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...

New Sega & Dreamcast Themed Clothing Lines From Insert Coin

Insert Coin have just unveiled their latest line of games related apparel, and Sega fans will no doubt be pretty excited to see that a few different well-known Dreamcast games are represented, as well as the iconic Dreamcast swirl itself (although only in PAL blue).

Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio and Space Channel 5 are all reflected in the officially licensed designs, along with some others from the Mega Drive era and the famous swirl. The t-shirts and hoodies are available to pre-order now, and prices start at £22. No word on when they'll be shipping just yet, but they look pretty decent, don't you think?

Find out more at Insert Coin here. Will you be purchasing any of these? Let us know in the comments.

The Dreamcast Legacy - BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle

In a new series of articles (perhaps only a short-lived series, as I only have this and one other lined up), we will be exploring modern games that owe a debt to the blazing trails left by the games and developers of the bygone Dreamcast era. In this issue, we will be looking at the upcoming Arc System Works title BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, a new 2 vs. 2 tag-team fighting game coming soon to PS4, Switch, and Steam. Apart from the obvious correlations with similar Dreamcast heavyweight titles such as Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and the Capcom vs. SNK series, this new crossover beat-'em up shares a little more Dreamcast heritage than you may initially realise.

Hardware Review: GD-ROM & Compact Flash Modded Dreamcast

Technology fails. It's as simple as that. With the passage of time, and daily wear and tear, eventually even the most robust equipment will suffer a breakdown. We can do plenty to prevent this atrophy, but inevitably, anything that employs moving parts will break. As Dreamcast owners, we're probably all too aware of the various failures that can besiege our favourite console, and the list of potential faults is long. Power boards, main boards, controller boards...pretty much everything in a Dreamcast is prone to the ravages of time, and public enemy number one is undoubtedly the GD-ROM drive. More than any other component as the Dreamcast rapidly approaches its twentieth anniversary, the main, bespoke optical drive that is a key component to enjoying those brightly hued games of yore is becoming a weak link. Raise your hand if you've ever put a game in a Dreamcast only to be met with the dreaded 'please insert game disc' message.

The catalyst for many a clenched fist and jaw

To remedy this, there are several devices on the market that allow users to negate the need for a GD-ROM drive; and in many cases they allow for the complete surgical removal of the optical drive in favour of solid state storage for games and other applications. The two most popular variants currently available are the GDEMU and the USB-GDROM.

GDEMU

USB-GDROM

These two devices require complete removal of a Dreamcast's optical drive and offer the option of using either an SD card or USB flash drive respectively from which to boot Dreamcast ISO files. There are also further alternatives that employ the use of a traditional hard drive, but these are not as popular or widespread as either of the two options mentioned above.

Internal HDD mod (courtesy of Pcwzrd)

Both GDEMU and USB-GDROM are great alternatives to the ailing GD-ROM drive - with both offering minimal loading times and enhanced curation of game files. Both also employ proprietary software for operation and boast almost 100% compatibility with games in the Dreamcast library. With the Compact Flash and other alternatives, DreamShell (the open source OS created by DC-SWAT) is employed, and while this benefits from being customisable, it doesn't offer the near full compatibiltiy enjoyed by GDEMU and USB-GDROM. That said, DreamShell is in a constant state of flux, with new updates always being worked on, so in the future full library compatibility is more than possible. In the meantime, here's a handy list of Dreamcast games that will work with DreamShell, courtesy of Pcwzrd of Dreamcast Live fame. The crux of the matter is this though: all of the other options for eschewing optical media listed here require the removal of the GD-ROM drive.

So, what to do? How can you have the best of both worlds? The solution is combining the convenience and enhancements that come with solid state storage, with the ability to still use a standard game GD (or CD) if the need arises. Enter the latest modification on the market that hits both these targets with quite some accuracy: the Compact Flash Dreamcast. Coming from Austrian modder Jan, this Dreamcast keeps the standard GD-ROM drive intact and perfectly functional, but also adds a fairly discreet CF card slot on the right hand side and a BIOS switch on the rear. This switch allows for the console to be booted in either 'standard' mode where the console is just a normal retail unit able to read disc-based games; or to be booted in DreamShell mode, where the CF card is interrogated and any game files on the card are presented in a rather nice menu using aesthetically appealing icons. There's plenty of other functionality too, but first, let's take a look at the hardware and just why Jan chose to use Compact Flash in this modification...

