Tom is the Enemy

Greetings Junkyard Nation,

As you should all now be well aware, Retro Sumus' Xenocider Kickstarter campaign is well underway, and 3 days in it has so far reached 18% of it's $92,000 funding goal. We hope those pledges continue to roll in and that the community gets behind it, especially when you consider that those stretch goals look particularly tantalising. If you haven't done so yet, you've only got 27 days left to make your pledge and secure your copy of what looks to be one of the most advanced Dreamcast indie games to date. 

In addition, we here at the Junkyard have a proposition for you all. While the $600 pledge tier "YOU ARE THE ENEMY" (which offers the chance for your likeness to be recreated in the game as a secret boss character), is out of the reach of most of us mere mortals, we'd like to take this opportunity to run a mini-donation drive within the broader context of the Kickstarter campaign to get our beloved mascot Tom Charnock into the game as well.

Hurry! There's only 4 spots left!

If everyone reading this donates just 50p to the Dreamcast Junkyard donation box, we'd have more than enough Denaro to get that smug limey face of his on your telly so you can blast it to kingdom come. And as a happy side effect, your donations will go towards helping Retro Sumus reach their Kickstarter funding goal as well...

But, to be honest, it's mainly about shooting Tom in the face.

Artist's impression. Not representative of final version

And when you think about it, that 50p is very good value. It equates to just 0.04p for each article posted in this blog over the last 10 years, or just 0.02p for each minute of scintillating podcast banter we've recorded so far. I'd say that's very good value indeed. Go on, you know you want to. 

And while your at it, leave us an iTunes review as well, it seems to be the only way for us to 

climb higher up the podcast charts where we belong. Cheers.

DreamPod - Episode 31: Shmup Special featuring Dreamcast Hub

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You can find guest host Stephen at Dreamcast Hub and on both Twitter and Facebook. A minor correction is that Shikigami no Shiro was released on consoles, having received PlayStation 2 and Xbox ports. Even the professionals don't get everything right, so if you'd like to slag us off in the comments please keep that in mind!

The 'Dreamcast VR' video mentioned can be found here, and Ross's video detailing his Rez Infinite PSVR experience can be found here. Music in this episode comes from Sturmwind, Giga Wing and Mars Matrix.

As ever, if you like what you've heard please consider leaving us an iTunes review as it really does help the podcast get noticed and improves our chart position. It only takes a few minutes but means a great deal. Thanks in advance!

Xenocider Kickstarter Demo - Thoughts & Impressions

A quick Lets Play style video of the Xenocider demo including my impressions and thoughts. Excuse the random text relating to Rez. It's late here in Japan, gimme a break!

Links to our previous Xenocider articles:

Kickstarter Launch

Retro Sumus Interview

Retro Sumus DreamPod Episode

New Dreamcast Game Xenocider Hits Kickstarter With Playable Demo

As if you needed reminding, we've been closely following the development of Space Harrier/Sin & Punishment homage Xenocider for some time now. Coming from Spanish developer Retro Sumus, the game represents something of a leap forward for indie games on the Dreamcast as it features a fully polygonal engine built from the ground up for Sega's hardware. The good news is that the Kickstarter project to fund the final development and physical release of Xenocider has now been approved and gone live so it's up to us - the Dreamcast community - to get behind it and ensure it reaches the funding goal. There are a range of backer tiers, and as is the norm each will yield a different reward depending on the amount of money you pledge.

The goal stands at $92,000 in order to get Xenocider fully funded and the higher backer tiers feature such perks as having your own face transplanted into the game as a stage boss, bespoke models of the main protagonist Xara, and even limited edition customised Dreamcast consoles! Perhaps the most interesting part of this Kickstarter though, is that Retro Sumus isn't happy with simply showing potential backers what the game looks like. No, you can actually download a fully playable demo of Xenocider and play it on either PC, Mac...or Dreamcast.

Rez Infinite PlayStation VR: Play Test & Impressions Video

Last week the DCJY were lucky enough to get the chance of putting the upcoming Rez Infinite for PlayStation VR through its paces. In short, the experience was breathtaking and we can't wait for the final release of the game. What could the future hold in terms of other VR Dreamcast re-releases? Which other titles would you like to see given the VR treatment? Let us know in the comments!

