Thread by @santikapowski

Michael Jackson's 1993 'lost' SEGA game. [A thread 👇]. #SEGA

Everybody knows the iconic 1989 SEGA "Moonwalker" game, but not many people know the existence of another SEGA game starring Michael Jackson released in 1993.

P.S.: Pic below remastered by digital artist @CVG_Vasquez

1992 Sega and Michael Jackson had a close relationship. Michael began to work in a some Sega projects: the composition of the music for Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and he was going to be featured in SEGA's new state-of-the-art arcade simulator: "Michael Jackson's AS-1 Scramble Training"

As an interactive movie simulator from that era, you needed to win of all your missions in order to get your pilot title. "Commander Michael" will accompany you on the missions.

It was up to 8 people and the spaceship had an hydraulic system to move according to the events of the movie creating the illusion of real flying movement.

Michael was the narrator of the flights and the one who will help you or cut off if you mess up badly. He was not only a voice narrator, there's a lot video footage of Michael as your trainer that will appear talking to you thoughout he game.

Sadly the game was only released in Japan briefly in early '93. Partially because the machines were expensive to create and distribute and most likely because of the 1993 allegations against Jackson that prompted SEGA to drop the game and substitute it for other titles.

Michael would also back off from creating the music for Sonic 3 because he didn't liked how they were turning out, although "unofficially" is safe to say that Michael's compositions were used in the final game. MJ's mark, rhythms and style are all over the game's music.

That didn't meant the end of Michael's and SEGA relationship. He would be an invited celebrity in several Sega game for several years. His most known cameo would in Space Channel 5 (1999) and Ready 2 Rumble (2000).

Sadly, "AS-1 Scrambled Training" STILL hasn't been dumped to any ROMset and it's considered 'lost' as we speak (although I think someday someone will find an original machine and will make the ROM public). So we only have videos recorded back in the day from inside the spaceship.

As you can see the game looks amazing and Michael looks cool as hell 😎. I hope someday we could all play it on any arcade emulator.