We've made a new kind of t-shirt. This one's red and says "Spiel Macht Frei" on it, which is German for something and sort of accidentally stuck as our logo because we couldn't think of anything better in English to change it to.

Then it says "UK:Resistance - Not making a difference since 1996" underneath, which is something new we just thought up, seeing as we've been doing this for 10 years now.

We got a whole box of them:



You can buy them from our shop. They come in medium, large and extra fat, are red like we said and quite nice.




This is a photo of them taken with the flash. It gives you a better idea of the colour, which is a nice dark red. Not that horrible bright cheap red. Oh no.




Also, to show how much we love throwing money away, we got ten made in a girls size - for girls.




We made this girl ourselves out of a pineapple, a chair and some socks. She'll keep us company for the winter, then we can eat her in the spring as long as she hasn't gone rotten.




This is what the logo looks like in close-up. It's screen-printed so it will last and looks very nice. We used macro mode to take this photo. It's always a pleasure to work in macro mode!




We couldn't use the Sonic logo, as that would make SEGA angry with us and we might stop getting sent free games and stickers. Which, to be honest, is the only reason we carry on with this tedious charade any more.




This is a close-up of the neck. If you're anything like us you might be a bit 'fussy' about what the necks are like on your t-shirts. This has a nice neck. We went to the factory before we placed the order and looked specifically for a t-shirt with a nice neck.




They're sixteen British pounds, which includes packaging, the new really expensive postage that makes big light things (ie, t-shirts) cost twice as much to send out as before, and us writing out envelopes and taking them to the post office which is amazingly tedious and always makes us wish we'd never bloody bothered doing it at all. Get them here, or don't, then post about how they suck and you hate them in the Comments field and that that you hate red and that we should've done a green one with Tails on instead - THEN you might've bought one.

Has it come out yet? Is it exactly like the PS2 version? Or is Polyphony Digital, the least-efficient development team in the world, struggling to make anything look half-decent on the obsolete handheld Lumines machine?




This lie was sent out to fool idiots into buying PSP back in May of 2004. It's now August of 2006. August 30 in fact, so actually more like September.




Well done, Sony. You made a pretend disc. This actually fooled some people for about a year! Fortunately we now know you just make stuff up and lie about things all the time, so we (the internet and therefore everyone in the world) won't be falling for it again. This isn't 1996 any more. You can't expect to lie to people and for no one to notice. Everything is recorded in Google.




And well done again for making a pretend box. Now you just need to make something interesting to put in it, as with PSP and PlayStation3 in general.




The amazing detail on the pretend box, where Sony cleverly preempted what everyone would say and then said it first. This, thinking about it, was the precise moment Sony started thinking that lying to people would work as its new strategy.

Labels: ENTHUSIASM, LIES

Here's an email we got about Nintendo giving away sex aids to children. If only all our emails were this imaginative, this much about sex, and this free of typos, instead of from angry retro gamers and weirdos who think we're serious about wanting to rape Cream's bottom:

"In case you weren't aware yet, McDonalds in America has made a deal with Nintendo to make six Nintendo-themed toys for their Happy Meals, asking kids to "Take The Mario Challenge" (whatever the fuck that means). However, it would appear to anyone clever enough to see through Nintendo's paper-thin disguise that the "toys" are actually sex aids for the kids' parents and "Take The Mario Challenge" translates directly to "Let Mario And His Friends Help You Jizz All Over Your C&A Jogging Bottoms".

"Please find enclosed photos of the three most dubious items."

"A Mario 'ball', clearly small enough to be inserted into the anus for
homosexual male stimulation."




"A Yoshi 'lickout machine' (with another free anal ball), which allows you to have everyone's favourite dinosaur give your lady friend a cheeky gobble, with his upper snout clearly used to agitate the clitoris.




"A Yoshi 'wank mate', designed to wrap firmly (yet gently) around the shaft of the penis, allowing you to pretend you're getting chugged off by a stupid wee green bastard with a squeaky voice.

"I hope you will all join me in "Taking The Mario Challenge" by grabbing a hold of young Yoshi and giving the old boy a jolly sound thrashing."

There is no such thing as a good show about videogames and there never will be. Here is the latest evidence.

