Dreamcast News Roundup

9/9 is a magnet for Dreamcast news. Within one week there are more stories of interest to Dreamcast fans than there is in a typical month! As such, I've rounded up some stories and news tips rather than stagger them over a series of posts (hence the term "roundup"). Let's get a long lil' doggies!

First up is a ALERT for those who subscribed to GOAT Store Publishings newsletter in an attempt to recieve their super special coupon, which is said to be all five of their indie titles for $50 (that's $36 savings!). Due to a glitch in their system on 9/9, many requests for their newsletter were lost. If you did not receive an email notification after signing up, you are not signed up. If you aren't subscribed, head on over to this link and do so. They've extended the coupon application time to Friday due to the glitch.

Next up is are two cool interviews with indie developers Senile Team and NG:Dev.Team courtesty of SEGAbits and brought to my attention by forum member cube_b3. These are the teams that brought us Rush Rush Rally Racing and the upcoming Fast Striker. Give the Senile Team interview a read here and also check out the NG:Dev.Team interview here!

This third piece of news is all about the rereleases of Dreamcast classics! Tomorrow Sonic Adventure will hit XBLA and PSN for $10, making it the first of the many promised Dreamcast releases from SEGA. The game will feature achievements/tropies and is said to feature DLC, though this feature has only been seen in very early leaks and could be cut for all I know. Check out the video above  and make sure to download the demo tomorrow if you can. Always try before you buy.

Another Dreamcast game being resurrected, this time on the iPod Touch and iPhone, is the awesome Chu Chu Rocket. Impressions of the game have been very positive, such as those found in this preview from Touch Arcade. Highlights from the preview include:

Multiplayer is 1-4 players, and you can either join up in teams of two or play free for all style. The goal here is to get as many mice to your own rocket as possible, while using arrows to direct cats into players rockets in order to prevent them from gaining any mice. This mode can be played over WiFi, 3G, or Bluetooth, and if you can't find any friends to play with you can add bots to the game and play against the AI. There are 25 levels to battle on, and the game will be the first from Sega to utilize Apple's new Game Center social network.

...

ChuChu Rocket! was a total blast when I had a chance to play it today, and it makes me sad that I never tried out this title almost a decade ago. It seems like a perfect fit for the iPhone, with all of the original levels reworked to be touch screen friendly. Gamers have been begging Sega to bring ChuChu Rocket! out on a current platform for years, and finally they will get their wish on the iPhone and iPad. Both versions will be exactly the same except for the iPad version which will contain a same-device 4 player multiplayer mode. Expect to see ChuChu Rocket! sometime in late October.

So there you have it for the Dreamcast news roundup! It seems every aspect of the undead console is thriving: the fan community, the developers and the games of old. All hail the undead console!

Hurricane Warning!

Hydro Thunder Hurricane hits the XBOX Arcade today!

While I admit this piece of news isn't exactly Dreamcast nor SEGA related, what Dreamcast fan DIDN'T play the original Hydro Thunder back in the day? Heck, it was a launch title! While the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 had their own versions of the game, it was the Dreamcast that offered the best experience. Hurricane, the first official sequel, carries over many elements of the original. A majority of the boats are back, tracks match or include nods to past tracks and graphics are as awesome as the original (though Hurricane obviously looks way better).

I've downloaded the trial version and plan on buying the full version this weekend. The full game is $15 and is only on the 360. Finally, I can race as Damn the Torpedoes in HD!

Dreamcast Returns - High Res Screenshots

Following up on the previous post announcing SEGA rereleasing Dreamcast classics 'Crazy Taxi' and 'Sonic Adventure', we now have high res screens of said games! Other sites may have these, but probably not as huge as the Junkyard does. Click the images to imbiggen:

While it's unfortunate that 'Sonic Adventure' looks to be standard 4:3, it does look rather pretty and runs very smoothly according to an old leaked video. Word is that both will be available for demo at E3, and thanks to our association with SEGAbits we might be getting some video to show here at the 'Yard. Stay tuned, Dreamers!

Jet Set Radioooo!!!

