Bottom. Barrel. Scraping Of...
There have been some blindingly good articles here at the Dreamcast Junkyard lately. Obscure games reviews, downloads of new home brew and modded games, custom made cover art, great videos and amazing collections to drool over.
It's not always been the case though, dear lord no! There was a time when we celebrated the most obscure of Dreamcast related paraphernalia... Towels, boxer shorts, tissues, bikes, even 1980's shower curtains with swirls coincidentally reminiscent of the Dreamcast logo would get a mention. You know, the sort of stuff that the boys over at UK Resistance go nuts for... Stuff like... this...
We, or more accurately I, would be scratching round in vain for post-worthy material. Heck, I was once desperate to post video of the 'Dreamcast episode' of South Park. The makers, (Matt Stone and Trey Parker) weren't happy about their show being shown on the internet without them making money, so they pulled all episodes off the sites that were showing them, and then sued them or had them shut down. (The mingey twats...)
Stupidly undeterred, I decided to post a very un-funny synopsis of the programme from Wikipedia. It was a definite posting low point...
Which leads me nicely into this latest journey into barrel scraping Dreamcast obscurity... In an attempt to reign in my scattered PSP collection, I summoned the ginger children and sent them off to the hidden bowels of Krishna Towers to see what games/boxes/manuals etc. they could find. Virtua Tennis was there (hooray!) but the Powerstone Collection is lost... (DOH!)
What did turn up amongst the chaos ( and I swear I'd never seen it before...) was this though...
The 2003 GamesMaster Cheat Guide. "The best cheats for the biggest games of the year..." boasts the cover. And would you believe it? That most loyal of publications was still printing Dreamcast cheats a good two years after Sega had pulled the plug on it's final console... Admittedly there are only three games included, (Cannon Spike, Phantasy Star Online Version 2.0 and Rez...) but they proudly printed the Dreamcast logo on the front of their little booklet and gave hope and comfort to devastated Dreamcast fans two years before the birth of the Dreamcast Junkyard became our salvation!
It is now that my little post would have ended, if it were not for a most miraculous discovery....
On the back of the book, was a full page advert for a business entitled, "The CheatMistress Presents: Cheats Unlimited" apparently "compiled by gaming experts". Again, the Dreamcast logo was proudly displayed. Now believe it or not, as recently as 2003, many people did not have Broadband or even 'dial up' Internet. People phoned "cheat lines", listening out for hints on a pre-recorded tape and furiously scribbling them down, missing something and having to phone again at premium rate, before finally being able to move forward towards completing a game... And we were fucking grateful for the privelige...
I looked at the number... Surely it must be discontinued now? - Perhaps they had sold the number on to one of those sexy chat lines - I might be able to ring it, and 'crack one off' whilst some over-weight, 56 year old trollop smoking a fag, pretended breathlessly to be a 21 year old Thai student whose clothes had just fallen off - (and when Mrs. K checked the phone bill and saw the incriminating number, I could 'innocently' state that I was checking out it's integrity for DCJY research purposes... heh, heh, heh!) *Harumph!*
But instead I found myself weeping with joy as the number proved to be a still active 'cheat line', with FAQs, hints, cheats and walkthroughs for - you guessed it - the whole fucking A-Z of Dreamcast games!
In 2009!!!!
I tried it for 'survival tactics' to use in 'Alone In the Dark-The New Nightmare' and the advice was great! (The voice of the lady on the other end of the phone talking about the game, was probably sexy enough to 'crack one off' to as well, but *Ahem!* I digress...)
To the evil, fan-hating, tightwad, soulless, killjoy bastards that closed down the Dreamcast servers and technical support elements of the Sega website not too long ago, get with the programme! THAT IS REAL SUPPORT!
(Surely the Jedi-like, 'Gamesmaster' spirits of Dominik Diamond, Dexter Fletcher and Patrick Moore must have combined to keep this business afloat throughout the turbulent first decade of this new Millenium!?) Halle-fucking-luia!
Cheats Unlimited, we at the Dreamcast Junkyard salute you! Now has anyone got a post more tenuous, vaguely linked, piss poor and unlikely than that?
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6 comments:
One thing I always noticed about those A-Z cheats hotlines when they listed the games they could tell you about in the Dreamcast magazines, they'd often have games that don't even exist, like a port of Daytona 2 and Scud race!
Ha Ha! Funny stuff FK - Like it. That's the kind of hardcore investigative 'journalism' the Junkyard is all about.
On the subject of Alone in the Dark (I know I've mentioned this before), did anyone else get stuck on the glitch at the end of the first disk where Carnby just keeps walking into a corner? It's part of a cutscene and you can't skip it.
So was it a real person or just a recording?
About Alone in the dark, alas the game freaked me out too much to finish it or get close..I got to a some mirror and when I started getting to the underground part i quickly popped in Donald Duck going quackers.
Do you have any source on the section about Matt & Trey? I seriously doubt that they would object to people filesharing episodes of South Park. They have filesharing to thank for their success and have always made a lot of positive comments about SP being shared online.
I guess it could have been Paramount Comedy or someone a bit more corporate. If so I apologize.
Unfortunately FK, your apology is not accepted. Please go into the garden and roll naked in some nettles before getting into a bath of scalding water.
Cheers!
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