DC Light Gun Games On Modern Lucuda Tuv...LCD TV

Finally!

This story has been doing the rounds on social media as of late, so it may seem like old hat, but for those who aren't wasting their pitiful existence on this planet posting selfie or pick-up photos and fishing for likes from strangers, this may come as a pleasant surprise to you.

It's a problem many of us faced around a decade ago; plugging in our Dreamcast light gun with the intention of caning through a bit of House of the Dead 2 perhaps months or even years after trashing the old tube TV in favour of a modern flat screen, only to find that wherever we point the damn thing, all that's accomplished is reloading full clips of ammo over and over until we die before even getting the chance to meet G over there.

Being able to enjoy lightgun games again has become one of the many motivations in tracking down a CRT for many, but it isn't exactly the most practical solution for those without the space, or with a wife who no doubt can't stand the idea of a fat grey eyesore in her carefully designed Zen inspired living room. And while you can use a Gamegear, it seems that there may finally be a more practical solution...sorry Caleb!

Shenmue III Kickstarter Update August 2016

It's all been a bit quiet on the Shenmue III front recently. Apart from the odd snarky comment I've heard on various podcasts about how shit it's inevitably going to be* when it finally drops, there's been precious little information forthcoming from Ys Net's headquarters in Japan. That changed today though, with a Kickstarter update titled 'From the Dev Room.' The update only really consists of a short video where several developers are interrupted and asked to show the camera what they're working on though, so don't get too excited.

One guy shows that he's working on a recreation of the river jumping section from Shenmue II and demonstrates some wireframe animations of Ryo trying his best not to get his trainers wet; while a colleague shows off a section in which Ryo is avoiding being crushed by falling rocks. I've taken a few screen grabs of the video and dotted them around here, but you should probably go and check out the video on the Kickstarter page too. Oh, and donate while you're there if you haven't already.

Developer Interview: Tom Napior (guacasaurus_mex)

Tom Napior hit the gaming headlines earlier in 2016 when he successfully ported Flappy Bird to the humble VMU. Later, also under his Instagram name of 'guacasaurus_mex,' he released Street Race, an Outrun-inspired racing game that showed just how capable the tiny memory device could be when squeezed. Most recently though, Tom has been in the spotlight for his attempt to bring Pokémon GO to the VMU, and we thought it was about time we caught up with this talented homebrew developer to see why the VMU holds so much appeal for him...

Street Race features greyscale VMU graphics not seen before.

DCJY: Hi Tom, thanks very much for taking the time out to speak to us. First things first - your Instagram name, guacasaurus_mex...are you a fan of guacamole?

Tom Napior: Haha! I’m a fan of all Mexican food...and dinosaurs, so it seemed like a good fit.

I did wonder. Now we’ve got that cleared up, let's discuss your fantastic endevours with the Dreamcast, and more specifically the VMU. What’s your history with the Dreamcast? Did you have one when they were contemporary hardware?

I sure did! I picked one up back in 2000 from a local game store and have never looked back really. I got Soul Calibur (which to this day is one of my favourite games of all time) and have always been fascinated by the VMU…such a cool idea!

In Search Of The Barber: Part Three - We Found Him

Recently we published the second part of our series in which we've been searching for the identity of the mystery man who fronted the European Dreamcast advertising campaign. There is almost nothing online detailing who this guy was, and considering his face was everywhere during a brief period in late 1999, it drove me to distraction that it was documented nowhere. Until now.

I can't accurately convey how much time I've spent trying to find the actor who portrayed The Barber (you could check out In Search Of The Barber: Part One and Part Two to get an idea, though), but now I'm overjoyed to announce that yes, we've found him. And the way we found him was every bit as interesting as the rest of this whole saga, to be honest - a true tale of the Dreamcast community coming together to overcome insurmountable odds. It goes a little something like this...

DreamPod - Episode 38: Platforming Special Featuring DreamcastGuy

[iTunes][Stitcher][Buzzsprout][UK Podcast Directory][YouTube]

If you'd like to know more about DreamcastGuy's channel, please head over to YouTube and check out his content (or just click here!), or give him a follow on Twitter here. As stated, if there's anything we got wrong or any games we neglected to mention, don't hesitate to contact Mike via email and/or on his personal mobile phone - preferably at around 3am.

I knew I'd seen Sonic's fangs!

Music in this episode is from Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2 and Super Magnetic Neo. As ever, if you like what you've heard, please feel free to leave us an iTunes review or a thumbs up on our YouTube version - it all helps! Lastly, a huge thanks to all of our lovely Patreon supporters, we love every single one of you.

The Hidden Dreamcast Light Gun Game

How many light gun games are there on the Dreamcast? As I sit here staring at that rhetorical question, I recall about five if memory serves: House of the Dead 2, Confidential Mission, Death Crimson 2, Death Crimson 2 OX, and Virtua Cop 2. But wait. There's actually another I didn't even know about until today: Infogrammes and Pitbull Syndicate's Demolition Racer: No Exit.

Now, you'd be forgiven for thinking I'd had one too many bottles of strong ale before writing this (and you'd be right, in most all cases), but hear me out. Demolition Racer: No Exit is a stock car racing game very much in the vein of PlayStation classic Destruction Derby (we don't mention the Saturn atrocity), and while it looks very pretty I don't particularly like it because of the downright stupid rules in the championship mode. Try as I might, I can't even get past the first couple of races due to the ridiculously random nature of the scoring system - coming first in a race tallies up with damage given to other cars...or something. And there are weapons. Basically, it's a clusterfuck of confusion so I'm just going to leave it there for now.

