Super Furry Animals

So America has it's first black President and F1 has it's first black world champion. Yawn. I've got much more important news: I've been drinking alcohol and surfing eBay again! As such, it's been a bit hectic on the delivery front here at the 'Yard this week and seeing as DC games are still as cheap as ever, I've been snapping up every decent title I can find ont tinterweb. A knock-on effect of this blurry bidding action has seen an obscene volume of games drop out of the ether and into my DC, so here begins the arduous, but not unsatisfying task of documenting these purchases...

First on the operating table? Why, it's none other than:

Fur Fighters

At first glance, you'd be forgiven for thinking Fur Fighters was another shit kiddies game - indeed it appears to be the result of a sleazy hotel-room rendezvous between Conker's Bad Fur Day and Banjo Kazooie. Even if it was, it probably wouldn't be a bad thing...but it isn't. No - it's far more than that: It's one of the best shoot 'em ups on the Dreamcast - FACT. Look beyond the stylised cartoon visuals and super-deformed furry characters and what you have in Fur Fighters is a decidedly adult themed, and often slightly risque take on the 3rd person shooter genre - and it's also a damned good adventure to boot.

 

The back story is pretty original too. Basically, there are six playable characters to control, all of which have different abilities - one can swim, another can glide, whilst another can climb etc etc etc. These characters were all once members of an elite military unit, the titular Fur Fighters, that put an evil genius behind bars. With the task completed, the Fur Fighters retired to a quaint seaside village to have kids, read the Telegraph, eat crumpets and just generally wither away. Possibly with the intention of dying alone in a piss soaked bedsit. Thing is, the old nemesis (General Viggo) has done his time, got out of the slammer and launched into a revenge-fuelled campaign against the dudes who put him behind bars. How so? By kidnapping the Fur Fighter's kids, naturally. Comparisons to Gary Glitter aside, this obviously pisses the Fur Fighters off a bit, so naturally they dive straight back into the fray to get their offspring back and shut down Viggo once and for all...

As you can probably see from the screen grabs, it's a beautiful little game - the (VGA compatible) worlds which you have to shoot your way through are really well done and full of little details and tongue in cheek humour . In the opening level you have to blast your way to the top of the World Quack Centre in the heart of New Quack City (no prizes for guessing where the level is meant to be set, and yes Fur Fighters was released prior to 9/11 - I don't think it would have seen the light of day otherwise), and in the lobby of the aforementioned skyscraper is a games store selling these little delights:

Shenmoo

Metropolis Sheep Racer

Resident Weevil or Quack, anyone?

Each of the worlds is accessed from a central hub stage set within the tranquil surroundings of the Fur Fighters' home village and all require items salvaged from previous worlds in order to get past the guard at the door. So, in order to get into the space centre you need to acquire a degree in astrophysics; whilst getting access to New Quack City requires a subway token etc. 

One major area where Fur Fighters excels though, is in the sound department. Whilst the voices of the characters are ridiculous Star Wing-style garbled bollocks, the music and sound effects are stunning for a game this old. I've played 360 games with music and sound effects several leagues below those on display in Fur Fighters, so top marks to Bizarre Creations for truly squeezing the best out of the Dreamcast's sound gubbins. Remarkable. 

So, to top it off - I love Fur Fighters. It's good looking, fun to play, full of logical puzzles and features some great script writing and humour (check out General Viggo's pet human!). If you get the chance to buy this game, do yourself a favour and snap it up. And if you can't find the DC version, there's also a cell shaded PS2 port knocking about...but it'd be unpatriotic of me to recommend buying that...

Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days - I've managed to get my mud-covered claws on some truly mind-blowing games this week. Mind-blowing, oh yes!

Super Magnetic Aaaargh!

