Shuffle, Resi Evil, and some F1.

The boot sale sucked this morning (Only made a tenner. Gack.), but I picked up a few more DC goodies. This one guy had two sets of Dreamcast consoles with a bunch of games on his stool, mostly he usual common-as-muck UEFA, Tomb Raider etc etc but he also had three games that I managed to get him to sell separately for a five "paund" note.

Sonic Shuffle: I can't begin to remember how long I've been meaning to try this out. The last time I actually saw a physical copy of it was back when it first came out (one copy) six years ago full price. Before you say Ebay: I only really use that for games and stuff I can't find elsewhere like import titles etc. Anyway, being the Sonic nut I am, it's kind of a shock to have not played this at all yet, until now. If you haven't heard of it there one simple, three-word way of describing it: Mario Party Clone. Mind you, it didn't turn out to be quite as bad as people have made it out to be (look about on any review site, it's not got very good ratings, which may of put me off buying it in the past maybe), once you get used to all the rules (Note to self: Read manual heavely before playing). Playing in 1 player is obverserly not the most fun in the world as you have to wait for the 3 CPU players to take their turns and faff about, and I really wish Knuckles would STOP saying "Is that all you got?" over and over again. Still, I found myself rather hooked to this today for some odd reason, and you'll be surprised where the hours go to (For a Sonic game, it's hardly what I would call a quick-blast game). All in all, from what I've seen so far I'd give this a 7/10 (Might go down to 6, although the fact I'm playing it so much must be a good sign)


Resident Evil Code Veronica: Now I never usually go for these titles or anything like it because they feature just about everything I don't want video games to have such as limited ammo and saves, searching back and forth a lot and all that equipping rubbish. I remembered the lengthy demo well, however, and for £1.66 it can't be a waste. Currently I'm in the same spot I got stuck in on the demo (which I solved, but can't remember) where you have to get some sort of material to make a 3D copy of a badge thing. It's not as tedious as I remember the original on the Saturn being, but I sill found myself wondering around aimlessly looking for one of those bloody herbs (I wasted one thinking I was giving it to that injured bloke in the cell room, and another was in the form of a spray can so I didn't even know what it was). I will, however, try and have a go at more of it. I won't give this a rating because I haven't played enough yet.

F1 World GP something or other 2 for Dreamcast (duh): The Dreamcast has way too many racing games. I mean, in Formula 1 alone it has 4. According to, well, a lot of people though, this is supposed to be the best one, so even though I only got another one a few weeks ago (F1 Racing Championship. Confused with the titles yet?) I decided to get this on the promise that I'll sell the inferior one. I'm glad to report that this one I just bought it is indeed the better one, with much, much nicer graphics, and a whole lot more options as far as I could tell. That other one will be on the boot sale tomorrow. 7/10

I also bought a PC game that can be found on the Dreamcast on American import that I haven't stuck my teeth into yet from the same bloke for a quid. I'll come back to that one another time.

Halcyon Days

For reasons known only to the shadowy organisation that controls my life, my homepage when I load up Firefox is set to BBC News. This is good, because before I instantly click on either the Hotmail, Free Porn or Russian Brides tabs on the toolbox window, I manage to get a glimpse of the day's unbiased, up to date and un-CNNised events. Today though, I decided to have a proper look at the BBC News site because I noticed, tucked away in the top right hand corner of the main page, an article about the PS2 and Sony's arrogant refusal to lower the price in the UK even though they have pretty much everywhere else. At the bottom, there were links about related articles so after a few minutes of sifting through them, I had a brainstorm: I typed 'Dreamcast' into the search window and found this article from early 1999 reporting the upcoming launch of the system, and also a rather interesting Real Player interview with a James Snodgrass, editor of some now defunct (probably) magazine on the potential of Sega's (then) unreleased baby.

I also unearthed this one reporting on the phenomenal launch success of the system as gamers went mental for Dreamcast and queued for hours to get hold of a console (see pic). It brings back memories of Game and Electronics Boutique actually stocking Dreamcast stuff, and playing on Blue Stinger in the entrace on one of those pods with a gaggle of school kids watching...ah, halcyon days.

