Peripheral Review: Brook Wingman SD

Disclosure: The Brook Wingman SD was sent to us for review.

The Brook Wingman SD is an interesting device, coming from the powerhouse that is Brook Accessory. I’ve got one of their PCBs in my SEGA Virtua Stick High Grade, which permits its use on multiple formats with ease… and no lag. Brook have quite a catalogue of products, and I believe are building a decent brand name for themselves with quality useful products. 

What is the Wingman SD? In short, it’s a dongle, that allows the gamer to connect a multitude of modern peripherals to their Dreamcast as well as the Sega Saturn (check out Brian's article on The Saturn Junkyard for a look at the Saturn functionality). You can connect your 360, PS3, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch Pro controllers to the Dreamcast for some high quality gaming fun.

There was something a touch surreal pairing my PS3 controller to the DC… but it was incredibly easy to do, and worked extremely well, without any perceived lag. Same goes for the Xbox One controller. The Xbox controllers are often regarded as some of the most ergonomic (and I agree), and using them to play Sega Rally 2, Rez (OK I have that on 360 and PS4), Shenmue, Headhunter, Re-Volt, was really great. The device comes into its own with FPS, though, bringing the DC into the 21st Century proper. Some prefer keyboard and mouse, which you can do on DC, but I am a fan of controllers. And now, Quake, Unreal Tournament, etc… have proper dual analogue support. And wireless!! What a revelation! 

Review: Ghost Blade - Standard Review

Release date: September 27, 2015

Developer:  Hucast

Genre: Shmup (Vertical scrolling)

Current retail: £30 (Play-Asia.com)

In the second installment of our special two-part Ghost Blade review, the Junkyard takes a look at the game from the perspective of a genre enthusiast. The Novice Review can be found here.

Ok, let’s get this out of the way up top. I am not a shmup wizard. I like the shmup genre and, since the early 1990s, I have played a lot of them. However, while I consider myself relatively in-scene, I am not TASBot and I cannot one-credit Radiant Silvergun or Ikaruga. I like shmups because they were a core genre of my childhood and today, despite the golden era of arcade shooters being over, I still get a small buzz every time I begin a run. I think, simply put, they help me feel young again.

Good, that now said, let’s move into the detail of the review.

Ghost Blade is an easy game. If you are a gamer with even modest shmup skills, then you will have little difficulty beating the game on standard. Within a couple of day's play, I had familiarised myself with the selection of bullet patterns on offer, run the three ships in the hanger and despite being frustrated at times - we will get to that later - reached the end boss almost anti-climatically. The thing is though - none of that bothers me in the slightest and, if I’m being honest, the never ending cycle of debate about whether a shmup is ‘hard enough’ or ‘bullet hell enough’ is just boring to me now.

Review: Ghost Blade - Novice Review

Release date: September 27, 2015

Developer:  Hucast

Genre: Shmup (Vertical scrolling)

Current retail: £30 (Play-Asia.com)

This is first installment of our two-part review of Hucast's Ghost Blade, from the perspective of a casual shmup player. Part two, which is by a seasoned shmup player and appropriately titled the 'Standard Review' on account of Ghost Blade's two difficulty levels, can be found here.

It's finally here! Hucast's long-awaited vertical shmup has finally shipped, and represents another chapter in the Dreamcast's long and distinguished career as a console that just will not die. Here, in 2015 is a brand new game, complete with a manual and a DVD-style case that would not look out of place nestled amongst the other hi-def indie gems in any current gen system's library. But let's not jump the gun (ghost?). You may have noticed that this review is subtitled 'Novice Review.' That isn't because I'm only reviewing the novice mode found within Ghost Blade (more on that later); it's because I am a self-confessed layman when it comes to shmups. Sure, I've played pretty much all of the shooters on the Dreamcast and have sampled the delights of many a Taito and Irem shmup of yesteryear...but I'm not what you would call an 'expert' on the genre. In truth - I enjoy, but generally suck ass at shmups and so I will be offering my thoughts on this latest Dreamcast release as a complete neutral. I'll be explaining what Ghost Blade does well, what it does badly, how it sounds and how it plays for someone with a moderate level of experience with this type of title.

The genre is incredibly deep and has a massive following online and as such I don't want to pretend to be more knowledgeable than I am; furthermore I don't want to insult the intelligence or experience of those gamers who have poured hours and hours into other shooters, memorising bullet patterns and tactics in order to clinch an elusive high score. What I will do is give my opinion on Ghost Blade and Ghost Blade alone. An honest layman's opinion, if you will.

Fear not though, as another member of the team with slightly more experience than I will be laying down his thoughts for your delectation in part two of our review - imaginatively titled the 'Standard Review' in the coming days. See what we did there? Before you answer that particular rhetorical question, remember that high quality comedy was never guaranteed when you clicked on whichever Google/Twitter/Facebook/Pornhub link brought you to this review. What I mean to say is, if you have a Neo Geo MVS cartridge for a heart and/or brain you may want to wait for that review...but for the time being let's get this show on the road.

Review – 式神の城 (Shikigami no Shiro 2)

Release date: March 25, 2004

Developer:  Alfa System

Genre: Shmup (Vertical scrolling)

Current retail: £70-75 (eBay)

‘Right, number one, fuck you Jeff! Number two, yes Neal you are right as ever, a shoot-em-up necessitates a fucking spacecraft and three, if I hear another fucking teenager saying that Sine Mora is the best shmup ever...’ – Steve, Super Red Green Blue

Depending on how much of a shmup purist you are – in my case I would say I'm now a kind of Guardianista shmupper – either one or both of the latter two assertions in the quote above will resonate with you. Technically speaking, at least according to some of the more hardcore areas of the genre fan base, a shmup has to have a flying craft to be considered cannon.  No ifs no buts. If you aren't flying some hunk of heavily armed metal then that’s fine, we can hang out and enjoy blowing stuff away, down some beverages and chase score, but that title is never going to enter the historic halls of the shmup guild. You either have it or you are dead to the genre.