What a week it's been eh? Russel Brand (cock) and Jonathan Ross (arsehole) drown in a pool of their own turgid smugness, Hallow e'en comes and goes without even a hint of Armageddon/unleashing of the Legions of Hell (dammit), and the Dreamcast Junkyard gets a long overdue makeover (awesome). It's been emotional, people. Not, however, as 'emotional' as I've been in recent days. And by emotional, I - of course - mean 'synapse-endangeringly furious.' Why so? Three words:

1) Super
2) Magnetic
3) Neo

You know that old adage about the Devil disguising himself as something nice in order to appear more enticing? Well, meet the Devil. In the form of this little cunt:


Yes, I bought Super Magnetic Neo off eBay for the princely sum of £3.00 or thereabouts, and was expecting a colourful yet slightly childish romp through candy-cane worlds populated by jelly babies. And to a certain degree, I was right. You see, visually, Super Magnetic Neo is like an uber acid trip, helped on it's way by a couple of lines of coke, a bottle of JD and a punnet of magic mushrooms. You play as the titular Neo - a smurf-hued robot with a magnet for a bonce. An evil baddie bloke has taken over the world, or something, and populated it with similarly evil robots (although, I don't remember the Terminator just mincing backwards and forwards, minding his own business like the evil robots do here) and it's up to you to smash them to bits and restore order.

However, to accomplish your mission, you must utilise the aforementioned cranial magnet. How? Well, it has the ability to create positive and negative polarity fields and by creating these fields in certain places you can propel yourself off platforms, grab swinging ropes and, obviously, destroy baddies. And by reading that, and looking at the amazing graphics in the poor quality screen shots here, you be forgiven for thinking that Super Magnetic Neo was a platform fan's wet dream. Which it would be, was it not for the immense difficulty level. A wolf in sheep's clothing if ever there was one. And just to nail it in even further, Super Magnetic Neo makes MDK 2 seem like a walk in the park.

Everywhere you turn there are pits and baddies that kill you instantly with the slightest touch, and in some areas you must jump from swinging rope to swinging rope to platform to platform to swinging rope...where the polarities change and you have to get the right one...or it's game over. Hair tearingly annoying? You bet your ass.

Be afraid. Be very afraid...

As such, I haven't actually got past the second world at the time of writing this guff. However, seeing as the graphics are so mind-bendingly good and the story so completely off the wall, I'm prepared to stick my neck out and recommend this to neurotics, people with pace-makers and inmates of high-security medical wards only. Have fun!

The Emperor's New Clothes

Wahey! Welcome to the third generation of The Dreamcast Junkyard! Thought it was looking a bit tired around here so I spent today sprucing the place up a bit - no point going out boozing when there's important work to do. I realise that other members of the team may have (much) more creative skill than me when it comes to graphic design - Gagaman, I'm looking at you - but seeing as this place was originally my baby, I thought it only right that I put my ham-fist to it...

Hope you like it - and we'll have no more talk about these 'new' blogger templates. Or else... ;D

Edit: Yes, I took the advice. The 'Yard has entered the 24th Century. Or something.

Dreamcast Games to Play on Halloween.

Well, I have been forced into the Halloween spirit this year as my place of work seems to require it.

The theme is "Batman" this year so I managed to grab a burlap sack from a local coffee shop and I am making into a "Scarecrow Mask" for Halloween. It's coming out quite nice.

Here are a few games to play during Halloween.

The new Beats of Rag Mod based on the Splatterhouse series.


I have not played it yet. I am assuming you go around and kill evil stuff in a messy manner (If they stay true to the source material that is...)

Here is the DCEmu article and the LavaLit article for future reference.

http://dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk/splatterhouse-trilogy-openbor-mod-168907.html

http://www.lavalit.com/index.php?topic=2056.0


The original RE series is a no brainer when it comes to horror themed games.

RE Code Veronica was the first RE game to do away with 2D backgrounds and was the first RE game to debut on a non-Sony console.

I find that the Dreamcast controller is perfect for survival horror games and thus I enjoy playing this game on the Dreamcast rather than the PS2 or Gamecube.