Like fuck it will! But desperate Sony PR minions are keen to get some positive stories into the media to quell the growing anti-Sony feeling (which hasn't all been down to us this time round either). Everyone now seems to realise it's great to hate Sony! We paved the way of course and now people are starting to cotton on. Our years of pissing in the wind were not in vain. Just remember kids; PS3 is ridiculously overpriced (especially in the UK) not as powerful as they said it would be, and Sony are evil racists.

Labels: LIES

This exciting idea for an update started about two months ago, when a man said he'd seen the word "SEGA" sprayed on a wall beside a railway line somewhere in Essex.

He said he'd take us a photo. Usually people say they'll do things like that but never bother, so we forgot about it and thought he'd never bother. But he bothered!




Then, just when we'd forgotten about it, someone else sent us the below collection of links to photos of other SEGA graffiti spotted around the world. So we got a proper update that Kotaku will probably steal and link to, and all we had to do was resize a few photos. Thanks everyone!














The graffiti-spotter also found a hi-res version of the Sonic anti-fascism logo, for all you Sonic/SEGA fans who may be attending anti-fascism rallies at some point in the future.

A 'SHOUT OUT' TO WHERE THEY ALL CAME FROM:

Here

Here

Here

Here

And from someone's Flickr account here

Maybe if all the locations of the photos are plotted on a world map a clue appears as to SEGA's return to the hardware market! It could be Dreamcast 2 viral marketing!!

Labels: GONZO

Just Google "huge cocks" and another viral Wii joke to post on forums will be yours in seconds.



Dear Nintendo, if we can have the one on the left for 20 minutes or the one on the right for 30 minutes we'll give the entire Wii launch line-up 10/10. Thanks.

Labels: MEAT BAGS (WOMEN)

London, UK, August 22

:(




This is all we're ever doing on it.

SONIC RIVALS FAN FICTION

Blah, blah, blah.

Then, everyone involved in making it got the sack.

The End.

And incredibly, you earn this respect by performing tasks for gang bosses and winning races. In a further refreshing twist, the money you earn may then be spent on modifying your car.

This is the press release for mobile Saint's Row. We'd rather work in a meat factory that processes pig anuses into sausages, picking out the lumps of gristle from the raw pig anuses for 25p a week than have to write press releases like this as a job:




If you work for THQ or any other company that regularly writes words like 'respect', 'notoriety' and 'gangsta' up on its meeting room whiteboard, we're here to help. Our confidential 24-hour helpline is waiting for your call.

IN OTHER AMAZINGLY DEPRESSING AND FRANKLY UNBELIEVABLE MOBILE PHONE GAME NEWS:
They've made a game about Bob Marley.

It was a good day for emails. We got two about sex drugs, two MySpace friend requests (more bloody men) and an amazing FIVE containing weird SEGA-related photographs.

Here they are all at once, as the harsh truth is that none are quite good enough to make it into individual updates. But together they are stronger.










This is the 'Sonic and Tails Spinner'. We have no idea what it is or how it's supposed to be a game. Here's what the photographer had to say about it:

"The spinner was made Sonic Adventure era as there's a picture of the robot with the bird what's inside of him on the right of the base. I'd lost interest by then though and some 7 year olds were watching me with a view to steal my phone, so I didn't get a picture. Note how Sonic appears to be either bumming or fisting tails. Maybe that's why it broke? The worst part is it's about 5 minutes away from where I work and will no doubt be in there on payday, spunking money away like there's no tomorrow."




This is an anti-nazi parade and they have an actual Sonic banner made up. Sonic stands for freedom!

"I found this picture in an article about the protest of a German anti-fascistic rganisation called 'Antifa'. They were protesting against the fact that neo-nazis want to buy the untenanted hotel shown in this picture to establish a nazi meeting point there. I don't know why they painted Sonic on their banner."




Sticking with the German-language territories, this is the SEGABAR. We presume it's a bar - the only information the sender provided was that it's "probably the roughest fleshpot in Salzburg". We always knew that if SEGA did fleshpots in Salzburg, they'd probably be the roughest fleshpots in Salzburg.