Separated at Birth: Redline Racer & Suzuki Alstare

Redline Racer was a very early release for the Dreamcast and was little more than a technical showcase for the hardware. Developed by Criterion (yes, the same Criterion behind the Burnout series) the game initially launched for PC where it received average reviews, and a few months later in April 1999 it hit Japanese Dreamcasts to a similarly lukewarm reception. When Redline Racer was released in North America and PAL regions the following year, it came with official branding and a new name: Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing.

Thinking back, Suzuki was one of the first titles I experienced on the Dreamcast and I clearly recall renting it from Blockbuster when the price of a new game of my own was something way out of my price range. I also remember thinking it was a fairly decent, nice looking racer and to this day I still don't think there's anything particularly offensive about it. Sure, the visuals haven't aged well and the handling model is fairly rudimentary when compared to more contemporary motorcycle racers like Moto GP et al, but as a simplistic arcade jaunt there are worse titles out there.

I was aware of the connection to Redline Racer, but never really paid much attention to the Japanese ancestor because I always just assumed it was the same game without the Suzuki license and thought nothing more of it. However, in the recent past I acquired a copy of Redline (£3 well spent!) and gave it a whirl just out of curiosity; and I can honestly say that while many sites simply label Redline Racer as the Japanese version of Suzuki Alstare, in truth they couldn't be more different...

Metropolis Street Racer Original Promo Photos Found

You may recall a few months ago we featured the extremely rare prototype issues of the UK's Official Dreamcast Magazine. These mock-ups were produced by Dennis Publishing as part of the pitch process to secure the license from Sega Europe, and as we know now it ended up as the successful bid. These bespoke magazines are part of a jaw-dropping Dreamcast collection curated by fellow collector and blogger Blue Swirl, and recently he managed to find another fascinating and unique part of the Dreamcast's history: the original promotional negatives and slides produced by Bizarre Creations and Sega for Metropolis Street Racer.

These images were used in pretty much all of the promo materials for the game, including the cover of both the PAL and NTSC-U releases. As documented in his own blog post from January 2016, the Vauxhall VX220 used in the images didn't actually have an engine so was towed to the various nighttime cityscape locations used as backdrops:

"Apparently the car used in the photoshoot didn't have an engine so had to be dragged to various shooting spots. In one of the slides you can see some of the rigging at the rear of the car, I'm guessing it was pulled backwards and snapped with a slow shutter to give the illusion of speed."

- Blue Swirl

You can also find further confirmation of these claims on the site of Rosco, the artist who actually worked on this project for Sega Europe. These images may not seem like much, but to know that the original slides and negatives are still in existence and now in the hands of a Dreamcast collector like Blue Swirl is very reassuring. In essence it means that they'll not only be enjoyed as the slice of Dreamcast history that they are; it means they'll be preserved for posterity for years to come.

Source: Blue Swirl (all images used with permission)

SEGAbits Swingin' Report Show podcast interviews SEGA tournament champ and former Capcom employee Chris Tang

This past weekend was the culmination of SEGA Week at Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, IL. The week consisted of ten tournaments on new (well, new to the arcade) SEGA arcade machines as well as other special events which were held on SEGAbits Saturday. One big happening on the big final day was the reveal of Strike Harbinger, a very early look at an upcoming indie title from HitSparks Games which is led by competitive gamer and developer Chris Tang.

In the past, Chris took part in the historic 1990 Nintendo World Championships and was the winner of SEGA's Sonic & Knuckles Rock the Rock competition in 1994. Since then, Chris has worked on games at Atari and Capcom, including Gauntlet IV, Primal Rage, Street Fighter III, Rival Schools, Tech Romancer and Power Stone. Now, Chris is hard at work on a new game inspired by classic SEGA titles like Space Harrier and Phantasy Star. The game, titled Strike Harbinger, combines the fast paced forward flying gameplay of Space Harrier with the RPG and combat elements of Phantasy Star while utilizing a unique control structure that evokes Virtual On.

