Showing posts with label Total Dreamcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Total Dreamcast. Show all posts

Total Dreamcast: The Magazine That Never Was?

Like any new system before the rise of web-based media, the Dreamcast garnered a whole raft of print-based magazines designed to support the console and help to disseminate news, reviews and hype about upcoming releases. Even though the Dreamcast came equipped with the ability to browse the internet, the online world of the late 1990s was a whole different ballgame to the one we effortlessly surf today. For this reason, for most gamers - including me - magazines were the go to resource for news about the Dreamcast.
Here in the UK, there were plenty of Dreamcast magazines to choose from and we've pored over the majority of them at some point or another here at the Junkyard in the past. There was Official Dreamcast Magazine (known affectionately as ODM) from Dennis Publishing and we featured the alternative 'demo editions' from the pitching process previously. That magazine came with a DreamOn demo disc stuck to the font cover and cost the princely sum of £5 a pop. There were plenty of cheaper alternatives, including DC-UK from Future (the magazine that resulted from the failed pitch for the official license), Dreamcast Magazine from Paragon, Dreamcast Monthly from Quay, and Mr Dreamcast from Magical Media.

Mr Dreamcast is of particular interest to many collectors because it only lasted for two issues and was aimed squarely at a younger audience. Issue 1 came with a Fur Fighters water pistol, and I inadvertently bought it once while waiting for a bus and only realised my mistake when I took my seat and opened the magazine to be confronted with the type of prose usually reserved for a Mr Men book. Just to clarify, my copy didn't have the legendary water pistol stuck on the front, so I'm blaming that for tricking me into a purchase. Cough.
The hallmark of Exeter's finest export
It appears that there was to be another Dreamcast magazine available to discerning readers in the UK though. A magazine that was even advertised and from which review quotes were used to promote certain Dreamcast games. That magazine has become the stuff of legend and I only know about it because of the borderline obsessive work of one tireless collector and expert on the subject. That magazine is Total Dreamcast, a magazine that almost certainly exists somewhere in some form...but never saw the light of newsagents shelves...