SEGA MegaZone Preservation Archive – Update 3

Hey guys, It’s been a long break since the previous project update 2 as I hadn’t had much luck over the last few years sadly, however I’m happy to announce that things have changed and I’ve finally received a bunch of new donations to the SEGA MegaZone Preservation Archive Project ! 🙂

Original Project Post (with tracking list of missing & found issues):
https://blakessanctum.wordpress.com/2019/12/29/sega-megazone-preservation-archive-needs-your-help/

Firstly the awesome Colin May who previously donated the rare issue 2 has successfully scanned issues 5 and 6 which were the very first issues after the final name change from MegaComp to the one we all knew and loved, MegaZone! To successfully obtain these rare early issues is such a great achievement. Thank you Colin!

Obtaining these issues has also confirmed that my original assumptions of the October & November 1990 issues being issues 9 & 10 respectively were incorrect as Issue 6 is dated August so there can only be one possible issue 7 between it and the Oct issue I’d said was 9 meaning it must actually be 8, which then means the Nov issue 10 is actually 9 too! The reason I had to originally guess those numbers was because many issues in that period did not say their number and until now I had no issues near Oct/Nov 90 to compare them to and on top of all that the magazine switched between monthly & bi-monthly multiple times during the early 90s making very difficult to predict. Some of my predictions / issue number allocations may still be wrong and only obtaining more lost issues will help reveal the truth! Anyway the good news is Colin has also kindly provided me with the missing 4 pages from issue 8 (formerly 9) so anyone who’s previously obtained this issue (pictured below) will definitely want to re-download it!

The next piece of utterly awesome news is something I never thought would happen! Project fan Sean Paul kindly let me know about a passionate TV archiver named FlemishDog (check out their channel to see other awesome content they’ve rescued) who was in possession of not 1 but 2 more MegaZone TV commercials for Issues 26 & 27 and were in the same style with the same cool music as the Issue 25 commercial I’d previously found on my own tapes and added to the collection a while back. I know there’s another one of these out there too as I remember another similar advert in my childhood but with Captain Kirk in it, so I’m guessing it was for Issue 24 as that contained a review of Star Trek 6. With awesome folks like FlemishDog archiving tv adverts maybe one day I’ll see it again! 🙂

Well that’s pretty much everything for this update. Colin has actually given me more but I’m holding off on that as well as holding on to some more MegaZone subscription cards I’ve found as I want to save them for a future update where if all goes well another excellent fellow who shares our passion for preserving retro video game mags named Forgotten Worlds (check out his channel to see other awesome content he’s rescued) has kindly offered to scan several more MegaZone magazines not currently in the collection! So fingers crossed the next project update containing all this good stuff won’t be too far away! 🙂

Wonder Boy 3 The Dragon’s Trap Behind The Scenes Videos

You guys can probably tell from my previous posts and my WIP Wonder Boy Monster World series website tribute page that I’m a big fan of the old series and after several decades of nothing am loving it’s recent resurgence with new remakes, sequels and the new Anniversary WB Series Collectors Edition (which my copy of just arrived in the post so I’ll a stick a picture below!). One of the coolest remake projects was LizardCube’s remake of the very popular SEGA Master System game Wonder Boy 3 The Dragon’s Trap in that they managed to completely mount the new game on the top of the old one using it’s original source code allow players to seamlessly switch between both. While its cartoonish style in frozen screenshots might turn off some, seeing it all in motion will quickly change most minds as the colours, detail and animation are just sublime! The animation in particular is very impressive as they’ve squeezed so many more frames into everything while ensuring they still move at the same total speed as the original sprites. The video game animation society have created an excellent video below really breaking down just how cool the work is, and the video game story time guys have also done a lovely video about the story of how Omar got the game made bringing this series back to life!

The Animation of LizardCube’s Wonder Boy 3 The Dragon’s Trap:

The Story of LizardCube’s Wonder Boy 3 The Dragon’s Trap:

Photo below of my Wonder Boy Series Anniversary Collectors Edition which can be purchased from Strictly Limited Games for Playstation & Switch here:
https://www.strictlylimitedgames.com/collections/wonder-boy-anniversary-collection

Sir Meier’s Civilization 4 Colonization – We The People Mod release 4.0

The modders of the popular Sir Meier’s Civilization 4 Colonization mod “We The People” have released the latest version of their mod, after more than 2 years of development since the previous release. This new version includes new terrain types, terrain features, resources, an overhaul of building requirements, limitations on shipping, and a many many more improvements.

We The People (WTP) is by far the largest and most active mod for Civ4Col to this day. WTP has had a long impressive 15 year history and includes the features of many great and popular Civ4Col mods that came before it like Religion & Revolution (RnR), The Authentic Colonization (TAC) and others.

UPDATE: The guys have released a v4.0.1 bug fix release as people reported some troubles. So if anyone is currently trying v4.0 make sure you go get the update!

Announcement thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/683126/

Full change list: https://github.com/We-the-People-civ4col-mod/Mod/releases/tag/4.0

Silence of the Siren (HoMM like scifi game)

Silence of the Siren appears to be a Heroes of Might & Magic like game in a scifi universe which is a very cool idea! I remember someone did a scifi version of HoMM called Spaceforce Captainns years ago which didn’t quite nail it so hopefully these guys do a better job! The screenshots look pretty cool and the videos show that they’re using the hybrid 2D pixel art in a 3D world Songs of Conquest style trick that looks much cooler in motion! Have wishlisted!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2147380/Silence_of_the_Siren/