The Dreamcast Premiere Press Kit

I was looking around on eBay a few weeks ago and stumbled across a rather unusual article from the Dreamcast's history. There were no bids and only a couple of days left, so I stuck a cheeky bid of a few pounds on said item. As the timer counted down, I thought I was going to score a massive win and acquire a piece of memorabilia I had personally never heard of before. I was wrong. Within the last few minutes, the bids came in thick and fast and even though I threw caution to the wind and put a whopping £35 on such a frivolous item...the auction ended at almost £60! What is this mystery object?  This:

Shenmue In HD Remake Shocker! (Sort Of)

OK, so the chances are you've already seen this by now as it's pretty much a day old, but images have surfaced online of a fan-made HD remake of Shenmue. I'm not going to say a great deal because I'm honestly not that bothered about Shenmue. It is a vastly overrated game in my opinion and while I thoroughly appreciate the scope of the story and the graphical splendour of the franchise, I just think its almost mythical status has gotten a little bit out of hand. Every two minutes there's some new 'Save Shenmue' guff doing the rounds on the social media networks...and I really have my doubts as to whether the majority of the people supporting these campaigns have even played the original games...or if they just have extremely thick rose-tinted spectacles on. Anyway, I'm going to stop there before I cause a schism in the DCJY readership - I know there are plenty of people out there who genuinely love the games; but for me they are nothing if not a lesson in tedium. And that's fine...because everyone is entitled to an opinion, right?

Regardless - my humble opinion shouldn't detract from the hard work that has clearly gone into dragging the original Shenmue right up to date in the graphics department, and here are some rather lovely-looking images images courtesy of Korean Shenmue fan Ncoonkid:


For further info, be sure to check out RetroCollect's article here, SEGAbits' piece here, and CVG's feature here.

Welcome To Warp Zone!

I appreciate that a lot of people who either follow me (@Tomleecee) or the Junkyard's main account (@SEGAJunkyard) on Twitter will have already seen this, and likewise for those of you who have done the right thing and 'liked' the DCJY on Facebook; but I thought it was only right that I dedicate a full-blown post to here to my recently customised Dreamcast. The job was done by a very talented modding outfit called Warp Zone, and their usual console of choice is the Nintendo Entertainment System:

I, however decided to try my luck and ask if they could do a custom job on a Dreamcast. I didn't want much - just a nice blue shade on a console shell and a matching pad. Nowt fancy -  I'm an advocate of the old 'less is more' mantra. They accepted my challenge and so I dismantled a rather disgusting-looking yellow Dreamcast, put it in a bin-bag full of empty gin bottles and sent it off to the dudes at Warp Zone.

Less than a week later, they sent me these images:


And some time later...this arrived (well, the shells did - I had to employ my 'engineering' skills to re-assemble the console and the joypad)...


Frankly, it looks awesome. I even took it to Revival 2014 to display (see above), and was offered hard cash for it by a member of the public. Naturally, I turned him down but I can totally see why - I can't praise the finish enough...this system looks like it was always meant to be electric blue. I've toyed with the idea of changing the orange LED for a blue one to match the paintwork, but I think the orange original actually works better due to the contrast.

If you'd like to have your Dreamcast 'seen to' in the most positive way, visit Warp Zone's website and drop them an email. Prices are very reasonable, and you won't regret giving your tired-looking console a fresh new look. You can also find them on Facebook here, and while you're there - give us a 'like' too, you barsteward!