I had the pleasure to meet Chris and the game’s Senior Artist Kiyoshi Okuma, whose past work includes Gauntlet: Legends, World Series Baseball 2K2, The Sims 2 and Darkspore. I also had the honor to be the first member of the public to play the game, and following that experience I chatted with Chris about his life as a tournament gamer, his career, and his plans for Strike Harbinger.

I wanted to share this episode on the 'Yard as I thought fans of Capcom's Dreamcast titles would enjoy some of the stories Chris shared. So give it a listen and enjoy!

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Review: Leona's Tricky Adventures

The latest addition to the Dreamcast’s already overflowing library of independent games burst onto the scene earlier this year (that’s 2016 if you’re reading this in the distant future); and it’s taken us until now to finally put pen to paper - or rather finger to keyboard - and share our thoughts. Leona’s Tricky Adventures has a somewhat storied background and we’ve documented it here at the Junkyard in the recent past, but in the name of simplification I’m happy to remind you. The game originally started life as a Kickstarter back in 2013 but unfortunately didn’t make its funding goal.

Due to the rules of launching a project through that particular crowd-funding site, it meant that the whole project was cancelled and the developer KTX turned to funding the game using donations and pre-orders instead. It took almost three years for Leona’s Tricky Adventures to finally come to Steam and the Dreamcast, but eventually the game landed and here we are. If you’d like to know more about the development of the game, make sure you check out the recent Developer Interview we did with KTX Software’s CEO Thomas Musal, and Chief Technical Officer Robert Konrad.

But what of the game itself? What if you’ve never even heard of Leona or the particularly tricky adventure she finds herself embarking on? Well, you’re in luck as two of the finest wordsmiths known to mankind (yes, I stole that from hip hop artiste Labrinth) are here to give you the definitive lowdown on Leona’s Tricky Adventures in this tag-team review! Allow me to introduce...um...myself (Tom), and our intrepid Australian correspondent Scott ‘DocEggfan’ Marley!

I think the developers might have an inordinate appreciation for the colour cyan.

As this game is aesthetically quite ‘retro,’ we thought it only fair that we did a retro-styled review. To really drive home how clever and avante garde we really are, we’ve split it into several paragraphs, each with an equally antiquated heading such as graphics, sound, gameplay etc. We might even give it an arbitrary percentage at the bottom...but you’ll have to wait and see. Let’s saddle up and join Leona on her adventure!

DreamPod - Episode 30: NAOMI Special

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If you like what you hear, please consider leaving us an iTunes review as it really helps the podcast get noticed. Good or bad, we value your feedback. Thanks!

Dreamcast Vs Wii U: Which Failed Harder?

Nintendo has finally revealed that the successor to the Wii U will be released worldwide in March 2017. This is good for two reasons. The first is that my birthday is in March so I might try to coerce my nearest and dearest to contribute some cash towards an NX as a present. That said, I usually don't get much more than a card written in feces/blood and a voicemail reminding me that I owe somebody a tenner when the anniversary of my birth rolls around, so I won't get my hopes up too much.

Update: we now know this console will be called Switch, so probably ignore the NX logo below. Ta.

The other good thing about this announcement is that finally, the Wii U has been handed a respite and the agonisingly slow death of the console looks to be coming to an end - euthanised, even.  Let's not beat around the bush here - the Wii U has been a bit of a disaster for Nintendo in comparison to past hardware releases, and while the system does play host to some fantastic games that simply ooze typical Nintendo quality, no-one can deny that the thing clearly occupies the 'also-ran' spot in both of the console generations it straddles.

For me, the Wii U was cursed from the start simply because it confused the fuck out of the casual market Nintendo was aiming it at; those people who bought the original Wii thought it was an add-on, and those who had Xbox 360s and PS3s were shown a system with a dinner tray for a controller and a bunch of launch titles that were already available (for the most part) on the console they already owned. Now though, Nintendo has pretty much signalled its intent by announcing the NX (or whatever it ends up being called) and so, just four years after introduction the Wii U looks like it'll be put out to pasture quite soon. Inevitably this has lead to forum threads such as this one, where the question is asked: which system enjoyed a better time during it's contemporary lifespan - the Sega Dreamcast or the Nintendo Wii U?

