Well hello! Some good news arrived in my inbox today. It’s
not really Dreamcast related, but it’s related to this, the hallowed Dreamcast
Junkyard, so by tenuous association I suppose it is Dreamcast related. Kind of.
Enough preamble though! Basically, a few months ago I got wind of a project
being undertaken by the British Library, a project called the UK Web Archive
which is trying to archive websites which may, in years to come, provide a
valuable snapshot of life in the UK during the ‘digital revolution.’ Now, I
know that we here at the DCJY are an international line-up, but I reckon with
our blue-toned hues and PAL-centric banter, we are as good a games-related
entry into the Video Games heritage category as anyone, what with our own irreverent
brand of humour-tinged yet informative drivel. Cough. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the UK Web Archive accepted my nomination for the DCJY to
be inducted into their...er...archive, and as such we shall live on forever
like Gods of the interweb. More info? Of course! Go here.
The real reason for today’s post isn’t the immortalisation
of our favourite Dreamcast portal though, oh no. It’s because I've got some new
shit to drop off into the gaping chasm that is the ‘Yard. Four new games, to be
precise. Here:
Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits Volume 1
Midway. Remember them? Ah...halcyon days. Hydro Thunder, the
San Francisco Rush series, Cruis’n USA...actually, forget the last one. And San
Francisco Rush (although Rush 2 & 2049 weren't bad). Hydro Thunder was
balls out awesome though. But before all that outrageousness, Midway was a
powerhouse that released some of the most important games of the 1980s. And
with Midway’s Arcade Hits Volume 1, you can play them all...well, 6 of them, on
your god-damned Dreamcast! The games themselves (Defender, Defender 2, Robotron,
Joust, Sinistar and Bubbles) are all pretty well emulated (I’d imagine, having
never played the arcade versions of any of them), and Defender 2 in particular
is a pretty fun game. I used to have Defender 2000 on the Jaguar so I knew how
it played...and it’s still great even today. Bit infuriating at times...but not
as infuriating as Flashback. The game that made me throw my only Jaguar joypad
at the wall and smash it to smithereens, which then resulted in me having to
order a new pad from some US mail order company and wait a month for it to get
delivered. Damn you, Flashback. Damn you Conrad Hart and your inability to
fucking roll under a barrier when I tell you too.
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| Check out the particles on that! Particles! |
Going back to Midway’s
Greatest Arcade Hits Volume 1 though, there is one criticism I have with it:
the presentation. I don’t mean with the actual games themselves – I expected
them to look like ass compared to the average ‘proper’ DC game...but my God the
menus are awful! I seem to recall Namco Museum on PSX having some kind of 3D
arcade that you walked around in first person, and you could select which game
you wanted to play by approaching the cabinet (am I imagining that?!), but here
you just get a static screen showing an insultingly low-res bitmap of the
arcade machines in a row. You just have to move the ‘highlight’ between the
machines and press start. Jesus Midway – talk about bargain basement production
values! If there was anyone still working for Midway I’d probably send them a
strongly-worded letter about that. But yeah, the games themselves are all
perfectly acceptable if you’re after some nostalgia. Apparently there’s a
second edition of Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits that includes Paperboy and Spy
Hunter. Intriguing. Rumours of a third edition featuring War Gods and WWF Wrestlemania: The
Arcade Game are, thankfully, unconfirmed.
NFL Blitz 2000
Keeping with the Midway theme, the next game is the rather
bizarre NFL Blitz 2000. A strange re-imagining of American football, where the
rules have been tweaked (I think/hope) to allow for a more surreal experience.
I don’t know the first thing about American football other than it’s a bit like
rugby and all the payers dress like they’re in Legion of Doom...and they don’t
really kick the ball with their feet very much. There’s something called ‘first
and down’ (so I hear) and it stops every 20 seconds for a time-out. I've seen
plenty of really good films about American football – that one with Dwayne ‘The
Rock’ Scorpion King in it was rather good, as was the one about the guy who
gets shot on the pitch...or are they the same film? I can’t remember. Speaking
of American sports I don’t have a clue about but made a good movie, I watched
Money Ball the other day. Jonah Hill doesn't do anything funny in it and Brad
Pit isn't playing Tyler Durden, but it’s a good film. I reckon if the real-life
version of NFL was like Blitz, I’d be more inclined to seek out and watch a few
games – it’s full of over-the-top tackles, flaming footballs and
ridiculous...er...football. Probably one for people who know how the game
actually works, but still fairly entertaining if you persist with it.
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| See - 3rd and 21. Makes total sense. |
NFL Quarterback Club
Urgh. More American football. But without the flaming balls.
From what I can tell, NFL Quarterback club is simply a conversion of the N64
game of the same name, but because the graphics have hardly been updated (just
hi-res-ified), it actually looks worse. Acclaim did some pretty impressive
stuff with the N64 hardware (just look at All Star Baseball, Turok and the
Extreme G series*), but all they've done with NFL QBC is take the N64 game,
remove the fuzz and add a bit of extra commentary. And it shows – the graphics,
while sharp, are horrible. And again, while I reiterate my complete ignorance
when it comes to American football, I know what a good game looks like. Look at
NFL 2K – it looks incredible compared to Quarterback Club. I can’t really
comment on how it plays as a simulation of the actual sport because (yet
again...sorry) I find it impenetrable...but the aesthetics appal me. Be gone,
NFL Quarterback Club.
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| Charlie, I know how you feel |
Kiss Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child
A first person shooter in which you play as members of the
metal band Kiss. Is there anything more to say? I think Father K reviewed this
little oddity a few years back, but what the hell – here’s another look at it.
The story is pretty stupid and the manual features several introductory
chapters that explain everything...but it’s a cringe inducing trip to cliché-ville
in which your band arrives at a club to find it deserted...and some demon has
spawned a ‘Nightmare Child’...and you have to stop it by wandering around
punching and shooting demons in the face. You play as the different members of
Kiss and get to do all this whilst rocking out to actual Kiss music, which is
nice if you like that sort of thing. I'm more of a Motion City Soundtrack kinda
guy myself, but I don’t think they released Motion City Soundtrack Psycho
Circus: The Nightmare Child in this dimension or any other, so I'm left wanting.
Probably wouldn't feature demons either – it’d just have you wandering around
punching and shooting pretentious students in ‘cool’ clothes. The graphics aren't bad in Psycho Circus and the frame rate licks along at a decent and consistent
speed...it’s just that the whole game is a little boring.
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| Better ring DIY SOS |
The environments are
a little sparse and the range of weapons is pretty limited, and compared to other
DC shooters it feels a little flat (especially next to say, Outtrigger or
Soldier of Fortune), but yeah – there’s nothing massively offensive about the
game as a whole. Interestingly, on page 5 of the manual there’s a little
diagram of a joystick called the ‘Panther XL,’ but I‘d never heard of such a
device. Upon Googling it though, it appears that there was such a monstrous
thing actually constructed and available to buy:
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| "The Wii U Tablet Controller ain't got shit...on me" |
How I’d never heard of this thing, I don’t know.
I looks a little cumbersome, but Take 2 Interactive obviously thought that it
may improve the average gamer’s Kiss Psycho Circus experience enough to include
it in the manual, and who am I to argue? Nobody, that’s who. Maybe if I had a
Panther XL, I’d be raving about how great Kiss Psycho Circus is, instead of
just nodding, smiling politely and then moving on to find something more
interesting to do. Like make a cup of tea. Which is what I'm off to do now.
* I know these games were actually developed by Iguana...but Acclaim/Iguana...same difference.
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