New OverClocked ReMix album VROOM: Sega Racing releases, celebrating SEGA racing game music

VROOM: Sega Racing is the latest OverClocked ReMix album, which celebrates the music of SEGA’s arcade and console games. The free to download album features 11 tracks from 14 artists featuring new remixes and arrangements from games which include Daytona USA, SEGA Rally Championship, Indy 500, OutRun, NASCAR Arcade, Metropolis Street Racer and Virtua Racing Deluxe. As with previous OverClocked ReMix releases, the album is completely unofficial.

Download and listen for yourself here!

Alien Storm Spanish fan translation now available for SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive and Master System

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Hola SEGA fanaticos! ¿Quieren jugar Alien Storm pero en español? Well, I got some good news for you my Spanish speaking friend, Rom Hack fan translator Wave has now translated SEGA’s Alien Storm into Spanish. Not only did he translate the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive version, but he also completed the SEGA Master System version as well.

I have also attached some screenshots of the translated text below for you to gander at. I love sharing these fan translations and hoping we get more in the near future.

Unboxing: Christa Lee – Welcome to the Fantasy Zone vinyl

Newly released on vinyl and with brand new artwork created by Data Erase, Christa Lee’s Welcome to the Fantasy Zone is “a loving tribute to the games of SEGA, the artists who worked on them, and the composers who made them sing.” Let’s unbox (unsleeve?) this SEGA fan creation and give it a listen!

Purchase vinyl on Ship to Shore Phono Co. | Purchase digitally on Bandcamp | Follow Christa Lee on Twitter

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap translated to Russian by fans

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SEGA Master System and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap fan TEPA6ANT has released a fully playable version of Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap in Russian. Or would we call it Чудо-мальчик III? I don’t know Russian, so you’ll have to excuse me. But if you have been waiting since 1989 to play Wonder Boy III in Russian, now is your chance. According to the translation notes, the game is fully translated but some words had to be abbreviated, possibly due to restricted spacing and Russian having more characters per word.

You can get Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap in Russian right here. If you are interested in the new HD remake, the game has gotten a USA physical release on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch for a decent price. Pick those up if you want to keep retro franchises like Wonder Boy III relevant! Of course the HD remake is also available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC digitally.

[Via RomHacking]

Yakuza’s Kazuma Kiryu joins Street Fighter V via fan mod

Yakuza‘s Kazuma Kiryu joins the fight in Street Fighter V, thanks to this fan mod created for the PC version of the game. The mod was crafted by Khaled Antar, who is known in the Street Fighter V community for his past mods, this time he is giving us SEGA fans something to cheer about. If you didn’t know, when Tekken 7 producer asked fans what DLC character they wanted, Kazuma Kiryu topped their list. Maybe someone will make a Kazuma Kiryu mod for Tekken 7 next?

Download the Street Fighter V Kazuma Kiryu mod here

The mod uses Ryu as a base for Kazuma Kiryu and features three variants of the skin that each have 15 color options. You can play with shades, no shades and even have breakable shades via fighting. According to the description it also features jacket and hair physics.

[Thanks Sanus]

Fan Made: Sonic Mania Physical Release Box Art Round-Up

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Sonic Mania has fast become the most hotly anticipated Sonic the Hedgehog games in years, in large part because it is not only the return of classic Sonic but also the return to the graphics and gameplay that made the series so popular in the early to mid 1990s. While Sonic Mania is releasing to all major modern platforms, the development team has described the game as Saturn-esque with several fans taking things a step further and declaring Sonic Mania the Sonic Saturn game we never got but always wanted.

While we won’t actually be seeing Sonic Mania on the SEGA Saturn or the Mega Drive/Genesis, that hasn’t stopped fans from creating their own custom box art that can be printed out, trimmed and applied to an old Saturn or Mega Drive/Genesis case of your choosing! After the break, check out the fan made box art we’ve found online and in the comments share your own custom box art.

Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap gets unofficial Turma da Monica mod

For those that have lived in Brazil or are familiar with the infamous Wonder Boy reskin woes, Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap was changed in Brazil to reference the cartoon/comic franchise Turma da Mônica, replacing all of the different animal forms with different characters from the series. This conversion was called Turma da Mônica em o Resgate, exclusive for Brazil, and an example of a Master System game being changed for the market.

With the recent remake of Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap on modern systems, dedicate fans decided to change the game to again reference Turma da Mônica. This includes replacing the artwork with new high quality artwork, and faithfully recreating the animations from scratch. Together, this creates a surprisingly high quality mod that is readily available for the PC version for you to play. The video description not only containing the mod, but also a presskit that contains screenshots and artwork for the mod.

In fact this mod is so good, even the official Lizardcube Twitter account threw their praise at the mod, describing it as incredible. So if you have the PC version available, maybe try it out for yourselves.

Fan creates Sonic Mania Studiopolis Zone Winamp skin

Sonic Mania is a game that embraces old school aesthetics, so it is fitting that fellow SEGA and Sonic fan Ineedmorcowbell created a Sonic Mania skin for the old school program Winamp. Initially released in 1997, Winamp is a freemium media player for Windows, Android, and macOS. If you had a computer between 1997 and now, chances are you downloaded this program and still have it on your machine. What Ineedmorcowbell’s skin does is turn the entire player into Studiopolis Zone.

Ineedmorcowbell has this to say about the project:

After watching game play of Sonic Mania’s Studiopolis Zone, and seeing the Hornet Van. I felt like it needed to dance! This whole project was built around getting that Van to dance! From there, I designed how all the windows and standard features would be reskinned. There is all kinds of animations like the clouds moving, or lights glowing, to the projector playing different animations that react to the music.

All the sprites for this skin have been redrawn by myself! I used the debut, and various game play videos to collect the sprites to use, then redrew them in a much lower resolution. Similar to the original Genesis games. To produce a much crisper look then just using them straight from the videos. The only things that I didn’t redraw were some of the animations for the projector that use the developer logos and intro for the game. Christian Whitehead was redrawn because the original design was very seizure inducing. The Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles Head was done in illustrator.

I spent a lot of time and work really hard on this, so let me know what you think!

You can learn more about the skin and download it here. If you have any questions or comments for the creator, you can chat with him in our forums!

SEGA News Bits: Sonic Forces Fan Theories Discussion

Welcome to another episode of the SEGA News Bits, this week George and Barry discuss Sonic Forces fan theories that have been circulating around the internet. Strap in, because we are in for a weird ride. On this episode we give you our take on some of the more popular Sonic Forces fan theories such as the third gameplay being a customizable character named Buddy, Tails giving up hope, Sonic Adventure style gameplay, and many more. This is more of a discussion episode and not really a news segment, for those of you who watch the show strictly for news. Let us know what your Sonic Forces fan theories are in the comments below. Like always, thanks for watching.

If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us: Give us a sub and give this video a like so it shows up on more like minded fans YouTube recommendations. You know, how that new YouTube algorithm is.

Interview: Gistix, team lead on fan made Sonic ’06 Unity

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What do you say when the words “fan-made Sonic 2006 PC port” jump at you? What sort of images, reactions, and most importantly, questions, pop into your head when this prospect meets your mind? Is it perplexing? Audacious? Blasphemous? These were of course all reactions I saw when news broke of a demo for a full fan-made recreation of the ill-fated and infamous Sonic 06 in Unity. However, much against others’ reactions, mine was of…curiosity.

Rather than stick with a few fleeting moments of “hey that’s a thing”, the very idea stuck to me so hard that it gave me a jolt of energy. Not because I like Sonic 06, god no, but because I am a huge lover of weird games and weird ports. And to me, a Unity port of this maligned title was far too weird to pass up. So, faced with a lack of information, and a thirst to spread the good will of odd, ambitious projects, I went straight to the source. Ladies and gentlemen and others, I present to you, hopefully everything you’d want to know about the ins and outs of the Sonic 2006 PC port, from the mouth of its current leader, Gistix!

