Copy and Paste!

Guess what? it's E3 soon. It's the biggest games event of the year, and we all love it. The Dreamcast Junkyard, however, reserves the right to be bitter because there is nothing REMOTLEY like it in England. This aside, E3 this year looks like it'll be the biggest and best yet, and in this extra special 'copy and paste' collectors edition of The Dreamcast Junkyard, I present Sega's more promising looking titles that are set to take the show by storm. Or possibly get brushed under the carpet by the PS3. Or the Wii. Or the 360. Or the new DS.

Cough. Anyway, here's a few morsels of info regarding Sega's new Dreamcast descended offerings.

Sega Rally Revo
No screens of Sega Rally Revo have been 'leaked' as of yet. It has me intrigued because I was a massive fan of the Saturn version, and thought the DC version was pretty decent. This isn't to be confused with the PS2's Sega Rally 2006. Here's what Sega say:

"With revolutionary dynamically deformable terrain, proprietary next-generation graphics, bone-jarringly realistic physics, and competitive bumper-to-bumper racing, SEGA RALLY will set a new benchmark in its genre with a high-tempo driving experience that’s every racing fan’s driving fantasy."

Here's an artist's impression of what it could look like:

Please bear in mind that the artist is me.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Everyone's favourite 'hog (well, after Rasher) is back...again. He's had more come backs than is probably good for him and will no doubt feature on a magazine cover with the tag "Sonic's Back!" but this time, Sonic is in a human world...or something. Graphics look quite good, but correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't Sonic in a 'human world' in Sonic Adventure? There were people walking about in Station Square if my memory serves me... Press release? Why, yes:

"Sonic celebrates his 15th anniversary by blazing his way onto the next-generation consoles, with his first adventure set in the human world! Featuring interactive 3D environments and a large cast of returning and new characters, get ready for the reinvention of Sonic The Hedgehog, in his most intense, high velocity escapade to date!"


Virtua Tennis 3
The best tennis game ever gets another sequel, this time on the 360. The visuals do look a bit speshul, and if the gameplay remains as polished as in the previous games it's bound to be another ace (he he!) for Sega. The 360 is somewhat lacking in terms of sports games at the moment, but the release of Virtua Tennis 3 is likely to give the system a kick up the arse in terms of choice. As ever, here's what the lovely mechanical press robot at Sega has to say:

"With Virtua Tennis 3, the series returns with enhanced photo-realistic graphics and advanced player animations that perfectly match the behavior and mannerisms of individual professional players. Next-generation systems allow gamers to see the most detailed expressions on the faces of their selected players as they battle to win heated tournaments around the world. In addition to the popular mini-games from previous titles used to sharpen players’ skills, there will be a whole host of brand new mini-games to keep players in top form."


There are a few others in the pipeline, but they are mostly new games that don't really relate to the DC. So they can go to hell.
Amen.

Click here to view Sega's official press site thingy, look at the picture below to see what you're missing at E3...


...and rejoice that you won't be there.

Empty Handed

First up, apologies for the lack of updates. I've been pre-occupied mostly with my new employment role as a Customer Service dogsbody at one of the world's larget credit card companies. Obviously, I can't disclose which one it is, but it (busta) rhymes with Sarclay McBard. And if that isn't obvious enough, you are clearly too thick to be reading this blog - so kindly leave. Other things that have hindered my ability to produce coherent prose have been the latter stages of Half Life 2 (very enjoyable) mixed with a dose of Far Cry (ridiculously difficult). Furthermore, I've only just recovered from having my UK:Resistance Sega Scout status revoked by the Rt Hon Cmdr Zorg for reasons I am not at liberty to divulge here.

Just a quick note while we're chewing the fat: you may not have noticed due to the wierd goings on down at Blogger central, but The Gagaman posted late Monday and it was published below my Silent Hill diatribe so it may have been missed by those readers who visited the 'Yard, still saw the Silent Hill thing and then continued on to fillipinoladyboys.com. Scroll down and have a read my friends...

