Xenocider Kickstarter Demo - Thoughts & Impressions

A quick Lets Play style video of the Xenocider demo including my impressions and thoughts. Excuse the random text relating to Rez. It's late here in Japan, gimme a break!

Links to our previous Xenocider articles:

Kickstarter Launch

Retro Sumus Interview

Retro Sumus DreamPod Episode

New Dreamcast Game Xenocider Hits Kickstarter With Playable Demo

As if you needed reminding, we've been closely following the development of Space Harrier/Sin & Punishment homage Xenocider for some time now. Coming from Spanish developer Retro Sumus, the game represents something of a leap forward for indie games on the Dreamcast as it features a fully polygonal engine built from the ground up for Sega's hardware. The good news is that the Kickstarter project to fund the final development and physical release of Xenocider has now been approved and gone live so it's up to us - the Dreamcast community - to get behind it and ensure it reaches the funding goal. There are a range of backer tiers, and as is the norm each will yield a different reward depending on the amount of money you pledge.

The goal stands at $92,000 in order to get Xenocider fully funded and the higher backer tiers feature such perks as having your own face transplanted into the game as a stage boss, bespoke models of the main protagonist Xara, and even limited edition customised Dreamcast consoles! Perhaps the most interesting part of this Kickstarter though, is that Retro Sumus isn't happy with simply showing potential backers what the game looks like. No, you can actually download a fully playable demo of Xenocider and play it on either PC, Mac...or Dreamcast.

Rez Infinite PlayStation VR: Play Test & Impressions Video

Last week the DCJY were lucky enough to get the chance of putting the upcoming Rez Infinite for PlayStation VR through its paces. In short, the experience was breathtaking and we can't wait for the final release of the game. What could the future hold in terms of other VR Dreamcast re-releases? Which other titles would you like to see given the VR treatment? Let us know in the comments!

Separated at Birth: Redline Racer & Suzuki Alstare

Redline Racer was a very early release for the Dreamcast and was little more than a technical showcase for the hardware. Developed by Criterion (yes, the same Criterion behind the Burnout series) the game initially launched for PC where it received average reviews, and a few months later in April 1999 it hit Japanese Dreamcasts to a similarly lukewarm reception. When Redline Racer was released in North America and PAL regions the following year, it came with official branding and a new name: Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing.

Thinking back, Suzuki was one of the first titles I experienced on the Dreamcast and I clearly recall renting it from Blockbuster when the price of a new game of my own was something way out of my price range. I also remember thinking it was a fairly decent, nice looking racer and to this day I still don't think there's anything particularly offensive about it. Sure, the visuals haven't aged well and the handling model is fairly rudimentary when compared to more contemporary motorcycle racers like Moto GP et al, but as a simplistic arcade jaunt there are worse titles out there.

I was aware of the connection to Redline Racer, but never really paid much attention to the Japanese ancestor because I always just assumed it was the same game without the Suzuki license and thought nothing more of it. However, in the recent past I acquired a copy of Redline (£3 well spent!) and gave it a whirl just out of curiosity; and I can honestly say that while many sites simply label Redline Racer as the Japanese version of Suzuki Alstare, in truth they couldn't be more different...

Metropolis Street Racer Original Promo Photos Found

You may recall a few months ago we featured the extremely rare prototype issues of the UK's Official Dreamcast Magazine. These mock-ups were produced by Dennis Publishing as part of the pitch process to secure the license from Sega Europe, and as we know now it ended up as the successful bid. These bespoke magazines are part of a jaw-dropping Dreamcast collection curated by fellow collector and blogger Blue Swirl, and recently he managed to find another fascinating and unique part of the Dreamcast's history: the original promotional negatives and slides produced by Bizarre Creations and Sega for Metropolis Street Racer.

These images were used in pretty much all of the promo materials for the game, including the cover of both the PAL and NTSC-U releases. As documented in his own blog post from January 2016, the Vauxhall VX220 used in the images didn't actually have an engine so was towed to the various nighttime cityscape locations used as backdrops:

"Apparently the car used in the photoshoot didn't have an engine so had to be dragged to various shooting spots. In one of the slides you can see some of the rigging at the rear of the car, I'm guessing it was pulled backwards and snapped with a slow shutter to give the illusion of speed."