Shenmue Bomber Jackets Now Available

Veteran games merchandise store Insert Coin has launched a new Shenmue-related product, and fans of Ryo Hazuki's adventures are likely to be lapping it up in droves. If you've already used your eyes to look at the images below, you'll no doubt be able to tell that it's a bomber jacket fashioned after the attire sported by Ryo as he traverses the back streets of Dobuita and Hong Kong in Yu Suzuki's as-yet-unfinished magnum opus.

In this day and age it's all too easy to just froth about anything Dreamcast related, but I'm going to give my honest opinion here: I think this jacket looks bloody awful.

It appears to be made of bargain-basement nylon and while the patches on the chest and arm are embroidered, the one on the back is screen printed. I suppose this is to be expected of a jacket that costs £60, but that doesn't explain why the colours are way off the mark. Yes, Ryo's jacket was leather in the game and leather replicas do exist...but this is just a cynical example of big businesses churning out shite to fleece (heh!) fans of a franchise. Again, I've got nothing against Insert Coin - they do some really top quality stuff and I own several t-shirts by them. But this Shenmue jacket is an affront to the Hazuki family name. Interestingly, Insert Coin did have a slightly more accurate Ryo Hazuki jacket for sale in the past (check it out here), but even that still looked a bit on the cheap side.

Check out the Shenmue bomber jacket here. If you must.

AGES II: Sega Game Archives Music Arrange Album

When is a Dreamcast game not a Dreamcast game? Why, when it's a music CD of course! AGES II from Japanese studio Woodsoft is just that - it's a music CD full of re-imagined music tracks from classic Sega titles of yesteryear, delivered in a package that looks very similar to a legitimate NTSC-J Dreamcast game case. Released at the tail end of 2014, this is actually the third in a trilogy of compilations under the AGES brand from Woodsoft, and before acquiring this CD from an eBay seller located in Japan, I was totally oblivious to the existence of such a collection. And while it isn't strictly Dreamcast related, I think the intriguing packaging and subject matter make AGES II a perfect subject for a minor investigation here at the Junkyard.

When I first saw AGES II listed on eBay, it caught my attention because I wasn't aware of a Sega Ages collection ever being released for the Dreamcast. Obviously, we have stuff like Yu Suzuki Game Works, but a proper entry in the Sega Ages series never actually came to the Dreamcast and it is that fact which initially drew my eye to it. Upon closer inspection (the description wasn't overly clear on what it was), I discovered that the Dreamcast logo shown in the photos was back to front, and it doesn't say Dreamcast - it says 'Dreamnalt.' AGES II represented something of an intriguing mystery to me, and so off I went to Google to get more information on this Dreamnalt outfit...only to find, well, very little to be honest.

If you search AGES II or Dreamnalt, Google doesn't really produce anything other than a few images from an old Tumblr account and it was only by changing the search terms several times that I came across this review over at Hardcore Gaming 101. It's a review of the first AGES collection which features music from such legendary games as Power Drift, Lunar and Fantasy Zone. From that article, I discovered that Woodsoft have several more CDs listed on the Video Game Music Database (VGMdb), which is a repository of information similar to IMDB but solely for the collection of resources pertaining to music used in games.

A Quick Look At The Dreamcast Twin Stick Controller

The Dreamcast's peripheral lineup offers plenty of oddities for the discerning collector to pore over. From the karaoke unit and maracas, to the fishing rod and the Dreameye there's something for everyone. One peripheral we've never really looked at in any real depth here at the Junkyard is the Dreamcast Twin Stick, an odd looking beast of a controller that always peaks the curiosity of the public whenever we wheel it out at live events and expos. The Twin Stick was never released outside of its native Japan, although that doesn't stop it being compatible with both NTSC-U and PAL Dreamcast systems, but the incredibly small library of games that officially make use of it renders the Twin Stick something of a luxury.

