Year: 2004

This is the latest mini video game from McDonald’s – Shadow
Basketball. I reckon Shadow thinks of himself as something of a bad
ass, posing in that confrontational attitude. 😉 Unfortunately, the
game places you on his side, so you can’t do a full on body block to
show him who’s in charge of the court here.

The plastic wrap shows Shadow in either a “come get some” or “I’m
doing some serious air” pose, I can’t decide which. 😉 The color theme
of this mini video game is black, with a see through black casing.

The manual now comes in the double printed English/Chinese instructions we saw in the previous game in the series.

Here’s what the Shadow Basketball handheld game looks like. It’s on a vertical play field.

Shadow Basketball is the most complex game to date – it has two
yellow arrow keys to move Shadow left, right or center and a red button
for Shadow to take a shot.

Here’s a look at the pre-painted color background…it shows the three pointer circle of the opponent’s end.

Shadow Basketball starts out with one robot looking defender trying
to block your shots at the hoop. Shadow can score if the robot is not
in front of the shot angle. He can also score if the robot is in front
of the shot angle, but the robot’s hands needs to be down, or “off
guard”. The robot blocks the shot when its hands are up during an
attempt at the hoop. The game increases the number of robot defenders
up to three and also steps up the speed of their repetitive blocking
attempts.

I took a video of the game play, including the final stage, and the
winning animation. This is taken as macro as the first video is barely
viewable. Rest assured, this one is perfectly clear:

Download: Shadow Basketball [sixthseal.com]

I don’t know why I kept referring to Shadow Basketball as Knuckles
Basketball in the video. Something must have confused me. 😉 It’s
Shadow Basketball.

Despite the apparent complexity, it’s not that hard to make blind
shots and win. I won during the first attempt and the winning animation
shows Shadow taking shots from all three angles.

Tails Soccer is the third in the Sega2 and McDonald’s joint venture
promotional series. Basically, you get to purchase one with every
McDonald’s meal for RM 6. Tails Soccer comes in the now standard spiffy
Sega2 packaging, with box and all the frills.

The plastic wrap it comes in is also the standard Sega 2 packaging,
with the name of the game and the character printed in monotone on the
outside and the game with a manual (a nice word for a piece of paper)
inside.

The manual is superfluous really, its just the same three stage,
game goes faster as you up a stage, left-middle-right movement typical
of the Sonic Team Sega2 games.

What I found unusual is that the back of the manual has the
instructions printed in Chinese (Mandarin) as well. That wasn’t the
case with the others in the series.

Tails Soccer itself is molded like a console game controller, but it
seems to be meant for smaller hands than mine coz it wasn’t really
comfortable to play. There is no flip-top clamshell design this time,
just a standard mini video game design. It’s interesting to note the
similarities in the Sega2 Tails Soccer and the original Sega Knuckles Soccer [sixthseal.com]. Probably used the same chipset with minor mods.

Here’s the pre-painted background…same old, same old.

Tails! God dammit, you missed the ball!

Cream Flower Catch is the second one in the McDonald’s and Sega mini
video games promotional tie in. It comes in a nicely designed cardboard
box with a yellow motif, showing whom I presume to be Cream from Sega’s
Sonic the Hedgehog series.

The box has the McDonald’s logo, it’s “i’m lovin’ it” tagline…

…and the SEGA logo as well.

This is the contents of the box – a nice plastic wrap with the
manual and the mini video game. The Sega2 series is much better than
the first Sega promotion – the new ones all have a box with colored
printing and a higher quality plastic wrap. The first ones only come in
a small plastic wrap.

Cream Flower Catch also features the same flip top, translucent
clamshell design that was in Sonic Skateboard. However, Cream Flower
Catch is longer, with a very vertical design and a yellow based theme.

Here’s a look at the back of the Cream Flower Catch mini video game
– it shows all the internal circuits, including the battery. There is a
red on/off toggle switch as well. It’s a definite improvement from the
more boring first iteration.

The manual from the Sega2 series remains similar to the original
Sega mini video games though – it’s just a piece of one-sided printed
paper, with minimal instructions. The game play is typical of handheld
systems – the usual repetitive motions with everything moving faster
with each level increase.

This is what Cream Flower Catch looks like in its open state – the
yellow top flips up to reveal a sticker on the back of the top with
Cream and her…er, friend. There are two red buttons to move Cream
left, middle or right.

The Sega2 series maintains the standard of a pre-painted color
background with grayscale game play elements superimposed on top when
it’s switched on.

Go catch the flowers, Cream!