Find a copy of this lovely gem and proceed to have a good time running away from zombies and biological freaks for awhile.


Bats are really annoying. Hold up your lighter to get rid of them. I played through this game once before I learned that trick.


Illbleed is like starring in a B-Horror movie.

Instead of running away from enemies the gameplay drives you to walk slowly through each level looking for traps and steak dinners to gorge yourself on.

It's fun to play a game that doesn't really take itself too seriously but still manages to be very creepy and bloody at times.

Also: Evil Undead Sonic.


And of course the ultimate Halloween party game.


"Suffer like G did?"
"No! Don't Come!"

We have all heard these lines before and we all love them.

You know what I really wanted to do an in depth article about why this game is so fun but come on.

Zombies with Chainsaws people...

...You can't get more Halloween than that.
Happy Halloween Everyone!

Atari Punk Console, Housed Inside a Dreamcast.

What is an "Atari Punk Console" you ask?

Wikipedia.

(NOTE do not watch this video if you have epilepsy or are sensitive to flashing lights).



Wow.

It's kinda a shame everyone was giving this guy crap for using a Dreamcast. I mean that particular Dreamcast had died already. Why not use the parts for a project like this?

My favorite part is that he installed Furby eyes in the middle control ports.

More photos of this project.

New Sonic Adventure 2 character revealed

It's no secret that by the time Sonic Adventure 2 was released, Sega had pretty much abandoned all hope of a victory in the war against the PS2. However, this was no excuse for clearly sacking the in-house proof reader:

Rouge the Bat. Worse than all of the Chaotix characters combined

What the fuck is an echnida? And all this time I thought Knuckles was an echidna...

HD-Cast

Just a few days ago, I was a wreck. A gibbering, sweating, puss-filled mess. And for once, it wasn't down to smashing in too many cans of Special Brew down the park and shouting at pigeons. No, it was down to the state of my eyes and contrary to what some may say, It had nothing to do with the Gok Wan-style goggles the cretin at Specsavers duped me into buying (left).

You see, several months ago I invested in a quite lovely Argos own brand HD-ready LCD telly. And you know what? It's sublime. Not only can I watch infinite Freeview repeats of Top Gear and Montel Williams in pupil-eroding clarity, but I can also romp through the Galaxy as Commander Shepherd in Mass Effect in the truly magnificent Xbox 360 hi-def. There was a problem though. Playing a Dreamcast on my new telly was something of a nightmare simply because the SCART signal gave such a crappy picture.

Take this guy:

and rub this into his eyes/hands:

And you have some idea of what I had to contend with when I wanted to play on my DC.

NOT SO ANYMORE, PEEPS! After moaning about this subject in my last post, the honourable Gagaman pointed me here. Behold the majesty of Racketboy.com! A magical place that offers DC VGA cables for under twenty quid - INCLUDING postage! All the way from The New World!

I seem to remember The Gagaman preaching about his experiences with a VGA cable some time in the distant past, but it's taken till now for me to have a reason to actually buy one, and boy, am I glad I did. Plugging the DC into a VGA compatible display opens up a whole new world of visual delight - everything becomes super-sharp and the Awesome Levels(TM) go through the roof! Granted, there are a few games that don't support this (mile) high-res display mode (most disappointingly is Hydro Thunder), but you have to take the rough with the smooth, I suppose.

Click here for a game compatibility list.

So, to reiterate, the crux of the matter is this: if you own a Dreamcast and a PC - which I'm guessing you do if you're reading this, click here. Get your debit card out and buy a goddamn cable! You'll be glad you did.

One thing I really must point out though, is that the VGA cable's connection is a 'female.' If your monitor also has a female connector, you'll need to invest in a male to male VGA adapter, like I did.

