DreamPod - Episode 43

[iTunes][Stitcher][Buzzsprout][UK Podcast Directory][YouTube]

As ever, if you like what you hear please consider leaving us an iTunes review. And if you fancy chucking $1 a month at us for this lovely content feel free to check out our Patreon page. Thanks!

The Official Sega Hardware Calendar 2017

As is usually the case for anything I post, skip past the pish to see what you came for.

It's not even December, but cheesy Christmas songs are being played on the radio and in shops around the country, decorations are going up in the streets, 'Tesco Value' branded Christmas puddings have been appearing nationwide like a seasonal bout of flu and invites for the local New Year piss ups from wankers you've avoided for the past year are flooding your Facebook events list. That said, I've not spent a Christmas in the UK for seven years, but I imagine these things are still happening regardless. Perhaps it starts as early as October these days, who knows.

Now while many of the weaboos out there have no doubt heard of this before, the majority of you surely haven't so I'll take this opportunity to blow your mind with a hilarious tidbit regarding Christmas culture in Japan.

Ready for it?

On Christmas day in Japan, hundreds of thousands of people rush out to KFC in an attempt to replicate the traditional western Christmas dinner experience (in their eyes at least). Yes, the vast majority of people in this country believe that us wide-eyed-barbarians gather our family on Christmas day and venture out into the wild to enjoy a Christmas colonel feast. No I'm not shitting you.

3 New Dreamcast Games You May Have Missed

There are loads of new Dreamcast games in development at the moment, and most of them we've been keeping an eye on. Xenocider, Elysian Shadows, SLaVE, Alice Dreams Tournament, Ameba and In The Line Of Fire (more exclusive info coming on that very soon, folks!) all look fantastic and if nothing else show off the breadth and depth of indie development on the Dreamcast. That said, there are a few more smaller projects on the go that may have slipped under your radar, and we thought it was high time they got some attention.

Hermes
Coming from prolific indie developer and publisher Retroguru, Hermes is a 'run and jump' game in a similar vein to Sqrxz. Sqrxz, apart from having an unpronounceable name (unless you're a Klingon) is a side scrolling platformer where you control a little rabbit-looking creature and must jump over gaps and avoid enemies...and die. Lots. It's like the Dark Souls of platformers and revels in its difficulty and frustration levels, and it looks like Hermes may follow this template.

From the PD Roms article on Hermes:

"Retroguru of Giana’s Return and Sqrxz fame are heavily working on their new game Hermes. In this Jump’n’Run you must chase a chicken to get your stomach filled with delicious meat. The game is sort of anti-vegetarian and features a doubtful sense of humor. As all Retroguru games, it’s expected to see this game on several other platforms than just Sega’s Dreamcast."

- Retroguru

There's no release date for Hermes just yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar it'll have you pulling your hair out in the very near future. Going off past Retroguru releases like Fruit'Y, it'll probably be cheap as chips, too.

The Original Blockbuster: Tetris On Dreamcast

Tetris. Even just typing that word brings the classic Tetris music pouring into my brain, accompanied by images of falling Tetriminos and the monochrome hue of a classic Gameboy screen. Alexey Pajitnov's groundbreaking puzzle game will forever be linked to Nintendo's classic handheld system simply because for many gamers, it was the first time they experienced the infuriatingly addictive gameplay of Tetris. Many an hour was spent by this gamer hunched over that lurid green and black screen, desperately trying to angle the console in the fading light of the evening to get the best view of those infernal, infuriating, infinitely falling blocks. If ever there was a gaming equivalent of an ear worm, Tetris is most certainly it.

Tetris has a long and storied history that begins in the early 1980s, but once Pajitnov's program found its way out of the labs of Moscow's Academy of Science, it landed and multiplied its way across pretty much every platform on Earth. Naturally, the first users to experience the game were computer users, followed by Commodore 64, Atari ST and Amiga gamers. But once Tetris was captured and re-purposed for pure entertainment machines, the blueprints for complete global domination were signed and sealed, and the Gameboy represented a delivery method with maximum yield.