Mighty Morphin' Power Boards

Last weekend was amazing. Really, really amazing. For several reasons. The first - and most important - was that it was Revival Events' self-titled Revival 2014, a massive retro-gaming event held at Dunstall Park racecourse in Wolverhampton. I was there as part of the RetroCollect team, running loads of gaming challenges and just generally chatting to gamers and acting the fool. Another reason it was amazing was that I got to meet, chat with and actually touch the flowing hair of John Romero:
The photographer wasn't happy with the focus
In case you're unfamiliar with what the genius behind Doom looks like, that's him on the right. Not the grinning fool on the left - that's me. To be fair I was grinning like that because Mr Romero had just whispered the secret to his flowing mane into my ear, and as you can see this was greatly received as my hairline is receding faster than the Norfolk coastline. He also signed my boxed copy of Doom for the Atari Jaguar, so there was that too. But let's get back to the reason you're here: I also bought a Dreamcast. Yes, another Dreamcast. but unlike all of the others I now have clogging the entrance to my bathroom, this one is different. It came in a box...with an orange swirl:


Yes, I bought my first NTSC-J system for the bargain price of £50 from a trader called Sore Thumb Retro Games. And to say its in great condition is an understatement. The console has no signs of yellowing at all, and has all of the documentation including the Dream Passport (sealed) and manuals. Naturally, being a Japanese system the plug adapter ends with two prongs and simply will not fit in a UK power socket. And even if it could, the power coming out of the wall would likely travel down the wire, into the console and instantly transform the immaculate white box of fun into a large ball of flame, simultaneously causing untold collateral damage to any curtains, throw cushions and random empty beer tins in the vicinity. And in my gaff, there's always a high probability that empty beer tins could also be hidden inside the throw cushions, so the damage bill - in this hypothetical situation - could easily be triple that caused inside your average residential shit-hole. In order to prevent the aforementioned cataclysm, I employed the services of one of these things in order to play on my newly purchased NTSC-J machine:


That's a converter thingy. You put the foreign plug in one side and the UK three-pronged side into the wall socket, and by some kind of magical process no doubt involving a tiny wizard living inside the device, the horrid nasty UK electricity transforms into Japanese Dreamcast-friendly power! See - magic! So anyway, I played the DC for a bit, mucked around with the menu and changed the language to English and marvelled at Sega Rally 2 running a bit quicker...and then I went to do some other menial task that life dictated I must do. It was probably the washing up or something...to be honest I've totally forgotten. Actually, it could have been folding some towels up. Or was it some ironing? Fuck it - I can't remember.

Anyway, I totally forgot (there's a theme here) that I'd left the Dreamcast plugged in to the step-down transformer. It wasn't until a few days later that I went to turn on the Dreamcast again that I discovered it would not turn on. I was pretty stumped until I deduced that leaving the transformer plugged into the mains must have damaged it in some way - indeed, the smell of burning wizard flesh coming from the vents on the side of the thing added weight to my hypothesis. So there I was, left with a Japanese Dreamcast and a dead step-down transformer. I looked on eBay for another one, but being a bit strapped for cash having spent all my money buying the secret ingredients to concoct John Romero's Magical Hair Serum™, I decided that I would investigate an alternative remedy to getting my NTSC system up and running again. I took to Twitter and asked the question - is it possible to put a UK power board inside a Japanese or US Dreamcast in order to use a standard UK plug with it, thus negating the need for a converter. Amongst others, The Gagaman himself answered my call - the answer was a resounding "yes!"

Knowing I had a load of spare PAL Dreamcast bits knocking about, I decided to give it a go - putting a UK power board into an NTSC Dreamcast. Here's how I got on:


And there it is! An NTSC-J Dreamcast happily humming away with a UK plug adapter attached to it, with nary a step-down converter in sight. It's a really easy operation to carry out providing you have the parts handy, and I've also kept the original board and plug in the box just in case I ever move to Japan and feel the need to take a native console back there with me.

I'm off to apply some of my hair serum now. If I end up looking like a Cacodemon, I'll be writing a strongly-worded email to my old pal John.

