Some things in life will always baffle us. Women, the Japanese language, and any film by Lars Von Trier. Few things in life however flummox us as much as Sega’s decision to create brand new artwork of Strider for the Western market.

Look at this…

Now look at this…

Why on earth would you want to create the former when the latter is so damned amazing? It just doesn’t make an sense to us.

So let’s go over that once again.

Hideous artwork that looks like it was created for a naff Eighties action movie.

And this…

Gorgeous imagery that should be hanging in a museum.

It wasn’t that hard a decision to make. Was it Sega?

We’re not quite sure what he’s a master of, but The Master’s forum posts usually make us laugh out loud. Hard. When he’s not regaling fellow forum members with his weekly shenanigans, he can usually be found posting utterly bizarre pictures like this one. The fact he looks a little bit like Bill Bailey is no bad thing either.  ”Bow down and worship me pathetic mortals”

Collating interviews for Retro Gamer can normally be a painful process. It can often take an age to track developers down, then you have to convince them to agree to an interview, then you have to come up with some decent questions that they won’t have heard a hundred times before. After all that you’re still not done because you have to transcribe the interview (unless of course you’re lucky enough to convince someone to reply via email).

Imagine our surprise then when the wonderful Steve Lycett (known to the users of many gaming forums as Sol) not only agreed to sort an interview out for an incoming making of the game, but turned it all around in a single day! That’s right a single day. We sent the questions off, and received the answers a few short hours later. Special thanks must also go to Pat Phelan who was good enough to answer several probing questions for us, but it’s Steve who constantly manages to impress us.

Always gracious on the many forums he visits (even when the games he’s involved with get an unfair kicking) the man is a complete and utter gent and a real credit to Sumo.*

* Please note, this praise has nothing to do with the free copy of New International Track & Field that we were sent today. Steve genuinely is a lovely chap.

Oh my goodness, this has to be the best news since… well… ever.

Thanks to some scans that are currently circulating the internet, one of the finest shoot-em-up franchises of all time is about to get it’s long awaited sixth outing.

Initially rumoured to be released on Sega’s Dreamcast, Sega has now revealed that it will be bringing the gorgeous looking shooter out later this year exclusively on Sony’s PlayStation2. It’s highly unlikely that this will be getting a UK release (shoot-em-ups are about as popular in the West as a fox in a chicken coop) but that doesn’t mean we won’t be picking up a copy later on in the year. There’s no official pics yet, so you’ll have to make do with a shot or two from the wonderful Thunderforce III instead. More news as and when we get it.

Poor old Captain Picard sums up our feelings about Saturday’s awful finale perfectly. Apart from fobbing us off with a completely naff excuse for the Doctor not regenerating, RTD then proceeded to make us endure such atrocities as Catherine Tate doing a poor impersonation of David Tennant, David Tennant doing a poor impersonation of Catherine Tate and German speaking Daleks.If Tom Baker was dead he’d be spinning in his grave…

It’s just gone 3PM. The wife is still at work, my eldest is at a party for the next three hours and this is the state of my youngest. Time to play some videogames…

If it’s not enough that Sumo Digital has included Pentarou in its latest game, fans of Konami may be pleased to know that Simon Belmont, Frogger and even Silent Hill’s Pyramid Head can be unlocked as you progress through New International Track & Field’s many events. There’s plenty more classic characters to discover, but you’ll have to wait until Issue 54 of Retro Gamer when we’ll be revealing them all in an exclusive new making of.

So is anyone else as excited about this as I am?

I haven’t been too impressed with season 4 as a whole, but last week’s regeneration came totally out of nowhere. As much as I love David Tennant as the Doctor, I’ll be gutted if this is just a cheap trick by the BBC to boost ratings.

Maybe Rose is going to wake up in the shower and discover that it was all just a dream…

We’re simply lost for words…

And here they are again. Filthy girl Marian, filthy girl!

In a brand new series, Retro Gamer champions great games that everyone seems quite happy to ignore.This month we’re going mental for Sumo’s New International Track & Field.

Pentarou used to be Konami’s mascot, but he’s been forgotten in recent years for wannabes like Solid Snake and that Belmont who’s christian name we always forget. Anyway, the little penguin is back with a vengeance and the little penguin proves himself to be a more than worthy adversary.

Sumo we love you.