Before we lazily include the press release that our favourite PR™ Stefan McGarry sent us, here are just a short list of reasons why next year’s Out Run remake will be the best racer on the Xbox 360 and PS3 next year.

1) Out Run 2006 Coast 2 Coast is still the best racer of all time.

2) Sumo Digital couldn’t make a rubbish Out Run game if they had guns pointed at their heads. They’re that bloody good.

3) The original Out Run still has the most stunning locations of any 80s driving game, the new ones look even better.

4) We’ve just had to change our pants. That’s the impact this earth shattering news has had on us. No other Sega announcement, with perhaps the possibility of a brand new Panzer Dragoon game can do this to us.

5) The office is already sick to death of me telling everyone how great this game is going to be and I only received confirmation about ten minutes ago.

So for your viewing pleasure here are some shots of the new game.

Next year can’t come soon enough!

Look at it. Just look at it!!!

This is why we love Sumo Digital.

If Sumo sneaks Retro Gamer bill boards into this, it could become the greatest racer of all time. In fact, it will become the greatest racer of al time.

Oh here’s that press release we were on about…

OUTRUN ONLINE ARCADE
FEEL THE WIND IN YOUR HAIR AS YOU POWER YOUR WAY ALONG THE HIGHWAYS IN OUTRUN™ ONLINE ARCADE

SEGA’s classic arcade racer returns, but this time it’s in stunning HiDef and available via PlayStation® Network and Xbox LIVE® Arcade for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®. Developed by acclaimed Sheffield studio Sumo Digital, OutRun Online Arcade, will be available early 2009.

Test your time, speed and handling ability as you race through vibrant, colourful stages and rediscover the 15 glorious OutRun courses.  From the steep streets of San Francisco to the beautiful beaches of California, it’s mile after mile of unrelenting acceleration, thrills and action.  Feel the kick as you put your foot to the floor in one of the 10 high-performance, fully licensed Ferrari cars as you race your way across the U.S. to a killer soundtrack.

For the first time on PlayStation® Network and Xbox LIVE®, OutRun Online Arcade delivers online multiplayer racing for up to 6 players, with fast paced OutRun, Heart Attack and Time Attack modes, the draw to the open road has never been so appealing.  OutRun Online Arcade on Xbox LIVE® will feature achievements and voice; and on PlayStation® Network will include trophies, voice over IP and leaderboards.

Which route will you choose on your drive for the highest possible score?

For our Zelda issue we really wanted to do something a bit special with the cover. During a think tank with Darran and Steve, I remember mentioning how neat it would look if we could somehow recreate the gold Legend of Zelda cart in a cover - and the boys not immediately hating the idea.

To the best of my knowledge, I can’t think of any magazine that’s ever tried that – turning its cover into a game cart. The closest example that I’ve seen was on the cover of a U.S multiformat mag called Next Generation, who I remember once daringly splashing an image of the Ocarina Of Time N64 cart on their cover against a white background with no coverlines.  But anyway, Darran and Steve both seemed quite keen on turning the front of the mag into a giant NES cart and we went forward with the concept.

The image below shows you how far we got with the idea before we had to stop (as you can see, not very far at all). The image was taken from the The Legend of Zelda manual (I believe), which is why it has the ‘includes valuable maps and strategic playing tips’ patter beneath the shield. Ultimately though, because we couldn’t get our hands on the original artwork, or even a high-res version of the shield image, we were forced to change artistic direction.  

If you look at the cover we eventually went with – the stained glass artwork of Link from Wind Waker – you’ll notice it includes a Nintendo Seal of Quality in the bottom right corner, which was a subtle mark we added to show our original intentions for this particular cover.

Due to an intense deadline I’ve had to temporarily retire from the magazine in order to get my strength back for issue 60. Worry not though as we’ve been able to find a great replacement.

In the meantime Pac-Man suggested that I relieved all my stress by gobbling down a few Power Pills. His advice was sound, and I’m having so much fun I might stay here forever…

We’re delighted to announce that it’s now possible to order the Retro Gamer binder again.This stylish folder is perfect for keeping up to 13 issues of everyone’s favourite retro magazine, and is available now from the Imagine Shop for a fantastic £9.99

http://www.imagineshop.co.uk/products_show.php?typeID=159

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!!!If you’re the sort of person who needs to make multiple orders then why not take advantage of our new offer which allows you to purchase three binders for just £24.97. Our first order will be coming in on the 16th December so order now to ensure that you get yours before Christmas.

So yesterday Steve and I booked out the photo studio to take the snaps for next issue’s retroinspection, and I realized the situation would make a neat little behind the scenes-type blog entry thing. So we took some extra photos showing us at work, and here they are.  

