Intrepid Izzy & Rush Rush Rally Reloaded are now available on ZOOM Platform

Well this is a nice little surprise. Intrepid Izzy and Rush Rush Rally Reloaded (or R4, to those in the know) - two of Senile Team's most highly regarded Dreamcast titles - are now available for the PC via ZOOM Platform, while a third Senile Team release, HypnoTiles, has also made the jump to everybody's favourite DRM-free storefront.

If you've been around the Dreamcast scene for any length of time, you'll no doubt be familiar with Senile Team's pedigree. They are the studio responsible for some of the Dreamcast's finest post-mortem moments, with the Beats of Rage engine signalling their arrival in the indie space on Sega's final console back in 2003; before going on to release Polyko's Super Jelly Bean Quest in the Sketchbook of Illusion in 2012, and more recently Rush Rush Rally Racing in 2009 and 2017 (in the form of the updated Reloaded) and Intrepid Izzy, also in 2017.

We were/are big fans of both titles, stating in our glowing review of Izzy: "...the game has everything a great action platformer should have: great gameplay and controls, charming artwork and beautiful animation, varied and well-themed levels, and a great sense of humour...The many years of development experience that Senile Team have under their collective belts shines through here - resulting in an incredibly polished final product."

Similarly, we gushed the following about R4: "Rush Rush Rally Racing is a fantastic title even if you don't have the option of playing the multi-player games on offer. The vehicle handling is amazingly intuitive, it sounds great and the game is peppered with numerous imaginative details (just don't hit the cows!); and while it's very difficult if you're generally shit at games like I am, with perseverance there's a lot of fun to be had." We even spoke to the man himself Roel van Mastbergan, Senile Team's lead designer, artist and programmer back in 2017 - check out the interview here.

Intrepid Izzy launched to overwhelming critical acclaim on Dreamcast.

To celebrate the re-release of both Intrepid Izzy and Rush Rush Rally Reloaded on ZOOM Platform (and the release of puzzle title HypnoTiles), there's currently a special offer of 25% off the asking prices. Naturally, we asked Roel for his thoughts, alongside ZOOM Platform's Jordan Freeman, who is a former colleague and business partner of the late, great Bernie Stolar and someone who is known to enjoy a bit of Dreamcastic action in his down time:

"Well, what can I say? It's always exciting to bring a game to a new audience, and now it's three games at once! Thrice the fun! Jordan and ZOOM Platform in general have been a pleasure to work with, so I hope this marks the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration."

- Roel van Mastbergan, Senile Team

"It is our pleasure to announce that Senile Team’s legendary catalog has come to ZOOM Platform. Roel and his team, like us, hold Dreamcast near and dear to their hearts. It’s a match made in Heaven. Tremendous classics such as Intrepid Izzy and Rush Rush Rally Reloaded combined with exciting new releases like HypnoTiles are exactly why the incredibly fertile Dreamcast indie scene remains alive and well to this day!"

- Jordan Freeman, ZOOM Platform

If you enjoyed 16-bit Micro Machines, you'll love Rush Rush Rally Racing.

If you've never played either Rush Rush Rally Reloaded or Intrepid Izzy on your Dreamcast (there's no excuse, to be honest), then now is the perfect time to give them both a whirl on your computing device of choice. As long as it's a Windows PC. And don't forget HypnoTiles, which looks like a fun variant on the Tetris formula with a bit of Lumines thrown in. Find out more over at ZOOM Platform.

Disclaimer for anyone interested: this isn't a paid or sponsored post or anything like that. I just like Intrepid Izzy and Rush Rush Rally Reloaded so if more people get to experience them, that's a bonus. Cheers me dears!

Atlus' Japan-Only Dreamcast RPG deSPIRIA Receives English Fan Translation of its First Chapter

These days, Atlus is a worldwide brand, what with the massive success of its Persona RPG series, but once upon a time, not every title they developed was done so with an international audience in mind. They developed the earlier Persona games for the Japanese market, while their first Sega Dreamcast game, Maken X, was done so knowing it would be distributed across the globe. The only other game Atlus released for the Dreamcast was deSPIRIA, which remained exclusive to Japan and was its own beast entirely. Its dated gameplay and visuals for its release year of 2000 make it hard to believe it would've ever been considered for a Western release, and had it been, the gaming press would've torn it a new one. But without those same contemporary "everything must be polygonal" goggles on, deSPIRIA is a very novel —if not incredibly niche— horror experience in the Dreamcast's library, and today I am excited to report that its first chapter is now playable in English thanks to a team consisting of rio de popomocco (translation) and DinoJesus (programming), with more to come later.

