Dreamcastic Christmas 2023: Heart-warming Tales from DreamPod Listeners

Ahead of recording episode 125 of the DreamPod, which first aired as part of RadioSEGA’s illustrious Winterfest and is now available in all the regular places, we appealed to our listener base to send us their festive Dreamcast-related ideas, memories and musings. And thankfully, in generous Christmas spirit, our mailbag promptly filled-up with a hefty slab of responses ranging from the witty, to the heart-warming, to the downright impressive. Quite a few were discussed on the pod, but many are undoubtedly worth sharing on the blog too, and so here we are. 

Thanks to all the wonderful Junkard-ers (yardies?) who made submissions, tuned into the podcast or are currently reading these hungover scribblings of mine. The Junkyard wouldn't be what it is without you and we are blessed to have such a wonderful community gathered around the site eighteen years on from its founding. 

So, if you'd like to amplify your festive cheer, pour yourself a glass of Creamcast ale, and read on.

 Our guest on DreamPod 125, Pat from Sega Saturn, SHIRO!, lovingly embracing the Dreamcast that Santa brought him as a child.

Christmas Cracker Extravaganza

In typical parochial British fashion, I had assumed that Christmas Crackers were a widespread phenomenon, when in fact, it turns out they are pretty much contained to the shores of the UK. Nevertheless, we had some fantastic responses from all over the world to our call for Dreamcast-themed Christmas cracker ideas, several sent in by folks who had no prior familiarity with the concept (but evidently got with the programme quite rapidly).

Horror host extraordinaire Uncle Clutch knocked it out of the park, delivering a set of eight sublime watercolour paintings. Feast your eyes on their magnificence below, and, if you ever happen to meet the dude in person, be sure to buy him a drink (or three) on us.

Copyright Uncle Clutch, 2023. Not to be reproduced without permission of the creator.

Copyright Uncle Clutch, 2023. Not to be reproduced without permission of the creator.

Drum and Bass superstar Pizza Hotline delivered a detailed pitch for some garish Hello Kitty crackers: “A mixture of pink and blue semi-transparent non-recyclable plastic Hello Kitty crackers, like the consoles. There’s confetti inside that consists of mini plastic hello kitty faces and Dreamcast swirls which gets everywhere, sticks to your carpet and clothing, and no matter how much you brush or hoover it, it won’t come off. The prizes in the crackers are any of the capsule toys from Shenmue 1 or 2. You might get a poorly formed Sonic or Virtua Fighter character, or, better yet some dice or a mini forklift. It’s a Christmas miracle! When you pull each cracker, they don’t go BANG. Instead, they make the annoying VMU beeeep sound, and, instead of jokes you get awful one-liners from Shenmue. However, if you’re lucky you might get the odd inappropriate line from Blue Stinger’s Dogs Bower too. ‘Years ago I was Chinese’, ‘Try asking Chinese people about Chinese’, ‘Ugly like the worst sin’, or perhaps ‘Our jackets are too cool for that scum. I want guys like you to wear them’”. 

Of course, we assume that the emphasis on plastic-heavy construction is in fact a tongue-in-cheek throwback to the excesses of the late '90s and not something for David Attenborough to be worried about. 

The Hello Kitty Dreamcast has certainly become a bit of a style icon in recent years.

Bobby (purveyor of the magnificent Wandering Through Shenmue YouTube channel) provided an equally detailed pitch for some crackers that we would love to see on our tables – and gets top marks for including a bad joke: “I believe the cracker itself should be in the shape of a VMU. They could even come in different colours seeing as we had so many to pick from when the Dreamcast was originally released. To open it, you put your fingers where the finger grip traditionally is and pull the protective dust cap right off. In addition, the VMU screen will have traditional Sega images that are slightly altered. Sonic wearing a Christmas hat. Amy with mistletoe above her head. Nozomi wearing a scarf.

All of the hats will bear the traditional Dreamcast swirl logo. I suppose if the cracker is released in Great Britain the swirl will be blue, whereas if it's released in Japan or North America, it will be the traditional orange. But what's inside? How about some rubber erasers in the shape of different character heads from Sega franchises. One of them could have Skies of Arcadia characters. Another one would have Sonic characters of course. Maybe the other would have Virtua Fighter characters.”

And how about that bad cracker joke? Make sure you are seated for this one folks.

“Q: What do you tell your friend when the laser on your Dreamcast is having a hard time reading a disc because it's dirty?

A: It's thinking”

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.

Dreamcast Collectors Unite! Exploring your collections - Part 4

Hello fellow Dreamers, and welcome back to our ongoing 'Dreamcast Collector's Unite!' series of articles, taking a closer look at the collections of Dreamcast fans from across the globe. So far we've uncovered rare controllers, heard people's fondest memories of the console, the game and the merchandise that make up their collections, and seen some of the rare - and not so rare - pieces that make collecting for this console such a passion for so many people.

We're bringing you a quartet of collectors today, with a range of collecting habits, desires and goals - so without further waffling from me - let me introduce you to our latest fab 4, who go by the names of Ser Flash, Chris, Lee and James!

