Help Support SEGA Raise Funds For Special Effect!

SEGA Europe is raising money for the most noble of causes - gaming charity Special Effect, an outfit devoted to enabling those with disabilities to enjoy the most awesome pastime of all time: gaming! The Gameblast 18 event will see various members of the SEGA and Hardlight teams take part in a 24-hour gaming session, during which a multitude of games will be played, rivalries will be formed and souls will will undoubtedly still burn well into the wee hours.

The entire stream will be...erm...streamed on that Twitch thing - you know, that thing the cool kids are all using these days. Personally, I have very little idea what Twitch actually is, and that's because I only ever browse the internet with a Dreamcast and a copy of Dreamkey 3.0. Can't knock me for living the dream, can you?

Anyway, SEGA Europe is trying to raise just £2,000 for Special Effect in an attempt to help all of our fellow gamers who have serious disabilities enjoy games in the same way everybody else does. I'm pretty confident we can help them smash this total though. With me? Then go here to Just Giving and donate what you can. I just gave a tenner because I'm skint after buying a new motorbike, but every little helps. You can also watch the stream here or by using the window below once the stream starts at 6pm UK time on Friday 23rd February. Thanks all!

Watch live video from SEGA on www.twitch.tv
Update:
It appeats that SEGA Europe successfully reached their target of £2000 - well done to all involved and all those who donated!

Dreamcast Hunting in Akihabara

A couple months back, during Japan's Silver Week national holiday, I took a short trip to Tokyo to meet up with a few old friends. Seeing as I was already in the area, I took a day to check out how the gaming scene was doing in the world famous Akihabara (it would have been rude not to really). I focused specifically on the Dreamcast for this article, but it's a similar story for most other consoles. Read on to see my findings...

VS Link cable now available from Dreamcast Live

Dreamcast Live's VS Link Cable

Like myself, I'm sure many of you out there have fantasised about owning the Dreamcast VS link cable for quite some time now. While only compatible with a handful of games, the thought of playing multiplayer F355 Challenge, Virtual On and more, without compromising half the screen, is enough to leave me frothing at the gash. The problem is (or rather WAS), the official and even third party Dragoncast cables are both extremely rare, usually fetching around $200 or more on eBay.

Tom Charnock playing with himself...the loser that he is.

Kickstarter: Not every retro game gets a Dreamcast stretch goal

Another day, another retro game Kickstarter. Refreshingly, today's effort is slightly more interesting affair in that it is targeting the Nintendo 64 audience for a change, aiming to publish a near two decade old cancelled game from the era.

40 Winks (aka Ruff and Tumble) did see the light of day on the original playstation, but the Nintendo 64 port was cancelled when its publisher GT Interactive went belly up, and when Infogrames picked over the carcass, the game ended up in the chaff pile instead of the wheat. Piko Interactive has recently picked up the rights to the game, and have already secured their modest US$20,000 goal within one day. They plan to develop, test and manufacture some brand new minty N64 cartridges for the game, so that it can be finally realised in physical form all these years later.

Some good ol' 90s era 3D platforming (apparently, never heard of it)

Hang on, isn't this the premiere destination for all things Dreamcast? Why are we suddenly talking about the Nintendo 64? Well, with every successful Kickstarter campaign that features a retro, or retro-inspired game, it's only natural that the masses start shouting "Dreamcast Stretch Goal! Dreamcast Stretch Goal!" And with good reason.

Component Video Heading To Dreamcast Courtesy Of HD Retrovision

Recently here at the Junkyard we took a look at the different types of A/V connection that you can use with your Dreamcast. The various types of cable that most people will be using to get an image ono a television or monitor will fall under the umbrella of either RF, composite, RGB SCART, S-video or VGA. It looks like we'll soon be able to add another connection type in the near future if HD Retrovision has anything to do with it: component.