Twinned with the relative high price these controllers command in the current climate, the Twin Stick is a device that still enjoys something of an enigmatic air. Like the Arcade Stick controller, the Twin Stick is one of those peripherals that greatly enhances the experience of playing games that make use of it, but outside that small selection is pretty redundant simply because of its fairly unorthodox design. Let's take a more detailed look at the hardware itself, and some of the games that make use of the Twin Stick before investigating whether or not this is something you should consider adding to your collection...

A Quick Look at Dolphin Blue

Just like our previous article exploring the history of the Sega Driving Simulator, this began as a sub-section of the upcoming part 4 in our 'Expanding the Dreamcast Collection' series regarding the next in the line of arcade systems to share similar hardware to the Dreamcast; the Atomiswave system. People often ask me…wait - who am kidding…let me start again. In my imagination, people often ask me to name the 'exclusive killer app' for each of the systems in the Dreamcast family and I usually struggle, but with Atomiswave, an answer is easy to produce; not only is this the best Atomiswave game, but this could well very be the single best exclusive across the entire Dreamcast family of arcade hardware. Read on to find out more.

I’m a big fan of Metal Slug but like many of you out there, I found the series got a wee bit stale after the third game. Not to say that subsequent games were bad or anything, just that…well, I couldn’t shake the feeling of déjà vu, and have always preferred the purity of the original game without all the zombies, mummies, aliens and transformation nonsense. Dolphin Blue fills the void left in the wake of the Metal Slug series’ change in direction, and then some.

Even before merging with Sega, Sammy had a close relationship with Sega.
Atomiswave and the Guilty Gear series are heavily associated with both companies. 

The game was one of the last Sammy developed before the merger with Sega in 2004. Despite this, it feels incredibly Sega-like for lack of a better term; blue skies, upbeat catchy tunes, cute spunky characters with plenty of 'tude and even an appearance from Sega’s very own Ecco the Dolphin…Ok, well that last part I may have just pulled out of my arse, but many of the gameplay mechanics do revolve around a certain bad ass cetacean chum.

The Mystery Of The EB Special Edition Dreamcast

I love a good mystery, and internet-based mysteries are among my favourite types. Of course Moth Man, the Mary Celeste and the tale of Springheel Jack are cool things to read up on, but the ubiquitous nature of the internet means we can all be cyber sleuths without ever leaving our living rooms. And just to compound what I'm yapping about, stuff that was actually spawned by the internet itself (such as Cicada 3301, Unfavourable Semicircle and Webdriver Torso) is every bit as fascinating to me as 'real world' mysteries are.

Fuck...I was only trying to play Doom.

That's not to say the more mundane aspects of the online world are any less wondrous - the very nature of the internet means that stuff written long ago can still be found online and still be read today, either because the hosting service still exists or the Way Back Machine allows us to glimpse into the past and recover the information contained on those garish (and often embarrassing) GeoCities/MySpace pages of yore.

As a person with an unhealthy obsession with all things Dreamcast-related, It probably won't surprise you to learn that I do spend an inordinate amount of time perusing these ghost sites in the hunt for obscure references to cool stuff that never saw the light of day; and the good old Way Back Machine has helped me verify a story more times than I care to remember.

DreamPod - Episode 28: Bonus Features - 'Ghost Host' Textual Commentary

Bear with me while I draw a long bow...

You know how DVDs and Blu-rays often come with audio commentary that you can listen to while you're watching the film? You can get further insight into what's happening on screen or interesting behind the scenes anecdotes. Well, what if I could do an audio commentary for a podcast? That would be silly wouldn't it? You can't listen to both at once, unless you spliced more then one audio source together into an extended podcast (Tom from the Future says Hi!), but that's not really the same, is it? So how about a textual commentary? Wouldn't that be cool? It's like we've dropped two levels from a second order derivative back to the original equation (Video > Audio > Screenplay, or TV > Radio Play > Book). See? It totally makes sense.

