These AI-generated Dreamcast posters are comedy gold

Not too long ago, our friends over at Time Extension looked at the spate of AI-generated 'historic' posters for games and consoles of yesteryear - essentially nostalgia soaked, but totally fake pseudo period-correct gaming advertisements which never actually existed during the epoch they're meant to have come from. It sounds weird, and that's because it is. 

As mentioned in Time Extension's article, it seems that many people have been duped by these images, and have been left lamenting, nay pining, for the sunlit uplands of a late 90s or early 2000s that never really happened. I believe the term 'hauntology' could fit in somewhere here, but I may be barking entirely up the wrong tree.

Were you fooled...? (Credit: Time Extension)

Anyway, while perusing eBay recently, I started to see Dreamcast-flavoured variations of these 'authentic' 1990s advertisements and magazine covers pop up for sale, and I thought it would be fun to take a quick look at some of them, point out their errors and laugh at the utter slurry the model that shat them out thinks Dreamcast screenshots look like.

Exhibit A

Click to embiggen (if you dare).

First up we have this specimen. A dashing hunk of a bloke in a Dreamcast-branded leather jacket thrusts forth a Dreamcast controller with the familiar swagger and confidence of a late '90s Sega. The poster, described as 'Dreamcast 9.9.99 US Launch Retro Gaming Console A3 Artwork Poster Art Print' proudly boasts that the Dreamcast is the ultimate gaming system; and that the next generation has begun. Not much wrong there, to be honest. But look closer. What's going on with that keyboard in the bottom left? I don't recall any variant of the Dreamcast keyboard coming with its own plinth. Also, what's up with that SegaNet logo?

Free display stand with every keyboard!

The latest Genesis album was poorly received.

We already know this is a fake poster which never existed in 1999, but the dead giveaway (apart from the hallucinations already described, and the spurious taglines) is the game 'screens.' The Shenmue one appears to feature a Temu Ryo Hazuki flanked by a melting waxwork, Sonic is tripping over his own feet, NFL 2K features matches between three different teams, and Crazy Taxi seems to be a game more about buying a used sedan than making crazy money. Elsewhere, the hardware looks fairly accurate on first glance, but on closer inspection the console has two 'B' ports, a built-in high heel and the 'Compatible with Microsoft Windows CE' logo is reduced to a blurred line; while the controller has three 'B' buttons and the D-pad has divots that don't exist on actual hardware.

Exhibit B

Click to embiggen.

This one is advertised as 'Dreamcast Japan 1998 Launch Retro Console Japanese A3 Artwork Poster Art Print,' and is similar to the previous example in that it purports to be a contemporary advertisement for the impending launch of the Dreamcast, albeit this time in its native Japan. If you just glance at it, it looks fairly authentic and could quite easily be the sort of thing you might have seen slapped up in the window of a shop in Akihabara in the weeks and months leading up to November 1998. But it's when you start to scrutinise it, that the slop mask falls. This time, the Dreamcast console features not two but four 'B' controller ports, while the 'Designed for Windows CE' marking is reduced to an illegible smear. The plastic continuation of the LED lens on the disc lid is solid gray and not the variant-correct NTSC-J clear plastic lozenge. The controller also has three 'B' buttons, the Start button has something engraved on it, and the familiar divots appear on the D-pad.

"Kill...me..."

The Muskehounds were always ready.

I used Google Translate's camera function to check what the Japanese text says, and it's all fairly standard stuff, so no real issues there, but that VMU in the bottom left is beyond funky, and the SegaNet stuff in the middle is just plain wrong - the Japanese service was Dricas. But let's have a gander at those 'screenshots.' Oh boy. First up, Sonic (sorry, 'Soniic') Adventure features a version of the titular hedgehog whose body has succumbed to the forces of non-euclidean geometry and collapsed in on itself, transforming our favourite blue spikey lad into something that looks like it crawled out of Seth Brundle's teleporter.

Next, Virtua Fighter 3tb's Akira has grown an extra finger (useful for all those 'B' buttons on the controller). Shenmue's Temu Ryo Hazuki returns, and is once again joined by an unfortunate soul who has become one with the very fabric of reality; and Ulala looks like she's just got off the night bus after a particularly heavy session on the tequila. The real star of the show here though, is Power Stone. I'm guessing what used to be Falcon/Fokker has transmogrified into an armless Ghibli character being chased by the bastard offspring of Dogtanian, all three Muskehounds and Garfield. I mean, I wouldn't mind playing that version of Power Stone, truth be told.

Exhibit C

Embiggeny-click!

