A Quick Look At 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker

Of all the NAOMI to Dreamcast ports that were given a wide release - there are several that only got a limited release in Japan - 18 Wheeler is undoubtedly the one that gets the shortest of shrifts. Cast your mind back to those pastel hued days of Sega's arcade dominance and subsequent ports to the home tellybox, and names like Crazy Taxi, Ferrari F355 Challenge, Virtua Tennis, Outtrigger and Cosmic Smash instantly spring to mind. 18 Wheeler? Not so much.

This is odd for a couple of reasons, but the main one - for me at least - is the awesome way in which the game was presented in coin-op fashion in some locations. To whit, the game was set up with a huge mock truck cab that did a good job of allowing the player to feel like they were really driving an articulated lorry - it certainly felt very grand to the teenage me playing 18 Wheeler in the Namco Station at Manchester's Trafford Centre, anyway.

Since those heady days of the early 2000s, I have gone on to acquire my HGV license in real life (don't ask, it's a long story) and I am legally allowed to drive trucks of varying sizes. I can say though - with some authority - that driving a truck in reality is nowhere near as fun as it is in 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker. The game was ported from the arcade to the Dreamcast and released in PAL territories in June 2001 - several months after the announcement that Sega was ceasing production of the console. As you can probably imagine, the reception was lukewarm - to say the least.

This late release probably has a lot to do with the decision to allow Acclaim to publish the game on the PlayStation 2 and Gamecube after Sega had consigned the Dreamcast to the great bargain bin in the sky; but for the purpose of keeping this consignment of Dreamcast-related cargo on track, let's hit the road and take a look at Crazy Taxi's poor relation. More specifically what it gets right, what it gets wrong and whether it's worth your time and money. This is 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker...

Dreamcast Release Schedule 2018

As reported in March, JoshProd's next batch of Dreamcast titles will be available soon, and will include the likes of sides-scrolling beat-em-up Okinawa Rush, Flashback sequel Fade to Black, vertical shmup Battle Crust, and 2D Adventure game The Escapee. Unlike previous JoshProd batches, none of these are reprints of previous indie games and all are new ports to the Dreamcast, which is terribly exciting.

According to the French online store Rush On Game, these Dreamcast "Unreleases" will be available to order tomorrow, May 3.

In other "new" game news, JoshProd's first release for 2018 might have slipped you by under the radar. After releasing a PAL style reprint in 2017, a US/J-NTSC style release of Ghost Blade was released on March 23. We originally reported this as an exclusive to Video Games New York store, which was taking pre-orders in February, but the game has since showed up at Play-asia.com (link) and The Bit Station (link).

This is the Japanese cover, which is printed on the flip-side of the manual to the US-style cover.

Dreamcasting

This might have passed you by, but back in 2014, Sega commissioned a stage play to commemorate Phantasy Star Online's 15th Anniversary. Series producer Satoshi Sakai and series director Yuya Kimura supervised the play, which was produced by Masahiro Nakayama. The stage play had a short run between December 4-7 in 2014 at the Aoyama Theater in Japan, and was later released on DVD.

As part of the live performance, some musical numbers were also included. Haruko Momoi composed and wrote the songs, and these were performed by Shota Aoi and Nitta Megumi, who played the main characters Takuya and Yumi.

Takuya

Yumi

One such glorious example is provided below, the wonderfully titled "Dreamcasting." Enjoy.

Some Interesting Items Of Dreamcast Merchandise...And The Stories Behind Them

We do like a bit of obscure merchandise here at the Junkyard, and even more so when it pertains to the good old Dreamcast. Merchandise has come a long way in the 300 years that I've been alive, and these days you youngsters have all sorts of phone cases and wallets to keeps your 'plastic' in that give hints as to the way in which your nerdy bread is buttered. Back when I was a wee lad in the early 1700s we had nought but a flash of treated ox hide with our workhouse name pressed into it to remember our opulent upbringings. Eh, they don't make merch like they used to.

Anyway, for fear of losing literally everybody who actually bothered to click the social media links to read this, let me fast forward to the present, and the fine pieces of Dreamcast-related (and in some cases, lesser spotted) Dreamcast merchandise recently acquired by the Vvcollectiv (which stands for Valley Vintage Collectiv).