All The Lights That Light The Way


Are blinding. There are many things that I would like like to play on my Dreamcast. But that's another story (morning glory). Where was I? Oh yes...Driving games! The Dreamcast has lots of them. Some of them are total shite, and some of them represent the very zenith of their respective sub-genres. Ferrari F355 Challenge and Le Mans 24hrs for example, are two of the most impressive track-based racers of their generation. But I'm not here to talk about the quality (or lack thereof in some cases) of the Dreamcast's racing stable. What I'm here to talk (write?) about is a minor part of some of the Dreamcast's racers that I find quite intriguing: headlights! More specifically: which Dreamcast racing game has the most impressive digital rendition of light particles being thrown out of the front of a vehicle as it careens around a course in the pitch black?

Once Upon A DreamShell


I bought a DreamShell SD card reader for about £5 from an eBay seller some time last year. After a few days, it turned up in the post (in surprisingly good condition too, considering it was sent wrapped in a folded piece of A4 lined paper) and I had a quick glance at some forum posts regarding ways to use the thing. All I could fathom was that I needed to burn some disc or other, and put some files on the SD card that should be inserted into the device before implanting it into the serial port on the back of the Dreamcast. And I won't lie - it looked like too much work; my mac wouldn't burn discs that the Dreamcast would see as anything other than a music CD and I couldn't really see what the point of the contraption was anyway. And so, the SD reader went into a box and was never thought of again...until now.

Xump Your Dreamcast


Xump. How do you pronounce a game called Xump? I'd go for "Zump" personally, but to be honest it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because Xump is yet another homebrew game that's totally free to download, burn to CD-R and pop in your Dreamcast to play. Here's the jargon from the rather lovely retro-themed, pixel-art Xump website:

Xump - The Final Run is a simple multi-platform puzzler by Retroguru. Initially released by Psilocybin Development in 2005 the game has been improved in almost every aspect you can imagine. New graphics, new levels, new music, new options, new everything...

Help Holger to clean up deserted space fields. As this is a very dangerous task for a human being a headbot named Xump will be the one who has to suffer.

Your main task is to clean all dissolvable tiles on several single-screen levels by simply stepping on them, one by one. Few fields are secured with mines and need a double tap. Mines can be blown up when passing by or de-mined by Xump when staying on this specific field for a short moment. Certainly the mission sounds easier than it will be.

The Elysian Shadows Kickstarter has launched, bringing a new RPG to the SEGA Dreamcast!

 

The Elysian Shadows Kickstarter has officially launched. Dubbed a “next-gen” 2D RPG, the game is slated to hit a number of platforms including our beloved SEGA Dreamcast. The Dreamcast release starts at the $49 level in the Standard Edition which comes in two flavors, signed and unsigned. The signed edition is limited to 100 copies. The $125 level features a Collector’s Edition of the game with several physical goodies that are only digital in the lower tiers.

As far as stretch goals, should the project hit $400,000, the team plans to create a monster training VMU mini-game, while $500,000 will open to game up to the modding community (Dreamcast included).

Make sure to check out the project, and if it appeals to you, show your support!

The Trouble With Lists




When Tom very kindly invited me to write for the Junkyard, he asked me for a quick list of my top three Dreamcast titles. Its funny, but despite writing about video games and the industry for many years now, I’d never really sat down and made a real list. You know, taken time out to carefully and methodically try to ascertain what were the titles that spoke to me, the few games out of literally hundreds that I would choose. In the end I did manage to narrow it down, however it was no easy task.

And that got me thinking about the entire mechanism of listing, how in video game culture creating that ideal, definitive list is seemingly so important. How placing down games in a rigid numerical order is not only revered so much by gamers, but is a kind of active, self re-affirming process for both individuals and the wider gaming collective. After some thought, I feel the process has both a positive and negative bearing on the culture.