Source: ZhugeEX Blog

The news came out recently that it took the Wii U nearly 3 years to match the 10 million Dreamcasts Sega flogged in 18 months, and there have been many, many comparisons drawn between these two glorious console failures. However, we wanted to go step further and take a more in-depth look at the Dreamcast vs Wii U topic. While it's obvious that the Wii U hasn't really made a dent in Nintendo's $10 billion fortune (whereas the Dreamcast pretty much killed Sega), the question remains: which console pushed more boundaries, had a better games and excited the gaming world the most?

New Dreamcast Game Zia and the Goddesses of Magic Announced

Another week, another new Dreamcast game is announced! To be fair that title is a teeny tiny bit misleading as Zia and the Goddesses of Magic was technically announced a few weeks ago; but now there's some artwork (above) and a brand new teaser trailer that shows actual gameplay footage (below). Coming from French indie developer Orion (previously of Elansar, Philia and Alice's Mom's Rescue fame) Zia and the Goddesses of Magic is a traditional top-down RPG in which players are tasked with rescuing the eponymous goddesses and restoring peace, harmony and free love to the fantasy land in which the adventure is set. Well maybe not the free love, but we can hope. Here's the blurb from Orion's website:

In a fantasy world, where the goddesses of magic are the guardians of the good, a powerful evil demon captures all the goddesses and jails them in different places where they cannot use their magic powers. Evil creatures start populating the surrounding villages and threaten the inhabitants.

Zia is a little girl who lives in a mountain village with her beloving parents. One day, she discovers a book of magic and starts training to learn how to use magic spells. During her journey, Zia will find out about the imprisoned goddesses, and will try to free them from the evil creatures using the magic spells she will learn.

Join Zia in a Journey around this mystic world, help her find the imprisoned goddesses and try to free them from the evil creatures!

- Orionsoft website

Here's the accompanying YouTube announcement trailer:

According to the Orionsoft website, Zia and the Goddesses of Magic is pencilled in for a September 2016 release and is also planned for both Steam and the Playstation. We'll be keeping an eye on the development of this interesting RPG and you can too by visiting Orion's Twitch channel.

Source: Pcwzrd

Shenmue III Kickstarter Update Discusses Voice Acting & Logo Design

I know it's not really Dreamcast-related, but I thought it was worth sharing the news that Ys Net has updated its Shenmue III Kickstarter page. That said, pretty much all of us here at the 'Yard backed the Shenmue III project and we're sure many people who regularly visit this blog did too. Also, Shenmue is synonymous with the Dreamcast so I'm using that tenuous link to validate me sharing this here. The April 2016 update addresses some of the issues Shenmue fans have been vocal about, namely the design of the Shenmue III logo and the ability to switch between English and Japanese voice acting on the fly:

Before getting into the main part of the update, we would like to respond to two issues brought up by the community—the Shenmue III logo and voice audio options.

First for the Shenmue III logo. There have been many comments from Shenmue fans wanting the logo to match the original logos from Shenmue 1& 2. We have heard your calls and will of course put it on the to-do list. This particular issue will take some time, however, as game development is currently taking a front seat to other design issues. Designers and other parties will also need to be consulted with, so before we can give a more definite answer, we would ask you please give us some time.

The second issue receiving a lot of attention concerns the voice audio options. Many people have asked for there to be an option to switch between Japanese and English voicing. We understand how strongly people feel about this feature, and it is something we would like to include as well, but the inclusion of a dual audio option will ultimately come down to budgetary limitations. Whether it will be added or not, will need to be decided as development progresses.

- Shenmue III April 2016 Kickstarter Update

The rest of the update introduces Shenmue III's environment and architecture designer Manabu Takimoto, and shares some images of him at work with Yu Suzuki. 

"Stay inside the lines!"

As mentioned above this isn't strictly Dreamcast news, but as so many people who are fans of Shenmue have a history with/are still Dreamcast fans, we felt this was worth documenting here. Furthermore, we spoke to Shenmue super-fan Adam Koralik and the voice of Ryo Hazuki Corey Marshall on our podcast recently, so there's another tenuous link and a shameless plug for the DreamPod!

