Tonight We're Gonna Party Like Its 1999...


Whilst browsing the Planet Dreamcast Forum (which I do on a worryingly regular basis), the subject of 'Dreamcast parties' came up. Now for me a party usually involves me drinking copious amounts of alcohol, until I...

a.) Throw up
b.) Get naked
c.) Soil myself (or a combination of all three...)

So as you can imagine I don't get invited out much! However, it would seem that more sober minded types actually invite large groups of friends round then crank up the old Dreamcast.

So, what games could be played at a Dreamcast party? Let's have a look at some party friendly games shall we? (Oh and I'm not suggesting you play these games sober, Fuck no!)


Samba De Amigo: OK! The obvious choice, perhaps. Before the Wii came out, the Dreamcast had taken rhythm based games to a new level. Using a pair of motion sensor maracas and a grinning, on screen dancing monkey, players could shake along to a number of tunes including the Chumbawumba classic "Tub Thumping" or my own favourite, the theme from Rocky. A series of coloured dots fly out from the middle of the screen toward points at the right or left of the screen, based at the top, bottom or middle. The object of the game involves shaking the maracas in sync with the dots and occasionally striking a pose, which matches that of an, on screen, maraca holding, stick man.


Largely heralded as an innovative and definitive Dreamcast game, Samba De Amigo saw a brief re-emergence on the PS2 as part of the Sega Superstars package. And our very own Gagaman(n) has brought a lot of traffic to the 'Yard, by postulating that this could be a perfect game for re-release on the Wii.


Watching your mates wiggling their maracas after a few shandies is very funny! For a comprehensive analysis of this particular title look here... And if you want to have a go yourself, you can buy the game and some third party maracas here...


Space Channel 5: Who could resist the gorgeous Ulala, roving reporter for the orbiting Space Channel 5? And news just in, the planet has been invaded by a fleet of funky (but evil) aliens who are hypnotising and kidnapping its inhabitants, through the medium of dance!Another rhythm game, Space Channel 5 demands you mash buttons and the D pad in the right sequence, as Ulala dances. Ulala shouts out instructions that you have to follow... ("Up, down, up, down, shoot, shoot, shoot!") The pace starts off slow, but as you progress through the levels of the game, the sequence of instructions gets more complicated and frantic.



The real party element comes from trying to remember these sequences whilst your brain becomes slowly more sozzled. The graphics and stylisation of this game are fabulous, but the music is what makes it for me. A soundtrack that could perhaps be described as "Retro-Futuristic Lounge music", plays throughout the game. If you successfully follow Ulala's directions you rescue people, if not, the aliens capture them and the music begins to distort out of tune and tempo... absolutely brilliant! Play through the levels and Michael Jackson turns up as Space Michael, but don't let that put you off...


Soul Calibur: This classic weapon based fighter has oft been celebrated on these hallowed pages, so no need to describe its game-play (See Fideo Friday). Suffice to say, that anyone can pick it up and play like an ass kicking ninja on steroids. And your friends will be so blown away by the graphics that you'll have an immediate conversation starter, about how seriously fucking great the Dreamcast is and how it never should have been beaten in the last gen console wars, by an over-hyped black DVD player from those corporate whores at Sony (Ahem!)


Chu Chu Rocket!: Four controllers, a cacophony of colours and a load of manic mice. Chu Chu Rocket! was developed by Sonic Team as the first Online game for the Dreamcast.


"ChuChu Rocket!'s multiplayer mode revolves around up to four players placing arrows on the level at once, trying to direct mice into their own rockets and cats into other players' rockets. Each player can only have three arrows on-screen at a time and cannot place them on other players' arrows or their own arrows. Although a simple concept, this quickly becomes frantic with the relentless speed of the mice and four players fighting over them." (Says Wikipedia)


What's great about this particular title, is that it's quality, but also the cheapest Dreamcast game you can buy... You'll usually be able to snag it for 99p at Gamestation. I think Sega gave it away with the Dreamcast, but as I was too stupid to get one back then you'll have to confirm that for me...