Not really sure where to even start with this one. It's different from the other two as it purports to be a reproduction of the cover of a contemporary Dreamcast-centric magazine titled 'DC Zone' and is advertised as 'Sega Dreamcast 1999 Retro Gaming Magazine Cover A3 Poster Classic Games Art,' and once again it looks quite authentic if you only look at it for about three seconds. Through a telescope. During a blizzard. But the devil is in the detail, and that's what AI always fucks up. So, the first thing is that the magazine cover states that it's issue 17, from September 1999. That means that issue 1 of DC Zone would have launched in April 1998 - seven months before the Dreamcast launched in Japan. That's keen. The orange swirl points to it being an NTSC-centric publication, but the lead price is £2.50 sterling, and if you want to get really nit-picky, £2.50 was actually $4.05 in September 1999, not $4.95...but historically accurate exchange rates are the least of the problems here.

I can't wait to play Academy of Champions.

The Dreamcast hardware featured in the centre of the image seems quite faithful, apart from the weird shoulder buttons on the controller, but otherwise there's just so much wrong with this. Games that weren't even released at the supposed time of this faux magazine are apparently reviewed inside, with Daytona USA 2001, Illbleed and Skies of Arcadia achieving not only great scores and nonsensical imagery, but also the power of time travel. Temu Ryo Hazuki is back, this time sporting Robbie Rotten's arse-chin, while Jet Grind Radio's Beat has had an unfortunate accident with a tin opener. Oh, and Virtua Fighter has apparently totally skipped the third installment of the franchise and gone straight to Virtua Fighter 4. There's just so much to see, that it just gets better (worse) the longer you gaze upon it. I think the best bit though, is the promised review of Academy of Champions - a Dreamcast launch title that apparently garnered a review score of 87%, but also has the added characteristic of having never existed on this plane of reality. There's more to see, but I'll let you discover the rest of the cock-ups for yourself.

There's a joke here about Jensen Huang, leather jackets and DLSS 5.

Beat has five kids to feed. 

There are plenty more of these laughable retro-inspired posters on eBay and elsewhere, and I'm not singling any one seller out...but we now live in an era where nostalgia is easily harnessed to rage bait scam people out of a their hard earned cash. The moral of the story is to look twice before parting with cash for stuff like this...but if you can get a laugh out of these products along the way, then it's all good.

Have you been on eBay/Etsy et al and actually bought any of this guff? Admit it in the comments below!

Star Wars Trilogy Arcade - Model 3 fan port coming to Sega Dreamcast

I love Star Wars, me, mate. In fact, my wife said I was a Star Wars nerd because I knew what a Jawa was, which I guess makes me an expert. Anyway, a developer who goes by the - frankly excellent - online pseudonym of "ToastedGreedo" has been working on a conversion of the Sega model 3 arcade rail shooter Star Wars Trilogy Arcade for the Dreamcast, and the current results are looking spectacular. 

The project started as an experiment to try and get assets from the arcade title running on the Dreamcast, but as Yoda said, "do or do not, there is no try", so now ToastedGreedo is attempting to port the whole thing to the console instead. Back in the day, a port of Trilogy Arcade was rumoured to have been in development for the Dreamcast but ultimately never saw the light of day (on any home system for that matter), so this will serve as yet another attempt from the Dreamcast fan community to rewrite the wrongs of gaming history.

Time to get revenge for that shit Boba Fett TV show.

So far, two stages have been recreated and are running on real hardware: the Yavin Death Star stage, which has players blasting at TIE Fighters (typical Star Wars fare, then), and the Boba Fett Duel, where you deflect Mr. Fett's blaster fire with Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. Footage of both can be seen below, with the most recent video of the two also providing a peek at the intro/attract sequence as well as the stage select menu. It's all looking very slick and professional, and offers a taste of what the official port that never released might have been like.

These two stages will be released soon for free as a "demo disc", and I'll be looking forward to seeing the entire game reproduced somewhere down the line. I'm also curious to see what other Model 3 arcade games fans might be able to bring to the Dreamcast in the future.

Regarding the development of this port, ToastedGreedo goes into further detail in the description of their YouTube video:

"The Boba Fett Duel was the first stage I recreated for the project and has served as the foundation for bringing the original Model 3 arcade experience to Dreamcast hardware. It's been especially exciting to see the project progress from an early technical experiment into something that increasingly feels like a complete Dreamcast game. I plan on releasing this Demo Disc for free soon, which will contain the full Yavin stage alongside the Boba Fett. I am continuing to work on bug fixes and ensuring the game is stable on real hardware. Reminder that this is a non-commercial passion project created for the Sega Dreamcast community, and I am not selling this game in any way."