It's an exciting cardboard box! It appears to be a SEGA Mark III box of games box. The sender seemed very excited about having it in his possession.
















SEGA World Shanghai.

"I was in a large shopping centre in Xu Jia Hui Shanghai and noticed a rather large 'Sega World' logo on top of a machine as I went up the escalator. It looked rather dirty so I figured it was some throw-back machine from the early 90s. Upon further investigation I discovered a fully functioning Sega World, complete with OutRun2, House of the Dead and a whole load of other things. The people were loving it. Despite the lack of interest in OutRun2 the other games were getting a lot of play time. It must be one of the only places in Shanghai where you can play games legitimately without them being copies..."

Labels: GONZO

It's a box that says Sonic on it that someone thought we'd like to see. They took the photo on holiday and probably wish they'd saved the money and stayed at home watching telly if this was the highlight of the trip.

There's no way Kotaku is going to link to this :(




Maybe if it was an official SEGA cardboard box we'd be a bit more enthusiastic.

SOME FAN FICTION ABOUT A CARDBOARD BOX

THE BOX OF JOY
By Michael Zorg

Who's this in this box? Why, it's Cream The Rabbit!

"Hello, big strong man. Do you want to get into the box with me?"

"Yes"

"I'm naked apart from my little orange shoes"

"Good"

We get in the box and a workman comes along, tapes up the box and puts it in a truck. The truck drives to Monaco and the journey goes really quickly because we're having sex all the time.

In Monaco there's a big house there which we're allowed to have for free and live in together forever with no one else ever talking to us. It's got satellite TV with all the sport and porn channels, and no internet or telephone.

The end.

Labels: GONZO

We've been doing Employee of the Week on and mostly off for eight years, but have only managed to do 131 of them. Sorry about that. We'll make practically zero effort to get back on track.

IGN has launched its UK operation, using the blandest, most predictable and generic attempt at "British speak" we've ever seen. They're trying to be 'zany' by inventing new words for the internet, like 'worldwide Intertube' :(



It's also doing 'funny' captions that are placed beneath 'amusing' images like we do only without our unrealistic wage demands. This is because they're British, and British people are funny and wacky! All of them! Literally everything a British person ever says is funny, as you can see from the above attempt at British Speak that was obviously written by an American.

IGN UK'S MOST PATRONISING LOWLIGHTS:

"That's right -- IGN has moved across the Atlantic and opened an office in olde Londontowne"

"IGN's US and UK staff will form an invincible gaming Voltron hell-bent on defeating Robeasts throughout the galaxy"

"We'll also provide some UK reviews to give a second opinion on many games that appeal to a more European audience, such as rally racing and soccer titles"

"Expect the use of words such as "colour," "blimey" and "wanker" in those articles"

The full English cliche-fest is here: IGN: Introducing IGN UK. It makes Gamesradar look good. We're looking forward to this new era of British craziness -- it'll be like Monty Python but about games! And more about creaming off UK ad revenue.

We've counted seven so far :(




1) Old men in suits working at SEGA. 2) Sonic's left eye is on upside-down. 3) Sonic's left shoulder is on wrong. 4) Sonic's nose is coming off. 5) Sonic's head and face in general. 6) Sonic's arms should be the same colour as his belly. 7) Carpet and wall indicates photo was taken in a bland office, not on Mobius.

READER-SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVE HEADLINES:

SONIC'S BACK, IN HIS MOST CORPORATE ADVENTURE YET!

GET CLOSER TO THE ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT THAN EVER BEFORE IN SONIC THE HEDGEHOG!

MICROSOFT TO SUPPLY 'NEW FRIENDS' FOR SONIC'S EXCITING DEBUT ON XBOX 360

In America, at least, where it would appear they've now caught up with the jokes we were making in the late 1970s.




Modern 'pads' are much more dependent on thumbs than wrists. In fact, it's pretty much nothing to do with the wrist at all these days - unless you're a fat 45-year-old marketing man with no new ideas for weak sexual innuendo to sell your tat to some idiots.