Source: Kickstarter

A Quick Look At Radirgy

You say Radilgy, I say Radirgy...let's call the whole thing off. Is what Fred Astaire was really getting at when he sang that song that time. The proper title of this slightly unorthodox vertically scrolling shmup is Radio Allergy...so I guess either is technically correct. Just don't call it Radallergy, at least not in my presence anyway.

So Radirgy then. Not a game I was overly familiar with until quite recently, simply because it usually fetches quite high prices when listed on eBay and because I like a bargain I was unwilling to shell out for such a frivolous item. That changed when I noticed the game on sale for a rather decent price over at Games World and decided that my life needed more cell-shaded, 2006 Dreamcast shooting in it. Nary a day later, Radirgy was sat spinning in my NTSC-J Dreamcast and now I've had time to play the thing properly I'm going to share my thoughts on it.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Radirgy was released on the Dreamcast in 2006 after being ported from its native NAOMI by developer Milestone. A stalwart of the shmup genre, Milestone were also the same outfit behind those other well-known NAOMI/Dreamcast games Chaos Field and Karous - the latter of which I have never played, again due to its rarity and high price. Before acquiring Radirgy I was aware of its existence but really didn't take much interest because it's a game I never thought I'd own, and as alluded to several times in my Ghost Blade review, I'm not a massive fan of the shmup genre in general. That said, upon playing Radirgy quite a bit since I got it, I can now comfortably say that it hasn't really changed my opinion on vertical shmups: that they're fun and mildly diverting for a while, but ultimately a bit repetitive and they get boring quickly.

That time already?

Three Indie Games I'd Love to See on the Dreamcast

The other day I read an interesting article over on Kotaku (yes, yes I know) that documents the creation of a new football (soccer) game by an indie developer who has never played a football game. Furthermore, he doesn't even know the rules of the sport and has pretty much guessed how football 'works' through hearsay and supposition. It's a really interesting concept, and the resulting interpretation of the beautiful game - now titled Behold the Kickmen - looks like it's shaping up to be the best thing to happen to the football genre since Konami thought Goal Storm was worth reinvestigating.

The developer's name is Dan Marshall, and he's a BAFTA-winning indie developer. Earlier today I cheekily asked him via Twitter when a Dreamcast version of Behold the Kickmen was coming:

Kickmen for Dreamcast: confirmed.

He didn't give a definitive answer (although I'll settle for the 'like' he graciously afforded my stupid tweet), but this got me thinking. Since Volgarr the Viking suddenly appeared out of nowhere in 2015, what other cool indie games would it be amazing to see make the leap to the Dreamcast? Obviously, a lot of indie games these days are built to run on modern platforms and so some of them probably wouldn't be possible on the Dreamcast (stuff like Broforce makes even a PS4 shudder, for example), but this is just a fun little look at some of the titles I'd give my right arm to have ported onto Sega's little box. Well, maybe not my right arm as I'd then have difficulty holding the controller...but you get the idea.

Back to Black: Restoring a Sega Sports or Regulation 7 Dreamcast

Last year we revealed how you can brighten up your standard white Dreamcast using nothing more than a fairly cheap hair serum and a bit of sunshine. Granted, the sunshine might be a problem if (like me) you live in the UK and the sun appears only once every 16 years after a drawn out ritual and sacrifice; but if you managed to try it on a rare day that it stopped raining and the clouds parted, you'll find it worked a treat at banishing the dreaded yellowing. As a side note, all of the systems I treated back then are still bone white to this day, so the fears that the yellowing would return with a vengeance have not been realised as yet.

This is all well and good if you have a standard Dreamcast, but what if you have a Dreamcast that's a different colour? Black, for example? While black Dreamcasts such as the Sega Sports and Regulation 7 special editions don't suffer from yellowing, they can get scuffed and light surface scratches show up clear as day. I know this because recently I was lucky enough to take delivery of two such systems:

The seller did list them as not being in 'showroom condition' so I expected them to be a little beat up, but when they arrived the only thing I really noticed was the surface scuffing all over them. It's not overly noticeable from a distance - and both systems work flawlessly - but up close and from a certain angle the light catches the scuffs and the marks are quite visible. So, I wondered how I could go about removing these scuffs and return these rare beasts to their former glory. Turns out the answer is actually rather simple...