SEGA Superstars Tennis has a staggering FOUR separate controller configurations, so there’s bound to be one that suits your needs and play style! Here’s a look at the default, which the game refers to as “Controller Type A.”

MONDAY: Controller Type B.

Not a particularly good week, but it was saved by the intervention of a man called “Marcel” who bravely took way too many photographs than strictly necessary of women in a jacuzzi. If it wasn’t for Marcel’s intervention, we could’ve been looking at an overall score as low as 3/10.

This thing about cross-promoting brands and intellectual properties vis-a-vis capturing the critical youth demographic.

This thing about maybe having to play games with poor people.

This thing about developments in x-ray technology.

This thing about making it easier for people to carry their MacBook Airs safely from A (art school) to B (dad’s chalet in Switzerland).

This thing about CeBIT 2008, because you can’t not use pictures like this when they come along:

The Photo Of Women In A Jacuzzi law has come into play, meaning this week’s batch gets a compulsory 10/10.

Official PlayStation3 UK trade magazine MCV has decided to stop printing press releases about how PlayStation3 is the best thing ever this week, and has instead allowed SEGA to cover its entire front and back sections in a gloriously glossy advert for SEGA Superstars Tennis.

Our one-time-enemy and now almost friend Adam ‘Shenmue 3’ Doree exclusively reveals SEGA’s “B2B” promotional scheme for SST.

“Tomorrow’s edition of MCV popped through the letterbox of Kikizo’s global headquarters in Leicester Square today, and when I saw it my eyes nearly melted with spastic orgasm joy. I don’t know why I always get MCV one day before it’s meant to be out – maybe it’s because I’m ace. However, I am clearly not as ace as SEGA SUPERSTARS TENNIS, and definitely not as ace as this SEGA-sponsored issue of MCV.”

“As you can see by these hastily scanned images of the front and back of the issue, this really is as good as it gets when it comes to SEGA artwork. I think you would even be able to see up Ulala’s skirt, except Amigo’s hat is in the way. But this will still make for a glorious sunny SEGA update on UKR, and will “fit in” nicely with your SEGA SUPERSTARS TENNIS MONTH coverage. I am attaching a couple of different resolutions because you can see the dots in the larger one but I think the users should have choice of resolutions.”

ADAM CONTINUES, AS HE’S NOT USED TO OUR ‘HOUSE STYLE’
“I am sure the nice people at MCV and SEGA won’t mind us promoting the game and their publication in this manner, in fact it’s what ghastly media types like to call “added value” since this is just more exposure, and that. It’s just like the old days when I used to scan SEGA SATURN MAGAZINE and put it on SEGAWEB and then ignore angry emails from EMAP.

“By the way, please can you link to my intersite above, since when I am not telling lies about Shenmue for hits I am begging for traffic off of SEGA/WANKING sites. Cheers – Adam.”

As SEGA signs are painted over in favour of companies that sell ring tones for £5 each and new places to buy Fairtrade coffee from, so the signs of the Golden Era (1991 – 2001) of gaming disappear.

Here is another fading memento of the glory years, taken in a particularly depressing part of the particularly depressing Felixstowe area.

“Hi guys. I went to Felixstowe by mistake and saw this excellent remnant of the early 90s. I hope the town (and surrounding East Anglia) burns down and just leaves this place standing as a monument to how CORRECT everything used to be – Wayne.”

TOMORROW: Derby!

Some of the diehard few still clutching onto their Dreamcasts and STILL REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE LIE that the PS2 can do better graphics were ecstatic over the apparent “relaunching” of Dreamcast.com. As of this writing the link leads to some page about phishing and how the page was the perpetrator of a phishing scam. Just a few days ago it looked all official and Sega-ey like it was really set up by Sega of Japan, and it had this graphic on the front page:

Why yes! Yes, we do! Oh, sweet Jesus, it seems Sega really cares after all. And through the way that question is phrased, it knows that anybody who still has a Dreamcast (or even more uncommon, plays it regularly!) is a serious video game nerd who needs to move on and enjoy some of their more recent mediocre games for the current video game consoles on the market.

Upon pressing start, SEGA Superstars Tennis prompts you to create a save file – then warns you about not interrupting the save process. The game saves “on the fly” as you play, removing any lingering worries about having not saved recently – freeing you to concentrate on the game in hand!

Don’t worry – we will attempt interrupting the save process just to see what happens. Perhaps it unlocks a super-secret character!

What looks looks like a Greek games shop. Funny Greek words unknown. If you understand funny Greek words, please let us know what it says. Hopefully it’s not something rude or about Sony being the best and Sonic sucking cocks!

“Took these last summer about 100 miles north of Athens. Unfortunately I have no idea what the funny Greek writing bit means – Nick.”

Sadly, Nick only supplied that one short sentence as explanation. This is not ideal. We now have to think of things to say about three other photos of the same thing from slightly different angles.

He did at least resize his images to 500 pixels wide, so it saved us a bit of work.

TOMORROW: Felixstowe!

EXCLUSIVE! Here’s what happens when you put the SEGA Superstars Tennis disc into an Xbox 360 and prepare to play the game:

First of all, there’s the SEGA logo. It looks sharp and vibrant on that black background!

Then there’s the logo for developer Sumo Digital! If Sumo Digital’s involved, we know we’re in for a Triple-A thrill ride!

Then there’s the logo for Criware! If Criware’s involved, we know we’re in for a game built on a fully stable middleware environment!

Then there’s a logo for the game itself. Thank god they’re not just re-using old Sonic Adventure artwork. This is totally custom – clearly the budget for this production was BLOCKBUSTING.

Then you get to watch the intro movie! The intro movie tells you to “press start” to skip it, although it’s such a great intro movie we doubt you’ll want to! In fact, we can’t EVER imagine a time when we would want to skip this intro movie. It’s THAT GOOD!

Then, once you press start, up comes the proper in-game press start screen with its glorious blue sky background. Come back tomorrow to see what happens AFTER this subsequent start request…

We’ve decided to launch a passenger ferry. The ferry’s default configuration suits medium to long haul runs, with capacity for 975 passengers. An alternate roll-on/roll-off build with capacity for 545 cars over two vehicle decks will also be an option. Pre-ordering starts next week. Get in early or miss out! We’re only making 100 of each.

THE REAL REASON: “Went to Istanbul, Turkey last week. Went on a boat ride up the Golden Horn waterway to the Black Sea. Passed this boat. Thought you’d might like to see. Comes in limited edition ‘PS3 War Blue’ – fat_glottis.”

Look, someone went to the effort of interrupting their holiday to take these photos. There was no doubt some awkward explaining to do to the wife. So it’d be rude not to use them.

Ubisoft – the company we don’t really like for reasons we’re unable to put a finger on but just DON’T, OK? – has put this staggering pile of “lifestyle” nonsense on the internet to promote its DS body image-destroying game.

Some people in middle England might actually believe this is what gamers look and live like.

This one is for Glamour magazine to use when it does a feature about My Weight Loss Coach, and how My Weight Loss Coach is really opening up gaming to women.

This one is for FHM. Or the FHM Fashion special they do occasionally. That plastic thing’s a “pedomoter” – which the game uses to count how long you’ve been sitting motionless for.

Stuff magazine might use this one to illustrate the technical aspects of it.

The police will use this one, to illustrate how NOT to carry around your gadgets in urban areas.

Glamour magazine again.

This one was surely just taken for us to take the piss out of, as even having the piss taken out of your product on UKR counts as a beneath-the-line, sub-viral marketing success in some quarters.

This one’s for no one to ever use.