Dreamcast: The Novel

You know, it's amazing the amount of bollocks you can dig up on the net if you look hard enough. And by 'hard enough,' I mean trawling Amazon for cheapo Dreamcast games. During this morning's epic journey, I happened across this little gem:

"Wow!" I thought - someone's written a hard hitting novel documenting the rise and meteoric fall of our favourite dead console! Just think - the intrigue! the espionage! the blood, sex and tears played out against a backdrop of hardcore business meetings and mass redundancies! DREAMCAST - A NOVEL!!!*

Alas, upon reading the actual synopsis...

"What really goes on behind the scenes in the mysterious world of community theatre? Dreamcast is a look at the most underpaid volunteers on the planet, those who serve the muse of live theatre in the small towns and suburbs of America."

...I came to the conclusion that it actually sounds like a load of shite.

Shame.

* Once again, I apologise for wanton over-use of apostrophies.

A Gentle Reminder: Dux and Wind and Water Puzzle Battles

For everyone who has been living without Internet access...(you know, like me). The rest of you might be sick of hearing about these games but come on!

Wind and Water.It's a fast paced puzzle game!
http://www.wind-water.net/
http://www.redspotgames.com/shop/

Dux.
It's an old school shooter!
http://www.hucast.net/
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-17-71-4-74-1uf-49-en.html

This is a very exciting time for the Dreamcast scene. Possible success for these titles may help usher in a new wave of Dreamcast Independent releases from smaller companies.

Also bear in mind that similar games with limited releases became quite the collectors items once the original run ran dry. So yeah. If you are considering spending some cash on a "current gen" game maybe you should consider investing your cash in one of these instead. It's gonna cost you about the same amount of money.

(And don't forget they still have some copies of Last Hope left at Red Spot Games. I know I am gonna grab one!)

"Dream Trooper" Storm Trooper Head Portable Dreamcast.

I am sure you have all seen this before.

Better late than never.

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=26128

He made this thing out of an old Lazer Doodle! Amazing! All it's lacking is the back cover.

Recession? What you talkin' bout, Willis?

'Sup. Seeing as it's been about 9 millenia since I last ejaculated anything of note onto these hallowed pages, I thought it was about time I got back into the swing of things with a post of sorts. I have however, in my absence, been a regular visitor to the 'Yard and have been quite entertained by the exploits of the rest of the team over the past few weeks and months. Kudos where it's due.

So what's been happening then? Well, there's this 'credit crunch' thing going on at the moment. To be quite honest, if it wasn't for BBC News presenters constantly banging on in their painfully middle class accents about the ECONOMIC CRISIS gripping the ENTIRE MEGAVERSE, I'd be none the wiser to it's apparent existence. How so? Simple: I, like many other proletariat, live within my means, don't go fox hunting and don't take my obese kids to boarding school in a Range Rover. So, you see - for the normal person, everything is as it ever was: expensive. For the rich...well: WELCOME TO OUR WORLD, BITCHES! YEEHAW!!!

There is a point to my rambling on about this Bantha shit though - the price of Netto beans may have gone up by a solar system-shattering 1.5% in the last month (which has hit me hard, regardless of the contents of the last paragraph); but the meagre price of a Dreamcast game has remained constant, even in the light of Wall Street crumbling to the ground and the FTSE melting down into the sub-components of a Pot Noodle.

Want evidence, my Lord? Then wrap your festering eye sockets around this little lot:

Virtua Atlete 2K - eBay price: A QUID!

Never been much of a fan of athletics games. They're always the same - basically you have to either tap buttons so fast that your fingers seize like a Montego engine in winter; or you have to rotate the analogue stick until it buries itself into your palm and draws blood (something that actually happened to a friend of mine). Virtua Athlete 2K is no different. It's basically an unofficial take on the Olympics and involves you participating in a number of events such as running, running and jumping, throwing stuff and, well not much else.