- Blue Swirl

You can also find further confirmation of these claims on the site of Rosco, the artist who actually worked on this project for Sega Europe. These images may not seem like much, but to know that the original slides and negatives are still in existence and now in the hands of a Dreamcast collector like Blue Swirl is very reassuring. In essence it means that they'll not only be enjoyed as the slice of Dreamcast history that they are; it means they'll be preserved for posterity for years to come.

Source: Blue Swirl (all images used with permission)

SEGAbits Swingin' Report Show podcast interviews SEGA tournament champ and former Capcom employee Chris Tang

This past weekend was the culmination of SEGA Week at Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, IL. The week consisted of ten tournaments on new (well, new to the arcade) SEGA arcade machines as well as other special events which were held on SEGAbits Saturday. One big happening on the big final day was the reveal of Strike Harbinger, a very early look at an upcoming indie title from HitSparks Games which is led by competitive gamer and developer Chris Tang.

In the past, Chris took part in the historic 1990 Nintendo World Championships and was the winner of SEGA's Sonic & Knuckles Rock the Rock competition in 1994. Since then, Chris has worked on games at Atari and Capcom, including Gauntlet IV, Primal Rage, Street Fighter III, Rival Schools, Tech Romancer and Power Stone. Now, Chris is hard at work on a new game inspired by classic SEGA titles like Space Harrier and Phantasy Star. The game, titled Strike Harbinger, combines the fast paced forward flying gameplay of Space Harrier with the RPG and combat elements of Phantasy Star while utilizing a unique control structure that evokes Virtual On.

I had the pleasure to meet Chris and the game’s Senior Artist Kiyoshi Okuma, whose past work includes Gauntlet: Legends, World Series Baseball 2K2, The Sims 2 and Darkspore. I also had the honor to be the first member of the public to play the game, and following that experience I chatted with Chris about his life as a tournament gamer, his career, and his plans for Strike Harbinger.

I wanted to share this episode on the 'Yard as I thought fans of Capcom's Dreamcast titles would enjoy some of the stories Chris shared. So give it a listen and enjoy!

More ways to listen:
[Download] [RSS] [iTunes] [Archive]

Review: Leona's Tricky Adventures

The latest addition to the Dreamcast’s already overflowing library of independent games burst onto the scene earlier this year (that’s 2016 if you’re reading this in the distant future); and it’s taken us until now to finally put pen to paper - or rather finger to keyboard - and share our thoughts. Leona’s Tricky Adventures has a somewhat storied background and we’ve documented it here at the Junkyard in the recent past, but in the name of simplification I’m happy to remind you. The game originally started life as a Kickstarter back in 2013 but unfortunately didn’t make its funding goal.

Due to the rules of launching a project through that particular crowd-funding site, it meant that the whole project was cancelled and the developer KTX turned to funding the game using donations and pre-orders instead. It took almost three years for Leona’s Tricky Adventures to finally come to Steam and the Dreamcast, but eventually the game landed and here we are. If you’d like to know more about the development of the game, make sure you check out the recent Developer Interview we did with KTX Software’s CEO Thomas Musal, and Chief Technical Officer Robert Konrad.

But what of the game itself? What if you’ve never even heard of Leona or the particularly tricky adventure she finds herself embarking on? Well, you’re in luck as two of the finest wordsmiths known to mankind (yes, I stole that from hip hop artiste Labrinth) are here to give you the definitive lowdown on Leona’s Tricky Adventures in this tag-team review! Allow me to introduce...um...myself (Tom), and our intrepid Australian correspondent Scott ‘DocEggfan’ Marley!

I think the developers might have an inordinate appreciation for the colour cyan.

As this game is aesthetically quite ‘retro,’ we thought it only fair that we did a retro-styled review. To really drive home how clever and avante garde we really are, we’ve split it into several paragraphs, each with an equally antiquated heading such as graphics, sound, gameplay etc. We might even give it an arbitrary percentage at the bottom...but you’ll have to wait and see. Let’s saddle up and join Leona on her adventure!