Mellow Yellow

I went to a gaming event this past weekend. It was Play Blackpool in...erm...Blackpool. If you've never been to Blackpool, try to imagine a slightly shitter version of Las Vegas and you're half-way there. Actually, that isn't really fair on Las Vegas - probably the only thing the two locations have in common is a worrying penchant for neon lights. Joking aside, Blackpool is a bit of a dump. No, seriously, joking aside - it is*. But I digress. So Play was held in Blackpool this weekend and I was there. And to be honest the event was really, really good. There were loads of consoles and arcade games to play on, and a few minor Youtube celebrities were knocking about too. Oh, and Clive Sinclair made an appearance (riding around on that three wheeled mistake he pulled out of his ass a few decades ago, if I recall. I'm trying very hard to un-delete the whole unfortunate sequence from my memory banks as I type this so please forgive the vague description). I also met a whole load of really cool fellow gamers and made a lot of new friends, which is always great and basically what gaming events are really all about. But look, we're here to talk about Dreamcasts right. Dream. Casts. Guess what? I got one!

Toejam & Earl 3

The main gaming hall

Before you reach for your mobile and start to look through your phonebook for the local psychiatric ward's number, I do already own a Dreamcast. How else do you think I managed to stretch this crap out for nearly nine years?! The answer is that I had a lot of help from some very talented DCJY team members...and I already had a Dreamcast. But the thing is, that Dreamcast has gone yellow. Very yellow. I like to think that a yellow Dreamcast is a Dreamcast that has lived a full life: a life of Soul Calibur battles, Power Stone multiplayer sessions and House of the Dead 2 marathons. A yellow Dreamcast has been out in full view and had beer spilt on it, pizza fumes sucked into it's vents and the weapons-grade bacteria of a thousand student hands smeared across it's joypads. That is my Dreamcast. It's been with me since before I started this site and it still works great to this day, complete with that bit of speaker wire still bypassing the blown fuse on the controller board. But as a bit of a perfectionist and also a collector at heart, I knew that owning a battered and discoloured console simply wouldn't do. Sure - I have the box, but that's besides the point.

So (getting back to the point), when I spotted a rather nice-looking totally white Dreamcast console at Play this weekend, I knew it would have to be mine. I paid a little over £20, and even through the cellophane that it was bound in, I could tell that it was a nice specimen. My initial impressions were confirmed when I was able to get it home and unwrap the system and compare it to my other Dreamcast:

Left: White. Right: Yellow

The modems show the most contrast

The images don't really convey just how yellow the old system really is, but trust me when I say that the recently purchased one looks practically new when compared to it.

I was considering putting a vinyl cover on the older system just try to preserve the plastic in it's current state but now I have the whiter one I don't think I'll bother. I understand that the yellowing is down to sunlight reacting with the chemicals in the plastic so I'm planning on putting the recently bought console inside the older machine's cardboard box in order to preserve it's colour.

In other news I have managed to acquire some new DC games in the last few weeks, One of which is Bangai-O; the other of which is Skies of Arcadia. As soon as I get a minute to sit down and play them both for an extended period of time, I'll be plastering my thoughts and opinions up here. Stay tuned...

*Disclaimer: No part of Blackpool was harmed or offended by the production of this post. And it was a joke, so there. Blackpool is full of lovely, friendly people, has a great nightlife and is full of great attractions. Well, the seafront is. Actually...no - it's a dump. Sorry.

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