To stay up to date on this project, go subscribe to ToastedGreedo's YouTube channel, and if you're feeling extra generous, they also have a Ko-fi page for donations.

Are you excited for this one? Which do you think is worse: the prequel or sequel trilogy? Let us know in the comments below or via our social media.

RuneScape 2 is Coming to Sega Dreamcast

Ah... RuneScape. I have a lot of nostalgia for the countless hours I spent roaming the blocky world of Jagex's famous JAVA-powered MMORPG. Being called a "noob" by random passers-by for the crime of being a lower level... getting my rune armour stolen by a guy who claimed he could trim it with gold... Formative experiences were had, and life lessons were learned.

Interestingly, the friend who owned the Dreamcast that I'd play when I was younger also sort of got me into RuneScape. Of course, the browser-based game I played back then called "RuneScape" wasn't the same game that is retroactively referred to as RuneScape Classic, which was the original version of RuneScape. The game I spent my entire life playing back in 2005 was actually "RuneScape 2"... which was also reissued in some capacity later as Old School RuneScape? You lost yet? Anyway. The reason I'm bringing all this up is because for the past year or so, a developer who goes by "Lobotomy" has been working on getting RuneScape Classic running on the Sega Dreamcast with a project known as "RuneCast". With some kind of wizardry, Lobotomy has somehow managed to get RSC playing online on Dreamcast at close to 30 FPS, as well as implementing mouse and keyboard support.

Runescape Classic running on Dreamcast.
Photo credit: enfilade.

RuneScape Classic was something I didn't really play much back in the day, but was a fun little novelty for the limited hours I spent on it, probably when my RuneScape 2 friends were offline. The nostalgia for Classic was never really there for me, so I am yet to play this Dreamcast version. Regardless, the fact that Lobotomy managed to pull it all off is as impressive as a blue party hat, or actually seeing Zezima in-game (impressive, basically).

Ever since the news reached online spaces about Lobotomy's triumph, I was as desperate as a dude standing in Varrock bank spamming "buying GF" to know if my beloved (to be honest, it was actually kind of shit, but nostalgia blinds) RuneScape 2 would ever make it to Dreamcast. Lo and behold, on the 27th anniversary of the Dreamcast's North American launch, Lobotomy would post to the Dreamcast-Talk forums to announce it was in the works. "DreamScape", as this version will be known, has been confirmed running on a stock Dreamcast, although the large town of Falador is currently not available to be visited (maybe for the best, as it is still a location that brings back traumatic memories for some), but that will get sorted at some point. Lobotomy is also working on getting a server up and running for the online play.

The hours I spent here farming goblins for experience...
Screenshot credit: Lobotomy

Do you have nostalgia for RuneScape? Would you be interested in playing either RuneScape Classic or RuneScape 2 online on your Dreamcast? Did you know that Junkyarder Harvey (Pizza Hotline) actually produced an officially licensed RuneScape drum and bass remix album? Let us known in the comments below or on our socials!

Complete ports of Sonic R and Zelda: Ocarina of Time are now available on Sega Dreamcast

What's this? News has reached us that not one, but two complete ports of beloved retro titles have finally landed on the Sega Dreamcast. We've covered both of these here at the Junkyard in the recent past (here and here), but as of right now you can download the means to sample complete ports of both Sonic R and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the hallowed Dreamcast.

Captured on Dreamcast hardware.

Both ports come courtesy of Dreamcast porting genius jnmartin84, the same magician behind the Dreamcast ports of DOOM 64, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario 64. Sonic R has been cooking for quite some time, and jnmartin84 has been steadily releasing previews of the work in progress over the last few months, but now the final build is here...and it looks - quite frankly - stunning. I was never a huge fan of Sonic R back when it released on the Saturn, but having sampled this new PC-derived Dreamcast conversion I'm happy to report that it really pops visually on the Dreamcast. Here's some gameplay footage:

As described over on the Sonic R GitHub, you'll need to provide your own game files in order to play this on a Dreamcast, but it is very much worth your time and effort to get it up and running.

As a bonus to what is already an impressive port, an online multiplayer mode is also available, although at the moment, only Dreamcasts rocking the pricey broadband adapter are supported for online play.

I'd get a headache if I lived here.

Hey, listen!

Hot on the heels of Sonic R (no pun intended) also comes the news that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has now been completed and is similarly ready to rock and roll on a Dreamcast near you. This is quite timely, considering all the hype around the recently revealed Switch 2 remake that should be hitting Nintendo's swanky handheld in the coming months (at the time of writing).

Knocking about in downtown Kokiri Forest.

