So, the ever-diligent @Deathscythe has been hard at work lately, and added a very curious entry to our Refs to Sega/Television article. I uh, just wanted to share the image here. i think this is what they call cursed images.
Was a Dreamcast in Ah! My Goddess: The Movie? I skimmed through the movie and found nothing. Closest one was 2:58 but nothing visable to a Dreamcast there. Additionally, google searches just leads me to that one Reddit page that is linked on Sega Retro, which doesn't hold enough merit for me. Heh, can read more about it here: http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2010/07/muppet-babies-its-only-pretendo.html And here's Slap Shot in MacGyver:
I already put it up onto Sega Retro a while ago, but I think it still deserves a shoutout here: I picked up Duck Game from the recent Steam summer sale for £2 (yeah, a 2015 game this late, I know) since it has a lot of homages to Sega in it, right down to parodying the TradeMark Security System screen and using its font for its menus. Its soundtrack even uses a ton of instruments and samples from other Mega Drive games, like Comix Zone, ToeJam & Earl, Earthworm Jim and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. It gets even more bizarre when you find out that the version of Fantasy Zone that was represented here is Tengen's unlicensed NES version, primarily due to the episode's focus on the NES.
Uncle from Another World is an anime about a Sega fan who returns to Earth 17 years after being isekaied, unaware that Sega is out of the console business. Lots of Sega references, including actual Sonic 2 footage in the first episode.
Judging from these pop culture references I've been adding, it seems the iconic games per system are: Mega Drive: Sonic the Hedgehog, Mortal Kombat, NHL Saturn: NiGHTS into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon II Zwei, Virtua Fighter 2 Dreamcast: Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi, 2K Sports Kind of surprised at the lack of Sakrua Wars or Sega Rally.
They talk about Dr. Robotniks mean bean machine in an episode of the show Mythic Quest on Apple Plus. It was particularly interesting because while the show is about a fictional video game developer, most of the time all the games they talk about are fake. This and Street Fighter are the only two real games I recall them mentioning
Yesterday I happened to be flicking channels when I saw that on BBC1's The Repair Shop, one of these Sega Bell fruit machines was being restored: https://segaretro.org/Sega_Bell https://penny-arcade.info/the-sega-collection Here's the episode if you have BBC iPlayer access - series 10 ep 9: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001bfp7/the-repair-shop-series-10-episode-9 If you just want to skip to the timestamps featuring with the machine: it's is introduced and gets disassembled around 7:30-12:45, and then it's shown again at 21:30-25:20, and then finally restored and shown in working order at 43:10-47:15.
Dabbling in a bit of Project Gotham Racing 3 to see if it was worth my time. Part of it is set in Las Vegas. And their commitment to accuracy means GameWorks Las Vegas is modelled. Which in 2005 was still being operated by Sega. It might be there in PGR4 too. AFAIK GameWorks has never cameoed in a Sega-published game (there were some ads, but no physical venues that I know of). But here it is in a Microsoft-published one. Fun fact: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.103...U_VmE3gw!2e0!5s20220501T000000!7i16384!8i8192 You couldn't actually drive this route today - that side of the road has been paved over and is now pedestrians only. Also watch out for the sexy green M&M with the legs and the shoes and whatever. Or, if you're living in the UK, "there's a green one?"
There are an odd few homages to the Las Vegas location in some of Sega's own titles, but always under different names - L.A. Machineguns featured it masquerading as a Sega World. Confusingly, over 20 years later (and indeed long after the space had closed permanently to become some retail brand store), StarHorse4 had "GoldGames". I'm almost certain there's further examples with recreations of the Vegas strip, so more investigation may be needed.
I've read a lot of chapters from Isekai Oji-San. It's great! A lot of Sega references, but it's also good comedy with some ecchi stuff. I don't really read manga novadays, so it's a treat, to find something this appealing to me. Thanks for posting info about it here. :D
Been watching the anime, Uncle from Another World, on Netflix. It is fantastic and loaded with Sega references!
Update: It is. And neither game gives credit to GameWorks. Most of the other sponsors get a mention - the big Coca-Cola bottle on the side has a credit as do most of the Las Vegas hotels in the area, but despite having GameWorks banners plastered all over the place (including in Japan and the UK, where it didn't trade), the company isn't credited either in-game or in the manuals.
Around the time of 2005-7 don't think the original GameWorks company would have existed anymore - by that point the locations were ran by Sega Entertainment USA, as both DreamWorks and Universal had backed out after the various financial woes and a bankruptcy.
Hey you can't just upload screenshots of Fun House and expect me not to post anything 1999-era Pat Sharp doesn't know what a Dreamcast is. Though 1999-era Pat Sharp also doesn't know that this was the peak of his television career. Fun House was a UK kids game show with a "house" that was "fun", based on a US kids game show that presumably wasn't as fun, since it was axed in 1991. UK Fun House was the best show, but when you look at the clips now, you can tell the people involved had had enough by the end. The series began in 1989 and ran for ten years - apparently the twins were prostitutes in the 1989 Batman film. Also they tried to make an adult version with celebrities, which has since turned into "let's set up Fun Houses across the country and you can book one for the day". Did that ever happen? Oh well. Anyway the Dreamcast in question: I'm thinking Sega weren't involved with this one, partly because the show never mentions either the terms "Sega" or "Dreamcast" (and those might be US discs), but because of the controller ports. Player 2 is in port 4! You never see this, because humans typically don't think and behave this way, but this is actually a perfectly legitimate set-up that games had to account for. Unless you're obviously playing a 4-player game, there is nothing dictating that players 1 and 2 should use the first two controller ports - the software has to check all four, and recognise in this case, that player 2 is in port 4. It's in the guidelines - presumably Sega rejected software for not conforming with this regulation. (I suspect the reason was mainly driven by the keyboard and mouse peripherals. They both need a controller port... but which ones do you use? The solution? Any.) I'm not totally sure if Nintendo enforced similar rules for the GameCube, but the original Xbox supposedly did. Theoretically it should be possible to play every Dreamcast game through controller port 4 (or 2, or 3), just nobody does because... it's weird and unnatural. And cruically I don't think it's something Sega liked to publicise - had they been on set, you can almost guarantee controller port would be swapped... and they'd probably have the twins play through a more aesthetically pleasing area of Sonic Adventure to get you to buy consoles. And put VMUs in the controllers. Not sure exactly when this episode aired - probably September or October 1999. It might not be too difficult to find out the details.
I brought that clip to light yesterday elsewhere, and my overriding impression of it above all else was slight amazement that Fun House actually went on for that long here, and still used pretty much all of its 1980s trappings at the very end (though I guess Pat Sharp's had a less mockable haircut by then). For example the theme tune - couldn't sound more out of time in 1999 if it tried, and supposedly made by the same songwriter as the music for Trap Door, multiple Shakin' Stevens hits, and this politically correct love letter to Japan.
Yeah, you mentioned it to me on Discord. I posted it up, and it has circled back here. Funny that! Would be good to find out what specific episode it was.
