There’s a lesson to be learned in the video game industry these days. Nostalgia is lucrative. Just take what was once a successful formula, jazz it up with some prettier graphics, retain the classic style gameplay, and you’ve got yourself a winner. Street Fighter did it. Mario Kart did it. And so did Sonic.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 has been pretty big for Sega, but they skipped out on the Android love for that title. That’s changing for the next chapter, as Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II is being launched on Android some time this year. They’re saying that the game will be made available to Tegra 3 devices, allowing gamers to take full advantage of the “improved architecture” of the new chip, getting more graphically-intense action for the speedy blue devil.

For now, the only officially announced Android device with NVIDIA Tegra 3 is the Asus Transformer Prime tablet, but I’m sure a huge slate of Tegra 3 devices will be unveiled next week at CES. I imagine a slightly less graphically intense version of S4:EII will be available for the rest of us Android folk too, plus the versions for iOS and home consoles. I’m just waiting for a graphically-intense version of Columns.

Here’s the teaser trailer.

This is an awesome idea, but I can never imagine it seeing the light of day as a commercial release. Basically, Garnet Hertz of the University of California Irvine has cobbled together what looks like a Sega OutRun cabinet from the 80s, except it’s a real functional vehicle that can really drive around on the road using augmented reality.

The cabinet is outfitted with a series of cameras and then the computer algorithm interprets the road that it sees in front of it, rendering that with the same 8-bit gaming graphics as the classic racing game. If there’s a right turn coming up on the golf cart path, you’ll see a right turn in the game in real time. You also still get the pretty blonde in your virtual passenger seat.

The trouble, of course, is that this is way too dangerous. You don’t actually see anything in front of you. You could just as easily run over young children or bumble your way straight into a lamp post. To be fair, the max speed is a mere 13mph, but that doesn’t really mean that it’s all that safe. In the demo video below, you can even see Hertz constantly peering around the cabinet to see the obstacles ahead.

Cool idea, though. I’ll give him credit for that. I’m sure it costs more than a roll of quarters too.

Seriously. Ever since Sega lost the console wars to Nintendo, I’m not really sure the company has ever found its way again. Sonic lost its luster a long long time ago, and now their business is going down the Toylet, literally.

Sega has developed a new game that works in tandem with a urinal. The piss game doesn’t involve you touching the screen at all (thank goodness!), relying instead on the steady stream of urine you’ll be providing after a couple hours at the pub. You pee, you earn points, and you get ranked among other urinal users for high scores.

“We think guys have experienced aiming at a variety of things when they go to the bathroom. Here we want them to progress through a game when they aim at a target in the toilet. We think this is a completely new concept where they can play a game without using their hands or fingers.”

There’s an infrared sensor that detects the approach of a new gamer and then microwaves “hit the stream of urine when the person urinates, and it reads the reflected microwaves to detect the speed of the urine stream. The volume is then calculated by the speed and duration of the urination.”

And the microwaves hit your junk too. I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, but there you go. The Sega Toylet will be ready to sterilize and entertain you by November of this year.  It’s largely being targeted at “drinking and eating establishments.” It’ll cost 140,000 yen for the hardware and 10,000 yen for the software. Combined, that works out to about $1,850 US bar owners just literally pissed away.

Techknott has been at his hacking and modding ways for some time, so this third iteration really is the fruit of his labors. As you can imagine, it takes the Sega Dreamcast and makes it portable. It even has a VMU unit for extra authenticity.

The custom case is made from CNC acrylic and MDF, original Dreamcast controller parts were used in the front, and he’s mounted original Dreamcast triggers on the back. The discs fit into the back as well, though there is an SD card slot in the front for games stored on flash memory. A PSone LCD serves as the display.

The 4500mAh battery makes this a true portable gaming wonder, but you can share your Dreamcast Portable experience with friends thanks to the two additional controller ports and TV-out options.

techknott’s dreamcast portable 3: the new handheld champion [Technabob]
techknott’s 3rd Dreamcast Portable [Ben Heck]

Some people like to celebrate the Fourth of July with a backyard barbecue. Some people like to celebrate Independence Day with a boatload of fireworks. But not the people at Sega. Nope, they like to give stuff out for free. If you have an iPhone (or iPod touch), they’ve got a puzzling gift for you.

Starting at midnight tonight and running until Monday, Sega will let you download the iPhone version of Columns for the very attractive price of zero dollars and zero cents. That’s right. It’ll be absolutely free to download, representing a 100% savings over the regular price of $1.99. What a deal!

If you grew up with puzzle games the same way that I did, then you may feel that Columns isn’t quite as epic as Tetris. That said, it was still a very worthy contender from the Sega camp in the puzzle department. Flip those gems, make matches, and prosper!

In the release from Sega, they don’t make any specific mention of which time zone the “free” time is adhering too, so I’d keep a close eye on the price tag before hitting the purchase/download button.

Source: Joystiq