DCJY welcomes Mike Arkin

Another month means another episode of the DreamPod, and this time, we're joined by a very special guest: Mike Arkin. With over three decades of experience in the video game industry, Mike has worked for the likes of Acclaim, Sony Imagesoft, Fox Interactive, and Activision. Most notably for us, he served as an executive producer at Crave Entertainment, the publisher behind some of the most unique and unforgettable titles on the Sega Dreamcast.

Mike shares a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes stories from his time working on the releases of beloved Dreamcast titles like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Tokyo Xtreme Racer, Super Magnetic Neo, Draconus: Cult of the Wyrm, StarLancer, and everyone’s favourite guilty pleasure, Razor Freestyle Scooter.

We also take some time to discuss Mike’s current role as co-CEO of the newly reformed Argonaut Games, their new remaster of Croc, and whether we will ever see a re-release of their Dreamcast opus Red Dog.

You can listen to this episode of the DreamPod and all of our previous episodes on Buzzsprout, along with all great podcast services.

A Quick Look At Super Magnetic Neo

Magnets are fun. I vividly remember the first time I discovered that old hi-fi speakers contain magnets after I broke one open in an alleyway behind my house. Being from a rather run down district of Manchester me and my siblings made our own fun back then, and smashing old broken stuff up in alleyways was a particular highlight. When such endeavours yielded hitherto unknown treasure like huge magnets...well, that's the stuff dreams are made of. Even more so when we discovered that putting said magnet on the TV made all the colours go funny...until my mother saw what we'd done and went banzai. But I digress.

BBC Breakfast's new format was a winner.

Magnets then. Fun and mysterious things that can be used for all kinds of wondrous applications - making speakers work, ruining the colour on crappy old CRT televisions, levitating the friction-less trains of the future, and being the basis for the overtly camp Dreamcast game Super Magnetic Neo.

Super Magnetic Aaaargh!

What a week it's been eh? Russel Brand (cock) and Jonathan Ross (arsehole) drown in a pool of their own turgid smugness, Hallow e'en comes and goes without even a hint of Armageddon/unleashing of the Legions of Hell (dammit), and the Dreamcast Junkyard gets a long overdue makeover (awesome). It's been emotional, people. Not, however, as 'emotional' as I've been in recent days. And by emotional, I - of course - mean 'synapse-endangeringly furious.' Why so? Three words:

1) Super
2) Magnetic
3) Neo

You know that old adage about the Devil disguising himself as something nice in order to appear more enticing? Well, meet the Devil. In the form of this little cunt:


Yes, I bought Super Magnetic Neo off eBay for the princely sum of £3.00 or thereabouts, and was expecting a colourful yet slightly childish romp through candy-cane worlds populated by jelly babies. And to a certain degree, I was right. You see, visually, Super Magnetic Neo is like an uber acid trip, helped on it's way by a couple of lines of coke, a bottle of JD and a punnet of magic mushrooms. You play as the titular Neo - a smurf-hued robot with a magnet for a bonce. An evil baddie bloke has taken over the world, or something, and populated it with similarly evil robots (although, I don't remember the Terminator just mincing backwards and forwards, minding his own business like the evil robots do here) and it's up to you to smash them to bits and restore order.

However, to accomplish your mission, you must utilise the aforementioned cranial magnet. How? Well, it has the ability to create positive and negative polarity fields and by creating these fields in certain places you can propel yourself off platforms, grab swinging ropes and, obviously, destroy baddies. And by reading that, and looking at the amazing graphics in the poor quality screen shots here, you be forgiven for thinking that Super Magnetic Neo was a platform fan's wet dream. Which it would be, was it not for the immense difficulty level. A wolf in sheep's clothing if ever there was one. And just to nail it in even further, Super Magnetic Neo makes MDK 2 seem like a walk in the park.

Everywhere you turn there are pits and baddies that kill you instantly with the slightest touch, and in some areas you must jump from swinging rope to swinging rope to platform to platform to swinging rope...where the polarities change and you have to get the right one...or it's game over. Hair tearingly annoying? You bet your ass.

Be afraid. Be very afraid...

As such, I haven't actually got past the second world at the time of writing this guff. However, seeing as the graphics are so mind-bendingly good and the story so completely off the wall, I'm prepared to stick my neck out and recommend this to neurotics, people with pace-makers and inmates of high-security medical wards only. Have fun!