Jet Set Radio, my very first game for the Dreamcast, and even after playing literally hundreds of them, I think it's still my favourite game for the system. It was just so awesome and unique for its time... Hell, it's still awesome and unique today! It represented Sega at its peak of quality and creativity, and like many other great Sega franchises it only had one sequel. You know, because unlike other companies (*cough*Nintendo*cough*), and with the exception of a certain blue hedgehog, Sega is not known for mercilessly milking its franchises to death... (how many different sports did Mario practised already?).


Unfortunately that sequel has been out of my reach for years, since, like many sequels original programmed for the Dreamcast, it ended up being released for the Xbox after Sega officially killed its little white box of awesome. But hey, that's why god invented retro compatibility! Today, thanks to my beloved Xbox 360, I'm finally able to play that hallowed title and man, isn't it fucking great!

The core of the game stays the same. You're still a kid in rollerblades trying to cover a city in graffiti, while avoiding corrupt police officers and clashing with other gangs. What changed is the way you do all this. In the original game you had missions. You enter a zone, have to cover it in graffiti within the given time limit, and you only leave after successfully completing your objective. Now that's all gone. Your garage is no longer just a menu, it's a fully 3D "mini-level" which serves as a hub to reach the city areas, and you can freely go in an out of those areas without any time limit or other constraints. You are free to enter an area, calmly explore it, paint a few tags, even save your game in special spots, and go out without any penalty. Some might argue that this takes away that thrill of being against the clock in the original, but for me this is just great because now you can play at your own rythm, with no stress.


The way the police acts is also different. In the original they would come after you painted a certain number of graffiti, chasing you mercilessly (which in later levels forces us to carefully select which graffiti to paint first, because it's really hard to paint larger ones with tanks behind your tail). Now they only appear at certain spots and when they do, you just have to knock them down and paint their backs for them to run away. Once again, for some people this means no chase=no fun. For me this means no fucking police trying to kill me while I'm busy painting walls, and that's good.

There is one change I don't like, though. In the original, in order to paint the medium and large graffiti you had to move the analog stick according to the directions shown on-screen, kind of simulating the movement of our character, waving its arms in the air while painting the walls. Now you just need to hold down the trigger and move along the area you want to paint, which honestly feels like an unnecessary change and it takes away some of the fun of doing the graffiti.


Graphics wise, the cell-shading of the original game was so freaking awesome that it would be impossible to do much better with the sequel. This is true, but still there are some nice improvements, like gorgeous lighting effects or way bigger areas. Sometimes it looks like they overdid it, though, with areas so full of NPC's the game actually slows down. About this I don't know if it's the game's fault, or it's just the 360 emulator (just because a Xbox game is playable on the 360 it doesn't mean that it'll run flawlessly), but still it's a little annoying. On the plus side of things, as the name implies this game is set after the events of the first one, so be prepared to meet redrawn models of your favourite characters and even some updated versions of well-known areas from the first game. Professor K looks a little too futuristic, though...



But JSR is not only known for great graphics and gameplay, it also had a freaking awesome soundtrack that, to this day, it's still my favourite licensed game soundtrack (the 2nd place belongs to Need for Speed: Underground, great soundtrack that one had...). Featuring a psychedelic mix of rock, hip-hop and techno, it fitted the game perfectly and was even enjoyable by itself. Well, I'm proud to say that JSRF's soundtrack is equally impressive! Once again it's a great mix of various genres, it fits the game perfectly and you'll get so hooked to it you'll immediately consider buying the cd to listen to it while away from the game.


(this review sucks, but at least you can watch more gameplay footage)

Overall, as expected this game is not as ground breaking as the first one, and it's not the perfect sequel either, but it's a really great game and it's well worth the title Jet Set Radio. Fans of the original game owe to themselves to try this one out, for even if this game represents the start of Sega's demise as a respected software-house, it still has some of that magic from the Dreamcast era, something hard to find these days, unfortunately. Also, knowing that so many Sega games are left without follow-ups, we have to be thankful for the mere fact that this one exists.

Chin up, the Dreamcast continues to live on through other consoles!

After hearing that horrible rumour about Gamestation destroying most of their retro stock to make more room for modern games, you may need some cheering up, so here's my crack at it: while you won't be able to buy Dreamcast games in any UK chains anymore (excluding the odd second hand shop you may be lucky enough to live close to), Dreamcast games seem to keep invading the current generation of consoles.