Each character has a primary and secondary attack. They vary in usefulness.

At one time I counted myself among these chosen brethren. The purity of the ideal was powerful. You either have it or you are dead. It helped reaffirm my gaming identity, putting down a marker that separated those who were in-scene and those who were casual, pretenders, far younger than me and had missed the shmup golden years. No fucking wanna-be hipster teenager was going to gate-crash my party and start expounding how Sine Mora was the best shooter ever. How could this moron understand? When you've ridden the fever dream dragon of Radiant Silvergun and drunk the milk of paradise, how do you even explain what you once saw? Far from bullet hell, it was bullet heaven.

Review: Dreamcast Collector for iOS

The other day I was messing around on my new iPad thingy and came across one of those 'apps' that the cool kids are known to play around with, and I thought it was worthy of a mention innit. Excuse me - I appear to have slipped into 'youth mode' for a moment there. We've previously looked at something similar here at the 'Yard (see Dream Collection), but Dreamcast Collector by PureGaming/Pieterjan Vandegaer is a paid application for iOS which does exactly what it says on the tin - it's a collection tracker for you iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. On firing the app up, you are presented with a long list on the left of the screen that shows thumbnails of the box art for most of the US and PAL releases (there are 276 games listed in the app). You are then encouraged to tap the icons for the games you have and can enter ownership criteria such as whether you have a complete game, or a copy sans manual or case. It's fairly straight forward and the games are all listed in alphabetical order. 

Dreamcast Collector is the must-have reference app for every Sega Dreamcast enthusiast. This app serves as a reference for every Dreamcast game ever released. Keep track of your own game collection and even keep a wanted list.

 - PureGaming.org

Classic Game Room's Fast Striker Review!

...Part one of two! This is the kind of attention this game really deserves: the game has been selling out since it was reduced on Play-Asia temporally and in my opinion it's the best indie shooter on the Dreamcast to date. There will be a 2nd video to this review soon.

Classic Game Room Reviews DUX

Classic game Room, by far my favorite video reviewer on the web, has finally got his teeth stuck into some Dreamcast indie goodness, starting off with DUX and hopefully more will follow. He does a much better job at reviewing this than i ever could simply because I couldn't even beat the first level in it! Lord Karnage has been reviewing a lot of Dreamcast games recently that you should also check out, such as Capcom vs SNK 2, Mortal Kombat Gold, Street Fighter Alpha 3, the Rumble (or Puru Puru) pack, and the Blue VMU. oh, to do this for a living..

NextGen's Shenmue Review

Last time I brought you scans of the ODCM review of 'Shenmue', which gave our favorite game a 10/10. This time I present the December, 2000 NextGen review of 'Shenmue' courtesy of Sega Stylista from the SEGAbits forums!

A 'Shenmue' review is always a happy read, I especially love when the drawers and cabinets of Ryo's house get a shout-out. Who didn't spend hours in Ryo's house searching through anything and everything for items and clues? Enjoy the retro review and make sure to check out the other Shenmonth articles conveniently listed at the bottom.

Shenmonth Mid-Month Articles Round-up

A Tribute to Goro
Shenhua Promo Figure

Ryo’s Saturn Collection

The ODCM Shenmue Review

5 Things Shenmue III Should Have

Darn, beaten to the first Wind + Water Video Review!

Just spotted this on 'That Guy with the Glassies' and man is it a good video review for the recently released Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles. In fact it makes the one I was working on look a bit shit, because it's not just informative, but darn funny too. It even has an animated segment about the history of the Dreamcast and how the public screwed it over because they wanted to wait to play the matrix on DVD on a PS2 instead. What's not to like? Apoloies again for still not getting my review sorted, so enjoy this one instead for now!

SOTB:GR Video Review and 'Why The Visuals Aren't That Bad After All...' Clip...

First is a quite funny video review of the excellent (see how fickle I am?) SOTB: Gut's Rage.
Wait for the quite disturbing quote "but at least Tinkerbell had a hot body..." I found it rather amusing!

Next is an example of just how good the visuals get towards the end (SPOILER ALERT!)
Now either the developers were tripping when they wrote this, or I was tripping when I was playing it... (Pesky kids! They've spiked me horlicks with mescaline again...)

Enjoy!!

Some cool Dreamcast review videos from The Classic Game Room

You know what? Looking back the '90s were pretty damn cool. There was actually good music on the radio all the time. We had kick ass Sega consoles to play video games on. My taste in clothing and personal hygiene were seen as "cool" and "Grunge" rather than "being a scruffy looking SOB". For a very brief time the Internet was cool as well. This was before vast amounts of idiots knew how to invade EVERY SINGLE decent chat room and message board. And of course the late '90s were the time of the Dreamcast (back before it became undead). This was also the time of the Classic Game Room. The first retro video game review Internet show.

Before the dot-com bubble burst this show reviewed the latest and greatest video games. You can learn more about the show at their website.

Anyways, they reviewed video games in a minimalist style that was sometimes insane, but always fun to watch. Here are a selection of some of their reviews of Dreamcast titles. You can learn something about the games, but please take these with a grain of salt. They were meant to be for entertainment. For Gods sakes they gave "Gundam" a higher rating than "Virtual On"!!! But still, enjoy...















...Did I also post these because I am too busy to make my own review video? Yes.