The Vvcollectiv is a two man operation made up of Rene Guard and Eddie Bogard, and these fine gentlemen are also behind the annual Dreamcast event held in Burbank, CA. When not hosting events, they collect and display more interesting items of Dreamcast paraphernalia (one being the Dreamcast Control Unit we featured a few years ago). Here are the latest acquisitions made by Vvcollectiv - at least one of which I have never previously seen (the Hawaiian shirt). These items were acquired from a former Sega of America employee and while some of them are fairly common, it's the stories behind the items that I find most interesting...

A Dreamcast branded Hawaiian shirt:

"The Hawaiian shirt we had to wear along with the Dreamcast fishing hat for the Weinie Roast concert event where we had kiosks of Dreamcast games set up. Nothing too memorable happened there. We were near the front of the event far away from the concert stages so not that many people were ever at our booth. It was a two day event and I was exhausted by the end of it!"

A Quick Look At Iron Aces

War is hell. So said General William Tecumseh Sherman way back in 1864, apparently. War was undoubtedly about as close to hell as human beings could get going way back to pre-history and antiquity, and still happens to be so in the modern day. With this in mind, the last major worldwide conflict was World War II, and this is the theatre which acts as a backdrop to the Dreamcast's only dogfighting, dive-bombing, kamikaze-preventing flight sim: Iron Aces. Sort of.

See, Iron Aces from Xicat is very much a game that is set during the height of the 20th century's most deadly conflict, but also one which takes place on a fictitious archipelago made up of islands which bear striking resemblances to Great Britain, Germany, the United States and Japan. These are the main belligerents featured in Iron Aces, but the names of the countries have been doctored somewhat, even if the geographic shapes of the islands haven't. So, Great Britain becomes Trincer, the United States is Valiant, Japan is Yamato and Germany is Blocken. This is initially quite puzzling - especially since the actual countries involved in WWII are name checked constantly, and the Royal Air Force constantly referred to; however, the slightly fantastical setting undoubtedly gave developer Marionette the freedom to create missions and scenarios which, in reality, did not take place.

With this in mind though, there are numerous instances where real life events are clearly the inspiration for mission types and objectives, so the puzzlement remains intact. Anyway, I'm jumping the gun a bit. Join us as we take a quick look at one of the Dreamcast's hidden gems in the form of a true Battle of Britain simulator - Iron Aces.

The Dreamcast isn't short of decent flight sims and flight-based arcade shooters. There are the outstanding Aero Dancing/AeroWings titles if realism is your bag; and likewise there are games like Propeller Arena, Incoming and Air Force Delta available if you prefer more arcade-styled aerial thrills. Iron Aces however, sits slap bang in the middle of these two styles. It really isn't a simulator and it has a couple of mechanics that prevent it being classed as an all out arcade experience, and so it's pretty fair to class it as both a sim and an arcade shooter at the same time. And also one that takes a few liberties when it comes to historical accuracy. Don't let that put you off though, as to write Iron Aces off due to its slightly fabricated pseudo-WWII setting would be doing it a disservice.

Shenmue & Shenmue II HD Remasters Announced By SEGA

It had to happen didn't it? After years of pressure on social media SEGA has finally announced that yes, HD remasters of Shenmue and Shenmue II are coming to current gen systems and PC in 2018. Revealed at the SEGA FES event in Japan, these new versions of the Dreamcast masterpiece look set to introduce a whole new generation to the annoying controls and awkward dialogue Dreamcast fans have endured for the past two decades.

From the SEGA Europe press release:

"SEGA Europe Ltd. is proud to announce that the pioneering epic saga Shenmue™ I & II is to be re-released for a new generation. Get ready to go on a thrilling voyage across faithful recreations of Japan and Hong Kong, China, in a timeless tale of revenge and mystery when Shenmue I & II launches both physically and digitally on PlayStation® 4 and Xbox® One with a PC release on Steam in 2018.

"Since their original release, Shenmue I & II have established a passionate following and are revered as one of gaming’s greatest series of all time. These revolutionary masterpieces deliver a gripping story of retribution as Ryo Hazuki sets out to avenge his father’s death and attempts to unravel the secrets behind a mysterious artefact known as the Dragon Mirror.

"Shenmue I & II comes complete with the original feature set that defined modern gaming, including enthralling jujitsu combat, investigative sleuthing, and RPG elements in addition to memorable mini-games. Shenmue I & II is set within engrossing real-time open worlds that feel truly alive thanks to day-to-night cycles and weather changes, with a population of civilians who follow their own schedules.

