Dreamcast Magazine Issue 11

Dreamcast Magazine issue number 11 frolicked off the press and onto the shelf of your local Newsagents on the 13th July 2000. Not a particularly memorable day for many, but according to a quick Google search, 13th July 2000 was also the day that Fijian rebels released 18 hostages including the former Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry after eight weeks holed up in the island's parliament building.

Issue 11 is an absolute beast when it comes to unreleased games though (see what I did there?). Colin McRae Rally 2.0 grabs the cover and receives a lengthy preview of the rally game that never was (unless you've been privileged enough to play it), and the rest of the Forecast section contains a ton of other stuff you've probably never heard of before.

The Sega Driving Simulator – Expanding the Dreamcast Collection Special

Originally intended to be featured in my soon to be completed 'Expanding the Dreamcast Collection – Part 3' article, it was decided (by me!) that this game/simulator deserved a little more attention and so has evolved into its own, albeit short, article. Take a read if such things as boring simulators interest you…or don’t... see if I care!

Did you know, that in 2002, while the English were still living in mud huts and throwing faeces into each other’s faces, on the other side of the globe, whacky big eyed constantly bowing super advanced cat-girl people (aka the Japanese) had already perfected the art of driving simulator creation? Yes, it’s true, and the creator of said super advanced simulator wasn’t Skynet, but in fact Sega! What’s more it ran on Dreamcast 2 hardware!

OK, so it wasn’t technically running on a Dreamcast 2, it ran on the Naomi 2 arcade hardware. The Naomi 2 was of course the sequel to the original Naomi which itself was basically just an arcade version of the Dreamcast, so with a bit of imagination it doesn’t take much of a leap to get from Naomi 2 to Dreamcast 2. (The rest of the above is all true and historically accurate by the way, a Facebook meme once told me so...probably).

New VMU Games On The Horizon?

Ah, Instagram. A social network I have very limited experience with...because I simply don't get it. Yes I'm a Luddite, a moron even. But I'm OK with that. To be honest, I've been called much worse for having a bizarre fascination with a certain archaic games console. Cough. But back to Instagram. I've actually had an account for a while but I've never uploaded anything to it because I literally have nothing interesting to post there.

Nobody wants to see pictures of my Pot Noodles and empty beer cans stained with tears. That said, I'm glad I signed up to it all those years ago though as it allowed me to discover (well, be shown by Cauterize of RetroCollect fame) the fascinating work of user guacasaurus_mex. I see what you did there with the name, Mr Mex. Very clever. But not as clever as the VMU-based creations on your Instagram page!

A Quick Look At James & Watch: Tooth Cracker

In 2015, RetroGaming Roundup's Ben Lancaster released a new homebrew game for the Dreamcast modelled after the popular Nintendo Game & Watch LCD units of the 1980s. James & Watch: Arm was a fairly simple game that tasked players with throwing and catching a small child, and was inspired by true events that involved some bored brothers, a broken arm and a little bit of sibling bribery. If that sounds even remotely intriguing, you should have a look at our previous feature and all will be made clear.

Fast forward to 2016 and Ben has been back to the drawing (developing?) board and come up with the second entrant in the James & Watch saga, the brilliantly titled Tooth Cracker. As with the first in the series, Tooth Cracker is inspired by true events but rather than being based on brotherly 'love,' it is based on the wince inducing tale of a few beverages of the alcoholic persuasion, an errant elbow and the resulting smashed incisors.

Some Dreamcast Items From Video Game Market 3

This last weekend (Saturday 5th March 2016) saw the third annual RetroCollect Video Game Market, where traders and online retailers converged at Yorkshire's Doncaster Dome to sell merchandise, consoles and games at reasonable prices to thrifty retro gamers. That was the theory anyway - some traders were clearly not singing from the same hymn sheet, asking stupid money for old consoles that were so yellowed they could be mistaken for blocks of cheddar. On the whole though, it was a fantastic event and the sheer number of people in attendance was mind blowing.

Thousands of people looking for yellowing Dreamcasts...

I was amongst that number representing the Junkyard, and it was great to meet so many people who visit this hallowed blog and listen to our podcast - in fact I was a little taken aback by how many attendees knew of the Junkyard and asked about articles they had read here, so if you were one of them - thank you. As it was primarily a market, I was able to leave my little corner of the venue and venture into the fray briefly and I'm glad I did because I managed to acquire some quite lovely Dreamcast-related stuff at Video Game Market 3. Here for you delectation is a run down of the swag I got my hands on...

What a fool.

Sega Hard Girls Premium Figure Unboxing Video

A new piece of official Dreamcast merchandise in the year 2016? Impossible! Well, no actually. This is the official Sega Hard Girls Premium Dreamcast Figure exclusive to Japan.

Guard that Dreamcast collection with your life, my precious...

In short, the Sega Hard Girls franchise stars cute big eyed anime girls each based on a classic Sega console. It already has an anime and manga series, novels, PS Vita game, figures and all sorts of other merchandise under its name.

A Quick Look At Exhibition Of Speed

The Dreamcast does have some great racing games and we've been over them many times here at the Junkyard. Metropolis Street Racer, Le Mans 24hrs, Ferrari F355 Challenge, Rush 2049...I could go on. However, as with all consoles there are some absolute stinkers and Exhibition of Speed is a race leader in those stakes. But before I get into the nitty gritty of why this is such a torrid affair, let's have a little look at EOS's history. Developed by Player 1 and published by Titus in 2001, EOS is a PAL exclusive arcade racer and the spiritual successor to Roadsters. What's interesting here is that EOS builds on the derided Dreamcast port of Roasters rather than the (quite decent) Nintendo 64 version, and as such feels every bit as cheap and half-arsed.

Doesn't look too bad in stills.

The game employs the standard features you'd expect in game of this type. You are presented with a Trophy mode which serves as the main championship, a quick race and time attack options and also a four player split-screen option. The Trophy mode takes cues from other titles in this genre in that you choose a driver, then a vehicle and then race in three different leagues. You start in the bottom division and work your way up by winning races and upgrading your vehicle; and each division's circuits have a new gimmick to differentiate them from the previous. This sounds quite cool, until you realise that you can literally play every track and use every car in the game just by selecting quick race. There's no point playing through the championship...because everything is already available from the start!