Gauntlet Giveaway! An investigation into the Gauntlet Legends limited edition pewter miniatures

Back in 2015 we looked fleetingly at the Gauntlet Legends pewter miniature giveaway. If you're not familiar and can't be bothered clicking this link to refresh your memory, allow me to offer a quick recap on the situation. Gauntlet Legends is a 3D polygonal sequel to the original 2D Gauntlet and Gauntlet II titles released by Atari in the mid 1980s. Gauntlet Legends was subsequently released into arcades in 1998 and then ported to a range of home systems in 1999 and 2000 - one of which was the Sega Dreamcast.

The game received a fairly positive reception on release for the Nintendo 64, PlayStation and finally Dreamcast, offering a solid - if somewhat repetitive - romp through various fantasy stages, with the player (accompanied by up to 3 friends on N64 and Dreamcast) being required to knock the ever-loving crap out of hordes of mindless enemies as they progressed through the adventure. The Dreamcast version of Gauntlet Legends was the final home port to be released and featured several aspects of Gauntlet Dark Legacy, the follow up title released in arcades in 1999. 

This post really isn't about the actual game Gauntlet Legends though. It's about something a little bit more interesting and esoteric - the fabled Gauntlet Legends pewter miniatures that were given away for free to anybody who purchased the NTSC-U version of the game for either Dreamcast or PlayStation.

Gauntlet Legends NTSC-U box art showing the Gauntlet Giveaway! (source)

As detailed in that 2015 post, the covers of the NTSC-U edition of Gauntlet Legends offered the opportunity to claim a free set of these pewter figures based on characters from the game, and all that was required in order to own them was to send in a supplied mailing slip and proof of purchase to publisher Midway Home Entertainment. 

This 'Gauntlet Giveaway!' was advertised both on the front of the manual (which doubled up as the front cover in most NTSC-U and NTSC-J Dreamcast games), and on the rear cover; while the mail order slip could be found inside the manual. As the Dreamcast port of Gauntlet Legends was launched in early June 2000, and the giveaway only ran until the end of December 2000, gamers only had 7 months to stake a claim to their birthrights (well, their little metal models).

The Gauntlet Giveaway mail order slip

Close-up of the offer advert - details inside!

Until getting my hands on an American copy of Gauntlet Legends for Dreamcast, I had never heard of this promotion, but I later discovered that a similar scheme had previously been run in connection with the Nintendo 64 version of the game. The difference being that in the case of the N64, a single miniature came bundled in the box as part of an exclusive Walmart promotion, and they are now some of the rarest Nintendo 64 special editions available.

Back in 2015, I lamented about the mysterious nature of these minature models (well, mysterious from a European perspective), and the seemingly nonexistent nature of any information surrounding them; namely how many variants had been manufactured and how many sets had been claimed. Back then there was precious little info available about the promotion, and even now, if you do a cursory Google search you'll invariably end up looking at the same 2015 blog post hosted here on the Junkyard, the Gauntlet Wiki, or some forum posts from the early 2000s. 

What we do know though, is that the Gauntlet Legends pewter miniatures were manufactured by Reaper - one of the biggest names in the miniatures and model manufacturing sector. Why then, do I bring up this relic from the mists of time? Because we only went and got our hands on a set of the fabled Gauntlet Legends miniatures, that's why!

The Legends of Gauntlet in miniature form

The way these things came into my possession is actually pretty bizarre in its own right, so indulge me while I explain the whole sordid sequence of events before we take a closer look at the miniatures themselves, and also an extra nugget of interesting detail contained therein.

Retrospective: Q*bert

Even though I started my gaming odyssey back in the late 1980s with an Amstrad CPC 464, there are some mainstays of the retro scene that just never really resonated with me. Whenever I take a cursory glance at the smouldering hellscape that is Twitter, I will invariably see stuff from people who are of a similar age, frothing about games such as Horace, Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner et al. For me, these titles hold zero nostalgia. I realise their importance as the foundation of what we now view as the vidya gaem industry, but I just never really saw any appeal in them, even at the time. Another title that fits neatly into this bracket for me, is Q*bert.

I do vividly remember being aware of Q*bert when I was a kid, but something about the name and design of the character itself left me cold; and the actual game, with its isometric boxes, bouncing deathy spring things (which I later learned was actually a snake) and fairly simplistic gameplay did nothing for me. I was much more of a Heroes of the Lance or Heavy on the Magick type of urchin. Although I did enjoy a spot of Super Robin Hood every now and then, if only for the high fidelity speech samples. Cough.

Why am I talking about Q*bert though? What's this got to do with the Dreamcast? Well, here's why, dear reader: Q*bert made an appearance on the Dreamcast, his orange tubular schnoz recreated in fully realised 3D texture-mapped ray-traced polytriangulargons™. This won't be news to a lot of people reading this, but as Q*bert was an NTSC-U exclusive, I'm guessing there are at least a few people who didn't know the foul-mouthed, mutated little aberration was given an outing on Sega's final console.