"This is the definitive version of these all-time classics and will be the best Shenmue experience to date. The re-release will stay true to the originals with modernised features including fully scalable screen resolution, choice of modern or classic control schemes, PC graphics options, an updated user interface and the option to enjoy either the original Japanese or English voiceovers.

The physical and digital editions will be available to pre-order from first party stores, Steam and US and EMEA retailers soon. Oh, and now all you nerds on Twitter can stop banging on about Save Shenmue this and Shenmue tweetathon that. Jeez guys. We get it."

- SEGA Europe

I do find it slightly odd that these games are coming to the Xbox One as well as PlayStation 4 when the third game is reportedly a PS4 exclusive, but this will undoubtedly only allow more people to enjoy the original instalments in the adventure. That said, I challenge anybody not to lose interest at the point where you have to get a job in a warehouse in Shenmue II, HD or not.

So there we have it. Shenmue is back. It seemed like a bit of a no-brainer when you consider that Shenmue III is on its way. Releasing the third part of a series into a world where the only way to really appreciate the originals is by getting a Dreamcast and then paying through the nose for original games on eBay (or...um...burning copies) seemed a bit daft. Anyway, I'm going back to bed now and hopefully I won't wake up to a nuclear dawn...

Here's the reveal trailer:

Find out more about Shenmue and Shenmue II remasters here: https://shenmue.sega.com/

Thoughts? Overjoyed that Ryo is back to kick Lan Di's ass all over again in HD? Or could you not give a rat's ass about all this and just wish World War III wasn't about to start? Let us know in the comments or join the conversation on Twitter or in our Facebook group.

SG-1000 Vs Dreamcast: The Games That Appeared On Sega's First And Last Consoles

With the creation of 'The SG-1000 Junkyard', I've had my mind on Sega's first console as of late. Members of our Facebook group may have seen that I recently posed a question to our members: which Sega series appeared on every single Sega console? The short answer is none, but there were a number of games, series and characters that appeared on both the SG-1000 and the Dreamcast, so I had the bright idea of setting up a comparison of sorts for shits and giggles, while also shamelessly plugging our new website.

Lancia Stratos

Lancia Stratos - Safari Race (1984), Sega Rally 2 (1998)

While not one of the starting cars in the original Sega Rally, the Lancia Stratos is famous for being the faster but less wieldy unlockable car in the subsequent Saturn port. As all good Dreamcast fans should know, it graced the cover of Sega Rally 2 in all regions. What's less well known however, is that the car was licensed to a game much, much earlier in Sega's history.

Unfortunately, no rhinos are featured as hazards in Sega Rally 2.

Unlike Sega Rally, Safari Race wasn't a port of a state of the art arcade game, but instead a simplistic 8-bit racer released exclusively for Sega's first console. In the game, the player must drive along a desert track avoiding other cars and wild animals, while paying close attention not to run out of fuel by periodically stopping at petrol pumps to refuel.

The Original Quake and Doom are soon to be playable Online with DreamPi

The man responsible for bringing the vast majority of Dreamcast games back online with DreamPi, Shuouma has announced, he will soon release versions of Quake and Doom compatible with dial up online play via DreamPi.

While fan-made Dreamcast ports of both Quake and Doom have been around for years now, and Dreamcast Online has helped support Doom online play via the broadband adapter, this will be the first time our community is able play Doom via DreamPi, and Quake online in any form.

The World's Tiniest Astro City Arcade Cabinet

OK, so this isn't exclusively Dreamcast related, but it does involve the Dreamcast and so that's all the reason I need to knock up a little news peice about it. For those who don't know, the Astro City is a model of arcade cabinet introduced by Sega in the early 1990s and is pretty prevalent in Japanese arcades, even today. Seems one talented chap named Adam McAmis decided to turn a 1/12th scale model Astro City cabinet into a working one designed for ants...sort of:

Yo whatup, here’s my 1/12th scale Astro City model running Third Strike via a Dreamcast that has another tiny Dreamcast on top of it. pic.twitter.com/JgeukizorT

— Adam McAmis (@Sega_AM2) April 2, 2018

In truth, the model is running off a Dreamcast that's connected to a tiny screen installed into the Astro City, which in turn was salvaged from a dashcam, and (as you'd expect) the teeny tiny controls on the Astro City aren't actually controlling the game...because they aren't real controls. Still, it's very cool to see this type of thing and while Adam states that his creation seems to get nothing but derisory comments from people passing his desk in real life, we have nothing but admiration for this little project. Well done Adam - haters gon' hate, but we love it!

