Doppelganger

I've recently been trying to get into Shenmue after a friend raved about it to me for literally 3 minutes. I've been giving it a chance and have discovered the mystery of the '3 Blades' and am now wandering around the picuresque 80s town of Dobuita asking perfect strangers where Sailors hang out. Hmmm. Anyhow, Ryo was being a pestering nosey bastard in a barber's shop when I noticed a familiar face festooned on the wall...It's non other than injury prone, semi-decent nineties Tottenham Hotspur & England footballer Darren Anderton!

Illuminati

Enough of this emulation of inferior consoles. The PlayStation was a fine console for it's era and some would argue an icon of the nineties. But now it belongs in the bin, so let's move on eh? Oh, and I'm in the process of downloading a Sega Saturn emulator...NOW WE'RE TALKING!!! I can't convey in words my excitment levels...the promise of being able to play NiGHTS on my DC is the only thing currently keeping my life systems active.

Elsewhere...
The lying illuminati controlled puppet reading the BBC Early Evening News (George Alagiah, pictured) has just gleefully announced that inflation has risen 2% for the first time in five months due to the rising prices of games and books. Well it's obvious from that, that George Alagiah doesn't own a Dreamcast because yesterday I picked up Space Channel 5 and Army Men: Sarge's Heroes for under a fiver. If however, George is reading, and does actually own a Dreamcast - don't hesitate to get in touch and all the appropriate corrections will be made.

Being recognised as the campest thing since the Beatles released Penny Lane is no mean feat, but Space Channel 5 manages it with ease. In fact, it's camper that Graham Norton and Julian Clairy doing a duet version of Penny Lane, but the graphics are amazing so I'm prepared to risk the continued ridicule of my housemates for the pleasure. And that dancing...Ooh La La (geddit?! No, I've not turned gay and/or French - it's the name of the super chic future reporter who starts in Space Channel 5, Ulala). To be honest, Space Channel 5 is nowt more than Parappa the Rapper with flash visuals but in contrast to Sarge's Heroes it looks like the best thing since sliced bread.

I could go on to say that Sarge's Heroes tries to be so matcho that it actually goes full circle to usurp Space Channel 5 as the world's campest 'thing,' but it doesn't - it's just plain shite. Here's a snippet of the fun you can have in Sarge's Heroes:
And the tanks dissappear if you get too close to them!! Awesome! Good job it's not that easy in real life to make a tank vanish...master magicial Lance Burton would be out of a job and the Coalition assault on the oil markets - sorry 'terrorists' - in Iraq would be a be a little harder on the taxpayer's pocket. But politics has no place in the Dreamcast Junkyard and is henceforth banished! FOREVER.

Bleem! Update!

I managed to borrow some PlayStation games from a mate...and they work...to some extent.

Here are some shots of Tomb Raider 3, Driver 2 and Metal Gear Solid for your perusal. Apologies for the quality - as I've mentioned before, my camera only cost £40 and you really do get what you pay for when it comes to photographic equipment.

Back to Bleem! though - it even runs back up copies of PS games too, although naturally some work better than others. Tomb Raider 3, for example has the tendency to replace all the wall textures with a plain white gloss untill you get near to them and Driver 2 has a similar problem. Die Hard Trilogy is perfect until you get into the game proper and it's just a mess of polygons and odd textures - although the sound seems to be perfect.

The joypad is mapped pretty well to the Dreamcast one - X is A, Triangle is Y etc but due to there only being one trigger on the tops of the DC pad, you lose the L 2 and R 2 functions. Also, the analogue seems to work with some games but not with others.

The actual Bleem! interface is pretty non existent - when you put the disk in and it loads up, all you get is a flashing Bleem! splash screen. You then open the drive, pop your PS game in and it loads up. Simple but effective.

I do have a list of games that I am assured work perfectly with this version of Bleem! (including Colin McRae 2.0, Gran Turismo 2, Tekken 3, Ace Combat 3, Time Crisis, Ridge Racer Type 4, Quake 2 and ISS Pro Evolution 2) and I'll be trying them out at some point in the near future.