So what about that listing process? Well, firstly what strikes me is that essentially the entire concept is deeply flawed. To create any list, say, such as the top five games ever made on Dreamcast, firstly you need criteria. The important pillars of quality that your potential list is to be based on. And it is here that you hit your first issue. What are the criteria to be? Should a game be ranked according to its graphical fidelity or its plot? Should a title be scored on the tightness of its control mechanics or on the professionalism of its voice acting and soundtrack? You can of course select a variety of criteria, score the games, and aggregate a final list from that, however that handily assumes that the criteria chosen are definitive. It also raises issues such intra-criteria quality definition - for example, should Street Fighter 3: Third Strike score lower than Dead or Alive 2 in the graphics criteria because it is 2D rather than 3D, or does its superb animation make up for that?
Should all 2D fighters score less in a 'graphics' criteria as they are only 2D?

If the rigidity and strict definition of that form of listing process is its downfall, then how about a process built around vaguer and more loose concepts? If we drop hard criteria such as ‘graphics’ or ‘sound’ and use things like ‘fun’ and ‘longevity’, do we get a clearer system of ranking? Unfortunately, this system is also flawed for the primary reason of falling too far into subjectivity. The criteria of ‘fun’ sounds like a great idea to base a top ten list on, but then how do you even go about defining it? Just because I think exploring Yokosuka for hours on end in Shenmue is the last word in fun, that doesn’t mean the next gamer does. To them the lack of narrative pace and game progression may see it classified as boring. From too rigid to too loose, both these listing systems seem to fall down pretty quickly as soon as their surfaces are scratched.

Would all gamers agree that Shenmue is 'fun' to play?

Progression however I think can be made by re-evaluating the importance of lists, and it is here where what I see as the empowering part of list making can be salvaged. If lists are seen less as a tool for making definitive, rigid rankings of titles - rankings that will always be negatively fought over due to the aforementioned issues - but more as a type of mechanism for individuals and the gaming culture in general to hold some, albeit ill-defined, image of what the best of the industry can be, then not only can an elevated level of consensus be reached, but gamers themselves can help reaffirm the legacy of the best games of all time.

In many respects I think what I'm trying to say is that by not thinking about games in the strictest, most black and white terms, but more in a loose and intangible manner, I end up arriving more naturally at a list that I agree with subjectively, and has the possibility of being true objectively.

N.b. That all said, anyone who says that Shenmue is not the best game on Dreamcast should be automatically fired out of cannon into a pool of enraged wasp-piranha hybrid mutants.

Doomcast


I'm a huge fan of the Doom games. I have played or own every single console release of the game, and know the ins and outs of each version with quite frightening detail - from the music-less Atari Jaguar version and the texture-less floors and ceilings of the SNES port, to the windowed 3DO and 32X versions and the sublime multi-coloured PS1 iteration. I've also played the PC originals to death and more recently the Brutal Doom mod on my mac...yet my personal favourite has got to be Doom 64. You can read about my love for that game here if you so wish, but let's get down to business - you've come to the Dreamcast Junkyard for DC-related prose, not N64 circle-jerking.

Sadly, the Dreamcast never got an official retail port of id Software's genre-defining shooter, which is understandable when you consider the timing of the console's release and lifespan. It was probably too late to put the original games out as an official release, and too early for Doom 3; plus the idea of semi-retro compendiums was quite new at the time and so a re-issue would probably have been derided as unnecessary, and a bit of an insult to those people who had shelled out for a 128-bit system. While retro collections are all the rage these days, back in the early 2000s they simply were not the de rigueur. That said, Doom 3 was years away from release and the game we all know today would have been far too much for the Dreamcast to handle with it's complex vertex shading and texturing techniques - even the original Xbox had to make do with a heavily compromised port of the PC game.

Turning Japanese (And Possibly American)

My very first experience with a Dreamcast came in early 1999 when a friend who was earning suspiciously large amounts of money for doing a menial warehouse job decided he wanted a new games console. Tired of playing Buck Bumble and Rush 2 on N64 in his cramped bedroom, we took a trip to an import store in nearby Manchester's Chinatown district where my friend handed over several hundred pounds for a Japanese Dreamcast and a few games. The games were Virtua Fighter 3tb, Dynamite Deka 2 and Shutokou Battle - a game we had no idea was a racing title because there were no screens on the back of the case and no English text at all (time must have muddied my memory - all three apparently have screens). Since then, I have played (and obviously own) all three of those games in their PAL guises: Virtua Fighter 3tb, Dynamite Cop and Tokyo Highway Challenge...but you no doubt already guessed the English title of the first game mentioned there.

