Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts

DCJY welcomes Chris Scullion

In episode 121 of our podcast, the DreamPod, Kev and Mike welcome the one and only Chris Scullion! 

I'm sure many people are well aware of who Chris is, but if you aren't, he is a long-time video games journalist who was most notably the longest-running staff member at Official Nintendo Magazine UK, but has also written for many other UK gaming magazines such as Official Xbox Magazine, Official PlayStation Magazine, and Retro Gamer, along with a plethora of other online gaming media. 

On this DreamPod episode, we talk to Chris all about his brand new book “The Dreamcast Encyclopedia”, the latest in his series of books that review every game on specific systems. We chat to Chris about the writing process for the book, the games that stood out, and more!

The Dreamcast Encylopedia is available to purchase now from Pen and Sword books. The book will see a general release in North America by the end of the year, but can already be pre-ordered from sites like Amazon. We will be sure to review it on the blog when we get our copy!

You can listen to this episode of the DreamPod and all of our previous episodes on Buzzsprout, along with all great podcatchers. A big thank you to Chris for coming on the DreamPod.

The A-Z of Dreamcast Racing Games: Another New Dreamcast Book Releasing in 2021!

I wanted to share with you a personal project that I’ve been working on over the past few weeks behind the scenes, and hope to release this year for the Dreamcast community: a new physical book titled The A-Z of Dreamcast Racing Games.

This book will cover all 50 racing games ever released on the Dreamcast (as well as a few extra that never actually got released), featuring a retrospective review of each game as well as some insight and interviews from the original development teams of select titles. There will be some additional content included as well (I’m not giving away everything just yet!) and it will be the ultimate companion for any Dreamcast fan who loves racing games.

I’ve made a conscious decision not to go down the traditional crowd-sourcing route for this book and instead will be self-publishing via Amazon. This decision enables me to keep costs down as low as possible, not having to commit people to up-front orders and additionally, makes the book readily available to anyone worldwide. It also means that the book will be published in a format that is not too dissimilar to a cheats book from back in the 90s, which I must admit I really like!

Book Review: Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works

Full disclosure before I delve betwixt the pages of this Dreamcast-flavoured slab of goodness: I - along with several other members of the Junkyard team - backed Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works on Kickstarter. Now that's out of the way, let's begin.
320 pages of Dreamcast loveliness
Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works is the latest book release from Read-Only Memory, the outfit responsible for such highly regarded tomes as 2014's Sega Megadrive/Genesis: Collected Works and 2016's The Bitmap Brothers: Universe. The Dreamcast-themed wad of paper we have here was originally funded on Kickstarter back in 2017, and was slated to be delivered to backers in November 2018, but for various reasons was delayed for the best part of a year. If you'd rather watch a video and listen to my horrendous voice instead of read my words, you can do so here:


Regardless, Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works has started shipping to backers across the globe (as of December 2019), and we decided it was only right and proper that we cast a critical eye over what those cool dudes Darren Wall and Simon Parkin have delivered for Dreamcast fans who love a good read/like to gawp at pictures.
The cover has a real air of quality
The version being looked at in this article is the standard backer's edition of Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works, but there are some fancier iterations, such as the Jet Set Radio, Phantasy Star Online and Shenmue themed ones; along with copies signed by Sega and Dreamcast visionaries such as Naoto Ohshima (Sonic), Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez) and Yu Suzuki (the kitchen sink). These were available at higher tiers than I could realistically afford to spend, but I'm sure whoever got them will be very happy with their purchases. That's not to say that the standard backer's edition is anything other than top drawer in terms of quality and content though - far from it, in fact.
Naturally, Shenmue features heavily
This standard edition comes with a solid, white hardback cover, complete with embossed lettering and a fantastic Dreamcast swirl hidden beneath a rather nice holofoil sleeve (emblazoned with a Dreamcast console, naturally). The book just oozes quality, and from the moment you peel off the shrink wrap you know you're holding a premium product. The book weighs in at 320 pages, and the hard cover and thick, glossy sheets of papyrus contained within are hallmarks of Read-Only Memory's consistently top notch offerings...