Ocarina of Time absolutely dominated my life when it came out on the Nintendo 64 back in 1998, and to see it on the Dreamcast, running as well as it does is quite a sight to behold. The version here is the Master Quest iteration, meaning that if you're an old hand at Ocarina, there will be some new challenges lying in wait if you decide to once again pull Link's boots on and set out from the comfort of Kokiri Forest to avenge your father's death at the hands of Lan Di...or however the story goes. Here's some footage of the game running on a GDEMU-equipped Dreamcast console:

I'm aware that the use of AI tools in these sorts of ports is a hot topic currently, and I'm certainly no fan of the slop being pumped across the internet like a tidal wave of liquid excrement, so it's probably worth mentioning at this point that it appears as though Claude was used to assist in some small way in both of these ports; however unlike the recent Sonic CD port (which was pretty much completely done with AI tools as far as I'm aware) there was also a hell of a lot of human talent and effort involved too. If however you are in the market for some pure, uncut slop generated by AI, then go and read GenerationAmiga. Because GenerationAmiga is the epitome of AI slop.

A scene from the cool intro dream sequence.

Anyway, if you'd like to sample The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on your Dreamcast, you can find out more over at the project's GitHub and you can also find some lovely cover art mockups for your GDEMU over at Dreamcast-Talk.

HyperSolar is Soaring onto Sega Dreamcast Soon — We've Played It!

The Dreamcast is no stranger to top quality indie titles. Sega's machine has long enjoyed ongoing support from talented indie teams since its untimely official demise. The latest game looking to wow us is HyperSolar (formerly SuperSolar) from Ninja Dynamics.

Imagine if After Burner and Star Fox came together one drunken night and you'll have a good idea of what HyperSolar is all about. We were sent the current build by the developer, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. From rich blue skies to midnight city skylines, everything about this game screams '90s videogames at an extremely high volume.

The current build that we've played allows you to take flight in one of three different stages, namely; Ocean, Lava and City. As you'd expect, each stage offers luscious arcade-style environments based on each of these different locations.

Blue skies!

The city stage is without doubt the most impressive. You must navigate through the various skyscrapers as you tackle enemy crafts and it is easy to get distracted with the view instead of your crosshairs. Buildings are partly lit with office lights left on, vivid neon advertisements demand your attention, and underneath you the traffic is flowing with their headlights on. It's a real treat on the eyes. All at 60fps with widescreen support.

The City stage is very easy on the eyes whilst running at 60fps.

Controlling your fighter plane is done with the analogue stick, whilst the A and X buttons control your machine gun and missiles respectively. Control is crisp and instantly drew a comparison to Star Fox 64 in my mind as to how easy it was to pick up and play.

There isn't much to the game at the moment; it's currently more of a tech demo to set the scene for what is to come. You shoot enemy crafts down with the stage effectively on a loop. The plan for HyperSolar is to include unique stages with boss fights, similar again to how Star Fox 64 is structured.

HyperSolar - Dreamcast Version

This is the final iteration of the city stage, finally running at nearly stable 60fps. It features hexagonal buildings, ground level facades and lighting, cross-shaped trees, new traffic algorithm, lightning and thunder in the sky, audio engine… pic.twitter.com/snMGILORkt

— 🇵🇹 Ninja Dynamics (@ninjadynamics) September 6, 2026

I spoke to Ninja Dynamics about the game and they were keen to highlight that this project does rely on the usage of AI for its code generation, but explained that the design of the game and the algorithms are "very much [their] own".

It's worth reiterating that HyperSolar is still very early in development. The game we've played is a product of just four months of effort. Ninja Dynamics have clearly spent this time making sure the game not only looks fantastic, but also runs great as well.

HyperSolar being played at Gamescom 2026.

HyperSolar was recently shown off at the 2026 Gamescom event where it seemed to gather a lot of attention. It's always pretty cool to see Dreamcast games at "the world's biggest event for computer and videogames" in the modern day!

We'll bring you more on HyperSolar as it progresses.

New Sega Dreamcast Games in GameStop? — Ten Indies Being Reissued by VGNYsoft

While an onslaught of homebrew ports and other crazy projects have been hitting the Dreamcast on an almost weekly basis this year, the commercial indie scene seems to have taken a bit of a backseat. Although we've recently seen a few new larger scale projects being announced for future release, for those who still love the ceremony of placing a physical disc containing a brand-new game into their Dreamcast, the options have certainly become less frequent than in previous years.

But fear not, young hoarder, for VGNYsoft, the publishing arm of Videogamesnewyork, is reissuing ten Dreamcast indie titles, with one of them even getting a special limited edition version too. The games are Cyborg Force, GemaBoy Zero Origins, Captain Barrel, Andro Dunos 2, Breakers, Ganryu, FlashBack, Another World, Escape 2042, and Arcade Racing Legends.