It was really cool getting to play on my friend's DC back before the PAL release, and even cooler because everything was covered in Japanese text and we really had no idea what we were doing in most of the menu screens. It was literally a case of 'push A until the game starts.' One other cool thing was the Project Berkeley video that came on one of the GDs, but I forget which one it was - possibly Virtua Fighter 3...but I digress. As a side note, it turned out that my friend had been fiddling the till at the warehouse/timber yard he worked at and that's how he'd been able to afford the Dreamcast in the first place. He was eventually rumbled and the police were involved...but that's a different story.

Crazy Taxi 2: A New-Retro Review

One of my few games for the Sega Dreamcast is the arcade port racing game, Crazy Taxi. It was special for being one of those few games that at least two people in my household played. Recently, I looked into the sequel games produced. There are apparently portable versions, but I haven’t played a good hand-held racing game, besides Mario Kart. However, the second game in the series, Crazy Taxi 2, was also released on the Dreamcast.


“Hey, self!” I thought. “This is a great opportunity to review a game for the blog, and expand your pitiful Dreamcast collection!”

With those words in mind, I purchased the game. And, as a bonus, I have not read or watched any reviews on it (well, one video mentioned it in passing, but it was an offhand reference anyway.) Since I haven’t played the first game in a while, maybe I won’t apply as much “Nostalgia-Comparison” logic to it. Maybe.

Review
Starting off, I am reminded of the original. I can’t help it! I’ve got the [licensed?] music playing at me, the customers yelling for or at me, and an ever decreasing time limit to play under. This game, essentially, has three game modes: Around Apple, Small Apple, and Crazy Pyramid. The latter is a series of mini-games, like jump over things or pop balloons. Silly stuff.

Anyway, the main meat of the game occurs in the “Around Apple” and “Small Apple” modes. You can choose either to go by “normal rules” (presumably the rules used on the original arcade game. I haven’t played that version, so I’m just guessing here) or choose between intervals of 3, 5, or 10 minutes. Then it’s just a matter of choosing from one of the four drivers and burning some rubber!

What do I think of it?

Overall, it feels the same as the original. A fun, solid racing game. If I were comparing it to the original, I might say that it’s too much like the original. But I’m not. However, I found myself getting bored. Maybe it’s that the style of game doesn’t connect with me. Maybe it’s because I could never get more than a Class D license in most runs. Either way, it’s still a solid sequel, and if you’re a fan of the series or driving games in general, you should consider picking it up.

As it turns out, most reviews I saw of it were generally positive. Yay!

Zombies, Zombies Everywhere

The End of Days is here. The dead are walking the streets and the zombie apocalypse is upon us...are you prepared?

Well you should be, because I am - I've had plenty of tuition; George A Romero, Simon Pegg, Woody Harrelson, and more recently Brad Pitt have all given me plenty of survival tips. It also feels like I've been killing zombies for years anyway thanks to current games that have zombie-themed modes, like Read Dead Redemption and Call of Duty Black Ops; and series like House of the Dead, Dead Rising, and Resident Evil. Which brings me nicely onto my favourite zombie game: Capcom's Resident Evil 2, or Biohazard 2 as it was known in Japan.


After the events of the first game, Chris and Jill barely make it out of the mansion alive, the T-Virus has been contained and the world is blissfully unaware that there was ever a crisis. Everybody will go about their normal routine and live in perfect happiness and harmony...yeah right. Thanks to those nasty people at the Umbrella Corporation, the virus is still around, mutating and growing stronger and is spreading rapidly across Raccoon City and beyond, and we are all still in deep trouble.