Source: Twitter

Don't Pelorian!

We return to our regularly scheduled programming...

Red vs. Blue: The Definitive SG-1000 hardware guide

**UPDATE** This article has been cross-posted on our new sister site: The SG-1000 Junkyard

Did you know that Sega's logo used to be red? Back in the 60's and 70's, it used to look like this, and was proudly displayed on their early electro-mechanical arcade machines.

While the blue Sega logo we all know and love would be introduced in the late 70's and early 80's, the first version of the SG-1000 would eschew a blue colour scheme, and instead featured a bold black, red and yellow motif.

This design featured in the early promotional material, and first went on sale on 15th July 1983 (although it was rumoured to have been test-marketed in isolated prefectures as early as 1981). The original SJ-200 joystick originally came hardwired to the console for player 1, with a port for a second joystick for Player 2 (sold separately). 

The original packaging for the first black-stripe model

The Beginning of the End? Or the Start of the Dawn of a New Age of Junkyard?

We here at the Junkyard have been doing some serious navel gazing recently. After over 12 years of bringing you all the latest news, reports, stories, interviews, reviews, features, rants, opinions, podcasts, videos, and random inane musings about all things Dreamcast, we've realised two things.

Is that a Dreamcast swirl?

Reaperi Cycle - A New Indie Game For Dreamcast

Another day, another new Dreamcast game is announced. This time, it's the ambiguously titled Dreamcast exclusive Reaperi Cycle from the even more ambiguously titled Ancient Hermetic Developers Guild. This new announcement comes by way of a pretty - you guessed it - ambiguous teaser trailer that appeared on YouTube recently, along with a pretty bare bones micro site.

The trailer doesn't really give much away bar for a few shots of surrealist landscapes and some rather intriguing dialogue, although the website hints that Reaperi Cycle will be an 'isometric alchemical tale about fire, magic, merchants, statues and a temple.' So probably an isometric puzzle game then. With light RPG elements? And some nice statues dotted about the place, maybe a tasteful pot plant? Just an educated guess on my part, and probably totally wrong like most things I hazard a guess at. Either way, it's nice to have another Dreamcast title to look forward to, however ambiguous it seems. Did I mention it's all a bit ambiguous?

We'll keep you updated as and when we learn more about Reaperi Cycle. Not too sure on that name though...you know what I'm thinking, don't deny it. Reappear-y cycle? Why, what were you thinking? Filthy minded urchin.

Source: Pcwzrd on Twitter

New Book Documents Every Single Tony Hawk Game

We love a good book here at the Junkyard, especially if there's some interesting and original Dreamcast specific content contained within said tome. Naturally, due to this we're eagerly awaiting the upcoming Dreamcast books from Pix 'N Love and Read-Only Memory, but here's something you may not have heard about previously: a brand new publication that goes deep on the entire series of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater releases, which also includes the two awesome Dreamcast versions.

Tony Hawk's Gaming Domination: The Rise and Fall of the Hawk Franchise (website here) features in-depth investigations on all 17 Tony Hawk games, across 25 different platforms and promises to be the most comprehensive examination of the Tony Hawk series ever laid down. The fact that it's written by the most knowledgeable Tony Hawk expert around - Trevor 'Slateman' Esposito, founder of Planet Tony Hawk - only adds extra weight to this lofty claim.

The book includes comparisons of the Hawk games

The Dreamcast played host to a number of skating titles, but the Tony Hawk ports are regarded as the very best not only on the Dreamcast, but the finest versions of those respective titles; with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 singled out in particular for how good a conversion the Dreamcast received.

Cross Platform Online Multiplayer Added To Doom For Dreamcast

Not content with dragging large swathes of the Dreamcast's official library back online with Ooga Booga, POD 2, NFL 2K and Monaco Online (to name but a few), all-round programming genius Shuouma has turned his attention to an unofficial Dreamcast release and managed to bring it online for the first time. That game is DCDoom, an unofficial port of id's seminal first person shooter, and now Dreamcast owners can play cross platform with PC owners. Sounds pretty awesome, right?