Who Want's To Be A Millionaire?: If you've seen the show, you'll know what this is, a general knowledge multiple choice quiz, where the player (up to four) can gamble ever increasing amounts of cash as questions get harder... Drinking and quizzes go great together, and it's particularly gratifying to see your mates crash and burn at £500,000 by making a cocky assertion when they could have used a life-line.
Speaking of the lifelines, "Ask the audience" gives you a graph showing the most likely answer, "50:50" cuts the multiple choice answers down from four to two. But the "phone a friend" life line is the funniest part of the game. Eidos picked the most rediculous voice actors ever to pose as your fictional chums, and their voices and accents are unintentionally hilarious. The 'dramatic' pauses intended to build up tension are a pain in the arse though, and the voice of host Chris Tarrant, can really get on your tits after a bit...


Loony Tunes Space Race: I could have chosen Wacky Races, Disney's Magical Racing or South Park Rally for this post, as all three games are based on the Mario Kart model of weapons based racing.


The thing that makes this particular game a little bit better than the rest, however, is that rather than driving a vehicle you fly a rocket! This gives the game a feeling of Wipeout, as you defy gravity around the circuit... In four player mode the game becomes hilarious as you use picked up "Acme Brand" weapons to sabotage your mate's progress. I've played this a few times with friends and its a riot if you've knocked a couple of beers back (are you noticing a recurrent theme here??)


This is just a sample of games that are party friendly... I'm sure you know loads more!


Oh! And as I've mentioned before, the Dreamcast can DJ at your party with its MP3 peripheral and a stereo hook up. Top banana!

LCD + VGA = WOW

No Fideo Friday this week, after that onslaught of Youtube videos this week I feel we could do with a break! Instead, here's a new article!

VGA is the tecchy name for that big blue cable you plug into your computer monitor, because everything electric needs an annoying three letter
abbreviation
. Remember when I told you guys about the VGA converter box I bought and tried out on my PC monitor, while also trying the Dreamcast out online for the first time in years? Well, now TV's are starting to put VGA ports in the back of them too, which means you can plug your PC up to it, but also...with the help of the converter box, your Dreamcast. Oh, and I've just so happened to blow a lump of money on a new shiny LCD TV to replace my bulky old telly, going from a 21 inch screen to a whopping 32! In case your wondering, I've paid for half of it and will be paying the rest off eventually! It swamps my desk!

Just a word of warning: not all VGA ports in telly's are the same, and I learned this the hard way when I bought one, and the Dreamcast VGA box would not work through it, so I had to take that telly back and get another one, which was a whole lot of hassle and cost me another £50. ADVICE! Don't buy a telly from a electronics specialist like Euronics, because you'll have trouble taking it back, buy it somewhere like Argos instead, because they're easy to exchange with and give you no hassle. Also, if you can, find someone who owns the telly you're considering buying to test your VGA box on before buying! One thing I discovered is Hitachi TV's are good to go, and Samsung ones are not.

The best way I could think of comparing the picture quality would be with photos. Note: colours will look a little off because they're photos, not direct feed shots. First off, here's how it look though the standard aerial port that comes provided with the console:

The quality can all depend on how well your TV receives the aerial, but this is about a good as I can get it.

This is the same shot via an RGB, using the VGA box. This is the same as what you get with a Scart cable, which you can buy separately. It's a lot nicer, with brighter colours and more detail, and looks perfectly fine..

..but this is how it looks with the VGA PC Input. The sharpness ramps up big time and you can see every pixel.
Another advantage of VGA input is that it resizes everything for you, so you don't need to keep switching between 4:3 and 16:9 when a game looks too stretched or squashed. Games feel fresh and new, like you're playing them for the first time again. Even the sound is better! As Racketboy well said on his site many times "once you go VGA, you'll never go back"!