The majority of these titles have received praise from the Junkyard in the past, as demonstrated by review quotes from us that you will find emblazoned on the back covers of these new VGNY releases. Of course, it's worth mentioning that we don't receive any monetary kickback for endorsing these games, we simply wanted to share our praise for some genuinely good indie titles, and VGNYsoft thought that was a great idea too.

Tom Charnock's flash poem about Flashback.

We're particularly happy to see both Cyborg Force and Captain Barrel from developer Neo Byte Force make a return, as they were originally self-published back in 2024, but the developer decided to cease publishing their games themselves. What's more is Cyborg Force will be recieving a special limited edition as well, which will include a super cool VMU shell featuring artwork of the game on it. 

This isn't the first time VGNYsoft has done one of these VMU shell editions for their games. They released one for Sturmwind back in 2024, so anyone who grabbed that will be familiar with what to expect.

Currently, all of the standard editions of these games are ready to purchase from VGNY's site, with the exception of Captain Barrel, which will be available from Monday. The Cyborg Force limited edition with the VMU shell will be going up for pre-order at 10am EST on Wednesday the 9th of September.

Speaking with VGNYsoft, they also let me know that international shipping is now also available. Previously, VGNY haven't offered this option, so it's great to hear that those outside the States will be able to easily grab these as well.

These releases will also be available through Canadian online retailer Video Games Plus.

What's this about new Dreamcast games in GameStop?

Yeah, you heard that correctly. VGNYsoft has also informed us that this particular run of Dreamcast indies will be available at GameStop stores across the U.S. as part of the chain's GameStop Retro initiative. Six older VGNYsoft releases will also be sold alongside the ten titles already mentioned: Shadow Gangs, Sturmwind, Reknum Souls Adventure, Hermes, Xenocider, and Ploid. These six games are already available for purchase on GameStop's site.

Whether you love GameStop or not, seeing a brand-new Dreamcast game on the shelves of a chain that big in the year 2026 is pretty cool, right? Better than endless aisles of Funko Pops, anyway. We just need CEX to do the same here in Old Blighty, especially seeing as they've now said they'll be focusing more on retro too.

Credit: IGN

So, what do you think of the selection of indies VGNY are repressing here? Let us know in the comments below, or via social media!

Revisiting Grand Theft Auto 2 on Sega Dreamcast

With all the hype around Grand Theft Auto VI at the moment, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to revisit the one game in the series which always seems to get overlooked: Grand Theft Auto 2.

Whilst the much-loved Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City have enjoyed unofficial ports to the Dreamcast in recent times, the series’ first true sequel was the only game which actually received a contemporary port on Sega’s machine.

Released originally in the fall of 1999 on the PC, closely followed by the PlayStation a few months later, the Grand Theft Auto series would eventually make its way onto a Sega console for the first -and only- time in the summer of the new millennium with Rockstar’s GTA 2.

Absolute carnage. It's like Cardiff on a Friday night.

Before GTA became the behemoth franchise it is known as today, it looked very different. The first two games (well, three if you include the “London” expansion that was released after the original title) were not in glorious three-dimensions, and instead all of the action took place from a top-down bird's-eye view perspective. Whilst these games were still pretty vast in size, they were not particularly hardware-intensive; meaning that a Dreamcast port should’ve been a straightforward conversion from the PC game.

Whilst the Dreamcast version of GTA 2 looks the part and runs very smoothly, there is one key aspect that was a little lost in translation which ultimately meant that the port fell a little short of a guaranteed slam dunk; the controls. They’re just a bit rubbish. 

The default controls use the analogue stick to spin your character on the spot, with the A and Y buttons used to make your character walk forward and backwards. There are a number of presets to choose from, but you can’t manually assign buttons and none of the presets allow you to simply use the analogue stick (or d-pad) to move around in all directions freely. Surely that would’ve been much easier?

It just makes moving around a bit of a chore and doesn’t feel natural when you first start playing the game. In their coverage of GTA 2, IGN summed it up:

“The Dreamcast [control] scheme is unforgivable. You're able to choose from among only four preset templates, and your movement can never be controlled by the digital pad. That is a true shame, as the analog movement proves to be too sensitive for its own good and sends you zooming forward in one direction at a pace that defies accuracy.”

Despite the clumsiness of the controls, after half an hour of gameplay, things started to click a little and I was able to move around a bit easier.