Even though there are a few graphical glitches with the games I have been able to test thus far, it is pretty cool to witness a Dreamcast displaying games for a totally different rival machine. The graphics on the whole are much shaper and pixellation is erradicated, but I don't see this as anything other than a novelty - who the hell wants to play Driver 2 when you can play Crazy Taxi 2?!

But if you'd like to download of a copy and try it out for yourself, click here

Legal Notice:
The Dreamcast Junkyard doesn't know how legal/illegal any of this shit actually is, so if you end up behind bars just because you love the Dreamcast - respect Brother (or Sister).

OMG!

Just thought some of you would be interested in this...

Yes, The Dreamcast Junkyard has managed to 'aquire' a copy of Bleem! For Dreamcast. Not just the plain old Bleemcast! for Gran Turismo 2 bullshit either...It's actually proper Bleem! as it was intended. In theory it will play any PlayStation game on my Dreamcast, but for the time being I can't actually do anything with it simply because I don't have any PSX games! I'll certainly buy something cheap this week though to test it. If it works, you'll be the first to know.

The Dreamcast Junkyard: at the cutting edge!

Subliminal Mindfuck

As quite possibly the World's Saddest Person (tm) and also the caretaker of the Dreamcast Junkyard, it's part of my job description to keep my eye out for ALL Dreamcast related things. Yesterday, I spotted something else and here I present it for your viewing pleasure.

I was on the bus reading the newspaper (Daily Mirror) when this Argos brochure fell out from betwixt the pages:
It's only advertsing cookers and fridges and stuff so I didnt take much notice of it at first but after exhausting the drivel filled pages of said tabloid, I had a quick flick through the brochure. Page 8 was as exciting as evey other kitchen appliance stuffed page, but something caught my eye...Yes, next to the BEKO and Indesit oven/stove combos (retailing for a rather excellent £279.99 and £399.99 respectively, I might add) was ANOTHER DREAMCAST SWIRL! LOOK!So that's one in the toilets at a pub; one on page 8 of the Argos sale catalogue...they're everywhere!! Could this be part of a secret subliminal advertising campaigne by Sega? Probably not, but we can all dream can't we?
If you spot any suspicious swirls whilst out and about and can be bothered taking a picture with your phone, email it to the Dreamcast Junkyard and Ill put it up. The challenge has been set, my friends...

To round off these mobile phone based escapades, I was on my way home from the Gym earlier today and I happenend to spot this:It's a PS2 box lying destitute in a pile of rubbish next to a disused railway line. How apt :-)

Deathmatch Frenzy!

Due to yesterday's one-man boycott of St Guinness Day, I spent Friday night alone, cold and hungry. There was some solace to be found in my new Dreamcast aquisitions though - namely Out Trigger and Heavy Metal Geomatrix. By about 7pm I had stopped hyper-ventilating over the thrift-tastic price I payed for them (see previous post) and was in a stable enough state to play through them.

Heavy Metal Geomatrix
I'd never actually heard of this before yesterday and the guy in the shop told me that this was a bit like Power Stone but 'not as good.' Er...'scuse me mate - Geomatrix is freaking awesome! It's not really anything like Power Stone, but rather more like a cross between Quake 3 and Spawn: In the Demon's Hand, in that it's a third person deathmatch game where you chase another character around a themed arena and use all manner of weapons to win the round. These range from projectile weapons (like impossibly large rocket launches) and punches and kicks to suspiciously familiar 'laser swords.' Lets just pray for Capcom's sake that a certain Mr Lucas doesnt get to play this. But what the hell am I saying? As if - even in the infinitesimaly small chance he did, he'd probably be too busy wiping his arse on Rembrandts to care.

Geomatrix has amazing graphics by the way, and that soundtrack...boodiful. Capcom - you've scored with this one guys. Just one gripe though - the arenas are a tad small...but thats just me being picky.