Moving back into the Desert of the Real, today was election day in the land of rolling green fields and smashed up bus stops (England). And while I cast my vote, it reminded me of my trip to Gamestation at lunch time. On my voting card I was presented with a list of nobodies and also-rans (oh, and racist biggots who luckily, will never get a single vote in this constituency (the BNP, naturally)). My lunchtime trip to Gamestation saw me presented with a choice of Army Men, Virtua Athlete, Shadowman and Virtua Fighter 3tb. Similarities forming yet? Not that I'm implying the BNP have any connection to Virtua Fighter, you understand.

As anyone else with a brain would, I left empy handed.

Found this quite interesting site that's full of downloadable homebrew programs for the DC t'other day. There's quite a wide selection of burnable tech demos and games at first glance, but after trawling through most of 'em and burning them to CD-R, I found the majority are just a creative method of manufacturing frisbees. On the plus side, I also discovered this impressive Dreamcast promo video from UK Rockers that's actually better than most of the official ones:



Elsewhere, this is what my grill looks like:

Some may argue that it desperatly needs cleaning so I'm thinking about going to do it now. Unfortunatley, the chances that I'll make it to the kitchen and actually do it are slim because a) I can't be arsed and b) I'm just about to write a stellar review of Vanishing Point that will be availible to view on Defunct Games in a little over 24 hours. Nighty night.

Nickel Odeon

What's this? TWO posts in one day?!?! Believe it my friend. And the reason for this flouting of the unwritten rule of the Dreamcast Junkyard is that I would like to impose my opinion of the latest film I have seen: Silent Hill.


Obviously, it's based on the 1999 PlayStation adventure of the same name, and while it's not really anything to to with the Dreamcast, I must say that it's a cracking movie - certainly the best game/movie crossover I've seen. The reason is that it is so faithful to it's inspiration. Granted, the lead is played by a Mother, rather than a Father looking for a missing little girl - but the whole visual style of it is totally identical to the game. The misty townscape, the freaky alternative world, the monsters...it's all fantastically realised. Oh, and there are some really gruesome deaths thrown in for good measure. One criticism I must lay at Silent Hill's feet is the decision to cast Sean Bean as the Father. Sure, the guy is a brilliant actor and will go down in folklore as Alec Trevelyan in GoldenEye, but in Silent Hill he puts on the worst American accent you can imagine...the dude is from Yorkshire for Christ's sake! They shoulda just got an American - it ranks alongside Keanu Reeves' English accent in Bram Stoker's Dracula for cringe effect.

This slight error in the casting department aside, Silent Hill is - like I said - possibly the best 'game movie,' that we've ever been privy to (who can forget the horror of Super Mario Bros, Resident Evil (no pun intended) and Tomb Raider?); and features some really good CG sequences that are genuinley unnerving in places. Highly recommended to fans of the games, and to anyone who just wants to see a decent horror flick. Here's the trailer:

Controller thingys!

One thing that has been bugging me while playing DC games in Dad's record room on a lovely big screen (I have two Dreamcast’s set up in two separate rooms in our house. Why? Because GJKHJKGHKGGK!) was the length of the controller cable: it simply isn't long enough to reach over to the futon sofa thingy, so I've had to sit on the floor instead. Luckily, while doing my weekly Ebay browse for Dreamcast and Neo Geo Pocket stuff, I came across an extension cable. This guy has a shop on there that sells nothing but video game wires, and lots of them. This Dreamcast one was Buy it now for a quid, with a quid postage, so I nabbed one. I came through the post 3 days later and works a charm. I have yet to try it out on all types of controllers, but while the bog-standard controller work, the fishing controller did not. Good thing that one has a long wire to start with, then.


You know when you need to get out more when you start spending your nights in taking photos of wires. To make myself feel a little better after that revelation, I snapped my current collection controller thingys for the console as well. That's 4 controllers (one still boxed), 5 VMU's, 2 unofficial memory cards, a rumble pack, 2 mircophones, a keyboard, an arcade stick, a light gun and a fishing controller.