JOKES AMERICA STILL HAS TO COME

"Push my buttons" - sounds a bit like turning a woman on

"Let me go on top" - split-screen gaming phrase that sounds a bit like a sexual position

"Waggle my stick" - by 'stick' they might actually mean 'cock' and by 'waggle' they might mean 'masturbate' or 'rub' even though no one uses sticks any more

"You came up my arse" - driving game reference that could also possibly also infer anal sex

"Let's take turns" - possible roasting/group sex multiplayer misunderstanding with hilarious and/or sexual harassment in the workplace consequences.

"There's a party in my pocket" - your new handheld gaming device is as much fun as having a wank

Just when you thought you couldn't get more bored of our incredibly dull series of updates about closed SEGA Worlds, a man goes and sends us a photograph of the carpet in SEGA World Southampton.

Who would've thought that one day we'd become the sort of web site that uploads photographs of carpets like it's news?




It's an ideal carpet for lying down on in the dark, as when you roll over to sob into the floor you'd see Sonic and maybe feel a bit happier about the way things have turned out.

***UPDATE***
The carpet was made by Grosvenor Carpets and it's actually called SEGA Park, not SEGA World.


SOME CARPET-INSPIRED FAN FICTION WE'VE JUST WRITTEN:

SONIC GETS A CARPETING
By Michael Zorg

"Oh, do we HAVE to?" moaned Sonic, as Amy dragged him through the car park of Carpet Megastore.

"Yes, Sonic, we DO" said Amy, firmly, tugging his hand and quickening her walk.

"You've worn them all out with your constant spinning"

It was a Saturday afternoon, and Sonic was thinking he'd rather be anywhere than shopping for carpets. Not only shopping for carpets, but shopping for carpets with Amy. Amy loved shopping for carpets, heck, Amy loved shopping for anything!

Last Saturday it was ring holders, the Saturday before it was emerald stands, the Saturday before that was... something Sonic really wasn't interested in and also considered a waste of time buying.

This Saturday was carpets.

Sonic trudged along behind Amy, occasionally pretending he had an opinion on a carpet before being told it wasn't good enough and they had to carry on looking. Perhaps, later, they may have to go to another carpet store to see more carpets, said Amy, such was the lack of a suitable carpet in this shop that contained 1000 carpets.

Sonic, unusually for him, was dragging his feet and walking slowly. So slowly, in fact, that Amy had wandered off ahead of him separating the two of them.

"Hey Sonic!"

It was Cream!

"Oh, er, hey Cream!" said Sonic, nervously glancing around to make sure Amy wasn't about. "How are you?"

"Oh, you know, bored of shopping for carpets. Mum made me come, she says the one in my bedroom is all worn out because I'm always spinning on it. How I hate shopping for carpets!"

"Yeah, carpets are stupid!" said Sonic, after once again checking that Amy wasn't within earshot.

"No, wait! Come and see what I've found!" Cream said, her eyes suddenly widening and, unbeknownst to Sonic, weeing herself slightly from being so excited.

Before he could protest, Cream grabbed Sonic by the hand and ran very fast - almost as fast as Sonic himself! - through the carpet store into a dark, deserted aisle.

"Look!"

Cream pointed to an old cylinder of carpet. It was grey with a blue design. It was dusty, and had probably lain there untouched since about 1992.

"The design, Sonic, look at the design!!"

Cream pulled Sonic roughly toward the carpet rack, and punched the old carpet to remove some of the dust. Sonic sneezed, waved the dust from the air and peered at the carpet.

"It's... it's ME!"

"Yes, Sonic! You're so famous and cool they made a carpet after you!"

Sonic couldn't believe his eyes. They had made a carpet after him! Probably in 1992, when he was the most famous because of Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive.

"Wow!" said Sonic, grabbing the frayed end of the carpet and yanking it hard to unfurl a fresh, clean and dust free section. "It's as good as new!"

"Yes, and so soft!" said Cream, as she unfurled loads more carpet, until carpet was covering the entire width of the aisle!

Cream stroked the carpet, then lay down on it. She rolled over onto her tummy, letting her little orange dress ride up to reveal her white knickers.

"Come here, Sonic!"

Sonic looked around nervously.

"Come on! It's all soft and like new!" giggled Cream, slipping off her orange shoes and lying back on the carpet, playfully kissing the woven Sonic image on the carpet and smiling up at the real Sonic standing there in front of her.

