The cheap, the not-so-cheap, and the.... er...

I'm pretty darn behind with you lot on how my DC collection has been going the last few weeks, me thinks. This could be due to multiple things such as:

1) The stupid heat sucking away all my productive energy.
2) My Modem buggering up and the useless phone calls to BT.
3) Said recent Dreamcast purchases taking up all of my time.
4) Seaman walking, having sex, giving birth to offspring and dying all in one week.

Anyway, let's start with the 'cheap'.
Boot sales. Ahh, the things you can find at them amongst all the common-as-muck Playstation titles, Winnie the Pooh toys and broken mobile phones. This one lady last Saturday, for example, had a box full o' CD related junk, that also contained next to all the DC demo discs. I didn't buy these as I already own them all, although I kind of wish I did now, as some of mine are pretty darn scratched up. Anyway, I rummaged under these demos and found in a thing little CD case...

MDK2! It had no case or manual, but had the front and back papers and of course the CD. How much did she want for it?

20p.

Yep, 20p. That's probably the current record for the cheapest DC game I've ever picked up, although still 2nd place to the bargain that was a bundle of Japanese import games for 50p each once (shame they were games you can get here anyway, but still, they have lovely full colour manuals). I soon sorted out the case problem by nicking one of a spare copy of Virtua Striker I have.

As for my opinion of the game, it's one of those games that I want to like, if not for the fact that is just so darn infuriating. It's certainly original, with plenty of new ideas being thrown about and a great sense of humour, but there is simply not enough checkpoints in a level so you end having to do massive chunks of a level over and over again, and those tiny space ships that are next to impossible to aim at in the first level are a pain. Currently I've only played the game once in a week, which is a not a good sign. It probably has something to with the first boss which I simply don’t want to have to go against again. I can do that sniping part easy enough now, but as soon as the alien bloke jumps down on the stage I don’t get a chance to figure out what his pattern of attacks is before he kills me, and I have to do the laborious sniping part over and over again. AGHHGHHGH. Score: 6/10

I went back to the same boot sale this Saturday hoping the find that woman there again so I could nab the demos, but she weren’t there. Darn. I did, however, pick up another gem for a dirt price.

The Sega Racing controller, fully boxed too with all it's paperwork too! Mine looked just like this above, only mine had some bonus tea stains on the top. How much was it, then?

£3.

Three quid for a ruddy great big steering wheel in possible the biggest blue and white spiral box I have ever seen. Ok, so it might not be on par with other racing controllers out there (No floor pedals? No built in rumble feature?), it'll do the job until one of those better third-party ones shows up. Someone's actually made a mutant mod of this controller to have those features, along with a seat and everything! I've tried it wit a few games and discovered that it didn't feel right with 18 Wheeler (making the game even harder to beat the times), Daytona was far too twitchy (again, easier with a regular controller), but games like Le Mans 24 and F1 World Grand Prix II worked a treat.

Le Mans 24 in particular has now got me hooked once again thanks to the new device, and now I'm attempting to blast through all the championship tracks, which take around 20-25 minutes to race through all ten laps. It's amazing how seamless the change of weather is in it, shame it has to keep raining cats and dogs half way through every race so I have to pit stop and switch tires. Le Mans is always the complete opposite of the un-bearable heat going on outside recently.

Now onto the not so cheap.
Ebay. Yes, the place where you can be hopping with joy one minute then kicking dents in your computer the next when someone outbids you at the last nanosecond. And then there's the waiting for the things to arrive from somewhere in-between Tokyo and Madagascar. I had a bit of luck with it recently, though.

First off, got two rather lovely titles, one PAL (but pretty hard to get your mitts on) and one Japanese, from the same bloke for £15 the pair. The former is Giga Wing, and the latter Street Fighter 3: W Impact. Both by the Dreamcast's favourite bed partner, Capcom.

