The Brothers Brill

It's not very often these days that a game actually makes me smile. Infact, due to the appalling state of fuck-everyone-except-me modern-day living, it's not very often anything makes me smile. Except, perhaps, random acts of extreme violence - but that's only because I play computer games...right?

Yesterday however, a Dreamcast game entered my life that not only made my indifferent Mona Lisa-like face crack into a smile, but also induced a strange muscular reaction during which my body shook and spasms in my chest forced strange audible gurgles to escape through my mouth. In other words, it actually made me laugh.

The game? Why, it's Floigan Brothers Episode 1, of course!

You'd be forgiven for having never heard of it - indeed, untill yesterday I'd never even seen the game in the flesh...er, plastic...and was convinced that it was one of those vapourware games that the mags loved to review and excite us with, but that never came out to buy.

But Floigan Brothers is real and I paid the paltry sum of £6.99 for it, while also picking up a copy of Sega Worldwide Soccer 2000: Euro Edition as part of the deal after Father Krishna's shining account of it a few posts back. As a sidenote, SWWS Euro is indeed a top notch kickabout - and comes highly reccomended, but you'd be advised to skip the revolting intro sequence lest it causes your eyeballs to implode.

Moigle at work assembling your 'surprise' in the garage. Wonder if it's one of those life-like shagging dolls from Japan...

Obviously, you can't tell from this, but the animation is supoib

But back to Floigan Bros. Apparently (well, according to the omnipresent Planet Dreamcast), Floigan Bros. was a top secret platform game that Sega had in development since the early days of the Dreamcast, and had been pored over for around 3 years untill it was perfect for consumption. Obviously, the efforts of the development team only reached a very small section of the market due to the scandalous demise of the platform as a whole, but rest assured: The Dreamcast Junkyard is here to spread the good gospel of the Foigan Bros!

Yes, you can punch your brother. At last!

I didn't really know what to expect from FB - I read a few reviews online, and most are quite favourable (although hint at the relative shortness of the quest), but none really set you up for the visual and sonic treat that assaults the senses like American friendly fire when you power up. You know it's going to be good though, when the developer's intro screens are as well produced as an episode of Spongebob Squarepants and the 'press start' screen dialogue has the feeling of a cartoon version of Buggsy Malone.

Upon pressing start, you are given the option to play a tutorial or the main game, although you are quite literally forced to complete the tutorial the first time you play, as the main game isn't accessible untill you've done so. However, this isn't your run-of-the-mill "go here and press that" text scroller, oh no: what you get when you load up Floigan Bros. tutorial is for all intents and purposes a real time, polygonal cartoon with some of the best voice acting and animation you've ever seen. The tutorial level is more than a simple training excercise, it's a fully scripted and seamless introduction to the world of Hoigle and Moigle Floigan, where it's your job (as the shorter, more intelligent Hoigle) to help Moigle collect ingredients to make some cookies. Sounds stupid, I know, but it's got to be the best tutorial I've played and they way the chracters interact can sometimes feel like you're not actually playing a game at all - just watching a cutscene...but you're not! you're playing a real-time game! It's amazing!

After the tutorial is over and you've been shown how to coerce the bigger, thicker, computer controlled Moigle into doing stuff like play mini games, and 'taught' him a few new tasks (such as standing in various spots so that you can run around him, make him dizzy and faint, and then jump on his flabby gut to bounce to higher places); it's off outside into the Junkyard to start the game proper.

A scene from the brilliant tutorial

The premise of the game is rather simple: Moigle wants to make Hoigle a suprise in the garage, but to do so he needs his help collecting seven items from around the Junkyard. Before you think it's just going to descend into standard platform guff after the outstanding intro level, stop. It doesn't: it's just a continuation of the same high quality graphics, superb animation and really quite unclassifiable gameplay as you guide Hoigle and Moigle around the 'Yard solving puzzles, taking hints from a trio of signpost holding mice and playing umpteen mini-games. It's really quite a task to describe how this game works without being able to actually show you, but please - this is a game that deserves your attention, not only because it's one of the prettiest looking games on the Dreamcast, but because it's so God-damned original and refeshing too.