The gameplay loop is as you’d expect; it is a GTA game after all. Walk around, find a ringing phone box, listen to the incoming request and then go on your merry way. You can hijack pretty much any vehicle you come across with a simple press of the X button, and its previous occupant will be unceremoniously dumped onto the floor as you hop inside.

Respect is everything and don't you forget it.

It quickly becomes very addictive and before you know it, you’ve just lost multiple hours of your evening. Some of the missions asked of you are brilliant. One particular favourite was the gang member who gets upset that Pizza Cake (the fictitious pizza joint) keeps messing up his favourite order. In a fit of rage, he asks you to destroy one of their restaurants as punishment. Unfortunately the effects of this are so underwhelming, so he orders you to destroy the delivery van instead. Deliveroo drivers beware.

As you proceed through the missions, you will raise your respect with one gang but this in turn lowers it with their rivals. This means they turn hostile against you, so it’s important to balance out your reputation by accepting a range of missions. Each gang has their own territory and with no on-screen map for navigation, as is tradition with classic GTA games, you’re looking at the physical map packaged with the game so you know where to go and where to avoid. 

If you want to take a break from the main missions, there is a whole load of other things that you can do instead. There are multiple hidden tokens to find, dozens of different weapons, secret vehicles to collect and even vehicle modification if you can find the specialised garages. Additionally, if you hijack a taxi or an emergency vehicle, you can take on those roles. As a taxi driver, you can pick up passengers as a way to make some much needed dollars on the side. Who needs Crazy Taxi? With so much content, you could be playing this game for months.

I'm lost already. Time to whip out my physical map.

One of the highlights of playing a GTA game has always been listening to the in-car radio stations. Much like in real life, part of the charm was that the radio is always on when you’re driving around; sometimes you’re listening intently and sometimes you aren’t. In the world of GTA, these radio stations continue to play on a loop regardless of if you’re actually listening to them or not. This loop means whenever you switch channels, it doesn’t start from the beginning but from wherever it was in its “as-live” playthrough. The Dreamcast version lacks this loop, meaning that when you get into a car, the radio station plays from the beginning. It’s not a major deal, but interesting that it’s only the Dreamcast which has this issue. As someone who quite enjoys just jumping in a car and driving around the map aimlessly, maybe I noticed it more than the average person would.

When GTA 2 was released for Dreamcast in 2000, the reviews were generally slightly above average, with a few outlets scoring it a little higher.

GameSpot would award GTA 2 a 6.9 out of 10. They had the following to say:

“If you’re looking to commit some virtual crimes on your Dreamcast, then by all means steal a car, drive it down to your local game retailer, and slap around the owner until he gives you a copy. OK, it might just be easier for you to buy one instead.”

Dreamcast Magazine in the UK seemed to enjoy the game more than most, presenting it with a favourable 81% score.

“It might not be very next-gen, but there's no denying the pleasure that can be derived from the various activities, pleasant or not. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some money to collect and some people to kill.”

Part of me thinks that a lot of the reviews were a little harsh on GTA 2 because it didn’t “look like a next-gen game”. Indeed, there seemed to be a theme with 2D games back in the early 2000s being labelled as inferior to those in 3D, because they weren't pushing the latest shiny technology to its full potential. I think nowadays we can appreciate good 2D Dreamcast games a lot more than we could back then.

I've no idea who this guy is, but it's my new favourite loading screen.

So, is GTA 2 on Dreamcast still worth playing today? Well, despite the flaws with this particular version which I’ve outlined throughout this article, I’d have to say yes. It’s by no means a great game, but it still has that addictive GTA gameplay loop and does offer you the freedom of moving around and doing what you want that’s so synonymous with the series. The control scheme puts a slight damper on proceedings, but this is an issue experienced with many other retro games when you compare them to modern luxuries like fully customisable controls, dual-sticks and ergonomic controllers. The controls don’t ruin the experience in my opinion, but they do cause slight irritation.

With the surely epic GTA VI on the horizon -now just a few months away- the time is perfect for Dreamcast owners to revisit this oft-forgotten and overlooked entry in the series to whet your appetite for November.

Ending a game session gives you a summary of the chaos caused.

We Played the Unreleased Game "Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen" for Sega Dreamcast

What could've been. Cover created by Dreamcast Me That.

Developed by Arxel Tribe in the late 90s, Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen is a point-and-click adventure game that would be released for the PC in 1998. It turns out that the game was supposed to be ported to the Dreamcast a few years later, but ultimately ended up on the mammoth pile of unreleased titles which never saw the light of day on Sega’s console. And no, we’re not talking about The Ring: Terror's Realm, which unfortunately for us, did sneak its way into the console’s release library.