There's only one disadvantage of this device, and that is that not all games will run using it. On the back of most Dreamcast games you'll find a "VGA Compatible" symbol, and if that is not there, than popping in the disc will bring up a message telling you you can't run it through that cable. This isn't always the case, though, sometimes the publishers just forget to place the symbol on the box. Judging from my collection, roughly one in ten games will not use it. The following didn't work for me:

Bangai-O
Bust a Move 4 *
Capcom Vs SNK
DDR 2nd Mix/ Club Edition
Gunbird 2 *
King of Fighters Dream Match 99
Last Blade 2
Pen Pen
Plasma Sword
Psychic Force 2019
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Marvel Vs Capcom *
Spawn in the Demon's Hand *

(EDIT: The games that have * next to them do in fact work, if you use a boot disc! Thanks for the tip
Denymetanol
!)

It seems to depend on th the region of the game as well. According to the folks at DCforums, The American version of Skies of Arcadia works, but the British one doesn't. This is why the VGA box also has a RGB port on the side, and a switch that will let you switch between PC input and second best possible picture quality that will be compatible with any game.


On the plus side, though, you can also use emulators and homebrew games through this thing, so Mega Drive and Playstation games are going to look better than they ever did on the original consoles. For example, here's a shot of the classic Aladdin game in glorious PC quality:
And even closer, so you can see the lovely pixels! The only other way you could get this game to look this good would be through an emulator on your PC. In summary: this is the closest you're gonna get to playing Dreamcast games in HD, and really brings out the best of the system's graphics. It's beautiful, I tells ya.

Father K's Dreamcast Round Up!


Well, dear readers!

What a great time it is for the Dreamcast Junkyard! Our esteemed leader, Tomleecee is back and posting again. The Gagaman(n) is coming out with some amazing posts including Fideo Friday, Dreamcast DIY furniture guides, and another bout of sublime Bleem analysis. Caleb (The American Dreamcaster) has made his first stunning post regarding Scumm Emulation, so I think its about time I chipped in my 'two penneth's worth' and updated you all on what's been happening in my Dreamcast recently.




First off, Caution Seaman. If you've never experienced this title, then its high time you did... Indeed, the first time I ever posted on this hallowed blog, it was to postulate on the virtues of this particular title. However, I only got approximately half way through the 'game' before I gave up. This summer, I decided to play the game through it's conclusion. Believe me, that's quite a commitment. It means being attentive on a daily basis, being careful about your care package and the order in which you do things.




The care and attention has reeped rewards however. My Seaman is now in the final stages of its evolution and become the frogman merely hinted at on the cover of the box. Like all good naturalists, I have taken photos of these rare and sought after creatures. So enjoy! There are loads of pictures on the Internet of Seaman in his fish stage of evolution, but until I'd raised the little tyke myself, I had never seen his amphibious persona... If you don't know about this game, have a look here... and here...



OK next up, Chef's Luv Shack. This game is somehing of a 'virtual game show', with South Park's Chef as your genial host. I love South Park, but having been extremely underwhelmed by South Park Rally, I wasn't expecting much. The game pits opponents against each other in a 'first to the buzzer' quiz, with crazy categories, and general knowledge questions. In between rounds, opponents have to play simple arcade mini games against each other. This is a perfect party game, something which non-gamers can pick up and play, and a title which actually delivered far more than I had hoped for. I played it at about four in the morning with a mate, after a few ales, and I would suggest the game is best appreciated in this manner. For a better review look here...







Third is Fighting Vipers 2. Originally a Saturn game, this fighter was given a second outing on the Dreamcast. Because I'd enjoyed it so much on the Saturn, I was very keen to accquire its Dreamcast incarnation. I ordered it for (I think) £6, from the wonderful Chips. However, like Daytona USA 2001, when I eventually got it, it didn't live up to my expectations.



First of all, it felt 'light'... a strange description I know, but it's the only way I can describe it. Punches and kicks didn't seem to connect in the way that other Dreamcast fighters like Soul Calibur, Dead or Alive or even Virtua Fighter 3tb did. One of the great and innovative features of this game is it's characters. Unlike the usual stereotypical fighters we see in the affore mentioned games, Fighting Vipers has a skater, buxom rollerblader, BMX rider, guitar axe-man and so on... And they'll use those attributes on you, whilst performing show boating tricks at the same time. Its also rather nice when you smash your opponent through the 'ring' thanks to a particular lethal combo. I re-evaluated my opinion, when playing it against my games nemesis Tay. Its much more fun in 'versus mode' than playing it on your own... For a much better review, look here...