Battle on through the tears though, brave reader - we shall have our day...but in the meantime, have a read of my review of 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker. Actually, don't. It'll only make things worse...

Pimp my Dreamcast!

(This article was originally from my old blog Sega Freaks, which is now dead. I've mysteriously moved it over here to the Junkyard. Whoo~)

Here be a link to a site that features modified Dreamcasts with new paint jobs and LED lights! Devcast features a whole gallery of people's pumped up Dreamcasts, which include paint jobs, over clocking, controller shell mods and even artwork of some early Dreamcast prototypes. It's just like custom car show, only not. Here's some of my favorite mods from the site:

A lovely yellow paintjob with an even sweeter cut-out window.

Gotta love this shade of blue. I'd pay someone to make one of mine like this, because I'm too lazy.

This 'DC Viper' design is too sexy for words. I'm serious, I would pay someone to do something like this.

And finally, a very clever mod: A Dreamcast disguised as a Sega Saturn. Admittedly, I don't see why you would want one dressed up in a Saturn shell when the Dreamcast's is both smaller and more attractive, but kudos for pulling it off none the less.

Return of the...um...Brown Leather Jacket

That title won't make sense unless you're familiar with shite, late nineties British rap. However, Ladies and Gents - today my collection of Dreamcast stuff reached not one, but TWO Earth-splintering milestones. If you divert your eyes away from this very sentence, and point them slightly up and to the left you will no doubt, via use of the cones and rods every-so-neatly crammed into your eyeballs, be able to make out the distinct shapes of the numbers 'six' and 'zero.' This is because, my ginger beer drinking chums, today saw the arrival of the sixtieth* game into my collection! Of course, now that the 'Yard has assimilated the services of The GagaMan, the overall figure of Dreamcast related items is rapidly approaching a number only matched by the number of nuclear warheads George W. Bush has waiting to launch at the push of a single, flashing red button.

Shudder.

But back to me. Yes, today at lunchtime I took my crappy old Gameboy Advance to Elysium (Gamestation) and was awarded the princely trade price of 40 notes for it. With this I was able to procure MDK2, Zombie Revenge, two PC games (FarCry & Evil Twin)...and...

SHENMUE 2!!!!!!!

IN BRAND NEW CONDITION! NO tatty corners on the cardboard sleeve; NO scratches on ANY of the disks; NO spunk stains or bits of biscuit/cheese/pubes (delete as applicable) crushed into the pages of the manual!

There is a downside to all of this you understand - I still haven't even found the bar where the sailors 'hang out' in Dobuita in Shenmue 1, and since I'm abstaining from playing Shenmue 2 till I've completed the first segment of the adventure, I reckon it's gonna be a while before I actually get to play it...

Like the French Foreign Legion recruit in that ancient Kellog's Crunchy Nut Cornflakes advert, I will "RESIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST!!" But then, when I eventually complete Shenmue 2 and have inevitably become enlightened that it is indeed the best thing ever, I'll be so totally crushed that there isn't a 3rd and final chapter and then commit suicide. So it's probably for the best that I refrain from pulling on that brown leather jacket...for a few weeks at least...

...And Breathe.

As is the norm, I will now impose my opinion about some films I saw recently. However, unlike in the past, I will keep it extremely short and even sweeter:

1. Charlie & The Chocolate Factory: Turgid. Depp - miscast, pathetic, camp, gay, bollocks. The original had soul, passion...DECENT ACTING.
2. Cinderella Man: Fantastic. Every time I read about Russell Crowe being arrested for being a tosser (or repeatedly smashing a telephone into a receptionists' face - come on, we've all done it), I wonder why he's even famous. Then I watch a film like Cinderella Man and all is forgotten. Marvellous.

End of rant. Oh, and check this Dreamcast bike out. Yes, It's fucking UK:Resistance, and you've probably seen it already, but it's DC related so check it out, y'all. And (please?) make comments so I don't look like the only one sad enough to bother...

*-The total number of games is actually 63 (if I include Planet Ring and WWF Warzone), but I couldn't find a '63 Today' badge. Fucking Google image result philastines.