Naturally, the pool of gamers still playing multiplayer Doom is quite small these days, and even smaller if you factor in the number of people who own a Dreamcast, a DreamPi and a copy of DCDoom...but still, the fact that this is an option is pretty interesting. Shuouma has confirmed that cross platform gaming works, stating:

"I looked at this and I have now added modem support for DCDoom. I have also tested to play
from my DC after dialup against my Linux machine running SDL Doom. Works fine. So the network-code is working. People just need to be careful when setting up the network variables."

- Shuouma

It's worth noting that you will need a specially modded version of DCDoom which Shuouma says will be released soon as a downloadable CDI file. We'll update this article when it's available and we've tested it out ourselves, but in the meantime you can find out more about this fascinating project by visiting the DC-Talk forum thread on the topic here. Thank's to Luiz Nai for the heads up on this.

Source: Dreamcast Talk

Okinawa Rush Heads Up New Dreamcast Releases

As recently reported over at Dreamcast News, the latest batch of new Dreamcast releases from Josh Prod have been revealed via some great detective work. These new titles follow in the footsteps of Flashback, 4x4 Jam and Breakers et al which were released throughout 2017, and there are some pretty tantalising titles included. Heading up the lineup is the Kickstarter originated Okinawa Rush, a frantic 2D side scrolling beat 'em up with RPG elements and some outstanding action sequences.

Further to this, we can expect Dreamcast ports of the underrated 3D sequel to Flashback, Fade to Black, obscure Amiga adventure game The Escapee and vertically scrolling shmup Battle Crust. Of all the games in the list, Fade to Black is the one which intrigues me the most, and it'll be interesting to see whether it is a port of the PC release of Conrad Hart's continued struggle against alien invaders, or if it is based on the PlayStation version.

Battle Crust is a vertical shmup first released on Steam in 2015 by Picorinne Soft, a small indie developer based in Japan. It has a similar aesthetic to PC Engine shmups like Armed Formation F and looks like it will fit in rather well with the Dreamcast's existing stable of sublime shooters. We do have access to an early beta version of this Dreamcast release, so we'll let you know how it plays very soon. Finally, there is The Escapee from Invictus Games - a very Flashback-esque 2D adventure with a fantastic intro sequence and some of the most deliciously difficult puzzles ever seen in this genre. I know, because I'm one of the three people on Earth who have played it.

JoshProd are yet to officially announce these releases or the dates that they'll be available to order, although we have spoken to Philippe at JoshProd and it looks like there will be more concrete information in late April 2018. We'll have reviews of all of these titles as and when we can get our hands on them. Exciting times, eh?!

Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments, on Twitter or on Facebook.

Source: Dreamcast News / JoshProd

The Great Dreamcast BMX Off: Mirra Vs Hoffman

Recently I collated all the games I’ve never played for even a second, Dreamcast and non-Dreamcast alike, into a massive crate of shame. A shameful pile of things I had impulsively purchased and had then shown zero willingness to play. My goal and desire for this project was to spur myself on to begin playing at least two of them a week. For a minimum of 27 minutes and giving a sort of commentary on those first 27 minutes. A quick-fire thoughts and feelings if you will. The idea being to not only alleviate my sinful hoarding ways, but to also begin forcing my favourite pastime back into my weekly calendar.

Having collated all the Dreamcast games into one separate pile, I was confused as to why I owned Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX twice - one copy fully boxed, and one disc only. I then wondered where my copy of Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX was. Anyone who has ever seen my games room will know I possess the organisational skills of your average Womble, and so I quickly decided I must have misplaced it and resolved to look up the cover to assist finding it in my junk shop of a games room.

The reason it appears I couldn’t find it seems to be that unlike the US we never received the game, so I don’t actually own a genuine copy of it. Research (or one Google search to be exact) didn’t bring me a concrete reason for its lack of a blue edged version, although it did lead to a sort of breakthrough in that it is Mat Hoffman, not Matt. The fact that the dude can’t even spell his own name is sadly not a mystery I can solve for you, but what I can bring you is Mat Hoffman vs Dave Mirra. The battle of the Dreamcast BMX-ers! Gnarly! - just what 2018 was crying out for I hear you say…

Getting the chance to shred up some BMX arenas, without putting my actual aging body at harm, seemed ideal. And would give me a chance to test Dave Mirra’s box marketing claim that it is ‘The number 1 Dreamcast BMX game.’ So without further hesitation: riders ready, watch the gate. Go!