Number 4. Ikaruga. No, I've not re-mortgaged my house to buy an original copy, but I have had a CDR of the game for years, which has never been played. My recent purchase of Last Hope has turned me into a bit of a 'shmup' fan, and finally popping into my Dreamcast left me very pleasantly surprised. This game is fan-fucking-tastic! The first thing you notice is the visual gourgeousness of the 3D backgrounds.





Depsite it's retro gameplay, the visuals look very current gen. A top down shooter, (based on the switching between black and white enemies and your response to them...) Ikaruga rocks... The trick is, using the L and R trigger to switch your absorbtion potential... If your enemy is white, then you become 'white' and you can absorb the white enemies attack. Geddit? I only found this out after several plays, where I died repeatedly... Literally translated as 'speckled dove', Ikaruga was released in 2002, and was heralded as the LAST Dreamcast game, ensuring it sold out almost instantly. It eventually got a release on the Gamecube, but still remains a much sort after title for the Dreamcast. Warning!





This game is fucking ROCK hard, but worth the perseverance... For a much better review, look here...


High five? Tech Romancer... This is a 'mech' game from Capcom. If you don't know what a mech game is, its a giant robot game. Think Transformers or Ed 209... Beautiful anime graphics, Japanese dialogue with English sub-titles and lots of weapon based combat. Each character comes with its own story mode. You can also play in 'vs. mode' against a pal... I've only dipped my toe in the water of this title, but I like what I see so far... To find out more look here...


So there you have it! That's my recent Dreamcast activity in a nutshell. I've recently scored Ill Bleed, and am about to receive Zombie Revenge and Godzilla Generations (plus the Space Channel 5 soundtrack CD) , so I should have something else to talk about soon... Incidentally, my Wii really hasn't seen much action... I did think it was gonna rock my world, and so far it hasn't. The Dreamcast still holds my attention and the lion's share of my console love. However, for my musings so far on Nintendo's run away success, please check out Father Krishna's Wii-kly Sermons. If I may also shamelessly plug another couple of sites, for all Saturn related nonsense, please check out mine and Caleb's, Saturn Junkyard. For anything Master System (the Dreamcast's great grand father) related, please check out a collaboration between me and Gnome... The Master System Junkyard!



This is FK, for News At Ten, signing out! Good Night dear children, wherever you are...

New Scummvm out! And the adventure gamers rejoice.

Let me first say that it is an honor and a privilege to be posting on the Dreamcast Junkyard. I had wanted my first post to be the video of my collection but that was not meant to be. I will be posting that as soon as it’s edited…

However, there IS new Dreamcast news out that I felt was “blog-able” for the Junkyard, a bit on the technical / old school PC gamer style though…

It’s a great day for fans of “point and click” adventure games and the Dreamcast:

The new the version of ScummVm is out!


http://www.scummvm.org/downloads.php

(The Dreamcast version is towards the bottom of the list next to the Dreamcast Swirl)

This nifty little program allows the user to play a number of older PC titles on bunch of different systems. The only drawback is that you need the original game files for it to work. (For the lazy blogger who just wants something to download for their Dreamcast there is a newly released full version ScummVM game download link at the bottom of this – feel free to skip the rest)
With the new program out you can simply boot up your Dreamcast with a copy of ScummVM and then CD swap for the original game. Or you can be fancy and put the game files on the same CD. Either way you still NEED the original game files to play the game. However, most of these games are cheap and easy to get. Some of them even appear on abandonware game sites frequently (abandonware games no longer have copyright protection and thus free and legal to download).