Ooooh, a maths analogy, this must be a classy blog

Guest Article: Future Proofing Your Dreamcast

In the second of a series of guest articles from our man in Japan Ross O'Reilly, we'll be looking at how you can pimp your Dreamcast to within an inch of it's life and enjoy most (well, some) of the lovely features a modern games system benefits from. HD output, bountiful storage and online capabilities are all things we take for granted these days and with a bit of knowledge and a fat wallet you can enjoy the same with a Dreamcast right now. Let it be known that I have neither of the aforementioned. Ross, over to you.

So, you want the so called 'Dreamcast 2' (don't get me started on that!), you want a HD Dreamcast, right? You want the ability to play Dreamcast games online? Download DC software and run it on original hardware? Play with a wireless DC controller?

Well, what if I were to tell you that all of those features are available to you right now, today.
Yes, I apologise if I sound patronising to those of you who are regular readers and keep up with Dreamcast developments, but I'm here to tell you anyway, that all of those features and more are available to you already...just so long as you have deep enough pockets to shell out on the numerous devices required.

Let's start from the top...

The Final Indignity

When Sega released the Dreamcast on November 27, 1998, they kick-started the 128-bit generation, or what would now be known as the 6th Generation of gaming consoles. After years of working on a 'Saturn 2' to beef up the 3D capabilities of their flagship device in response to Sony's all conquering (but ageing) PlayStation, they were primed and ready to go to contrarily sweep away their recent history of failure to reclaim the lost throne in the West and also to build upon their newly found and long sought after success in the East. 

It seemed like a good idea to get in early; to build up a good quality software library over the coming year to potentially have the edge over what would turn out to be a lacklustre collection of launch games for their sword of Damocles weilding rival lurking just beyond the horizon. However, despite tempting the masses with a veritable smorgasbord of very tasty gaming treats, they underestimated the patience (and brand loyalty stubbornness) of the average consumer, who were prepared to wait for the privilege of buying a "free" DVD player with their “emotion engines.” 

Aw, what the hell, I don't got that long a lifespan anyway...

To add insult to injury, there were further unintended consequences from getting things off to an early start. The decision to use standard Compact Disc jewel cases for Dreamcast games in Japan and the US was simple, elegant, sensible and unpretentious. There was no stigma associated with the jewel case in Japan, as it was the de facto standard for just about all the recently successful video game systems (with the exception of Nintendo's bewildering use of flimsy cardboard boxes), including but not limited to the NEC PC Engine, Sony's PlayStation and Sega's own Saturn, which was not the downtrodden aborted foetus that it became in the West, but a glorious golden child that was much loved in its home country. 

I imagine that Saturn games and Dreamcast games sat proudly side-by-side in Japanese game stores, much like how the Master System and Mega Drive games would be joined at the hip in PAL territories during the early years – a state-of-the-art older brother pushing graphical prowess to the cutting edge, alongside an entry-level younger sibling who offered a large back catalogue of unique, simpler but no less charming games. 

It's surprisingly difficult to find photographic evidence of a glorious
Japanese Saturn and Dreamcast retail display from the late '90s
(or maybe my google-fu is lacking)

The jewel case was also well suited to the US market, as it created some distance from the bad history associated with the monstrosity that was the oversized Sega CD/Saturn plastic cases of old, and put the Dreamcast on equal footing with the reigning champ at the time, ensuring the new breed of casual playstation-era gamers wouldn't be confused by any unconventional game case designs. This was a victory for common sense, as Sega doesn't have a particularly good track record when it comes to designing their own game cases (the less said about the PAL territory game cases the better).