The number of events is pretty small and there's no swimming, fencing or shooting involved. Granted, those aren't really athletics per se but with such a crappy roster of events (7, with a few unlockable ones) you'd have thought Sega would involve them just for the sake of longevity. Graphically, Athlete is fairly good looking. It's not Anna Faris good looking, but it's decent enough. For a quid, I'm not going to berate Virtua Athlete 2K too much but if I'd paid 40 notes for this back in the day I probably would've taken it back to the shop and projectile vomited bile into the face of the twat who allowed me to purchase it.

Resident Evil 2 - eBay price: £2.40

I recently ventured into a branch of Gamestation and was astounded to find that they had a handful of Dreamcast games hidden in one of those glass cabinets that they unusually preserve for the display of broken and/or stolen iPods. One of those games was Resident Evil 2, and they were asking £24.99 for it. TWENTY FIVE QUID! As much as I love the DC, there's not a chance in hell that I would even entertain the notion of paying that much for ANY DC title. Not even a white label disc that contained fully working versions of Picassio, Take the Bullet and Scud Race. Actually, I probably would pay 25 nicker for that, but Resi 2? Pfft.

But why was it so expensive? Is the DC version that much of an improvement over the original PSX game that it warrants such an incredible price point? The answer is a resounding no. It's basically the same game, albeit with higher resolution backgrounds and a new random item mode, plus a few extra bonus modes that were only available in the original after you'd completed the game. Everyone and their mum has played Resi 2 before so there's not much point in me going into the story in any great depth, but it's basically a survival horror set in Raccoon City, you can play as either Leon or Claire and you've got to shoot zombies...yada yada yada. On the plus side, the VM helpfully lets you know how much health you've got left...but this feature is made redundant if you're using one of those cheapo-nasty third party VMs with no screen. To put it bluntly, if you've ever sampled any version of Resi 2 before (excluding the pathetic Game.com version), you've played the DC version. But if you ain't - it's a classic; and at £2.40 it was a steal, too.

Razor Freestyle Scooter - eBay price: yep, another quid!

I seem to recall that at the very end of my last post I promised a review of Razor Freestyle Scooter. It's taken until now to do it because I simply couldn't be bothered. But here it is! Another entrant into the "I only paid a pound for it" Hall of Fame (Shame?), Razor is a sort of Tony Hawk style game, only with the 'coolness' associated with sk8r bois/MTV rejects ripped out and replaced with those hideous little folding scooter things that feral youths just love to ride along pavements up and down the country. They're also extremely useful as getaway vehicles after mugging old women for their pension money...erm...apparently. Cough. But back to Razor Freestyle Scooter.

Like I said, it's a Tony Hawk clone with frankly superb graphics...but only 3 - yes THREE! - stages. Oh, and a rather strange back story that involves a robotic paedophile who steals kids and takes them to his magic castle for a thorough seeing to (I would imagine). Dodgy storylines aside, Razor is a fairly enjoyable game for the time it lasts - all there is to it is riding your scooter around the various (3) stages doing tricks and collecting scooter wheels. It's clearly another one of those infamous kiddie games and it's predictably easy peasy lemon (muthafuckin') squeezy, but if you have a four-year-old who loves scooters AND has a penchant for rare Dreamcast games...by all means make Razor Freestyle Scooter your next purchase.

Moving away from my most recent purchases, I was toying with the idea of finally taking the plunge and buying a Dreamcast VGA cable. Y'see, I bought a fucking amazing HDTV a few months back and whilst it displays my Xbox 360 games in glorious 1080i HD-O-Vision(TM), when I plug my faithful ol' DC into it via SCART, it looks like someone has smeared a tub of beef dripping across the screen. I then, in my infinate wisdom, went and got an S-VHS cable off Amazon...only to find that it doesn't FUCKING work. So basically what I'm saying is: Can anyone out there in the ether tell me where to get a reasonably priced VGA box/cable from? Cheers, me dears.

Finally, I'd just like to congratulate Sega on their awesome homage to all things Dreamcast: Sega Superstars Tennis. Got it on 360 yesterday for a tenner...and it's simply brilliant.

That is all.

Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles Pre-orders are open!