Here is the new updated list of old school games you can play on your Dreamcast:

Maniac Mansion
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Loom
The Secret of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Day of the Tentacle
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Full Throttle

AGI Games by Sierra:
The Black Cauldron
Gold Rush!
King's Quest I
King's Quest II
King's Quest III
King's Quest IV
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the
Lounge Lizards
Mixed-Up Mother Goose
Manhunter 1: New York
Manhunter 2: San Francisco
Police Quest I: In Pursuit of the Death
Angel
Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter
Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge
Fanmade Games (Any made with AGI)

AGOS Games by Adventuresoft / Horrorsoft:
Elvira - Mistress of the Dark
Elvira II - The Jaws of Cerberus
Simon the Sorcerer 1
Simon the Sorcerer 2
Simon the Sorcerer's Puzzle Pack
- Demon In My Pocket
Simon the Sorcerer's Puzzle Pack
- Jumble
Simon the Sorcerer's Puzzle Pack
- NoPatience
Simon the Sorcerer's Puzzle Pack
- Swampy Adventures
The Feeble Files

GOB Games by Cocktel Vision:
Bargon Attack
Gobliiins
Gobliins 2
Goblins 3
Ween: The Prophecy

Other Games:
Beneath a Steel Sky
Broken Sword 1: The Shadow of the Templars
Broken Sword 2: The Smoking Mirror
Flight of the Amazon Queen
Future Wars
Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb
Nippon Safes Inc.
The Legend of Kyrandia
Touche: The Adventures of the Fifth
Musketeer
To burn a bootable disk you simply need to use the Bootdreams program to create a .cdi from a folder containing the plain files of ScummVM and then use Bootdreams again to burn that .cdi into a disk the Dreamcast can boot up. You can either add the game files into the ScummVM folder before you burn it or if you have the original game CD you can simply "swap" CDs once ScummVM boots up.

For those of you that had no idea what the hell the previous paragraph said (or for those of you that do not have any of the game files listed above) you can use the following link to get started with the newly released “Flight of the Amazon Queen” game. It already has ScummVM, just burn it and pop it into your Dreamcast!

http://www.dcevolution.net/game_fotaq.php

Download the game and burn it using Bootdreams or the demo version of Padus Diskjuggler. DC Evolution has guides for burning with Diskjuggler (same spot you downloaded the game from).

Remember to use a decent quality CD-R and burn at very low speeds.

The DC Evolution site seems to be having a bit of trouble with their main page at the moment but go visit them when everything is in order to get more free games for the Dreamcast. Including the beat ‘em up Crisis Evil game.


http://www.DCEvolution.net

All hail the undead console. All hail the Dreamcast!

9 New Bleemcast Videos!

It's been a while, but here's a new collection of videos showing off Playstation games running in the infamous Bleemcast beta emulator. I've been picking up a lot of dirt cheap Playstation games recently from boot sales, particularly this weekend when I got a bundle of 8 discs (all with no manuals or covers) for 50p, for example, which mainly consisted of rally games, and half of them worked in the emulator. In fact, there are only a select few games that I've bought that haven't worked.

I've been buying all these not because I care for a lot of the games (I find a big percentage of the PSX's game library to be rather boring, excluding all those rare games I'll never find, like Vib Ribbon) but simply to see what one's work via the Dreamcast, and I've come to the conclusion that the emulator especially likes games by Namco, what with Klonoa, Time Crisis, Tekken 1 and 3, Ridge Racer 1, High-Spec and Type 4 and Soul Blade being on the "playable" list.

So to make up for not making one of these Bleem posts for a while, here's a heap of NINE new videos! Of course, if you own these games, don't bother watching them...just try them for yourself!

Crash Bandicoot

Now here's something you may of never expected to see: Sony's unofficial mascot (until he went multi-format some time after the Dreamcast was out of stores) on a Sega console! Crash games ain't all that original, but the first trilogy of platformers by Naughty Dog weren't too bad, really. The game works pretty darn well, too. The graphics, bar for some glitches at the title screen and company logos and some semi-transparency on the pits, are close to perfect. The sound effects are missing (which is a shame), but at least the music is intact so the game isn't completely mute. Definably worth a shot considering I paid 50p for it! I hope to hunt down Crash 2 and 3 eventually to test on it too (I already know Crash Team Racing doesn't work, however).

