Did anyone ever mention the Dreamcast in the House of Commons?

No. Which I know because a rather neat tool came up on social media this week, which very efficiently searches Hansard (the extensive official record of the UK House of Commons) for the first mention of any word or phrase. Inevitably I went straight to Dreamcast – but nothing. The first mention of Sega, however, …

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Two Point Hospital

Two Point Hospital

In light of the current global situation, running a virtual hospital might not seem like the best form of escapism, but Two Point Hospital is no ordinary institution. This is healthcare if practiced by Patch Adams, mixing comic hijinks with surprisingly addictive hospital administration. If you’re of the age to remember Bullfrog’s classic Theme Hospital …

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Micro Machines and clever Mega Drive cartridges

A new Micro Machines game was announced earlier this month. To many, Micro Machines means only one thing: local multiplayer. This new ‘un supports it, sure, but with those futuristic wireless controllers we have these days. It wasn’t like that back in the ’90s. Back in the ’90s they had to be clever, and they …

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The Game Gear games Europe never gained

Regular readers will know that we have something of a soft spot for the SEGA Game Gear, having penned numerous 8-bit related features over the past couple of years. It’s one of those formats we could talk about all day long and for reasons aplenty. We aren’t blinkered to the fact that the ageing handheld’s …

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9/9/99 – Sega Dreamcast is 15

If you’ve been a reader of Games Asylum since the beginning, then you have our sympathy. Those that have been with us the whole time though will know that Games Asylum’s roots go back to a Dreamcast site named DigiApe. Glamorous it wasn’t, being a mixture of HTML coding errors and sloppy grammar and spelling …

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Majesco and the SEGA Game Gear’s second lease of life

Best known nowadays for publishing Cooking Mama in the US and Zumba Fitness globally on Wii, budget game specialist Majesco has been around for far longer than most gamers realise. Back in the mid-’90s, when the 16-bit market was entering its twilight years, the company purchased Acclaim’s Mexico-based cartridge manufacturing facility in order to re-release …

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Dragon Coins – Review

Coin pushers: gateway gambling machine, disappointing old-fashioned seaside arcade amusement, or terribly modern entertainment sensation? It’s looking bizarrely like the last of those. There’s daytime ITV1 quiz show Tipping Point, in which Ben Shephard has an only slightly easier job than Noel Edmonds on Deal Or No Deal in convincing the viewer that there’s appreciable …

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Sega, Akihabara

Basking in Sega’s reflected glory

Let’s go to Japan! Not literally of course, the last minute flights would be cripplingly expensive. But it has been a while since Street Viewtiful – our regular jaunt around the world of games via the medium of Google Street View – went to Japan. For many it’s the spiritual home of the video game, …

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Rollcage tyre

For promotional use only

Everyone loves something for nothing, so when some freeness is offered as a bonus for pre-ordering, or dished out at a games show, you’re not going to turn it down, are you? But you’re also not going to use it, are you? Let’s see what tat’s been languishing in a box in the attic for …

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The many facehuggers of Alien 3

Just in case you’ve been in cryogenic sleep since 1992, Alien 3 is the one where there was only one Xenomorph and not a great deal happened. The movie had a very difficult production and at one point was even being filmed without a finished script. This ultimately led it to it receiving very mixed …

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Dodgy devices and hideous handhelds

There’s a Hong Kong-based online retailer where, hidden away from the official console bundles and realms of third party peripherals, there’s a peculiar section titled “Other videogame consoles”. Here you’ll find a variety of dubious looking handhelds of all shapes and sizes, pre-loaded with hacks of NES games and more. We don’t condone piracy here …

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DC-UK: part of Future’s unofficial past

It’s time for another of our regular look backs at a video game magazine of old. This time our incessant rummaging around the attic has unearthed Future Publishing’s unofficial Dreamcast magazine, DC-UK. Word – by which I mean Wikipedia – has it that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe stopped Future Publishing from pitching for the official …

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Sega’s forgotten heroes

You won’t find Wonderboy or Alex Kidd on this list of Sega’s long lost heroes – we’re going even deeper into the depths of obscurity. Presenting eight former heroes that Sega have seemingly forgotten about: Tempo Despite starring in three different games on three different formats – Game Gear, 32X and Saturn to be exact …

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New SEGA Vintage Collections offer dusty fun

Typical. We’ve been waiting patiently for SEGA Vintage Collection: Monster World only for it to arrive on Xbox Live Arcade the same day as SEGA Vintage Collection: Alex Kidd & Co. This may not sound like a bad thing to happen but it really is. Our feeble brains can only handle so much nostalgia, you …

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Where did all the movie tie-ins go?

Ten years ago movie tie-ins were incredibly lucrative and publishers were quite happy to make games out of anything they thought might turn a quick profit, even if the source material wasn’t ideally suited to being turned into a game. Looking back through the release lists, a decline in movie tie-ins has been happening since …

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