I just received an e-mail from the guys at Yuan Works that Pre-ordering is now open for their indie Dreamcast release Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles. It'll be released at the end of October, and costs about £21/$40. There's still a chance to buy a custom sprite if you haven't alreday, but get a move on if you want one of those! You can pre-order it from the RedSpotGames shop, the publishers of this game as well as last year's shump Last Hope. If you enjoy puzzle games like Panel De Pon (otherwise known as Tetris Attack) this is a must play, and the love and care that's gone into it's production shines through every pixel. Look out for a Rummage video review in November!

Samba De Amigo: Wii vs Dreamcast

As you may know, Samba De Amigo was released on the Wii last week. It's been eight years since the Dreamcast version came out and now Sega are giving the game a second chance with this remake developed by Gearbox, who you may know as the guys that ported Half Life to the Dreamcast, amongst other things. In case you're wondering why a developer who mainly works on first person shooters like Brothers in Arms are producing a new Samba De Amigo, it's because they begged Sega to do it for the love of the original game and the potential to finally be more than just a hardly known expensive game. Now that I've had the game for a couple days and have given it a good going over, how does it compare to the Dreamcast releases?

Well it's certainly not just a straight port. Gearbox hacve reworked the game from the ground up. It's all familiar but at the same time completely different. The graphics have been given a major overhaul and the presentation is far more expansive. Mind you, this should be expected when the game is a whole eight years apart from the Dreamcast one. Either way you can tell they loved what they were doing as the presentation is stunning and does the classic justice. No slapped together rubbish here. They've even included stages where you dance alongside Sonic in Green Hill Zone and Ulala from Space Channel 5, which is a lovely bit of fan service.

They've added quite a bit of new content too. There is at least 20 new songs on top of what was already available before, and every mini game from the first version and version 2000 are intact along with a couple more new ones. They even have downloadable content on the way with song packs of three for 500 Wii points (about £3/$5). So far the only songs that seem to be missing from what I can tell are all the Sega music that you could download 9for free) in the DC one, and a song called S.O.S which I was stuck on in version 2000. Maybe they'll be downloadable in the near future.

So everything appears to be great so far, but there is one area to this remake where it doesn't quite match the original: the controls. While the Wii remote and the DC maracas are both motion controlled devices, they both work entirely differently, and so Gearbox has had to adjust how the game works to play it. While the DC game worked based on the height you were holding the maracas, the Wii can not currently do that, so instead the game relays on a hard-to-describe tilt positioning type system that sadly isn't quite as accurate or as responsive. You have to completely re-wire your brain to play this new version. At first I really struggled to nail certain poses and going from one height to another quickly but after a bit of tinkering with the input settings and playing through the training parts I figured them out, unlike these guys in this video below by game Reactor who are clearly doing it wrong.

Still, it's not as good, and can sometimes be frustrating at it takes a lot more thought and perfection than the DC one did. From what I've read on forums it seems to vary from person to person: some people have nailed it and are beating superhard, while others cannot get the hang of it at all. It's definitely not as intuitive as before. personally, I've just started working on hard mode but keep getting my arse kicked with D's and E's. The Dreamcast maracas were not perfect by any means (especially in superhard where it often couldn't keep up with you), but it seems the Wii version is a lot harder to get good at. Maybe if they had waited until the Motion Plus attachment comes out next year, we could have got a more accurate and enjoyable game. Oh well, if this one sells good enough we might get a sequel that uses it.

If you mainly play the game as a party game to play with mates though, it's perfectly fine. With the Wii version it's far easier to set up, and you don't need to blow tons of money to get a two player game started. Once you get used to it Easy and Normal are just as good as the DC version, it's only when you start to handle hard upwards it suffers from problems. With the Wii version you also don't get the problem of wires flying up and smacking you in the face as you can play it with two remotes if you want to (although one remote and a nunchuck works just as fine). As for the sensation of holding two bright red maracas: you can get plastic attachments that make it feel like the DC ones again. Many look a bit shit but this pair by Speedlink look the part, and Sega will be releasing their own official maracas in a months time (why not now I don't know.)