Most recently we've had REZ HD and Ikaruga on Xbox Live Arcade, giving HD gamers the chance to play two of the greatest shooters the Dreamcast ever conceived, and news has been released that Namco plan to release the original Dreamcast Soul Calibur on Live Arcade in anticipation for the upcoming forth installment. Have they really made that many already? It only feels like yesterday that Soul Calibur was rocking my world. Oh wait, that because it was, because it's still arguably the best in the series, and playing it on a 32" TV with a VGA cable is still an absolute wonder to look at, despite not being in HD.

On just about every system most recently we were treated to Sega Superstar Tennis, a Virtua Tennis spin off that salutes Sega's history of great characters (and Shadow), particularly the Dreamcast era that gets a huge representation in it with the inclusion of characters and locations from Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, House of the Dead and Samba De Amigo.The game is great fun and already quite cheap to buy if you haven't already. The games developer Sumo Digital seems to know why we love Sega more than Sega itself.

Speaking of Samba De Amigo, the upcoming Wii version of the game was shown off at a recent Nintendo event, along with some wonderful looking screenshots (but sadly no footage yet) and impressions that were mostly positive (except some complaints from people who can't play the game properly). It is looking beautiful and gives you the option to play the game with two remotes instead of a remote and a nunchuck, the first game to even do this on the Wii so far. While there is nothing quite like shaking two big plastic maracas that rattle, this new game will finally give this much over looked classic a second chance and this time it has the potential to be BIG.

Even the handhelds are not safe from the Dreamcast invasion, with a DS sequel to a personal favorite of mine, Bangai-O, on it's way to the DS, and the PSP getting ports of Crazy Taxi and Power Stone.

These alongside Sega Bass Fishing, House of the Dead 2 + 3 Return, Trigger Heart Exelica on Xbox Live and the Milestone Shooting Collection (Chaos Field, Radilgy and Karous) on the Japanese Import Wii, show that the Dreamcast's amazing library of games is spreading across all formats even today, years after the console stopped production. Be happy in the knowledge that those that never played the Dreamcast are only just now catching up with it's greatness, and that we were years ahead of them. =)

X-box Live arcade gets some updated Dreamcast goodness.

See that picture?

The cat represents the X-box 360.

The corn represents Dreamcast games like Rez and Ikaruga.

As you can see the X-box 360 is really enjoying the Dreamcast goodness. And I am sure gamers will too.

...Ok fine. I just wanted an excuse to post that .gif. But really a HD edition of Rez and an updated version of Ikaruga are being released on X-box Live. Rejoice.

-Articles linked from Kotaku.

EDIT: Racketboy has a much better article up about this that I somehow missed before. Go. Read. It.

Btw: One of these games (Rez) was mentioned in an article that Gagaman(n) wrote awhile back. Of course he said it should be remade for the Wii, not the 360. Still I think 1/2 points should be awarded.

X-Box Live Arcade woefully behind the Dreamcast in terms of awesomeness

Well it appears that the X-box is trying to play catch up with the Dreamcast.

They now offer a version of Marthon:Durandal on X-box Live Arcade.

Joystiq Article

Xbox Marathon Website

Quote form the X-box wesbite.

"This title is only available to Xbox 360™ owners with an Xbox LIVE Silver or Gold membership, through download from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace."

Technically that is true. To get the faster upgraded version with a few add-ons you have to have the X-box 360.

But if you want play THE WHOLE TRILOGY (including the original version of Durandal!) all you need is a Dreamcast, a CD-R and a decent internet connection!

Download it at the DC Evolution website.

That's right. First the Wii and now the Xbox 360. The new gen just keeps on ripping off the Dreamcast...

Yes the DC Evolution website has had THE WHOLE TRILOGY up for awhile. Of course there are some drawbacks (the most painful being that you can't save).

But still. Three original games versus one remake.

Simple math people

3>1

Dreamcast > Xbox live Arcade

The Undead Console leaves another victim in it's wake...

Live the Dream people...

All hail the Undead Console!

All hail the Dreamcast!