All is not lost though as this sequel introduces us to two new protagonists, Leon S Kennedy, a rookie cop and Claire Redfield, sister of Chris, whom she is looking for. After meeting in the opening sequence, they are separated and must now try to survive any way they can. Their paths cross at various times in the game and they will meet key people in the Resident Evil timeline along the way, like Ada Wong and Sherry Birkin, people who we see in later games.


There is a huge amount to do in the game, with zombies everywhere and mutated people and creatures to deal with, weapons to discover, puzzles to decipher and secrets to be found. This game will certainly challenge you as you play through the campaign, which is split into two separate stories on two separate discs, with decisions in one story affecting the other.

The defining moment in the first Resident Evil game is when you come across that first zombie, who is happily gnawing away at what is presumably his last victim, but what makes it particularly creepy is the little cut scene where the zombie slowly turns his head and then goes after you - fresh meat. There is an equally disturbing scene in Resident Evil 2 when you first encounter the Licker in the police station corridor which is preceded by it scuttling past a window. It gives you a sense of fear, you know something is coming and there is nothing you can do about it, your heart is racing, your palms are getting sweaty and you are struggling to hold onto the controller. This is survival horror at its finest and the best thing about this game is not knowing what is around the next corner.

So again I ask the question, are you prepared? No? Then go and play Resident Evil 2 on the Sega Dreamcast, the best training for a zombie apocalypse that I can think of.

Dreamcast & SEGA 64: A Visual Analysis

We featured the lesser-spotted SEGA 64 here at the Junkyard way back in 2006 (original post here), but that was little more than the publication of a few pictures. As stated in that original article, the SEGA 64 was first leaked in issue 8 of Saturn Power - a UK magazine that was the evolution of the awesome SEGA Power. Rather than just re-blog those pictures though, I thought it might be quite fun to actually compare the SEGA 64 to the final Dreamcast system design and have a look at how accurate these hoax console designs were. Back in 1997, access to the internet - for me at least - was very limited, so in that era there was no real way of knowing whether lo-res images leaked from 'sources in Japan' and printed in magazines were legitimate or not. With hindsight, we can deduce that the pictures of the SEGA 64 were very probably part of an elaborate wind up...but we won't let that spoil the fun! So first up, let us compare the way the systems themselves look:



The most obvious similarity between the two systems is the large round disk tray in the centre. Both feature a logo, but the final Dreamcast only features a tiny SEGA motif on the front above the controller ports. One would assume from the picture of the SEGA 64 that the round bit is a top-loading disk tray and that the two diagonal slices to the rear of the case are where the hinges would be. In this area, it is quite close to how the Dreamcast actually turned out. Similarly, the SEGA 64 features two buttons - one either side of the media door, however unlike on the Dreamcast they are labelled Power and Reset, while the Open button sits below. On the Dreamcast, we only have Open and Power, and they are on the opposite sides, while a hard reset button does not exist (you have to hold all four joypad face buttons and press Start to perform a soft reset). You could argue that the final Dreamcast shell and the SEGA 64 do look similar in some ways though - there's no denying at least a passing resemblance, especially with the large circular door and the placing of the buttons. The sides of the two machines do not really compare favourably apart from the large vents - both the SEGA 64 and the Dreamcast have these, but the Dreamcast's vents are on the front right, while the SEGA 64's are on the rear left. The fronts do not share many similarities though, as the Dreamcast features four controller ports and look nothing like the meagre two on the SEGA 64:


Speaking of controllers, here are the SEGA 64's compared with the Dreamcast pads we know and (for the most part) love:



There's a definite similarity here, as they both share some of the characteristics of the Saturn 3D pad. Both have a single analogue stick and d-pad located on the left, and do not have a right-hand analogue. The design of the analogue 'nub' on the SEGA 64 pad looks a lot more like that of the Saturn 3D controller than the DC one too. Interestingly, the SEGA 64 pad only has A, B and C buttons...although it does appear to have a Start button located in the centre. Due to the black and white nature of the images, we can only speculate at the colours used on the face buttons but the different hues of grey indicate that they were all different. Tellingly, there is also no hint of a VMU slot on the SEGA 64's pad, so probably the biggest hint that it is just a bastardised re-imagining of the Saturn 3D controller.