So while the new Wii release is worth a look, it's by no means perfect just yet, mainly because as much as Gearbox tried, the Wii remote's technology is currently not quite good enough to recreate what Sega already did all those years ago. Once again proves that they were ahead of their time. Hopefully Sega will do the right thing and give us an update using motion plus in the near future, but that will only happen if people buy this one.

The Import Lucky Dip No.1

I have a new rather daft hobby when it comes to buying Dreamcast games of the Japanese import sort. Every so often on Ebay i find a Store located in japan selling a bunch of games at a starting bid of 25p or even 1p. While some of the games do hit up some decent money, a bunch go unsold and unwanted. Because they're so cheap, I bid on a bunch of Dreamcast ones the other week and got all but one of them for the starting bid, and had them shipped on the cheapest way, which actually didn't take as long to ship as expected. From this batch I got 4 games for 25p, and one for £3, after the postage it came to about £14. One of the five was a Saturn game (Dead or Alive) but the rest were DC, which tend to go for less money in general. I call it "lucky" not because i don't know what I'm getting, but more often than not they're games I've never played before, but surely these games have gotta be worth a look for that cheap?

Pop N' Music

One of the earliest rhythm games by Benami (known best for Dance Dance Revolution) and one of four installments on the Dreamcast alone. Currently the series is up to it's 16th installment. Yikes! The 3rd and 4th ones on the DC require the 2nd game as they are appendix discs that add more music. This however is the very first game which is completely pointless if you own the 2nd one, which I don't. Still following me?

Anyway, the game consists of bashing 9 coloured buttons in sync to the little googly eyed things that fall down from the screen to a line. A special controller was built for the Dreamcast to make it identical to the arcade game with huge plastic buttons, but I'm not going out of my way to buy one of those unless i end up loving the game. So how does it play with the standard controller? Well the nine buttons get mapped to the shoulder buttons, all four buttons and every direction on the d-pad. I couldn't get the hang of any of the configuration at all but luckily it let you create your own, so what i did is match the colours on one side with the colours of the DC buttons and put the d-pad lot in the same places. There's also options to play the game in 7 and 5 button modes too to make things easier, which is nice.

This is my current custom set up. It kind of works..

I'm slowly getting the hang of it now with my custom set up and it's not that bad of a game once you gather your bearings. I actually prefer it over the DC DDR games which were dismal, with much catchier music (though still mind-numbly cheesy) and cute cartoon graphics. I might consider picking up the superior sequel at some point, but wherever or not I'm willing to invest in the special controller is still up in the air at the moment. Now if only it was playable with the maracas or dance mat..

Giant Gram Wrestling

I've never really like Wrestling games. They always feel like they're playing by themselves and you barely have much input in what's going on. I bought this on the basis that Sega made it and it features three Virtua Fighter characters (wolf, Jeffry and Kage) for some reason. That and of course because it was 25p.

I haven't played much of it but the graphics are quite good, better than any of the WWF games on the Dreamcast and it seems to play alright at first once I figured out how to punch, kick, and defend myself from throws. How I do anything else like tagging however i have no idea, and after a few easy rounds I get my arse kicked inside out by the CPU. Maybe I should read up on it, as it isn't a terrible game by any means.

Godzilla Generations

I pretty much knew this was going to be awful but I bought it anyway to see just how awful. It's was one of many disappointments in the Dreamcast's Japanese launch lineup, and I actually remember being wowed by the screenshots in Sega Saturn magazine when it was first showed off. The actual game however looks barely anything like those shots did: in fact it looks closer to a N64 game but with a few odd building blocks sitting on a flat surface. The game has you as your selected monster (you start with Godzilla or his robot twin at first but can unlock others like the shitty Hollywood Godzilla and his butt-ugly baby son) smashing as many buildings as you can in 12 minutes per stage while trying to not get killed by the tanks and jet fighters that zap away at you.