Firstly, a special thanks to forum member Fat Trucker for kindly donating the machine. Dude, living inside your Amstrad was one of the most bizarre looking spiders I’ve ever seen (I kid ye not). I caught it running across my desk – probably trying to work out how it was going to lay its eggs in my head –before primordial instincts took over and I heroically caught it with an X-File’s postcard.

Anyway, when taking the pics for our retroinspections we always have to wrestle with the lighting. It’s what takes up most of the time. We also have to try and make the machine look pretty — here’s me doing just that with air and a duster.

And here’s me looking like an idiot. Steve was trying to get me to drape over the machinery like some kind a Kays catalogue model. Note how clean I’ve made the Amstrad look. And my jumper, which is an authentic Guersey. And my beard. We’re all growing beards at the moment. Why? I’m not entirely sure, it probably just seemed a good idea at the time.

Following on from Darran’s post yesterday, and seeing as I’ve been a bit invisible on the blog recently, I thought I’d write a few words about another of our cover ideas that fell to the cutting room floor.

Now the interesting thing about this cover – as astute readers will have no doubt twigged – is that while this image didn’t end up making it onto the face of the mag it was used for the leading page of our Top 25 Fighters feature.

We’re always pushing for quirky and originality in our covers and believe that colours play a vital role in deciding their grabability factor. Having a distinctive hue that overpowers the thousands of others is easily the best way to help make a cover stand out - try it, Magic Eye past RG covers and you may notice a subtle colour theme. For the Elite cover the colour was black, OutRun it was blue, Red Moon it was Red (obviously), and for the Atari cover it was brown – yes, brown! This cover was no different. It has a kind of sky bluey tinge.

Anyway what I like most about this cover treatment is its simplicity. There’s a real sense of geekyness to this image. I also like the fact that the two generic fighters, taken from the Splash Screen of SF2, get to take centre stage. These are two characters that everyone is familiar with despite knowing nothing about them. And I thought that was kind of cool. I also remember thinking how funny it would be if the guy at Capcom who created the intro spotted the mag in a newsstand in Japan and laughed so hard that people began flocking around him just to find out what all the commotion was about, and we picked up a few more readers from overseas. 

The incandescent 25 appearing from the windows, which was suggested by Stephen, is a nice touch and really adds colour and quirkiness to the image. Ultimately though, the skyscraper is too overbearing, which, if I remember rightly, was the reason the idea was rejected.     

If you’ve picked up our latest eMag (available now from the Imagine eShop for a bargain £19.99) you may have noticed that there’s a large selection of covers there that were put forward at cover meeting, but never actually went any further.We felt the blog was the perfect place to describe the reasoning behind these covers and why we decided to pitch them, so here’s number 1 in what will no doubt be another patchy series from us .

This cover is particularly interesting as it’s the very first one that our current designer, Stephen Williams mocked up when he started working on Retro Gamer. We knew that we wanted to focus on the top 25 fighters feature and knew that we needed something instantly iconic, so Street Fighter II was the obvious choice.

Now I’m not sure who came up with the original idea of having 25 character boxes on the Street Fighter II map, but I do remember that it was Stuart who thought it would be amazingly funny if we had Ken or Ryu facing off against King Hippo. He was right of course (covers always tend to be a collaboration between all three of us, and it’s not unusual for everyone to chip in with the thoughts as the weeks progress).

I think the main reason that the cover didn’t progress any further here was due to the presented piece not being fully realised (you’ll notice that we’ve just re-used Street Fighter sprites instead of ones from the games that would have featured as we had first intended) meaning it didn’t really have the impact that we’d first intended.Still, the addition of the IK+ sprite (from the GBA game I think) is a very nice touch and it proved that Stephen would definitely be someone to keep an eye on.

To commemorate the incoming console release of Street Fighter IV, Capcom recently sent out a selection of rather nifty pin badges.

While we didn’t receive any packs ourselves, we were able to beg a set from Xbox 360′s Simon Miller, who kindly gave us his Chun-Li pack (he wanted to keep Ryu for himself and who could blame him?).

Beautifully made, they’re bound to go down well with fans of the franchise and now look very nice next to the Shanghai Lynx badge that I picked up on eBay the other week. We’ve scoured the office, but so far no one appears to have a badge of Ken Masters.

We’ll put more images up as and when we can convince people to part with them (we’ve got our eye on Play’s Gavin Mackenzie at the moment…)

We were always told to never go out with a girl who had big hands, so poor old Chunners wouldn’t stand a chance.