Compatability Rating: 4 and a half out of 5

Crisisbeat

A 2000 budget release, Crisisbeat is a scrolling beat em up with four playable characters, one of which has a slight resemblance with Ryo from Shenmue. The game works really well except for the fact that the cut scenes consist of some terribly irritating voice skipping. Also, after playing the game on the Playstation I noticed that most of the time the game runs a whole lot faster on the emulator, and when your characters runs to the next area Benny Hill music might just pop into your brain. Still, it's a mildly entertaining game that only cost me a quid.

Compatability Rating: 4 and a half out of 5

Tekken 1

Seeing as Bleem! released a disc for Tekken 3, I figured: why not try the previous installments? First off, the one that started it all. This game really hasn't aged well, at least not as well as Virtua Fighter has (as blocky and simple as it was, VF1 has a certain retro charm to it. Tekken 1 is just ugly). Still, Bleemcast seems to like it: the game's graphics are 99% perfect: all that's wrong is that the sky is always black in the very top half. There's no music either, but all the grunts and smashy effects are there. The game's not really worth it, but it's nice to see the emulator run it well..

Compatability Rating: 4 and a half out of 5

Tekken 2

..which is more than can be said for it's sequel, unfortunately. Everything seems fine enough until you get into an actual fight..and then it hits you with one of the oddest glitches I've seen in this emulator yet: the characters polygons are stretching out all over the place turning good old Heihachi into a mess of scrambling spikes. This is a real shame as everything seems to be in place: the backgrounds, sound effects, even music (although it's choppy). Oh well, some arty farty type might like it's abstractness.

Compatability Rating: 2 out of 5

Bomberman

Good thing you can always rely on Bomberman to cheer you up, especially when even a Playstation game of his works so well on this emulator. This exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin title is such because this is a remake of the original NES game, and much like Crazy Climber 2000, it lets you choose from 'modern' graphics and the original 8-bit visuals (except unlike Bomberman, Crazy Climber is shit). here's the great part: the graphics are nigh-on perfect, the sound effects are all there, and the music is there too, although it is choppy. Still, 2D games rarely work in Bleemcast, so this is darn impressive. I picked this and Tekken 1 up for £1.50 the pair.

Compatibility Rating: 5 out of 5

Soul Blade

Soul Calibur: we all know it's the greatest thing to happen to the human race since toasters were invented, but games like this can't just happen out of the blue: they have to start somewhere. Hense there was Soul Blade, the prequel to our much loved fighter on the Playstation about 3 years prior, and it still holds up well enough. As far as this emulator goes, however, it's so close but so far. Thankfully the music and sound effects are all fine, at least until you get to those dreaded cut-scene voices (which loop in a similar fashion to that in Crisisbeat, but not as severe), but while the game is perfectly playable, the textures are just not having it: most of them refuse to load until a match is over, in which as soon as the replay begins they all decide to finally show themselves...too late. If you really don't mind playing on a blank white stage with blank white characters most of the time, you have the option, but really your betting off staying with Calibur.

Compatibility Rating: 3 out of 5

Colin McRae Rally

At the time this was being prasied as the best rally game ever. I can't see what the fuss was all about here: Sega Rally was way better, but each to their own. The emulator runs this game very well, with just some texture issues here and there that mainly stand out. Instead of not loading textures, though, this game oddly loads the wrong textures. For example: some of the gravel and trees get replaced with lumps of random numbers and letters, and the Start and Finish signs are now a map of a stage. How odd. Otherwise, perfectly fine to play.

Compatibility Rating: 4 and a half out of 5

Colin McRae Rally 2.0

Now this is more like it. I can see why people loved this one, it's a huge improvement on the first installment. McRae Rally 2 was actually penned for a Dreamcast release, but was canceled, so here's the next best thing. The games music and sound effects are all there, but much like Soul Blade, the emulator has trouble loading the textures at the start of a race, it takes about 30 or so for it to adjust, and even then textures will pop on and off here and there. It;s perfectly playable, though. Just pretend it's been snowing a lot.