We did mention this very fleetingly in the aforementioned article, but it seems that those clever lot over at HD Retrovision - purveyors of high quality cables for all manner of retro systems - have been experimenting with a Dreamcast YPbPr component cable for some time now, and the tweet above shows that they have a working prototype that allows for 480p images for VGA-compatible games and 240p for those which aren't.

This is particularly interesting for those who want to play games like Hydro Thunder and Air Force Delta et al without the need to constantly switch cable types. Hopefully we'll hear more about this interesting development in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, be sure to check out the HD Retrovision website here.

A Statistical Analysis Of Dreamcast Game Prices

Recently, we featured a video here at the 'Yard from a YouTuber known as Vince19 in which the various sales figures for Dreamcast games were investigated in great detail. It's a facinating study into the variables that affected certain titles' ability to make consumers part with their cash and we would recommend that anyone with even a passing interest in statistics take a look at it.

Now though, Vince19 has returned with a follow-up video in which he attempts to decode one of the most sensitive topics in the retrogaming sphere - the continued rise in the price of games. The reason why it's relevant to us, is that Vince19 uses the Dreamcast as the test bed for his research, studying the relationship between used prices and original sales figures, and all manner of statistical data to interpret just why certain Dreamcast games can command some pretty astronomical price tags. Furthermore, the roles of review scores, YouTube and eBay are all brought into the equation.

As with the previous video, this is all based on the US market and so whether the findings can also be transposed onto the PAL or Japanese market is debateable, but it's certainly an interesting and wholly empirical look at a topic many of us will no doubt have an opinion on.

Feel free to follow Vince19 on Twitter here and find his YouTube channel here. What are your thoughts? And does the continued rise in the price of retro software concern you? Let us know in the comments or get involved in our Facebook group or on Twitter.

A Quick Look At Zero Gunner 2 - Dreamcast & Switch Comparison

Regular visitors here at the Junkyard will no doubt be aware of my affection for Nintendo's latest hardware release. While I was skeptical initially, since purchasing a Switch I have fallen in love with the system and I rarely go anywhere without it. With this in mind, whenever a game is released that has even the most tenuous link to the Dreamcast, I sit up and pay attention. Most recently both Gunbird and Volgarr the Viking have peaked my interest, and while the former isn't actually a port of a Dreamcast game (although I'm willing to bet the sequel will be along sometime soon); and the latter was only ported to the Dreamcast posthumously, the very fact that games with a connection to Sega's final system are being released on Nintendo's current warms my cockles no end. You could cook an egg on my cockles, in fact.

Pacific Rim or Zero Gunner 2?

Following in the wake of the two aforementioned titles and the tsunami of Dreamcast/NEO-GEO ports, comes a re-release of Zero Gunner 2 - a paid-up member of the Dreamcast's celebrated stable of thoroughbred shmups. The Dreamcast's library of shmups is up there with the very best systems of yesteryear and there can be no doubt about that. The issue I have - and I'm sure many others will agree - is that the vast majority of the cream of the Dreamcast's shmup library was only released in Japan; and due to this numbers of available copies are limited. As a consequence, original copies of these games are incredibly hard to come by in the wild, and when they appear on eBay or other sites online, the prices they command are very often prohibitive to the average gamer.

Commuter reaction to train fare rises was justified

Ikaruga, Karous, Under Defeat, Spirit of Speed 1937, Psyvariar, Trigger Heart Exelica, Giga Wing 2...the list goes on. And the one thing all of these titles have in common is that they are expensive as all hell when they come up for sale online. Quality varies across the board of course, but the the one constant is the high price. I can't convey the number of times I've sat staring at a genuine copy of Trigger Heart Exelica on eBay, ready to hit that 'buy it now' button, only to remember that I also have car tax, a loan shark or an electricity bill to pay...which brings us nicely to Zero Gunner 2. As with the other titles listed above, Zero Gunner 2 from Psikyo is another title you can pay an arm and a leg for if you are so inclined...but now you don't have to. That's because it has arrived on the Nintendo Switch, and we thought it would be interesting to look at the original Dreamcast version and also how this new Switch iteration measures up...