Out Trigger
No, not a game set on a stricken oil rig in the North Sea (for that see Street Piper Alpha...HA! - I JUST THOUGHT OF THAT!!!), but a game much like Geomatrix only this time done by the meastros at Sega Software R&D #2. That's AM2 to the layman...the collective genius behind Out Run, Daytona, Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Hang On...and, erm Ferrari F355 Challenge.

You can play from either first or third person perspective and its actually a very accomplished true arcade take on the deathmatch game. Brightly coloured graphics, big guns and appaling voice overs...all present and correct! Top fun too...although I must raise a MAJOR gripe:

The keyboard setup cannot be changed so instead of usin the W, A, S and D keys to move (like you do in pretty much every shoot 'em up ever created), you have to use the frigging arrow keys! Disgraceful - especially when you're trying to balance the keyboard on your knee. Why Sega, eh?! Why you fuckin' wit us?! Shit, dawg...etc.
Now, In retaliation to Guinness's blatant bastardisation of a genuine Patron Saint's day, I'm off to drink a firkin of The Cream of Manchester.

50 Today!

You may recall a few weeks ago that I told fanciful stories of a not-to-distant land that goes by the name of 'Salford.' Tis a strange place full of rat faced children who roam the destitute and derelict streets looking for elderly people to harass; and drunken louts who enjoy nothing more than throwing bricks at you if you look in their general direction. It's also home to the mighty Manchester United, so it's not all bad.

Anyhow, today I made a return trip to seek out that branch of Gamestation that somehow manages to always have an abundance of the rarest Dreamcast games on the planet. I was not dissapointed. Not only did they have three (yes, THREE!) boxed copies of Shenmue 2 - all in mint condition I might add, but they also had a superlative selection of other games for sale at hideously fair prices. Not wanting to break into my weekend beer money stash, I limited myself to spending only £10 - but ended up going slightly over budget. Here's why:

Out Trigger
Heavy Metal Geomatrix
18 Wheeler
Virtua Tennis.

The total cash tendered?


TWELVE POUNDS AND NINETY EIGHT PENCE!!

What the hell can you get for £12.98? Not a lot in this day and age...but I got four awesome Dreamcast games, all in literally brand new condition. They had many more games too (Record of Lodoss War, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure, Zombie Revenge, MDK2, GTA 2, Giant Killers...), and I'll be back there next week without a doubt. But the reason for that title is simple - today's buy has brought the Dreamcast Junkyard's total number of games up to a mind splintering 50!

Oh happy day.

You may be wondering why I'm actually bothering to write this shit when I should be out 'celebrating' St . Patrick's Day like everyone else. Well, I'm not. The reason? Well, it's nothing more than a huge marketing scam by Guinness is it? They can shove their disgusting brew...this gamer (as you probably already knew) doesnt fall for clever marketing slogans...

Jumping Jehosephat

Allow me to introduce The GagaMan, a 'stereotypical British wannabe animator,' fellow Sega fanatic and owner of an impressively extensive collection of Dreamcast paraphenalia. This is the kind of thing the Dreamcast Junkyard actively encourages - intelligent people sharing their love for all things DC related with other likeminded gamers...It almost brings a tear to my single, unblinking glass eye (pictured).

Without further ado, here's an illustrated run down of The GagaMan's superb collection:

PeripheralsToys

Games...

Games...

And more Fucking* Games!!!

but wait, that's not all...HOLY FUCK* IN A BUCKET...HAVE A BUTCHERS AT THIS LITTLE LOT:

And it continues...Mags, Demos, Videos, Posters, Toys, a MULTIMEGA!!...stunning.

As is the norm in these special circumstances, The Dreamcast Junkyard salutes you - The GagaMan!

And if being privy to possibly the world's greatest Sega collection isn't enough and you want to discover more about The GagaMan's artistic talents, visit his blog here.

*The Dreamcast Junkyard would like to take this opportunity to apologise to readers of a nervous disposition for the high frequency of foul language in this post.