However, thanks to the ongoing preservation efforts of Comby Laurent from Sega Dreamcast Info, this previously unreleased title is now available to download and play via emulation or, even better, on a real Dreamcast with a real controller in your sweaty hands.

But before we get into how this title should’ve ended up on the Dreamcast sometime in the year 2000, let’s talk a little about the game itself.

I asked this chap what he thought about the Dreamcast.

Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen is loosely based on Der Ring des Nibelungen; four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. Yes, that’s right, a game based on an opera. I’ve officially heard it all. Indeed, the game itself features music from various performances of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the legendary Georg Solti himself.

I had to Google Georg Solti as well, don’t worry. You’ll find out he’s a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor who’s won countless awards including a British CBE, a knighthood and a whopping 31 Grammy Awards. Bet you didn’t think you’d learn that on a Dreamcast blog, did you?

Even if you’re not an opera fan, you will absolutely know the Ride of the Valkyries score which was featured in Der Ring des Nibelungen. In fact, I’ll give you a moment to go and search for it on YouTube so you can have it playing in the background as you read the rest of this article; it’ll add to the overall experience.

Anyway, back to Der Ring des Nibelungen. The scale and scope of the story told in these works is so epic that I simply don’t have enough time to cover it all here. It follows the struggles of gods, heroes, and several mythical creatures over the eponymous magic ring that grants domination over the entire world. In the game, there are four characters which you assume control of. Alberich (a cruel and sadistic dwarf king), Loge (a fire spirit), Siegmund (the son of the god Wotan), and Brünnhilde (a Valkyrie warrior).

Some of the areas in the game are beautifully atmospheric.

There are loads of additional characters and even a family tree to help you make sense of it all. In fact, the story and puzzles in Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen are so complex that the PC release actually included an entire walkthrough in its own instruction manual! Arxel Tribe clearly had little faith that their playerbase would get their head around it all, either.

As I mentioned, Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen did actually get a release on PC in 1998. Whilst it did enjoy significant commercial success -shifting an impressive 600,000 lifetime copies according to Arxel Tribe’s Guillaume de Fondaumière- the reviews were not so favourable. IGN described it as a “complete travesty when it comes to gameplay” on the way to awarding it a 2.7/10 score, whilst GameStop said it was “so utterly uninviting” in their 3.7/10 appraisal.

Magic frogs. For the diving helmet. Obviously.

News of a Dreamcast port in the UK media at the time was sparse, despite the fact that from what we can see now, most of the game was finished and not far away from being ready to rock. Whilst flicking through some issues of the UK’s Dreamcast Magazine, I did find a small news bite tucked away in the corner of issue four which read:

“News has broken on a forthcoming Dreamcast game from Success. The game is to be a port of the hit PC game Ring: The Legend of Nibelung, which is currently in the midst of conversion and should be with us sometime during 2000.”

No accompanying screenshot or half-page spread. It’s fair to say that this port was somewhat under the radar and so it’s unsurprising that many Dreamcast fans hadn’t heard of its existence before. IGN also reported that “the makers of Rainbow Cotton for the Dreamcast will be bringing The Ring of the Nibelungen to Japanese DC gamers. Currently, this game is listed on the Success web page as being set for release on the PC in Japan on October 29th of this year.” But again, no screenshots or noteworthy details.

The Dreamcast version of Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen was seemingly lost forever at some point after this. Well, I say lost forever but what I actually mean is lost until the efforts of Laurent and his team managed to preserve the title for us all to enjoy.

A prototype version of Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen was actually discovered and dumped a few years ago, but it was only a partial dump. Some of the three discs were missing meaning that the game could not be played in any logical order. But all was not lost. In a recent post, Laurent has managed to obtain dumps of all three discs and additionally some VMU save files which allow for each of the games’ chapters to be loaded and played.

Premier Eleven: A Closer Look at the Lost Atomiswave Football Game

Throughout history there are numerous examples of the story behind the creation of a particular piece of media being more interesting than the final product. Take for example, the 1996 movie The Island of Dr. Moreau. A movie which was based on the 1896 H. G. Wells novel of the same name and which teamed a star-studded cast (Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis, Fairuza Balk) with a hotly tipped up-and-coming director (Richard Stanley). In what is now a notorious turn of events, the final movie turned out to be something of a box office bomb, but the story of what went on behind the cameras spawned such tall and bizarre tales that the production has become infamous amongst movie aficionados. If you’re not in the slightest bit familiar with what I’m blathering about, then I implore you to seek out the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau and be amazed at just how wild movie making can become.

Poster for the 1996 movie. The on-set drama
eclipsed that of the 1977 rendition.