I guess we'll never really know if the SEGA 64 images were really leaked from SEGA Japan or whether they were the work of an overactive imagination. One thing is certain though - there are a lot of similarities in the design of both the console and the pad to the final design of the Dreamcast. Educated guesses and pot luck...or genuine blueprints for the Dreamcast...? The truth is out there. Somewhere. Probably at the bottom of this whiskey bottle. *Sob*

Fighters and Arcade Sticks



One of the strongest pillars of the Dreamcast's software library is arguably its fighters. From the pure SNK goodness of Garou: Mark of the Wolves and The Last Blade series, through to the 3D extravaganzas of Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive 2 and SoulCalibur, there is no doubt about it that Sega’s last home console was, and still is, home to some of the best fighting games ever made.


The thing is though, the official Dreamcast controller just doesn't cut it if you want any degree of fine control with these titles. That’s not to just pick on the Dreamcast of course, most consoles’ default gamepads are equally woeful - maybe apart from the Neo Geo AES, whose whole reason for existence was to emulate the arcade - however it does mean that if you want to really get the most out of the system’s library then you need to invest in a decent arcade stick.


Pulling off specials and supers becomes so much easier with an arcade stick.

As was typical for Sega’s last role of the dice, the Official Arcade Stick for the system - for a brief introduction check out GagaMan’s rundown of the hardware over at www.dcgaga.com - was robust, affordable and fitted with the exact type of microswitched joystick that really unlocks the precision and fluidity required to master any proper fighting game. It wasn’t perfect of course, with its square stick restrictor gate, non-microswitched buttons and garish green colour scheme taking a little of the sheen off the final product, but all things said it was a tidy piece of kit.


Today the Official Arcade Stick is still a tidy piece of kit, however its price has increased dramatically, with new units selling for north of £100 on eBay (it was sold for £34.99 new when released). There are nice alternatives to the official stick, such as the good Ascii Stick FT, however asides from that unit, which is now notoriously rare, things swiftly get bargain basement.


SoulCalibur's weapon-based combat is still as refreshing today as it was when first released.

So, what to do? The answer is to pick up the Official Arcade Stick second hand as cheap as you can and then mod it with some of the best arcade hardware currently available. This not only allows you to iron out those old failings, but also allows you a nice degree of customisation, allowing you stamp your own mark on the peripheral. I did this myself last year and, as you can see, things turned out pretty darn good.


Garish green stick and buttons begone! 

The case now features a microswitched Sanwa joystick with octagonal restrictor gate and Seimitsu bubble top handle, as well as six Sanwa microswitched arcade buttons. Overall the build took just over a day to complete, with only a little internal case modification and cabling necessary. Of course, I simply did a component replacement, however if you wished to get more creative, the case and its internal layout is very solid and spacious, allowing for all sorts of additional tweaks.


I won’t go into detail of the job here, as there are quite a few excellent step-by-step guides on the Internet already - this one is particularly useful - however I will suggest you give it a go if you can as the finished product is definitely worth it. 


The Last Blade series has some of the best looking background and character art of any fighter ever.

Indeed, my experience with the project just seemed to reaffirm the legacy of the Dreamcast as being a very versatile and open platform on which to play games. From the still thriving indie scene, through the ease of system modification (region free bios, VGA, SD card slot, etc) and onto the broad range of accessories released, it is testament to Sega that even today, over 15 years since the Dreamcast’s release, extra quality and enjoyment can be squeezed out of its hardware with little effort.

Sega as a hardware producer may be gone, but it sure did go down fighting.