It is curious that a lot of these early 2000s reboots of classic titles were only released stateside. Many of those original titles were quite popular in Europe - the UK especially - back when they were contemporary so why PAL releases were off the table is a bit of a mystery. The Dreamcast releases of Frogger 2, Centipede, Mrs Pacman and the Atari Classics Collections are all missing in action, presumed dead (and don't even get me started on Yu Suzuki Game Works), and I'm at a loss as to why this is the case. 

Indeed, the gaming scene was massive in the UK during the 1980s, plus there was no 'gaming crash' as there was in the US. The aforementioned titles (or their prequels at the very least) were huge hits on this side of the pond. But no, none of these Dreamcast sequels to classic games of yesteryear were released in PAL territories, and you can add to that list Q*bert. Here's the rub though. While some may lament the lack of blue box releases of those aforementioned titles, you need not shed a tear for Q*bert's Dreamcast release, as it is - for lack of a better term - cack.

A Quick Look At Centipede

Centipede for the Dreamcast is a curious title for a couple of reasons. It's part of what is, for all intents and purposes, a sort of trilogy of retro reboots that includes two other properties with roots in the very early days of gaming - Q*bert and Frogger. While there are several retro collections for the Dreamcast in the form of Namco Museum, Sega Smash Pack, Yu Suzuki Game Works, Atari Anniversary Edition, Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits 1 & 2 and Jimmy White's 2: Cueball, none of these titles feature complete re-imaginings of the classic titles contained therein.

No, Centipede, Q*bert and Frogger are unique in that they introduce updated visuals, new modes and - most notably in the case of Centipede - totally new gameplay mechanics. Interestingly, all three of these titles come from the Hasbro Interactive/Atari mash-up that was borne out of the acquisition of the latter by the former, however for the sake of this being 'a quick look at...' we're only going to focus on the most radically redesigned of the three - Centipede.

Released in 2000 by Hasbro Interactive masquerading as Atari and developed by Leaping Lizard Software, Centipede is a modern take on the classic game of the same name that was released to much critical and commercial success back in 1980. Having only been born in 1982, I don't actually remember the initial arcade release of Centipede, but over the years I've played plenty of variations on the formula and I'm sure you have too. Naturally, coming from an era when hardware was less graphically capable than what we have today, Centipede featured basic visuals but had one very simple premise that was replicated in many titles of the period - shoot the enemies, get a high score...and survive the onslaught.

A Quick Look At Atari Anniversary Edition

Ah, Atari. A company often credited as being the progenitor of the entire video gaming industry, but one which bowed out with such a whimper it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry. In the 1970s and 80s, Atari could literally fire diamonds from a cannon into a lake for 24 hours a day and it still wouldn't make a dent in the petty cash box lying under the receptionist's desk. By the late 1990s though, those halcyon days of wanton abandon were over. Many people point the finger at Atari's final console, the Jaguar for the fine mess the firm ended up in, but in retrospect a combination of poor management and a failure to capitalise on a rich back catalogue is really what sounded the death knell for Atari.

Before you jump down my throat though, know this: I am a massive fan of the Jaguar and have been collecting games, hardware and memorabilia related to that dumpster fire of a system for quite a while...so I consider myself well positioned to pour humorous scorn. Oh, and Super Burnout is one of my all time favourite racing games, so chill. This article isn't about that criminally-untapped pile of 64-bit awesome though. It's about the Dreamcast and a rather nice compilation of Atari arcade classics of yesteryear that I recently acquired: Atari Anniversary Edition.

New games, new sticks, new buttons.

It's been quite a while since I've posted here hasn't it? That'll be because last week was give-us-all-your-coursework week at Uni, but now I have some time off, which = quality time with what is currently the most modern console in my household (since I sold my GameCube, and haven't got a Wii yet), along with the new bits I have brought back for it from my trip to New York over the last week of 2006.

So how did I even find any Dreamcast stuff anyhow? Pure luck, actually. Th 1st day we woke up in New York, after pissing about with the hotel who had lost our suite, we popped down to Greenwich Village, our favorite area of the city. Unlike the Rolex selling tramps and bright lights of Times Square, this lower down area is not only a lot quieter, but has a lot of great unique shops tucked away. After popping into an small Irish bar for a proper Breakfast, walking down one road I spotted a sign about an import retro shop, with a little map of where it had moved to. For those who may be interested, the address is 202 East 6th Street.

Anyway, we finally found the shop, which was rather small but very well packed with potentially thousands of games stacked up to the ceiling, and an old Mario statue standing out front, that some Japanese family were having heir photo taken with. The first thing you see as you walk in is NINTENDO WII ONLY ONE IN STOCK BIG FAT BUNDLE $500, but as soon as you went around one of it's many corners you came across a wall with about 5 shelfs of hundreds of American Dreamcast games. Yikes! On closer inspection, about half were 2nd hand and half were sealed, but a lot of them were multiple copies of the same game. For example, they must of had at least 50 copies of Coaster Works. Basically, most of it was junk. I did however fish out 3 games I did want which were cheap: Atari Anniversary Edition for $15 (about $8), Illbleed sealed for $10 (£6), and Floigan Bros for just $8 (about a £4).