Sonic looked around nervously again, before smiling - with attitude! - and rolling up beside Cream on the lovely soft carpet.

"It's so soft, isn't it?" said Cream, gently, stroking the carpet and gradually moving her hand toward Sonic, then stroking Sonic's arm.

Sonic looked at Cream. "Yes, Cream, it's very soft and I..."

"SONIC!"

It was Amy.

"What the HELL are you doing with HER?!"

"Oh, Amy! It's, er, I can..." stuttered Sonic.

"I'm going home!" squealed Amy in a very angry voice indeed.

Amy then turned around and started to run at full speed - but she was so angry she didn't look where she was going and hit her head on a metal carpet rail.

Amy fell on the ground. You could tell she was dead immediately, because of the brain and stuff that had come out.

"Oh well" said Sonic.

"Oh well" said Cream.

Sonic grabbed the carpet cutting tool and cut off a length of the Sonic carpet, rolled Amy's body up in it and put it in a big trolley. They paid for the carpet - it was cheap because it was so old - and then Sonic and Cream drove in Amy's car to some cliffs and threw the carpet-wrapped body off into the sea, where it sank to the bottom and was never found.

They then went home and had sex on the threadbare carpet in Sonic's house, but they didn't notice that the carpet was threadbare because sex is better and more fun than carpets.

The end.

Labels: GONZO

We've been sent photos of the inside of SEGA World Sydney, back during the short period it was open and seemed like maybe being financially viable.

It looks like they had too much space to put everything in, and as if the whole place was designed by the BBC special effects department in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada. In 1981.

In short, it looks rubbish.




It's a nice sign. We'd be tempted in by that. Before you scroll down, be warned that this is by far the highlight of the photos. If you're sensitive about having your dreams about SEGA palaces crushed, don't scroll down.




The quality of these photos isn't good enough to tell if that's a real person or a model of a person. Stupid 2001 cameras and their abysmal pixel counts. Either way, it's a rubbish sign that looks like it belongs in the 1940s not a cutting-edge SEGA amusement/dream-making facility.




This is rubbish. It's like a Soviet Union children zoo. That's not fun. And it's dirty. The poor kids.




This is the family. Dad's taking the photos and mentally totting up how much money he's wasted on this amazingly disappointing day out.




Not really that exciting.




Not really that exciting.




We know people got more excitied about rubbish things back in the 'old days' before all the cool stuff we have now was invented, but this was only made in the late 1990s. Even in the late 1990s we wouldn't have got excited about a big plastic tube standing on an unconvincing sci-fi floor.




As disappointing as the SEGA AGES series.




So this is why no one goes to arcades any more, and why SEGA Worlds are being replaced by more branches of Starbucks the world over. We now stand for the complete annihilation of these miserable hell holes.

Labels: GONZO

So we went and investigated it! The sign looked like it had where it says 'SEGA' covered up with a sticker, so it might've been a closed, abandoned SEGA World facility, with lots of classic games in that everyone's forgotten about! This could be a lost tomb, sealed forever in 1998 and therefore with everything in mint condition and probably set to freeplay!




It's worrying that the 'SEGA' bit seems to have been covered up.




It's definitely been covered up, hasn't it? It would be some coincidence for a piece of paper exactly that size to randomly attach itself to that sign in that specific place, wouldn't it?




Sadly, to get to SEGA World, you have to walk down the sort of underpass that we usually associate with buying heavily-cut drugs from tramps or having our laptop stolen. This might explain why the sign has been papered over and why it looks like it might be closed and abandoned. What lies down the underpass of DOOM? Is it really a SEGA World? Is it still open? Or is it closed? Or has it been turned into a McDonalds or a Starbucks like every other available retail space?




It's a boring shopping center. There is no SEGA World in Sydney any more. That was a waste of everyone's time. We looked for ages. Nothing.

THEN, JUST NOW, THREE WEEKS LATER AND AS IF BY COINCIDENCE!
We got an email from this bloke who saw a second closed SEGA World in Shanghai. What is happening to the world? :(




All the while, Apple is opening *more* iPod hellholes. The end times really are upon us.

Labels: GONZO