Ser Flash

Hello fellow Dreamer! Tell us a little about yourself!

STG fans around the world know me as Ser Flash. I make up half of Studio Mudprints, and we create and host Bullet Heaven, the world's longest-running shmups review show.

You obviously have a love for the Dreamcast; when did that start?

More or less since it came out. As a staunch Nintendo player, the Dreamcast really captured my interest, especially against the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 at the time. It would become my first-ever Sega console in 2000.

So your current collection – can you give a brief description of what you have, what you collect (i.e. games only, games and console variants etc.) and what your 'end goal' is, if you have one?

We don't really refer to it as a "collection" so much as a "Library", meant to be accessed, not merely displayed. We acquire games from all regions, though North American and Japanese games make up the vast majority of our titles. In the early days, we bought all kinds of different titles, from RPGs to Fighters to shooters. These days though, it has been almost exclusively shooters, which was ultimately my end goal: Acquire and feature every Dreamcast shmup and border-liner.

Why did you start collecting for the console, and if you still are, what makes you continue?

We never really collected for the system per se; we just got games we wanted to play at first, and later just those that we thought would review well on our show. It became a more directed effort when it come to tracking down and procuring a complete set of shooting games for a large-scale video compendium. The only one requirement was that all Japanese games needed their OBI spine-cards. Now that they have been completely obtained, we still get the odd title every now and again as more new titles are made, but our focus is now almost entirely PlayStation One exclusive shooting games.

Where do you get new additions to your collection? Are you still able to find them 'in the wild' or is it online only now?

Almost exclusively online, predominantly on eBay. It sounds lazy, but scouting out and stalking the best deals on specific games can take a long while; all of the ones we have gotten were in great condition for comparatively bottom dollar, but some took time and planning. We sometimes find neat things at local shops though.

What's the favourite part of your collection, and why?

Probably Yu Suzuki Game Works Vol.1. I had no idea it existed, then I suddenly needed it more than anything else in the world. So basically it marked the time I completed a game set with a book. My favourite Dreamcast game is probably Bangai-o, though. So nice, I bought it twice.

We all love bargains, any in particular stand out for you whilst amassing your collection?

Grabbing a bunch of games on $10 Clearance in the early days was definitely nice. The used market was excellent until relatively recently then it suddenly exploded, especially for shmups. This kind of makes it hard to pick out a really good deal for its time. There have been several times we were able to get new, sealed games for well-under the typical used price in the last couple of years, so those would count, I guess.

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 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.

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...

5 Dreamcast Fan Translations You May Have Missed

In DreamPod Episode 86, where we discussed what we'd like to see from the Dreamcast scene in 2021, I was quite vocal about my desire to see more English fan translation patches produced for Dreamcast games. If you're anything like me, you're too lazy to learn Japanese, but absolutely long to play many of the very intriguing text-heavy Japanese Dreamcast releases. I've covered the Evangelion typing tutor translation by Derek Pascarella, and James also wrote a great retrospective on Taxi 2, going over Derek’s patch for that, but today I wanted to shine the spotlight on some completed translation projects that we (perhaps criminally) haven't covered here on the blog before. 

Blue Submarine No. 6: -Time and Tide-

Blue Submarine No. 6 started out as a manga that was first published in 1967, with an OVA (essentially a straight-to-video anime) adaptation released in 2000. The story of BS6 is set in a post-apocalyptic future, where the sea levels have risen and flooded most of the land on Earth. What remains is being attacked by half-animal hybrids, which are fought back by humanity's submarine forces, including the titular Blue Submarine No. 6. Time and Tide was developed and published by Sega, and released in December 2000. 

This very cool game mixes some excellently-presented visual novel-style sections (that utilise cel-shaded animation to present the game's characters), with 3D underwater segments in the submarine that control really well. While this game is playable without knowing Japanese, it is vital to understanding the plot. Thankfully, over the space of year, a team comprising of Rolly, RafaGam, esperknight and Eyl put together an English translation patch for this awesome game, and released it at the tail-end of 2020, to celebrate the game's 20th anniversary, as well as the 22nd birthday of the Dreamcast console. 

All in-game text is now understandable to non-Japanese speakers, anime cutscenes now have English subtitles, and pesky spoken dialogue during submarine missions where the translators couldn't insert subtitles have been overdubbed with English text-to-speech voices. The Blue Submarine No. 6 -Tides of Time- website was also restored and translated into English as part of this project, allowing players to download the game's original DLC to grant bonus items in the shop. To download the patch, check out the project's page on SEGA-SKY.

Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream

Developed by a largely female-orientated development team, Napple Tale released to Japan in October 2000, and was never brought over to the West for... some reason. This colourful adventure combines a 3D hub world with 2.5D platforming stages, complete with an absolutely terrific score by acclaimed composer Yoko Kanno. Similar to Blue Submarine No. 6, Napple Tale is perfectly playable without the need to know Japanese, but its whimsical, fairy-tale inspired story is definitely something worth experiencing. 