They also had a shelf of DC games behind glass that were all gooduns, like Typing of the Dead and Outrigger, but were all $25, which is roughly more than I could get them on Ebay anyway. Lastly, there was a glass cabinet full of Japanese games, including one shelf for Dreamcast ones, which were mostly games you can get cheap anyway, like Sega Rally 2, or games that were pretty darn expensive, such as Under Defeat for $90! Ouch. I at least got one thing from this cabinet, and that was Puyo Puyo Sun for my Saturn for $20 (£12), because I wanted to try out that import cart I have had for years.

The shop had a lot of stuff I wanted (including just about every good Neo Geo Pocket game ever), but they were far too over priced with a lot of their games, obviously basing them on the highest prices they go for on Ebay.

One last Dreamcast thing I did actually pick up was a fighting controller for $15. It's third party, but the only time I had seen a controller like this for the DC was one released in Japan by ASCII, which sells for a lotta money. This one is pretty much the same thing, but a lot cheaper. Score!

For starters, it is laid out just like the arcade stick, with the shoulder buttons replaced with the Z and C buttons at the front. This makes the controller very useful for six button fighters like Street Fighter III,. hence the name. It also makes it look a lot like the controllers for Sega's earlier systems, especially thanks to the shape and size of it. Example below (sadly I don't have a six-button Mega Drive pad to compare with, but it's good enough):

Also notice how the VMU sticks out of it. It has one slot, so what about if you want rumble? It's built in! Oh yes. And if you don't want to use the rumble there's a switch to turn it off, if you like. There is also a turbo and clear button, although I haven't tried these out yet. The plastic feels a bit cheap, and the d-pad isn't on par with the arcade stick for fighting games, Also, games that use the analogue stick only won't work with it. It's still a good alternative if you can find one, and also quite nice for playing emulators. Reconfig the controls on Smash Pack and you could have the excat same layout as on the original Mega Drive controller!

Speaking of arcade controllers, I now have two of 'em. I didn't drag this 2nd back from America, however, but it was the first thing I saw in the window of GameStation as I visited it not long after arriving back home, and it was boxed for a measly £13. The one I've had since 2000 didn't have a box and cost me £30, but even that's cheaper than you'd have to pay for one online, because they're so heavy the postage goes through the roof. This new one isn't in as nice condition as mine, but at least it hasn't rusted up at all like mine. Here's a photo of the two sitting together in harmony:

Elaborating on the games I brought back, Atari Anniversary is a complication of about 13 of their old arcade games, all with plenty of options and features, and a bunch of artwork and interviews to round it all off. It's a very nicely made collection, with all the games perfectly recreated. Tempest is additive as hell, too.

Illbleed is a unique take on the survival horror genre in which you are in a horror theme park where you win money for not dying, which isn't easy as they throw just about everything they can at you, from mad chainsaw men to a huge, vampire Sonic that vomits rings. I'm NOT kidding. The game has you keeping track of all six of your senses (yes, you do see dead people), pumping yourself with pain killers, popping to the hospital now and hen and even listening to a cassette of whales to calm your character down from everything that's out to make you jump. It's pretty hard stuff, and features voice acting that rivals that of the first Resident Evil, but it looks great for it's age and is yet another reason why the Dreamcast is the most "dare-to-be-different" console of the last generation. Well worth a go, I've posted a video to give you an idea of it's awesomeness. You know, there was a plan for this to be remade for the Box, along with Blue Stinger, but they got canceled, so there both still Dreamcast exclusives! HA!



Oh, and that purple haired girl in the trailer? You play her wearing nothing but mud near the end of the game. ZOMG NAKED CHEAT. Again, I'm not kidding.

Floigan Bros, as Tomleecee has previously pointed out, is absolutely fantastic. Even now, this is probably the most cartoon like in game graphics ever produced. You can cel shade all you like, but if you really want that classical Looney Tune look in your game, make it bouncy, which this is in spades. In a medium where everyone is striving for realism, it's takes real innovation to do the opposite and take game visuals into a direction that has rarely been done in 3D without resorting to pre-rendered footage (as great as those cut scenes in Stupid Invaders looked, it wasn't ingame). Gameplay wise there is a lot to take in, and Moige is always craving for attention. I swear I've played that high five game with him too many times to count now. It still is, however, a must buy.

Remember that tutorial mode that Tom mentioned? Well, thanks to the game running at 50HZ (which is a first for a NTSC game), I've recorded it and plopped it on YouTube for you to see in all it's cartoon glory!



With those three new American games added, my collection of imports is looking rather healthy now, and almost filling a whole row on me shelf! I can fit 15 PAL games in a row on there, but 30 NTSC, because of tthe thinner, regular CD cases. Lovely.