See as the House of the Dead actipn figure gezzer look on in sheer terror. That big old lightgun is after him. Mine one came out of a Gamestation in the lovely House of the Dead 2 box for £20, with Phantasy Star Online Ver.2 tossed into the deal, and they have a few of theseun-boxed in my local Gamestation now for a fiver each (would buy a 2nd one for 2 player if they had Bog off stickers on them) The one thing I love most about it, other than the hole so you can watch the VMU animations, and the cute little d-pad on the back, is the message sega have printed on the side of it (click to re-size):

"It's been coloured to make sure it is not mistaken for a real weapon".

That and it doesn't look remotely anything like a gun in the first place, unless you take guns from rusty old Sci-Fi programmes into consideration. The real disapointment with the Dreamcast gun is the lack of games made for it: in Europe we got just the two. There both great games per say, but even the Saturn had more lightgun games. If you take Amercia into account, there's also a rather dull port of Virtua Cop 2 on Sega Smash Pack, and there's also some other game out there called Death Crimson that uses it, but I haven't much good about that. Shame.

Now the arcade stick, there's a controller to be proud of. The choice of colour scheme is a bit odd (green?), but this is just about the most robust arcade stick controller outside of actually yanking out the controller lump of an arcade cabinet and attempting to link it up to your console. What's more it works with lots of games, almost any that were originally conceived in the arcades, and it is brilliant for fighting games, especially Capcom's mass collection of Street Fighters which just are not the same on a regular controller. This is HARDCORE, baby. I bought this back around 2000 from a boot sale, I believe, and paid good money of it, money that still holds up for it as it's hard to find now unless you go on Ebay, on which you would have to pay massive postage costs due to it's sheer bulk.

Now I don't care what anybody else says, but I think the fishing controller is the best invention since that contraption that gets Wallace out of bed and make's his toast. This may not be the official one, but it stills does it's job. While Sega Bass Fishing doesn't have a whole lot to keep you coming back, I am absolutely addicted to Sega Marine Fishing (which didn't see a European release, but can be picked up cheap online). Somehow they have taken the world's most boring sport and turned into something magical. God bless you Sega!

Sadly, the controller doesn't make the levels where you play Big in Sonic Adventure any less tedious as it doesn't work properly for that, which means that Sonic Team didn't put those levels in as an excuse to use the controller. A total of 5 games officially use the controller: Sega Bass, Sega Marine, Sega Bass 2, some other 3rd party fishing game and....Soul Cailbur! Yes, I'm not joking, although I haven't been able to try this out for myself yet as my copy of the game is so scratched up it doesn't even run anymore. Weep.

Now the Keyboard is looking a little redundant now the Dreamcast isn't online anymore (Or isn't it?), but it can be used for a few games, such as Phantasy Star Online, Worms World Party, those FPShooters that combined with a mouse are just like playing on the PC (The whole point of these console ports is to get away from the PC style controls?) and the real highlight: Typing of the Dead. You can get this game over here on the PC cheap now, but if you really must have this for your Dreamcast, it's readily out there online on American import, although this brings about one annoying fault: some of the keys on American keyboards are swapped about, so you have to learn which ones are the other way around! Annoying. Oh well, these Dreamcast keyboards were even in he pound shop near me a while back, which is where mine has come from, even though I did buy one at launch for going on the internet.

Finally I shall have a looksie at the Microphone. Again with the odd decision to use green, luckily this barely used gadget comes with the games it was made for: Planet Ring (online only game, probably not up anymore), Alien Front Online (the mode the Mic is used for is online) and Seaman. While Alien Front is a great offline game too, Seaman is the only game you will really be using this device for, a game of which can best be described as more of a very strange experience than a game. Think a virtual pet game, but without all the cutesy Japanese graphics, but instead a miserable looking fish with a human face that talks to you like your some bird shit on his head. Oh, and the game also has Jean Luc Picard doing narration, so you just can't not check this odd game out.

That's my lot to tonight, soon I will be posting more about Bleemcast, and some of the wonderful things you can do with a VMU. Ta.