Space Channel 5 is coming back as a VR game

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"Groooooove evening, SpaceCats!"

A fresh version of one of Sega's classic properties that isn't Sonic the Hedgehog was announced last year, with Dreamcast classic Space Channel 5 returning in VR form. Now there's a launch trailer and while only the PlayStation VR version has a release date (February 25 in the US, February 26 in Europe) the website lists Vive, SteamVR, and Oculus versions coming soon.

Space Channel 5 and its sequel (which is the only one of the two available on PC) were deeply strange rhythm games from the early 2000s in which a journalist named Ulala who lives in the 1960s idea of the future defeats aliens in dance-offs. They featured cameos from Michael Jackson, who played a character named "Space Michael". That's one thing this new VR version will presumably leave out, though it does look true to the style of the originals. (Original voice actor Apollo Smile has been replaced by Cherami Leigh, who voices the lady version of V in Cyberpunk 2077.)

While it's a shame this new Space Channel 5 game, subtitled "Kinda Funky News Flash", will only be available in VR, it's nice to see Sega bringing back one of their old series people actually liked. Jet Set Radio next?

Jody Macgregor
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.