And did I mention laugh-out-loud funny? If you see this game: BUY IT.

Also, if you want, click here to read my review of the really quite pallatable Deep Fighter over at Review Centre.

Only In Your Treams 2. Sort Of.

Following hot on the already flaming heels of Father Krishna's fucking ace post about his (worrying) 'platonic' love for his Treamcast (see below), I thought it was about time that we dove deep into the murky pool of the obscure, took a huge lung-filling gulp and then slowly drowned.

And with that slightly macabre analogy, let me introduce the fittingly named Divers 2000 CX-1:

Looking like the illegitimate bastard nightmare child of an old style Apple iMac and a Chao, the Divers 2000 is, for all intents and purposes, an all in one Dreamcast - but where it differs from the Treamcast is that it is actually an officially licensed Sega product. The target audience for such a hideous creation isn't immediatley clear upon first glance...and after a good hundred more glances you'll still probably be none the wiser as to whom, or indeed what, the Divers 2000 is aimed at.


Featuring an integrated CRT monitor, Dreamcast console, 4 contoller ports, top loading GD-Rom tray and TV tuning capabilities, it's probably not that bad a guess that the Divers 2000 was intended to be a sort of all-in-one multimedia unit that did everything - played games, surfed the internet, allowed video conferencing (via the bundled camera), played music, and showed TV through an internal receiver. However, one question burns me like a poker ripped straight from Satan's furnace and shoved straight up my ringpiece:
Why not just use a normal Dreamcast plugged into a fucking telly?!

Show me more, please Guv'nor. Or I'll pick your eyes out, chew them up and then spit the resulting mass of iris, pupil and jelly back in your face. Cough.

And as if showcasing the Divers 2000 wasn't enough, there's more.

Yes, this guy recently became one of the coolest guitarists on the planet (fuck Hendrix) when he revealed this:


It's an Amp in the form of a Dreamcast. Bill S. Preston Esq is probably turning in his squalid dole scrounger flat as I write this; sour that some other guy thought of it first, put the pics up on the net, and reaped the glory. While all he did was ride the wave of Wyld Stallyns' meagre success, fall off the Keanu Reeves bandwagon and fade into vodka soaked obscurity.

Want more?! Well how's this - my latest review of the massively wierd, lazy and overall quite shit Stupid Invaders over at Defunct Games - still the net's ultimate resource for retro reviews and articles. Go there now!

Only In Your Treams...

So, if you thought about it long and hard, what would be your greatest Dreamcast purchase ever..?

From your first console, to that special game that you've loved to play. From a sought after peripheral that revolutionised your gaming experience, to a rare piece of promotional merchandise or even some Dreamcast branded clothing... For they are all out there, in second hand game shops, on eBay, or in someones attic, laying dusty and forgotten, just waiting for us obsessives to find and shell out hard earned dollar for. Well I know what mine is and it sits like a proud and mighty king, ruling over my Dreamcast collection, undisputed, as my best buy ever.

It is my Treamcast. Thats right Treamcast. With a 'T'. I cant remember how I found it. Through an accidental typing error on my shitty, shitty keyboard? Through spending many a saddo hour trawling through eBay and Google? Through a tragic and expensive obsession with an outdated and technologically trumped games console?Or through the mystic forces of fate and the cosmos, which drew me and my loved one together?

I think it was a combination of all of those things. I searched eBay and a plethera of console and game dealers world wide in an attempt to find one. At first it seemed futile. I persisted like a moth battering itself repeatedly against a 60 watt bulb, sat for days in front of my monitor, with girlish tears in my eyes and blisters on my typing finger.

Eventually one came up on eBay for the hefty price tag of £350 "with over 200 pieces of software" which turned out to be CD re-writes. I didn't want that load of shite, so after much haggling via email and a few strange phonecalls I agreed on £100 and a Raleigh Chopper, which I handed over to a perma-tanned, bleached blonde, tatooed, slightly gay looking behemoth, in a motorway service station car-park in Leicester (I kid you not). I didn't even know if it worked! (Fortunately, after a night of shitting myself that I'd thrown good money away, and nervously heading to Maplin's for a 'step down adaptor', I found out that it did... Sort of...) And I have been in love ever since...