The Dreamcast Rucksack

Very recently we inducted the excellent Dreamcast messenger bag into the 'Yard. No, not the new Insert Coin pretender - the original Sega Europe messenger bag that was sent around to various retail outlets in 1999 as part of the promotional activity surrounding the system's launch. There was another item of wearable luggage created to promote the Dreamcast though - the Dreamcast-branded rucksack. That description probably isn't technically correct as the 'rucksack' only has one strap that goes across the wearer's body, but it's not a satchel or messenger bag in the traditional sense, so I guess we'll have to stick to our guns with the description. Enough words though - thanks to the planet-destroying power of the BlackBerry Q5's amazing camera, here are some extraordinarily high resolution pictures:

The Dreamcast Messenger Bag

By now, you've probably seen or even bought one of those rather nice-looking Dreamcast-themed messenger bags from online retailer Insert Coin. I almost bought one myself a few months ago, but I have seen people carrying them at various gaming conventions and they tend to end up looking a bit battered after a while; not to mention dirty - white stuff always looks pretty grotty after a while, simply because the colour allows all sorts of grime to be visible, even if you are the most mindful person on Earth. If you're not familiar with the bag I refer to, here's a picture:

I resisted the urge to purchase one for the reasons previously explained, but my quest for a Dreamcast-themed bag didn't end with my reluctance to buy that particular item. No, I found something better. Much, much better:

An official Dreamcast-branded messenger bag from the launch of the PAL system! The pictures don't really convey just how nice this bag is - it's made from really sturdy material and has a nice comfortable strap. The best thing though, is that it's got loads of really cool little details on it. From the swirls on the buckle tags to the Dreamcast logo text on the zips, this really is a quality item. Inside there's a laptop section and pen holders and one of the side pockets is exactly the right size for a VMU! Not that I'll be carrying one around with me (much), but I couldn't resist seeing if one of the little blighters would fit:

It's a great piece of memorabilia that is not only extremely unusual, but very useful. This will most definitely not be stuffed in a cupboard and forgotten about - I intend to make it my primary work bag and will take great pleasure in showing it off.

The Dreamcast Suitcase

Thanks to a tweet by fellow Dreamcast site Dreamcast Gaga, we have been alerted to the existence of a previously unknown item of DC memorabilia. Now, we've all seen the Insert Coin shoulder bag, and the Kawaii back-pack styled in the form of a Dreamcast controller...but what about a wheeled suitcase modelled after our favourite system? It looks like it's only available to Japanese Dreamcast nuts for now, and can be purchased from the Ebten Sega Store website, but I absolutely guaran-damn-tee you would be the coolest person in the terminal if you rocked through Heathrow pulling this bad boy...

Edit: it has been brought to my attention that the case was only availible for 1 day back in March 2013...so unless you have access to a DeLorean with an aftermarket Flux Capacitor fitted, you'll just have to make do with drooling at these images!

Turning Japanese (And Possibly American)

My very first experience with a Dreamcast came in early 1999 when a friend who was earning suspiciously large amounts of money for doing a menial warehouse job decided he wanted a new games console. Tired of playing Buck Bumble and Rush 2 on N64 in his cramped bedroom, we took a trip to an import store in nearby Manchester's Chinatown district where my friend handed over several hundred pounds for a Japanese Dreamcast and a few games. The games were Virtua Fighter 3tb, Dynamite Deka 2 and Shutokou Battle - a game we had no idea was a racing title because there were no screens on the back of the case and no English text at all (time must have muddied my memory - all three apparently have screens). Since then, I have played (and obviously own) all three of those games in their PAL guises: Virtua Fighter 3tb, Dynamite Cop and Tokyo Highway Challenge...but you no doubt already guessed the English title of the first game mentioned there.

It was really cool getting to play on my friend's DC back before the PAL release, and even cooler because everything was covered in Japanese text and we really had no idea what we were doing in most of the menu screens. It was literally a case of 'push A until the game starts.' One other cool thing was the Project Berkeley video that came on one of the GDs, but I forget which one it was - possibly Virtua Fighter 3...but I digress. As a side note, it turned out that my friend had been fiddling the till at the warehouse/timber yard he worked at and that's how he'd been able to afford the Dreamcast in the first place. He was eventually rumbled and the police were involved...but that's a different story.