"Ma'am, this is a Wendy's..."

The game puts you in the shoes of Allure Valentine, a woman working for an organisation known as "the Church" and has you exploring a dystopian underground version of Japan, getting into psychic mind battles with the creepy individuals you encounter. That's the operative word here, "creepy", and one deSPIRIA embraces proudly, with "grotesque" being how its opening disclaimer message describes some of its content. I mean, the protagonist snorts some kind of parasitic worm thing up her nose in the opening cutscene... for plot reasons. Graphically, it is filled to the brim with those cold, uncanny, pre-rendered visuals often seen in horror games from the 90s. Graphics that were aged on arrival back on release, but in retrospect, only further serve to up deSPIRIA's unsettling atmosphere.

The exploration takes place in first person, and is basically point-and-click, with a sort of slideshow quality to proceedings. You can rotate on the spot to survey your surroundings, then click on an area of the environment to move there, triggering an FMV of you moving towards it. Those who have played and enjoyed titles like D and Kowloon's Gate before will feel right at home here. Well, it's hardly homely, but you know what I mean. The game also features some pretty psychedelic —at times nightmarish— battles in which the protagonist jacks into other people's psyches.

To play deSPIRIA's first chapter in English, you will need to go to the translation project's GitHub repo and download a patching tool, which will apply the translation patch to your existing GDI of the game. The patching tool isn't available for Mac or Linux, so you will have to find a roundabout way to get it to work on those operating systems, or alternatively get a friend with Windows to do it for you.

Interestingly, the creators of this patch offer three different modes for gameplay speed, which reduce random encounters and rebalance the game for those who just want to focus on the story. 

Unfortunately, as of writing this, I have been unable to get my patched GDI to play properly on GDEMU, with it crashing on a certain scene right at the start. I was, however, able to play the game successfully (and take the screenshots you see in this very article) via the Flycast emulator.

Those who have heard me witter away on the podcast before will already know how stoked I am for this translation, and I will be eagerly awaiting any future preview instalments (there's no word as of yet as to whether this is how they wish to release the rest of the patch going forward), and of course the full patch somewhere down the line. Will you be giving deSPIRIA a go? Let us know in the comments or on our socials.

New Dreamcast Survival Horror Title 'White Creek' is Getting a Visual Upgrade

We recently reported on the reveal of JoshProd, PixelHeart and Storybird Studios' upcoming survival horror title White Creek, and the general consensus is that it looks (no pun intended) pretty cool. Interestingly, the mainstream press also seem to have cottoned on to White Creek's existence, and in some cases made disingenuous claims that it represents the 'first new Dreamcast release for 25 years.' I guess those outlets missed stuff like Rush Rush Rally Racing, Pier Solar, Intrepid Izzy, Xeno Crisis, Xenocider, The Textorcist, Driving Strikers, Sturmwind et al.

Anyhow, White Creek is now a known quantity, and promises to be an intriguing mix of D2, Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark and The Ring: Terror's Realm. Actually, scratch that last one. One of the main criticisms I saw levelled at White Creek when it was first revealed via trailers and screenshots, was that it didn't really look like a Dreamcast game, and instead looked more like an original PlayStation title. A fair criticism as far as I'm concerned. Looks like the fine folks at JoshProd also took heed at these observations and have given White Creek a bit of a visual upgrade just in time for the upcoming release of a playable demo.

Original left, upgrade right (click for a bigger version)

Original left, upgrade right (click for a bigger version)

These screens are taken from the video posted on the PixelHeart YouTube channel, and as you can see the background details have been reworked to give the impression that the game really was intended for the Dreamcast, and not one of those piss-poor, cash grab PS1 ports we so commonly received back during the Dreamcast's natural lifespan (yes I am indeed looking directly at you, Nightmare Creatures II).

Original left, upgrade right (click for a bigger version)

Original left, upgrade right (click for...you get the idea)

I'm personally hoping for an increased level of visual detail in the character models too, though I'm not expecting to see the kind of fidelity on display in something like Code: Veronica (the Dreamcast game, not that new one that's just been announced, obvs). 

So what do you think about this graphical upgrade? Are you more interested now that White Creek appears to look a bit more like an actual Dreamcast game? White Creek doesn't have a firm release date as yet, but it will be releasing on modern platforms as well as Dreamcast and you can find the game's Kickstarter campaign here.