"So where did the Treamcast originate Father Krishna?" I imagine you might ask me if you were at all interested. Very well... Shortly after the demise of the Dreamcast, some enterprising pirates in Hong Kong decided to buy up (or more likely hijack) a load of consoles cheap. They took the cases off, moulded some new ones, and made a few modifications. The first was to add internal speakers and an external volume control.




A small ten inch LCD screen, complete with contrast and brightness adjustment, was attached on a hinge, opening up like a lid from the main body of the console. As well as the mains power lead, the makers added a clever little 'plug in' for a car lighter, so the Treamcast could be played in your 'ride' whilst cruising down the highway (by the passenger obviously...). This meant that it was a "Travel (or Transportable)" Dreamcast which is where the 'Tr' part of the name came from (Geddit?)

God knows where they came up with the controllers, because they look suspiciously like bad white copies of Saturn pads. No VMU action happening with these babies! Finally they chucked in an MP3 adaptor and a little device which allowed the Treamcast to play VCDs. Clever eh?

As if this wasn't enough, they wrapped the whole package up in a lovely little laptop-style handbag-size case, complete with a strange squared spiral motif, not a million miles away from the original Sega swirl.

So how does the little tyke play? I'd love to say perfect, but I'd be a bare faced liar who would burn in hell. It likes Japanese and America games (no need for a Utopia, Codebreaker or DCX disc) , pirate copies and CD-Rs. It doesn't like PAL games, which it shoves to the side of it's little screen putting the top of the visuals at the bottom of the LCD.

The colours displayed are very washed out and tinkering with the brightness and the contrast between games becomes a cumbersome chore. Occasionally it switches itself off, occasionally it won't turn on. It is fickle about the discs it reads and inconsistent even about reading the ones it likes.

You may as well chuck the Saturnesque controllers in the bin and replace them with regular ones otherwise you won't be saving shit. But regular DC controllers work fine. All in all a pretty frustrating piece of kit! Still it's rare, it's coveted, it's a piece of console history, and the first mod for Dreamcast that I ever saw... and I love it. Due to it's slightly tetchy nature I don't play it much. But I like to look at it. And hold it. And stroke it.

It's spawned such lovelies as this...

And even this...

And I dare say this...

And you are...?

Well, will you looky over there! Over 20,000 hits on the 'Yard since the whole thing crawled out of my ear, slopped off my pillow and infested the internet all of 9 long months ago. Nowadays, the mere thought of an internet without the Dreamcast Junkyard makes me shudder. The kind of shudder that ripples through the body when taking a particularly satisfying piss. Anyway - today's post is more of an introduction than a proper DC related journey through the surreal. As regular visitors will have gathered, the 'Yard is currently maintained by myself and the multi-talented Gagaman. However, in a matter of mere weeks, I - the all-powerful Warlock known simply as Tomleecee, will be temporarily departing from the comfortable confines of this pastel hued asylum for an unknown period of time. As such, I have taken it upon myself to enlist a new Team Member to assist The Gagaman in continuing to deliver the good word to the masses after my passing. Like a band of Dreamcast branded Jehovah's Witnesses, but without the sinister, birthday-less undertones. Ahem.

So without further ado, Ladies and Gents, please welcome The Dreamcast Junkyard's newest team member - Father Krishna!

Father Krishna promises to bring reviews, tales of Dreamcasting adventures and (hopefully) a whole truckload of bullshit to the 'Yard. So, business as usual then.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Whilst taking the aformentioned piss earlier this evening, I noticed something familiar about the bog-roll holder next to the shit throne:

eh? eh? EH?!?!?!

Let There be Light(guns)

On the first day, God said "Let there be lightguns," and not, as is wrongly recorded, "Let there simply be boring old light." Cough. That's because God, in His infinate wisdom, knew he was onto a good thing when he planted the idea of videogames into Man's tiny, naked-ass mind. Of course, as we all know, games were shite until Man ate the Kebab of Knowledge, quaffed the Pint of Ingeniousness and invented the Mighty Dreamcast:

And lo, House of the Dead 2 was spewed forth unto the world like so much bile from the gullet of a 16-day old corpse, and it was good. So good infact, that Sega didn't give us another lightgun game for about 3 millennia...