Compatibility Rating: 3 and a half out of 5

Intelligent Qube

Finally we have a game I don't own (it's too rare) but burnt, a puzzle title called Intelligent Qube that has you clearing blocks that are slowly rolling down the screen. It's pretty clever and well worth a look, especially when the emulator can run it so well. he graphics are very simple so they are all 100% there, and so are the sounds. Once again, the only issue is with the voice in the tutorial section, although it doesn't loop forever luckily. As the game so brilliantly says it, this game is about as "PERRRRFECT!" as emulation is gonna get on the Bleemcast beta!

Compatibility Rating: 5 out of 5

Red Ringer? Bum Stinger? Poo Finger?

Add your own title to this "Lavendar" tribute to one of my FAVOURITE Dreamcast games... Whilst this was obviously a piss take of the game, highlighting the gay relationship between Elliot and Dogs...

I loved it! Despite the homo erotic overtones, the only thing this clip did was make me want to play this horror-survival classic!

YES! I want to see Dogs in a Santa Claus suit! Yes! I want to complete this game! I'll use my *Hallowed* Blue Stinger strategy guide (Bought off eBay for a snippance).

At the end of the day, I'm open minded... If Elliot and Dogs are 'Friends of Dorothy' so be it...

If their 'man love' can help me defeat their mutual six armed mutated foes then so be it!

BRING IT ON!

Cripes! Heck! Blimey!

Fideo Friday! #4

I only went and completely missed last Friday's weekly video didn't I! Oh well, here's this weeks one, of a pair of puppet Godzillas playing Mortal Kombat Gold or something. I dunno, I'm starting to run out of content that isn't game play footage now, but this is bloody funny, with great voices. Wouldn't it of been great if there was a limited edition Godzilla Dreamcast that says "Dreeeeamcast" like that puppet does in this video? No? Oh, it's just me then.



I've been pretty busy recently mucking around with TV's and junk, and haven't gotten around to writing the articles I have planned, including one of my trip to Canterbury earlier this week where I picked up six games from their brand new Gamestation. I'll come back to you on the other stuff I've been doing..so er...wait.

Logo Painting and Loft Finding

When I got me that lovely blue cabinet to hold all my Dreamcast games, one thing sprung to mind: what if I could give it a little more Dreamcast identity? being stuffed full of games and featuring zombies and crazy taxis on top simply wasn't enough, I wanted the logo slapped along the side of it. Having not long broken up from Uni, I now have time to do all sorts of time wasting things, like make my own multi game discs (I'll come back to you lot on this), make loads of custom covers for Bleem games, and go back to some games I still haven't completed. Last week I decided to have a go at painting the Dreamcast logo on the side of my blue cabinet. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of he steps I took, so you'll just be seeing the final thing.

Now I may be a slightly arty type, but I'm no expert at painting things, so I only had a rough idea how to do this. printed off the logo nice and big, then cut it out into a stencil. Then I taped this onto the side, and with acrylic paint tried to paint into the stencil. The stencil, for a start, was on tracing paper, so it flopped all over the place so the final result was a complete mess, so I had to clean that off.

Clearly that idea didn't work, so this time I went about getting me some spray paint to do it, and stronger paper while I was at it. I waited for a sunny day, dragged the cabinet into the garden and spayed a bunch of layers into the stencil. After about 4 or 5 layers it looked white enough. The stencil was still only paper, though (I really should have used cardboard or something) so quite a bit of spray creeped through and I ended up with what looked like a ghost of the logo, all glowy. This would of been fine if it wasn't for the blobs of blue left behind by the blue tack I used to keep parts of the stencil down! I let it dry, though, and decided to tinker with it the next day.

