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.