SEGA News Bits: Sonic 2006 being remade for PC by fans with Unity, demo first impressions

Sonic 2006 is being remade in Unity by a small team headed by Gistix. A demo, playable on PC, has just released showcasing their progress in the form of the game’s original demo. We downloaded it and now talk about it in the first SEGA News Bits of 2017! Download the Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) Unity demo for yourself here.

If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us, give us a sub. If you are already subscribed you can always like the video.

Pokémon GO releasing to the Dreamcast VMU in 2017

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The creator of Flappy Bird for the Dreamcast VMU, known as guacasaurus_mex on Instagram, has been hard at work on cool fan made VMU games since we last featured him. His Flappy Bird follow-up, Street Race, featured six OutRun-style tracks and a unique grayscale graphics trick which has to be seen to be believed. His latest project dives back into the smartphone remake world with a Dreamcast VMU version of Pokémon GO. Due to the time it takes to draw all the Pokémon, and laziness, the game won’t be ready until 2017. However guacasaurus_mex does promise a randomly generated map grid, in place of a GPS map, and a timing-based mini game to throw Pokéballs. More info on the game, including the release, as we hear it.

Note: Yeah yeah, I know. Any Pokémon GO article in gonna get us clicks, but to be fair we don’t make any money off of site traffic nor do we have ads. At least we didn’t try and tie No Man’s Sky into SEGA… yet.

Opening & Eating 15 Year Old Cans of Sonic the Hedgehog Pasta

Courtesy of Justin Todd – whose Sonic collecting can be followed on instagram under the username @treasurehuntingsonic – we have a video unboxing (uncanning?) of Franco-American Sonic the Hedgehog Pasta with Meatballs in Tomato Sauce! These two cans date from around 2000/2001 and are the second and third, and so far final, iterations of the Franco-American Sonic canned pasta. The first version of the can was featured on the latest episode of our own Fastest Food Alive Sonic the Hedgehog promotional foods video series.

What does Justin find when he opens these 15 year old expired cans of pasta? Learn for yourself by watching the video! Follow Justin on Instagram for more Sonic goodness and join the Sonic the Hedgehog Collections group on Facebook, where this video debuted.

If you enjoy our videos, make sure to subscribe to us on YouTube where we post a grab bag of SEGA and Sonic content. Thanks for watching.

This Virtua Fighter fan made robot is very impressive

A Japanese Virtua Fighter fan has embarked on a project to make a Akira robot based on the Virtua Fighter polygon model. Using specs from the recently released Virtua Fighter  action figure, 3D modeling software and of course a 3D printer we got ourselves a robot Akira Yuki that looks like he is straight out of the game.

A few little things I noticed on the Virtua Fighter themed robot was that they added a small SEGA Saturn on his back, sort of how SEGA did it for their Typing of the Dead characters but with a small Dreamcast backpack. According to the video the robot is 50cm (19.6 inches) in height and I have to be honest the movement is rather impressive. Look at his side steps! Can someone put this thing on sale, please!

[Via: VFDC]

SEGA Saturn copy protection cracked after 22 years

The SEGA Saturn has long been that one SEGA console that was near impossible to crack, and console owners could forget trying to easily play copied games (which currently relies on a mod chip and burning CDs). But now, thanks to electronics fellow and coder James Laird-Wah aka “Dr Abrasive”, the Saturn’s copy protection has finally been cracked.

Detailed in the extended video above is the process which Dr Abrasive took to achieve this. Essentially, games are loaded from USB via the expansion card port. The Saturn was so difficult to crack due to DRM requiring discs to have a physical mark on them (called a wobble) which was etched into the CD. Dr Abrasive got past this by figuring out how the disc drive worked and emulating it via USB. The project is still in the testing phase, but there are plans to make boards available for sale. The work will eventually open up doors to homebrew communities and preserve the console’s functionality years beyond the eventual death of the CD drive.

You can follow the project at Dr Abrasive’s Twitter account and at the official Assembler Games topic, and you can join the discussion at the SEGAbits forums.