Adventures in eBay

Oh look. A birthday cake. Just like the one I didn't get. Moving on, we all know that you can get practically anything on eBay. I once saw someone trying to flog a plastic bag that was filled with air from inside the cinema at the premier of Mr & Mrs Smith. The major selling point, according to the pathetic twat who had listed it, was that a Mr Brad Pitt and Ms Big Lips Voight had expelled CO2 in that very auditorium and so whoever won the bag would own a 'piece' of said Hollywood shag partners. And some cretin had ACTUALLY BID ON IT!!!!!!!!!!

Aaanyway...as most people occasionally do, I like to browse the virtual auction rooms for bizarre and sometimes affordable pieces of obscure gaming tat. Indeed, most of the 'Yard's stock came from those hallowed pages. However, every now and then a few items appear that are truly special and here for your enjoyment are some of the less ubiquitous offerings (people listing copies of Soldier of Fortune with the phrase 'RARE!' in the heading have automatically been sent a vicious computer virus by the Junkyard's impossibly powerful Dreamcast powered artificial intelligence mainframe.) You have been warned.

Dreameye!

Cool - you probably wouldn't be able to use it these days, but it'd be nice to see one of these in the 'Yard. Not gonna happen in the near future though - I need a new coat.

System Shell!

Oh yes...If only these were more readily availible. Problem is - I aint payin £30 for it to get shipped from America.

Pad Converter!

Play your DC games with a PS pad? Sure! Probably not rare at all in the US, but here in Blightly anything with a blue swirl is as rare as rocking horse shit.

Wierd Transparent Keyboard!

Woah - how cool is this? It'd be even better if it had LEDs inside. I'm sure that with my electronics skillz I could manage it...Interesting.

Cool Black Gun!

Strangley, Sega didn't release their official light gun in the US because of fears surrounding gun crime. Even stranger is that the official Sega gun is big, white and looks nothing like a firearm. This Starfire gun is new to me and looks decidely more realistic, but still looks more like something out of Star Trek than a 'piece' off the streets of South Central L.A.

Further more, you can still "Suffer, like G did," but now in style!!

Dreamcast Vinyl!

Yes! now you too can emblazon your house with a vinyl Dreamcast Logo. According to the listing, the Dreamcast vinyl can withstand all kinds of weather conditions for 5 years! Just think - you could support the Dreamcast until 2011! Yay!

Bar Sign?!?!?!

Now, while you are never, ever going to see one of these in any bar (come to think of it, you wouldn't have seen one in a bar when the Dreamcast was still en vogue), I do think it looks pretty good...If only it didn't cost £30 for delivery.

On the subject of ripping out that orange LED and replacing it with a blue one, I went into Maplin yesterday and spent my entire dinner hour trying to explain to the very nice but English languagley challenged Indian gentleman what I wanted. When we finally agreed that I didnt want a solar powered torch or a potato powered alarm clock, it became apparent that they had no LEDs. Blue or otherwise. And this is supposedly Britain's premier electronic component outlet. Typical eh? Therefore, The Dreamcast Junkyard awards Maplin the first entry into the Dreamcast Junkyard Shit Pit of Shame. Be sure to read further nominations in coming posts.

Finally, look here for my review of Crazy Taxi 2. Your comments, as ever, are highly appreciated.

Stock Take

Now that the Dreamcast is hardly what you'd call 'popular,' the games are extremely cheap - and Gamestation are seemingly trying to get rid of their stock of DC related stuff as quickly as possible. One tactic employed is their 'BOGOF' promotion that I have harped on about in the past. That is, Buy One, Get One Free. Today saw the purchase of Tony Hawk's 2 and that yielded a free copy of Charge 'N' Blast to go with it.

So that, I'm sure you'll be extraordinarily delighted to know, brings the total games library of the Dreamcast Junkyard up to the rather spiffing number of 46!