Dreamcast Remake?

You know Tectoy? It's the Brazilian toy company that sometimes makes Sega stuff.

They has something interesting on their website.

http://www.tectoy.com.br/

Basically it's a sort of poll that asks which console people would want them to remake. Oh course they are not saying that they *are* going to remake the console that is chosen but...

(I miss Photoshop)

Here are the stats:

Game Gear (5.3%)
Dreamcast (91.0%)
Pense Bem (3.7%)

I think this is VERY interesting. Normally Tectoy seems to like to shrink consoles down and put a ton of games on them via flash memory. Could they do something like this for the Dreamcast??? Is it technically possible? Of course I suppose it could be. Is it financially viable to do this? That I am not sure of...

Still we can all dream. It would be nice if they could somehow remake the Dreamcast. However, is there really any point? How can you really improve on the Dreamcast? I suppose if they do something radical like wireless controllers or a built in screen or pre-load it with rare games...

In any case keep an eye out.

Pulled from DC Emu UK:
http://dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk/tectoy-dreamcast-possible-111395.html

Original article Insert Credit:
http://www.insertcredit.com/archives/002325.html

VMU Wonders

The VMU, Dreamcast's memory card thingy, is a truly underrated piece of kit and I'm surprised that the idea never managed to stick with consoles that came after it. Sony tried to rip it off just months after the Dreamcast launch in Japan with the PocketStation, and Nintendo did there own teeny tiny handheld with the Pokemon Mini, but this is still the best smaller-than-a-game-boy-micro hand held out there. Thing is, a lot of people who are first time buyers of a Dreamcast won't know of the possibilities of this little thing, other than saving progress. As if the screen and buttons weren’t a dead giveaway,

Back when the Dreamcast was online, many games had websites you could access on the disk which would have special downloads to add to your games. These include some lovely seasonal themes and extra race tracks for the Sonic Adventure games, new mini-levels for Rayman 2 and replacement characters for ChuChu Rocket. Then of course there were the Mini games. These were unlockable in certain titles, and as long as you have some watch batteries in the VMU, you could play little games on it on the move. In the end not many commercial games actually used this feature (mainly Sega and Capcom titles), but like all things Dreamcast, the Homebrew scene got into the act and programmed countless games, animations and even music for the device. While only one game can be placed on a VMU at any time, there are in total there are around 100 games for download out there. Now most people won't want to go to the hassle to set up their DC online, however, how can you get all this stuff?

This is where the wonderful world of HomeBrew development comes in again. VMU Collections have been made that can be burnt to a CD-R and played through the Dreamcast, which not only feature save files for every released DC game but all the other downloads too. The two best discs are VMUBackupCD by and VMUTOOL by . I'll be reviewing both of these discs, as well as showing you the best downloads for the VMU
which are on them.

VMUBackupCD: Available at El Bucanero, this disc has a very simple layout with full descriptions on each file. Nothing too complex here at all. Also, there is a disc you can get that also features a tool called VMUZIP, which lets you compress the amount of blocks a save file takes. When these games are compressed, you can't se them in the game, but this is very handy for games you don't play often that take a lot of blocks. All the VMU Games are in one folder, and you run them through a emulator on the TV and on the VMU screen sitting in the square ole your controller
, although I soon discovered that while you can emulate the Mini games, you can't actually copy them to the VMU to take away, which is a real shame. The other snag is probably he music, which as far as I can tell is not turn-off-and-onable, and also rather dull so you may want to turn the TV to mute while using it. It is, however, very good for save files.

VMUTOOL: Available at Blue Swirl, this disc has a hell of a lot of features, including some that need some sort of Dreamcast to PC plug in system going on, but plenty that can be used with just the DC too. This disc's layout may not be as simple or descriptive as BackupCD, it lets you do a whole lot more. Want to copy a save file to another VMU that the DC Bios tells you "cannot be copied"? Sorted. Want to change the colour and image of your VMU on the Bios without clearing all the files off? Sorted. Want to emulate AND download the mini games? Sorted. You can even slap a new image on the background of the DC Bios. Also the VMU game emulator on this disc is better and the settings are a whole lot more customable. Only thing that I got with this CD was it's a bit fussy which VMU's it lets you edit, and out of my collection of 10 (including the 4 slots on a 4-in-1 card) 2 of the VMU's crashed the CD every time I went into them on it.

