You can however plug in regular Megadrive controllers. There is also a cartridge slot for your Megadrive games. The whole thing runs through 2 composite leads, one for video and one for audio.

…and this is the game selection screen. Fatal Labyrinth appears to have been elided into one word. The colour’s a bit washed out, but it IS on a 42″ TV.

And this is an actual game running from the console. Verdict? The colours are a bit washed out, and the sound is tinny but it’s less of an arse than trying to get your old Megadrive running on an LCD TV with a decent picture. It’s a bit finicky about some Megadrive games, but it’s played most of the ones I’ve tried. Overall? It’s a cheap bit of fun, and if your old console is totally knackered you could do worse than give it a punt.

7/10, or if you want it in stars *** out of *****

That would seem to be the perfect fit.

X-Factor. Call of Duty. X-Factor. Call of Duty. X-Factor. Call of Duty. X-Factor. Call of Duty. X-Factor. Call of Duty. X-Factor. Call of Duty. X-Factor. Call of Duty. UNTIL YOU DIE OF NEGLECT AND INFECTED BED SORES.

Someone at Disney thought that paying a big-name photographer lots of money to take photographs of a plastic child’s toy in a variety of London locations might boost sales of the Wii platform game.

We have not requested the high-resolution originals.

Facebook  have been guilty of many things – breaching people’s privacy, messing up people’s lives and jobs and all those infuriating ‘repost this status if you agree’ comments. But now they’ve gone too far. This is war:

You are looking at ‘Crazy Taxi,’ the Facebook game. When I asked someone who played it if it was anything like Sega’s Crazy Taxi, he replied “Sadly no. It’s like a Chase HQ / Out Run combo with jumping. Minus all the fun.”

You can watch it in motion here if you want. I don’t recommend it, it’s just too awful. :(

In an ironic twist, Sega have copied Sony, by secretly putting Dreamcast consoles inside washing machines.

Back story:

The missus went out, so I thought I’d impress her by showing her how much of a modern man I am, by attempting  the washing.

After several swears, a couple of threats and a few minutes of ham-fistedly mashing 80% of the buttons and twisting its FOUR dials, this little beauty popped up:

It’s the proper logo colour too. Not that stupid blue one.

The washing machine even appears to be washing things, and it hasn’t caught fire.

Brownie points all round. This’ll make up for the last eleven-ish years of erratic mood swings.

“Laura Croft”

:(

And if you want your findings to be taken seriously, don’t talk to so many people from Nottingham.

Jacky has taken on an acting role, playing one of the non-player characters in marginally upscaled PlayStation2 remake Gran Turismo 5.The second image comes from “Dave” and we may have used it before but can’t remember.

“Just thought I’d let you know that I have spotted Virtua Fighter star Jacky Bryant in Sony’s Gran Turismo 5. It must be from the lack of new beat ’em ups being released via AM2, but Jacky seems to have been spending an awful lot of time racing these days. His last Sega appearance was in Sonic & Sega All-stars Racing, but now Jacky has given in to all that dirty Sony money and has put his racing skills to effect in the latest PlayStation Scud Race clone.”

“Personally I put this entire shocking move down to the lack of a home conversion of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, which would have given Jacky a lot more steady work rather than have to whore himself out for measly bit-parts in games” – Simon.