These games are:
Charge N Blast, Slave Zero, Tony Hawks 2, Soul Fighter, Crazy Taxi 2, UEFA Dream Soccer, 4-Wheel Thunder, V-Rally 2, Sega GT, Hydro Thunder, Jet Set Radio, F1 World GP 2, Sega Rally 2, Rush 2049, F355 Challenge, Dead Or Alive 2, Super Runabout, Red Dog, Royal Rumble, Virtua Fighter 3, Rainbow Six, Episode 1: Racer, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Sonic Adventure, Hidden & Dangerous, Chu Chu Rocket, House of the Dead 2, Soldier of Fortune, MSR, Berserk, Virtua Striker 2, Incoming, Ready 2 Rumble Round 2, Worms Armageddon, Code Veronica, Shenmue, Carrier, Dave Mirra, NHL 2K, Soul Calibur, Revolt, F1 World Grand Prix, Ultimate Fighting Championship, WWF Warzone and Planet Ring (ungraded because I can't play it).

Key - Games I love; Games I think are alright; Games that should be sent to the Black Hole of Calcutta.

There also some other items, such as Quake (the original), the Megadrive Emulator with about 400 games on it, the VCD player, Utopia Boot Disk and 9 Dream On demo discs.

No new hardware to report since last round up but here is is:
Console (obviously), 2 Official Guns, 3 VMUs, Keyboard, Mouse, Microphone. The Dreamcast Junkyard must, however, report the sad loss of an item. One of the joypads featured in one of the first posts on the 'Yard was from a shop that is manned by neanderthals and seems to only ever be visited by tracksuit wearing cretins who reek of sweat and beer (see picture). The shop is called 'Cash Generator,' and the pad in question appeared to be in fine working order...that is until I tried to plug it in for some 4 player action...the bit on the end was all squashed and wouldn't go into the hole. Even my incredible skills of fixing stuff was no match for the ridiculous mal-treatment this poor pad had undergone in the hands of it's previous owner. Therefore it had to be put down (thrown in the bin). What this diatribe means is that I now only have 3 pads.

But I've got no friends anyway, so in your face cruel fate!!!

Lastly, I've also started writing reviews for the American multiformat retro-games website Defunct Games. Here are my first published reviews of UEFA Dream Soccer and F1 World Grand Prix 2. As always, let me know what you think.

Attic Attack

My dear old mother recently moved and decided that, whilst her black hole's worth of clutter and useless tat could go with her into the new house, the few meagre belongings that occupied her attic had to go back to their owner - me. After several phonecalls and answer machine messages (along the lines of "come and get all this shite out of my new house, you little cunt"), I finally went to retrieve my items and sort out what I wanted and what could go to the tip.

Here's what I managed to salvage from the carnage:

Sonic and (his cheeky young scamp of a friend) TailsA nice selection of Dreamcast related media texts and a launch magazineThe 'lid' for a VMU, so now one of my VMUs is complete!

It's amazing what you can find in an attic!

Inconspicuous

Like most people of a stable disposition, this gamer likes nothing more than a few beers. So last night (like on most Saturday nights), I found myself in a local hostelry partaking in much merry making. Imagine my suprise when I went in these toilets to relieve myself...

No - It wasn't the pristine condition of these Gents' that suprised me...It was the pattern on the wall tiles:That, my good man, is quite clearly a Dreamcast swirl!

The Dreamcast Junkyard: always alert!

D'oh!

That title won't make sense until you've read my scathing review of Virtua Shitkicker 2...

But for my sins, I just thought you might like this...it's not related to the Dreamcast in any way, but it is fantastic (and helps the title to make sense) - so there's at least one similarity! Enjoy!

In other news, Quake 3 Arena is just as fucking wicked as I suspected with the Mouse & Keyboard. I had played it with the joypad, and it wasn't too bad to begin with, but the M&K just adds a new dimension of playability and speed. It's easily the best compatible game I've got.
Game: 9/10 Control: 9/10

Oh...and rest assured, Half-Life will be here in the not-so-distant future!

I must also take this opportunity to thank all of you who read this blog on a regular basis - it'd be fuck all without you, so cheers!