Saturnalia Has Arrived!!!

Well hello my dear brothers and sisters, and welcome to a month of Saturn related goodness! You remember the premise of 'Saturnalia' - a month long festival celebrating all things Saturn, to be enjoyed from the comfort of your own homes - or in my case, paraded through the streets stark naked with only a Saturn controller to protect my modesty. (N.B. Its the Saturn controller featured in the photo below, it was the only one big enough... LOL!)


"But Father!" I hear you cry, "February is not till tomorrow you silly old twat!"... To which I reply, that very much depends in which time zone you live... OK, that's bollocks, the reason I'm kicking things off today is because I'm currently on day release from the Manchester Royal Infirmary, where they are investigating a mystery illness. One of the biggest mysteries is the fact that I don't actually feel that ill, but my ticker is beating at 118 BPM (instead of the usual 50-100) and I've got fluid on my lungs... But hey! Enough of that bullshit, I'm hoping to be set free this week to return full time to Krishna Towers and more importantly to my recent Saturn haul (about which more later...)

But for now, let the festivities commence, let the fanfares begin and let's hear from some of our illustrious commentors and contributors, about why they love the Saturn so much! Enjoy!!! :)

Some of the games...

As time wears on, Saturnalia approaches, I am getting things ready. I hearby pledge that Saturnalia will comprise of at least 95% Saturn gaming in that month. I'll be keeping a log of my daily gaming, and will update the blog as necessary.

It's been many years since the Saturn was my main console. Roughly a decade in fact. The little blighter still works, too. I love the way it's almost completely silent (Dreamcast, XBOX 360; I'm looking at you!), and looks pretty hard. Hard as in "I'll kick your fucking teeth in" hard. I now have a lovely modded Saturn to lighten the load from my original '96 PAL unit.

What I didn't want to do, was to go back and replay all the games I used to play back in the nineties. Whilst I want to give some classics such as NiGHTS and SEGA Rally Championship some airtime, I won't be focussing on my PAL younger years... as I have a Japanese gaming collection that's been steadily growing, yet I have hardly played a single game from it...

One of the early contenders is Policenauts. 

This box contains the game (2 discs) and also a lovely booklet containing some amazing artwork.

Another game I need to play is Marvel Super Heroes vs StreetFighter. I have the 4MB RAM cartridge, so I am all good to go (it's included in this boxset).

This is a horse racing game/simulation. No idea how to play or what playing involves, but I will stick in in and give it a try. That technique has worked before!

Eve: The Lost One. Again, no real idea of what this game is going to be like, but that's the point really.

Ah, Burning Rangers. PAL version fetches quite a price... never played it. Couldn't afford it back then; can't be bothered with buying it now for £100. Would rather have this nicely presented Japanese edition with Music CD in the back! Result!

Well, that's it for now. The aim is simple. Play Saturn as much as possible in February. There's a chance I will be videoing some of my gameplay... no promises though. It is certain that I will be taking lots of sexy Saturn photographs though, and will review the odd game as it comes along. I have donpatchi and radiant silvergun head-to-head, and a few other ideas. Stay tuned.

Contributions Welcome!

Hi everyone!

Many of you will have already read this, as I sent it out as an email in the early hours of this morning. But I was worried that not all of our contributors/commentors will have received it (Arugulaz?) as their blogger names were not in the emails in my address book, so I thought I'd just be safe and post a general invite here for anyone who reads this auspicious missive...

Whilst all of the retro-gaming attention in 2008/2009 seems to be focused on The Dreamcast's 10th anniversary, we may have overlooked the fact that 2009 is also the year of the Saturn's 15th anniversary, as it was first released in Japan on the 22nd Of November 1994! Over at The Saturn Junkyard, we are making next month "Saturn February". During this 'Saturnalia' period we will try to play, celebrate, flag up and unearth items of interest on all things Saturn related.



We will look at homebrew,modding and emulation, lament dire marketing campaigns and corporate subtefuge, worship at the Cult Of Segata Sanshiro, trace the arcade origins of some of the Saturn's finest games and look at it's legacy in current or last gen gaming. And if you're wondering what it's legacy might be, I would point you in the direction of such titles as Sega Rally Revo (Xbox 360), Virtua Fighter 5 (Xbox 360, PS3), Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox), Baroque and NiGHTs (Wii), Resident Evil 5 ( Xbox 360, PS3) Resident Evil (DS) and so on...

As contrbutors/commentors, video game enthusiasts, retro-lovers (or people who have somehow ended up on my mailing list), I have a small favour to ask of you... Would you be able to mail me your feelings about the console? This could take the form of a paragraph of a few thoughts, jotted down as it were, or depending on your enthusiasm, an essay of epic proportions, detailing such events as when and how you first got a Saturn, what games you loved, whether or not you own or still play one today, top 10 software titles, best peripherals or whatever you want... Blatant bigging up of the Saturn Junkyard will be rewarded by material gifts of the Saturn/Dreamcast variety.





(Now there will be some of you out there thinking, what the hell is he talking about??? The Saturn aint all that! I loved the Playstation! *cough!* That's fine! I welcome humourous rebuttals, sarcastic comments, cyber insults or your opinion - even if is that "the Saturn was the wankiest console ever sold and I wouldn't even use it to wedge my shit house door closed!" - I think it would be healthy to pepper in some negativity/constructive criticism along the way.



Any way my dears, your contributions, however big or small will be very gratefully received! Simply pop them in an email to this address: revsimonearly@aol.com , together with any pictures, logos, web banners etc which you would like to accompany them and I'll cut and paste it into the finished article. I f you write a blog yourself, any publicity for the Saturnalia venture would be greatly appreciated and we will reciprocate with a role call of your wondrous blogs over here...

Thanks a million!

Father Krishna