Giga Wing is a game that, simply by looking at screenshots, would have you think you're actually paying for a Mega Drive game on a 128-bit machine, but you would be oh so wrong. This mental scrolling shooter may have big lumpy sprites, but when you see how many of hem whizz about the screen at once, and how fast, you'll soon change your mind. Simply said, if this was released on the saturn, it'd need one of those honking great big 4MB carts to run it. It's hella fun too, and while you do blow up a lot (especially if you suck at it, like UK ODM did) it's hella fun while it lasts. Oh, and one of the characters you play as is a Nun. A blue haired Nun! Score: 7/10

Now onto Street Fighter 3: W Impact. Now, those of you who are not Street Fighter nuts like me, you'll probably be wondering why there's two Street Fighter 3's out on the DC (this and 3rd Strike). Well, a lot like how Street Fighter II had about twenty-seven variations (estimated) released over the years with added characters, new artwork etc, Street Fighter III had three variants. It's the magic number! This release features the first two SFIII's. For those of you lost already, I can tell you now that only fans of the series and completists will really want this, as the games featured are just cut down versions if what you get in 3rd Strike. I just so happen to be a fan and a bit of a Capcom-arcade-DC-stuff completist, and the Japanese box art made it hard to resist, especially at that price. Score: 7/10

Those were last week, this week I spent some big money on two Japanese games. Well, big money for me to spend anyway. Capcom Vs SNK 2 for £18.50 and Puyo Puyo fever for £17.50. I'm aware you can get both of these games over here cheap for the gamecube, PS2 and X-Box, but then they wouldn't be on my Dreamcast. Also, these games are well worth the money I coughed up for them.

Capcom Vs SNK 2 is, yes, you guessed it, another capcom arcade port, only this is one of the biggest and most solid they have ever made. There's around 35 characters to pick from, 3 arcade modes (Ratio, 3-on-3 and single match), two survival modes, and like the first one even a colour edit system where you can make your own colour schemes of characters with custom names. One of my first mission was to take the guy with the biggest, spikiest hair, paint him blue and call him Sonic. This game is also a bit easier than the first one (which, when pitted against certain characters, was near impossible), although the final bosses that only show up if your score is good enough are as cheap as Capcom fighter bosses get. Still, this next to Marvel Vs Capcom 2 is one of the most engrossing and additive 2D fighters on the console, if not necessarily the prettiest (3rd Strike and Guilty Gear X take those awards). Score: 9/10

Puyo Puyo Fever was the last game Sega published for the Dreamcast, three years after it was off the market in the west, and is a rather shazzy way to go out. Anyone who hasn't heard of the Puyo Puyo series will have heard of it's mega Drive westren edit Dr Robotniks Mean Bean Machine, and this game improves on that formula with new shapes and sizes of blobs and the 'Fever' mode which makes everything go ape shit bonkers. The artwotk is sickenly cute and there is even the options to run the game entirely in English! Mind you, I have the voices on Japanese because the English voice acting is enough to make you want to rip out your spinal cord Mortal Kombat style. Who says 'Kiddies' anymore? That said, this is easily one of the best DC puzzle titles. The game even features the ability to save your best matches as well as some cool downloads for your VMU that customize your BIOS. You can add Puyo wallpapers to back of it, and transform it into a 3D area in which you can zoom and rotae the camera about. There's prooth of the pudding here. Score: 8/10

One last purchase to point out was of a American edition of Samba De Amigo for £6, simply as a spare copy of the game in English. Phew, that about wraps things up. Funny how these games prices were very much relative of their qualities, with the cheapest being the least impressive (if still impressive enough to be worth more than what I got it for) and the most expensive being the best quality.

In other words, my dad is hooked on Virtua Striker. Maybe I should dig out my to-sell copies of the other football games so I don’t have to hear that excruciating "GOOOOOOOOOAAAALLLLLLLLKKKKK!" sample all the time.

Finally, those are my quality cover scans there. They are just another vein in the leg of the Junkyard domination project. Mwa. Ha. Haa.