Anyway, I'm in the process of moving house (for about the 8th time in 3 years) and as I was stacking up my beloved Dreamcast games ready to be boxed, I noticed something funny on the back of the Demolition Racer case:

A 'Light Gun' compatibility icon. Which is very odd, especially considering Sega didn't even release the gun in the USA. That, and Demolition Racer is an NTSC-U exclusive racing game..

In Search Of The Barber: Part Two

Several months ago I published an article here titled In Search Of The Barber. In case you missed it, go here and have a quick scan to familiarise yourself. If you can’t be bothered, allow me to briefly recap the gist of the previous chapter in this seemingly unsolvable missing persons case.

During the early period of the Dreamcast’s brief lifespan in Europe, Sega promoted the console through a series of TV and cinema adverts where multiplayer gaming was pushed as the system’s key unique selling point. I’m sure you’ll recall the whole ‘6 billion players’ controversy. The adverts in question featured two scenarios - one was titled ‘Buoy’ had a load of kids stood on a shoreline trying to hit a buoy with stones; the other was titled ‘Shave’ and involved a group of French foreign legion conscripts having their heads shaved by a trio of military barbers. It was the latter of these two promotional films that was chosen as Sega’s flagship advertising tool and the victorious barber (named Player Two in the advert) was depicted on a host of posters, billboards, in-game leaflets and even on the Dreamarena European online portal.

The Barber. On Dreamarena.

As explained in my previous article on this subject, this guy’s characteristic face, bare chest and distinctive tattoos* were all over the place for the first six months of the Dreamcast’s life - in magazines, on bus stops and even splashed across cinema screens before some of the biggest movies of the time (well, Star Wars Episode 1, anyway). He was literally everywhere. The thing is, there is no record of who he actually is. No credits on the Dreamography VHS tapes given away with pre-orders of the Dreamcast, no crew listings or location photos anywhere on the internet…and believe me - I’ve looked.

What my life now looks like.

Is he an actor? If so, why can’t I find anything else he’s appeared in? Hell, why can’t I find a single image of him anywhere, other than the few uploads of the Dreamcast ‘barber’ picture (most of which have been uploaded by me)? It's this complete erasure or nonexistence of The Barber that is the driving force behind this whole saga, and using the power of the internet I've decided to pick up the case and dig further into the mystery of this bloke's true identity.

The Murky World of White Labels

While I do consider myself to be a collector of all manner of Dreamcast related tat, I’m far from what most people would consider 'hardcore.' I do not have a full complement of any region’s library for instance, and while I do have around 95% of the PAL releases in my collection, I refuse to pay over the odds for the remaining few (mainly shit) titles required to call it a 'full set.' Furthermore, many of the peripherals and consoles I own are unboxed and or in 'used' condition – I generally buy Dreamcast stuff to play with it, examine it, record its existence in an easy to digest manner and upload it here for people to enjoy…or take it to events for other people to play with/destroy and cover in hand slime.

What I'm trying (and failing) to convey is that I'm not one who only collects sealed or mint condition stuff, and I'm not overly precious about stuff being kept in a nuclear bunker where radioactive dust clouds, sunlight or curious hands cannot get to it. Nor am I one who feels he has to collect absolutely everything with a Dreamcast swirl on it...and that's the point I'm meandering toward with this wholly unnecessary, rambling introduction.

One aspect of collecting for the Dreamcast that has barely shown up on my radar until recently is the collection of white labels. I have been aware of the things for as long as I’ve been aware of the Dreamcast itself but collecting these PAL-centric preview discs has never really interested me for some reason. For those who aren’t familiar with white labels, they were special sample versions of Dreamcast games that were predominantly sent out by Sega Europe to the press for preview purposes and – as far as I'm aware – also used in Dreamcast demo pods in stores such as GAME and Electronics Boutique in the UK. As I said, I’ve never really been very interested in collecting these preview discs, but Mike Phelan included a very comprehensive list of them - complete with serial numbers - in our recently outlawed collectors guide (you can still download it for free here); and several friends randomly donated a selection white labels to me over the last few weeks.

Rez Infinite Merchandise & Launch Date Revealed

Rez Infinite looks awesome and it's coming to the PS4 and PS VR on October 13th 2016. Initially a digital download, the game is also scheduled to receive a limited physical release...but that's not all. According to a PlayStation Europe blog post by Rez producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Rez Infinite's launch will be bolstered with a whole barrage of merchandise, including vinyl records, t-shirts, an art book, pin badges and a holographic kitchen sink.

We're big fans of Rez here at the Junkyard and we've featured the game extensively here in the past. From Ross's video hands on and first impressions with the PS VR version he recently tried out at the Game On expo in Tokyo; to the fan-made Dream Trance vibrator created by Scott (and reviewed by me here), we can't get enough of the music-based acid trip-a-thon.

Retropocalypse 2016 Show Report

Saturday 13th August 2016 saw the first Retropocalypse event held in Bournemouth, UK. While the seaside town on the south coast of England has played host to some fairly large comic, TV and film conventions in recent years, a dedicated gaming event has never graced it...until Retropocalypse that is! In truth, this was something of an experiment to see how much interest a retro event would generate and as such was held in a fairly small venue - The Four Horsemen pub in the town centre.

Supported by gaming sites Noah's Arcade, RetroCollect and - naturally - The Dreamcast Junkyard, Retropocalypse saw the modest venue turned into a cornucopia of retro gaming delights. It wasn't exclusively a Dreamcast-themed event, but there were a couple of consoles available to play alongside the Saturns, 3DOs, N64s and Jaguars. This event was in no way on a comparable scale to recent shows such as Revival Solstice or the upcoming Play Expo Manchester (which we'll also be at!), but throughout the day over 100 people ventured into the downstairs room, attracted no doubt by the melodious sounds of antiquated gaming goodness and promise of twinkling CRTs.