NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams

Sega has led one of the most tumultuous lives of any game company to date. It rose to prominence throughout the ‘80s and early ‘90s thanks to creative arcade games and popular consoles like the Master System and Genesis/Mega Drive, but then slowly lost that lead to Nintendo and Sony as the decade wore on. After a series of unrecoverable missteps, Sega was out of the hardware business altogether by 2001, forced to create software for its former competitors.

Since then, Sega’s annual lineups have been hit or miss. Sonic the Hedgehog lurches right along, Total War has made some nice cash over the years and Platinum Games is kicking all kinds of ass, but other than that it seems like most of Sega’s efforts are spent re-releasing compilations of its ‘90s hits instead of finding ways to re-invent them for today’s appetites. Those original titles were successful for a reason, and we think there’s still something to cull from their neglected corpses – so here we’d like to dredge up some of Sega’s brightest stars that skipped the supernova and went straight to inert ashy matter...

Technically you could call it a demo (one of the Top 7 best even), but there’s so much included in the game outside the one level and boss offered, that you wouldn’t be too far off calling it a game all its own, albeit a short-ish one. But whatever it is, nothing in gaming history is filled with more Christmas spirit than the Sega Saturn’s Christmas Nights Into Dreams, not even Elf Bowling. And it’s supported by an amazing soundtrack of tunes from the first Nights reworked for the holidays, topped off by the theme song Dreams, Dreams done A Cappella...

Dream delights await you! Take the plunge after the jump...

I'm probably one of about... well, two people who switched on their Sega Saturn this morning to catch this once-a-year treat.

Christmas NiGHTS, Sega's 1996 Christmas giveaway to Saturn owners, included calender-activated features on the run-up to December 25. But it wasn't limited to Christmas - on April 1, there was a sinister surprise in store. And it still works today...

Most game ads are usually a bit rubbish. But we can forgive them, because whether pushing Z listers ‘enjoying’ entertaining interactive products or offending our ears with a cheesy, booming voiceover, most of them are just charmingly clueless. The following ads are guilty of a much worse crime, though. They all utterly adore themselves. Self-indulgent, self-loving bullshit, below you’ll find cynical commercials that have

Ever wondered what it would be like to have video game characters in your Pokemon party? Why choose boring old Bulbasaur when you can choose a beautiful Kasumi? Or a level 50 Sackboy?

We've given 21 game characters the Pokemon treatment, with four moves to choose from and some evolutionary states too.

Who would you choose?

If you examine the history of console gaming, from its nascent years on low-end computers to the present, you’ll find one strange constant: Santa Claus. Much more than just another holiday mascot who gets rolled out once a year to irritate us with awful ads and horrible dancing toys, Santa is a beloved-enough icon to have appeared in seemingly dozens of videogames (not to mention books and movies) that persist long after Christmas is over

Videogames, like movies and music, live and die by their release dates. A smartly planned launch can make a niche product soar to unpredicted heights or cause a long-respected franchise to slip beneath consumers’ radar.

You’d think that games based around superheroes would be the ultimate expression of incredible powers. Nope. Unfortunately, most superhero tie-ins have had more tedious tasks than chances to protect the planet