CONCLUSION: get BackupCD for the save files and compression tools, and get VMUTOOL for the editing and downloadable mini games. There both worth tinkering with. One last note: the Mini-Games run better when actually downloaded to a VMU then they do in Emulation, where they lack their sound and often play to fast.

Now, onto the best of the Mini-Games!

Sega Pocket GT
From what I can tell this game was only available on the Japanese import version of the game (judging by how there's some Japanese in this game, although not enough to make playing difficult) and there is in fact three different sets of levels to download: Japan, Europe and America. Actually more fun than the game it was downloadable from, you find yourself racing on 6 tracks each set, trying to beat the clock while avoiding rocks and other cars. Graphics do their job well and there's also a great training mode where you have to prepare your little racer geezer to be ready for the championships. Great stuff. 9/10

Soul Calibur 3-in-1
I don't remember this being downloadable with the game but it's in English so I presume it was. This download gives you three cute little games: a game where you bounce treasure off of Volvo’s belly (no kidding!), a word puzzle game where you have to swap letters about to make words, and one where you have to light up the right rope to blow one of the characters out of a rocket. For those who can read Japanese, there is also a Soul Cailbur Text Adventure game for download. 8/10

Mini Pacman
A homebrew "port" of the game that as been on every format known to man (even Microsoft Excel). It may not run as fast as the original, and you are not able to see where about the ghosts are wandering about, but this is over wise a fine re-creation of the game. There's also some added features: a boost that lets you chomp faster for as long as you have the boost bar above empty, 20 levels including one in the dark, and even secret passage ways. 8/10

VMU Fighter
Possibly the best Homebrew title I have tried so far, VMU Fighter is a scrolling shoot 'em up with 4 changeling levels and some of the best SFX to be heard squeaking out of your VMU. Lot's of variation in the levels, and plenty to keep you coming back. 9/10

Chao Adventure 1 + 2
Downloadable off Sonic Adventure 1 + 2, you really need to do this on the actual game as it pretty much involves placing one of your own chaos onto an adventure where they bump into Sonic characters, get into fights and collect fruits. A lot of the game is made in he fashion of a virtual pet, where you leave it on and wait for it to bleep at you when an event occurs. Superb. 9/10

Chao Editor
An interesting homebrew download that lets you create your own Chao, or throw in one you have and edit it's stats (999 Power!), name, colour etc. Nice if you want to cheat n the Chao races on the games, or if you wan some truly freaky looking creatures in your garden. 7/10

VMU Football
Ok, so it's American football, but this mini-game features some brilliant animation and game play. Run trough all the opponents and make sure you don't get too close to them over wise they'll pounce on you. 7/10



VMU-a-Sketch
Missing our old Etch-a-sketch pad? Now you can use the VMU to be it's replacement! Still very hard to draw with, though. 6/10

Zombie Revenge
Another average Sega title with a great mini-game to download, here you train up the characters and gain points which can be used in the game. Featured are two games including the rather odd Zombie Fishing. 8/10

Breakout
Another homebrew "port". Cute SFX and still as additive as ever. 7/10

Space Invaders
More Homebrew classic game port goodness. 7/10

Tiny Tetris
"Tiny" is an understatement. You need very good eye sight for this. 6/10

3D FPS
Probably the most impressive of many VMU tech demos. Very short and vaguely interactive, but looks the bee's knees. 6/10

So while you should hardly expect Game Boy quality hand held games from your VMU, there is some nice stuff to pass the time away from it, so it's well worth a look into.

EDIT: Oops, I forgot to insert the links to the websitesthat provide these CDs! There up there now. I'll also add reviews of the Power Stone and Tech Romancer mini-games when I can remember what they were like.