It's extremely slow to walk around and aiming your attacks like the laser breath is almost impossible. What's more the camera angle changes constantly, presumingly to make things more cinematic, except all this does is makes it very difficult to tell which way you're going or where the tiny enemies chipping away at you are. A lot of the time the camera is more interested in getting a close dramatic shot of your monster than it is letting you see where you're going. The best thing the game offers is in fact a gallery of Godzilla movie trailers, of which you can unlock about 15 of them. Not really worth it when you have to slug your way through the dull game to get them though. Time to whip out the VMUTool to unlock everything, me thinks!

A House of the Dead Zombies' reaction to Godzilla generations, this afternoon.

D2

This was the most costly of the 4 games I got, as I had to outbid someone a couple times to get it which ended up at about £3. Mind you, the game is 4 discs so no complaints there. Now I knew I wanted to try this out anyway after Caleb's fantastic Rummage video on it, and I was hoping that it would have just Japanese subtitles and English voice acting (like Blue Stinger and the Resident Evil series) but unfortunately that wasn't the case, and everyone was talking in moon speak. Not a big problem, though, as all the menus are in English so I can get about easy.

I defiantly like what I've seen so far: the graphics are pretty darn impressive, up there even with Shenmue when it comes to the characters. The combat works nicely and I can see myself far more patience with this than a Resident Evil game what with the unlimited ammo etc. If I can pick myself up a copy of the American version I'd probably replace this with that, but for now this will do me nicely. If anything I love the front cover of the box: it's hard to tell in the photo but it's sort of semi-transparent like the Cosmic Smash one. Well worth it.

Look at the lovely case art!

One thing I've learned from buying from Japanese based Ebay stores is just how much more well looked after second hand games are over there compared to here. They even put each game in a resealable seal that makes the game look brand new, and none of the games I got were scratched at all. rarely do I find PAL Dreamcast games anymore that are in as good condition as this, the cases are usually always broken and the discs repeatedly sat on, and that's even if they have the right game in the case at all! I did get Aerowings 2 and Toy Commander last week for £3 the pair this weekend which were almost mint though, so i can't complain too much.

Just today I managed to grab another three games for a total of £8 (excluding whatever the potage will be) that I have never played before: Treasure Strike (which was £6 of that £8), some anime looking golf game and something called Pita Pies...which was only 1p. We'll see if these were small money well spent or not another day..

Extremely Angry Dreamcast Fan Hates Simon J and Wants Dreamcast 2. Plus More Dreamcast 2 Videos!

I was hesitant to do a post about this video. It has a ton of misspellings and sub-par editing. Plus the first part does drag on a bit.

Yet the honest feelings of disillusionment and disappointment with Sega really show through. I really don't think that Simon knew what the hell he was getting himself into when he made those remarks about "fanatics" who like the Dreamcast.



Here is some more. A shame really. A bit more editing and it might have fooled more people.





The new Sega "TeraDrive" Dreamcast 2.



I predict a ton of videos like this leading up to 9/9/09.

(I may even make some myself.)

I don't think that most of these people really think that there will be a Dreamcast 2. They are just having some fun.

DCJY Rummage: Rainbow Cotton

I promised I'd try to keep bringing you Rummage videos, and here we are with another new one. Now I have discovered a way to record footage of 60HZ games I will start doing videos of lesser known import titles like this one: Rainbow Cotton, a Japanese only release in which you fly about as a red-head witch hunting for candy with the aid of a bunch of busty fairies.

It's a game that could have been great but is sadly let down a bit but some control flaws. It also perfectly demonstrates how terrible I am at playing at it, as you only get to see three levels and I die a lot. Oh well! Speaking of imports, I today received Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon DX and it is brilliant, another one of those hidden gems there is next to nothing about on this here Internet. Once I've played it more you'll hear more about it.