To finish the job off, and make the logo look almost as if it came off of the side of the box art, I got some white spirit, dripped some cotton buds into it and rubbed around the letters and swirly thing until it looked a lot nicer. here is the final result of about two days work. It's not perfect but it looks fine enough for me, especially from a distance. It's the first thing you see as you walk in the room, too.

In other not very exciting news, I found some bits and bobs in the loft I forgot all about. Usually all the console boxes are kept on one side of the loft, but while sorting out boxes for video players we're going to sell, a black sack full of Dreamcast boxes was found that I didn't realize was even up here! These included one for a controller, a arcade stick, a VMU and and a keyboard...with the keyboard still in it. These were boxes for the first pieces of Dreamcast kit I brought along with my system way back in 1999. The keyboard was my original one and had been stuffed up here for some reason and is in nasty shape from so much use back before I had a PC and used the consoles internet connection to write on my old website Segagaga, which was essentially a blog (before the term 'blog' existed) about my Dreamcast purchases only without any kind of layout (literally, it was just text). I would go onto the Chu Chu Rocket chat rooms, set the web address and a shortcut key, and just plaster the link everywhere. People naturally ignored it. Memories~

I'm taking photos of boxes! I must be bored!
But Dreamcast boxes weren't all I found. Also stuffed up there long forgotten about were some HUGE Sonic promo cut outs from the good old days when Sonic was hugely popular with real people, not furrie FREAKS who want to have sex with him. These probably date date back around 1992/93. I plonked a Dreamcast and Sonic figure next to them to show you the sheer scale of them. They are now sitting in my room, where I can wake up to them staring at me everyday. Just like my childhood. No, I never wanna grow up.
36 inches of AWESOME.

The good old days. Sega ruled the world in 1993.
The Sonic 2 board still has it's flap at the back, so you could sneak this into a shop, kick that Playstation 3 sign out of the way and make the public believe shops have started to stock good games again. The other board had it's feet ripped off, so I crudely taped them back on. I remember when a Sega bus visited my scouts club, and gave us Sonic toddles for our ties. That was the scale of how massive Sega were back then, they made Sonic TODDLES.
More coming soon from the Gagaman: New Bleem footage, the wonders of VGA and custom multi-game disc making.

Fideo Fri..oh shit..SATURDAY! #4

Oops, I completely forgot about this week's video yesterday, so here's one a day later! Just pretend it's Friday, you've just got back from work, and Have I Got News for You will be on in a few hours.

This week's video is a pretty in-depth, somewhat amazing documentary on Soul Calibur called "The Legend Will never Die!" starring a group of stoner's who mumble about the Zen quality of the game while their girlfriends moan about not getting boned often enough. This one's a lengthy piece, a whole ten minutes, but it's well worth your time, trust me (or don't, you might find it to be a complete waste of time, but then that'll because you just WASN'T THERE.)


Beta Overload

Long time readers and visitors to the 'Yard may, quite possibly, remember a post I knocked up some time ago that introduced a site called X-Cult. If not, go here now.

Had a look? Good.

Now you're up to speed, I'll crack on. Whilst perusing the net, which is something I've gotten quite good at in recent decades, I found another interesting little site that sort of does the same as X-Cult - reveals details of cancelled games for a multitude of formats...including our beloved Dreamcast. Before you groan, listen up: Unseen64 features previously...er...unseen pictures and screens of a few forgotten gems that would have been a credit to the DC had they been released, and even grabs of a few games I've never actually heard of...


Take the Bullet


Quark


Shrapnel: Urban Warfare 2025


Spiral Nightmare Type X


Jump Runner


Akolyte


Boarder Zone


Innocent Tears
Ecco 2: Sentinels of the Universe

Dark Angel


Gorka Morka

Agartha

Of course, this little collection is just the tip of the iceberg - there's even more beta action at the actual site, and that includes some rather interesting shots of an early Metropolis Street Racer and a massive Shenmue archive. Granted, explanations of the titles shown are either non existent or written in Italian (which is fine if you can read Italian...which I can't) so you have to make assumptions about how some of the games may have played by sight alone. Still, very cool, if that's yer bag.