At this juncture, I'd like to share with you a small musing I had earlier on. Bear with me. Anyone played Knife Edge on the N64? It was a pathetically bad 'lightgun' game...on a console without a gun. Now - if I had a) the intelligence; or b) the inclination to invent an N64 lightgun, and plug it into said 1920's themed console (it's pure art deco), would Knife Edge have the ability to recognise the lightgun? Hmmm. It's like that shit about the tree falling in the forest and nobody being around to hear it. Anyway, back to the real world (sigh).

Yes, after all the zombie blasting and enduring the horrendous dialogue of HOTD2 (who can forget such ambiguous gems as "Die - like G did," and "Don't come" (Snigger)), Sega rewarded us with:

Confidential Mission!

Yep, the newest entrant into the Junkyard is here - gleaming and shiny like a new 2 penny piece cast adrift in a particularly watery dollop of dog shit. However, in direct contrast to the evil, murderous, death-dealing shennanigans that go on within Confidential Mission, the circumstances surrounding the game's arrival in the 'Yard bring a tear to the eye. For, you see, Confidential Mission was donated to the cause by long time reader, supporter, and indeed commentator of this very blog - Father Krishna. Father Krishna - fellow Mancunian, Dreamcast lover and owner of the only Dreamcast collection visible from space - discovered that he, in his all knowing omniprescence, actually owned TWO copies of CM...and the rest is (recent) history.

But how does CM play? As you've probably already guessed after reading all the preceding guff, CM is - gasp - a lightgun game! The second one after HOTD2 infact. And it's a fucking stormer. After completing HOTD2 something like a bazillion times, it's refreshing to actually get to shoot some real-life peeps, and not already-dead buffoons with Sugar Puffs for teeth. But I'm jumping the gun (arf!).

In CM, you play as the decidedly un-heroically named Howard Gibson - a recent graduate from the James Bond school of smoothness. Armed only with a pistol, you set off (with your lovely blonde partner, Jean Clifford) on a 'confidential mission' to stop an evil genius (Agares) holding the world to ransom with a hijacked military satellite laser. Playing like Virtua Cop on anabolics, CM is big, brash and loud. It has great visuals and the game takes you through some really cool environments with loads of stuff to shoot and civilians WHO GET IN THE FRIGGING WAY. Ahem. Similarly to Virtua Cop, it features terrorists to cap and also the familiar green reticules that appear around an enemy and slowly turn red before he fires. An interesting feature in CM is the 'Justice Shot,' whereby if you manage to blow the gun out of an enemy's hand, he will surrender, thus furnishing you with more points. I don't bother with that though - I just shoot to kill. Maybe I'll try to get a job with the Metropolitan Police...

Confidential Mission is fairly short lived compared to HOTD2 and doesn't feature alternative routes through the levels (of which there are only 3), but it does offer some brilliant variations on the usual 'shoot, shoot, shoot' mentality of the genre. For example, during the second mission you hang upside down from the roof of a speeding train and as such must play that section from an upside down point of view. Also, to break up the monotony Confidential Mission throws in the odd time-limited task, such as firing blobs of glue at air vents to stop deadly gas from filling the room. Ace.

Like I said, CM isn't a massive game, but it features a great training academy filled with Point Blank style mini-games (above), and also a mode called 'Another World' where you play through the arcade mode but enemies appear randomly. An added bonus also appears in the manual - the page footer reads "The last trump for the peace of the world." Righty-ho.

So, all in all, a fantastic post-pub blast that breathes new life into the old dual Dreamcast lightguns (Health Warning: Playing with dual guns is only for the most hardened Dreamcaster. Do not attempt if you are of a weak disposition). Sadly, upon inserting the Microphone you still can't take Private Hudson's advice and use 'harsh language,' but you can't have everything:

And once again, many thanks to Father Krishna for supplying it to the 'Yard.

Oh, and through playing Confidential Mission, I think I may have stumbled on something that is as Earth-shatteringly amazing as playing Soul Calibur with a fishing rod. Watch this space...