With this in mind then, let us turn our attention to something much more Dreamcast-centric: Dimps Corporation’s ‘lost’ Atomiswave football (soccer) title Premier Eleven. We’ve covered the storied history of Premier Eleven here at the Junkyard in past, indeed I almost transformed into the aforementioned Dr. Moreau myself while researching it - at one point even visiting an arcade where a cabinet had been trialled back in the early 2000s, hoping and praying that there may be some remnant of it still in situ. Spoiler: there wasn’t. If you’d like to know more than is healthy about my recalcitrant obsession with this previously lesser-spotted arcade kickabout, please do check out our previous articles on Premier Eleven here and here; and you can read about the history of the Atomiswave arcade system (and its fascinating link to the Dreamcast) here.

A photo of the Premier Eleven arcade cabinet installed
at Clarence Pier, Southsea (UK) - Credit: John Baseley.

The long and short of it though, is that Premier Eleven was a football game in development by Dimps Corporation, which was planned for release on Sammy’s Atomiswave arcade system. After some testing in a few select locations, release plans for the game were scrapped, cabinets were unceremoniously slung into the fires of Orodruin, and the few remaining copies of the original arcade board ended up in the hands of private collectors. 

When the Atomiswave library was ported to the Dreamcast back in 2020, it was truly a marvel to behold and many a Dreamcast enjoyer was - quite rightly - overjoyed to finally be given the opportunity to sample such delights as Faster Than Speed, KenJu, Dolphin Blue, Maximum Speed et al. Only, there was a small hole in the collection of games being unleashed onto the Dreamcast - the Atomiswave library was not complete. Several games were missing from the catalogue, mainly due to being unreleased back during the Atomiswave’s heyday, and among them was (you guessed it) Premier Eleven.

Original Premier Eleven promotional flyer.

Now (well, in June 2026), thanks to a Dreamcast-Talk forum user who goes by the monicker ‘dimps’ (I see what you did there, dimps) Premier Eleven has finally been dumped and ported to the Dreamcast. Not only that, but this dump apparently came direct - and with permission to release - from a private collector who had in their possession a genuine Premier Eleven PCB. Even better, is that dimps managed to delve into the game’s code and release versions of the ROM which increase the default game time from a paltry 4-minute game length to both 12-minute and 20-minute game lengths - something which may not sound like much, but actually turns Premier Eleven into so much more than it could ever have been if left in its default state.

A Premier Eleven board went up for sale for $15,000 back in 2022.

The mystique around Premier Eleven, and that it promised so much from the promotional materials released back in the early 2000s, is possibly what led me to obsess over it so much in the past. The Dreamcast’s stable of football (soccer) titles is somewhat lacking when it comes to quality, with releases such as Virtua Striker 2 Ver 2000.1 and UEFA Dream Soccer generally being regarded as the cream of the crop (and cream always rises to the top, right?); but with Premier Eleven’s release, we finally get a chance to experience what could have been another option for Dreamcast-owning football fans. Well, if the Atomiswave games had been officially ported. And Premier Eleven had been fully released. And the Dreamcast hadn't had its life support yanked in 2001. You get what I mean, don’t be pedantic.

So then, what do we actually get with Premier Eleven? Not a great deal in truth. The game was always intended as an arcade experience and as such if you’re expecting something like Pro Evolution Soccer then you’ll be disappointed. No, this is squarely in the Virtua Striker mould (and in some ways it has more in common with the Super Sidekicks games), but hold that thought about PES because there are some similarities to Konami’s title if you look beyond the somewhat basic gameplay and impressive visuals and animation. Firstly, remember that this was an unreleased game that was never intended to be played on a Dreamcast. For that reason, it can be forgiven for featuring only a single play mode: a sort of cut-down World Cup where you choose a team from the 32 international squads available and then enter the tournament at the last 16 stage. You pick a team, get randomly matched against an opponent in the tournament tree, and then it’s game on.

32 international teams are included.

You'll start every run through at the Round of 16.

He's got a foot like a traction engine.

Hitting the post from 25 yards.
As Ally McCoist would say: shenshashional!

There are no options, no other play modes. There are no player names (although there are likenesses) and there is no way to change the camera angle. There is no play-by-play commentary other than a rudimentary International Superstar Soccer Deluxe style announcement whenever the ball leaves the field of play for a throw in or a goal kick. You can choose your team’s formation from a choice of two…but that’s about as deep as the technicalities get. No subs, no messing with player positions…you can’t even pause the action once a game starts. No, this is a totally barebones arcade football experience. But you know what? Premier Eleven plays a bit of a blinder when it eventually clicks into place.