Since those early days, Tetris has found its way onto countless platforms - and not just ones designed for gaming. Calculators, iPods, phones and even oscilloscopes have played host to variants of Tetris as the relatively simple nature of the game requires very little in the way of computational horsepower. If it's got a screen, an input device and a circuit board inside, the chances are it can play a version of Tetris. Naturally, computers and consoles have evolved over time, but the key components of Tetris have not. With flagrant disregard for anything as po-faced as Moore's Law, Tetris has remained almost unchanged in it's simplicity ever since that day in 1984 when it left Moscow and entranced the world, simultaneously rewriting the book on puzzle games as it went. If ever there was a perfect example of the old adage 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,' then Tetris is surely it.

Dreamcast Magazine Issue 18

Issue 18 of Paragon Publishing's unofficial Dreamcast periodical hit the shelves on the 25th January 2001, just a month before production of new Dreamcast hardware was announced as cancelled. Even with this heartbreaking news on the horizon, Dreamcast Magazine issue 18 hit it home that the Dreamcast wasn't yet out for the count, with some truly stunning games reviewed. Before we get to those though, let's look at some of the interesting news and previews in the first half of the mag...

Previews include Daytona 2001, Phantasy Star Online, Giant Killers, Ducati World (shudder), Confidential Mission and Championship Surfer. The infamous Black & White development diary returns and news of Sega Europe's then chief JF Cecillon leaving the company is also reported. There are some intriguing news stories, such as a snippet mentioning rumours of a successor the Dreamcast coming out of Japan, and information on yet another Virtual On game heading to the Dreamcast, this time titled Virtual On 4: Force.

DreamPod - Episode 42: Featuring Chris Powell of SEGA Nerds & Mega Visions

[iTunes][Stitcher][Buzzsprout][UK Podcast Directory][YouTube]

You can discover more information about Mega Visions by visiting the official website here, and you'll also find all the download links for all the Apple, Google and Amazon devices you could ever hope to own. We're pretty sure you don't need a link to SEGA Nerds...but if you insist you can find the main site here. Also, be sure to follow both the Nerds and Mega Visions Twitter accounts for further updates and general SEGA-related news! 

If you like what you've heard please consider leaving us an iTunes review, and thanks for listening!

Guest Article: Shutokou Battle Celebration

Martin Hinson is a man who knows his racers. Specifically Japanese racers you may never have heard of. And when he's not getting stuck into the likes of Racing Lagoon, Touge Max G, Side By Side Special or Battle Gear, he's tinkering with Japanese sports cars in real life. In this latest guest article, Martin takes a look at one of the Dreamcast's best racing series: Shutokou Battle. Western gamers will be more familiar with the title Tokyo Highway Challenge, and a lot of racing game fans may have initially looked at the fairly limited number of circuits and not really given the series a fair crack of the whip. Happily,  Martin is here to tell us all why we should give the series a second chance...

It came to my attention at the recent UK gaming event Play Expo Manchester, how few people still know about the Shutokou Battle series. Although I was aware the series is rather cult, I still found this somewhat surprising, given the age of the series and number of titles it spans.
  
Starting life on the Super Famicom in 1994, the series passed through the 32-bit era, flirting with both the Saturn and PlayStation before rising to prominence, albeit it on a small scale, on the Dreamcast in 1999. Starting as a somewhat standard Mode 7 racer, it had evolved into a fairly unique ‘CaRPG’ by the time it hit Dreamcast. It was also one of the earliest games to utilise tuning with a huge range of performance upgrades in some of the 32-bit games. 

The series focused on drift racing until it hit Dreamcast. It suited the arcade nature of the visuals and wide tracks on display - think Ridge Racer on the PlayStation. However due to the grunt of the Dreamcast, developer Genki put a huge focus on realism, not only visually but also from a gameplay point of view. This is perhaps most obvious in the handling, as it is much harder than before and car control almost feels sloppy. It’s easy to be put off the moment you play and most people probably were, but frankly, that’s a huge mistake. Stick with it and you are left with one of the most rewarding driving games around.