In October 2019, a team led by translator Cargodin released an English patch online, allowing non-Japanese speakers to experience Napple Tale's story 19 years after the game's initial release. The game's original website was also restored and translated into English, allowing the game's DLC to be downloaded, unlocking a bonus stage called "paffet rally". If you fancy a trip to Napple World in all its English-translated glory, you can download the patch at Romhacking.net.

 

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.

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

Let’s take a look at Dreamcast: Year Two

Back in July 2020, Dreamcast: Year Two - the sequel to Andrew Dickinson's Dreamcast: Year One book - went to Kickstarter and smashed its funding goal within 64 hours. It took a while to get finished, but is now complete, printed, and gradually making its way out to backers. As somebody who was involved in the creation of this book, I'm really excited for everybody to get their hands on what has been created here.

And with that, I must now insert my obligatory 'conflict of interest' disclaimer. Unlike the first book in this series, which Tom reviewed on the blog upon its release, Dreamcast: Year Two has full involvement from The Dreamcast Junkyard, and even sports our branding on its back cover. When we interviewed Andrew for our podcast, the DreamPod, little did we know it would be the start of a great friendship, and that he'd eventually go on to join The Dreamcast Junkyard team himself. Because of this, you will also find written content from Junkyard members Brian Vines, Kev Mason, James Harvey, Lewis Cox (me!), Mark Williams, Mike Phelan and Tom Charnock in this book. Myself and Tom also assisted with editing and proof reading. Oh, and we all backed the project too. With all of that in mind, this article will not be a review, but merely a "look" at Andrew's new book.

If you would like to have a peek behind the curtain to hear more about the process of this book's creation and the Kickstarter, I recommend you listen to Andrew's recent appearance on The Sega Lounge podcast.

Dreamcast: Year Two and the accompanying DCY Zine.

So, the book. Just like its predecessor, Dreamcast: Year Two again uses the format originally created by Sandeep Rai for his PS Vita: Year One book (with his blessing, of course!) This time, the book covers the events that occurred in the world of Dreamcast between April 1st 2000 and March 31st 2001. This includes the console's cancellation, the advent of online gaming, the appearance of many notable games, and much more. All of this is presented alongside the excellent art of illustrator Dan Tiller, whose colourful style, with its many paint splatter effects, is a stark contrast to the very clean artwork of Dreamcast: Year One. Andrew explains that there was a clear rationale for this design choice: "I wanted something a bit messier, to show how messy the second year [of Dreamcast] was. It was really colourful and bright and amazing, but it was also the end of the Dreamcast and things were going wrong!" He also went for a predominantly blue theming over Year One's orange, ‘cause European blue swirl for life, yo.  

Other than the Junkyard team, the book also contains writing from members of the wider community such as Retro Faith, the Dreamcast Years crew, and Dreamcast Hub, as well as a great piece from the creator of the 'Years' book format, Sandeep Rai.

After some introductory pages (including a foreword by the Junkyard’s founder Tom Charnock!), the book begins with a detailed breakdown of the events of Year Two, written by Andrew. First, he covers why many consider it to be the Dreamcast's "golden year", before hitting us with the one-two punch of reality that in the grand scheme of things, the Dreamcast wasn't doing quite as well as we thought. Not only was there the looming threat of the PlayStation 2, but poor attempts from Sega to quash rumours that the future was looking grim for the Dreamcast and that Sega were to become a third-party developer wasn't doing much to reassure fans. 

Andrew then takes us back to that devastating moment when the news of the Dreamcast's discontinuation reached the masses, and reflects on how fans at the time handled the news, excellently summed up using Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' five stages of grief model. This analogy-based chapter is definitely one of my favourite pieces of writing I've read from Andrew. Well done, sir.

This segment is then followed by a collection of interviews. One of Dreamcast: Year One's strongest suits was its interviews, and the interviews in Dreamcast: Year Two are excellent too. The selection of interviewees is nicely varied, each hailing from a different creative background, but with an appreciation for the Dreamcast in common. The interviewees are as follows:

• Corey Marshall (voice actor, English voice of Ryo Hazuki in Shenmue)
• Darren Jones (Retro Gamer magazine editor-in-chief)
• Adam Koralik (YouTube Creator)
• John Linneman (YouTube Creator, Digital Foundry)
• Iain Lee (TV Presenter, Channel 4's Thumb Bandits)
• Forbes Longden (Dreamcast Today founder)
• Mickaël Pointier (developer, V-Rally 2's Dreamcast port). 

It was particularly interesting to hear many of these guys reflect on their memories of first hearing the news of the Dreamcast's cancellation. Even more harrowing than that news, however, is Adam's story about losing a red Code: Veronica Dreamcast controller at airport customs. That tale is going to haunt me for a while...

After the interviews come some longer form articles covering a range of topics. These articles are a new addition for Dreamcast: Year Two and fit naturally within the page order. Dreamcast and Saturn Junkyarder Brian Vines' piece "Beyond Saturn" explores the many ways in which the Dreamcast picked up where its ill-fated older brother, the Saturn, left off. Brian's article is followed by Sandeep Rai's, in which he waxes lyrical about the Dreamcast's many excellent Capcom fighters. After this, Retro Faith provides some great insight into the origins of online gaming, and how the Dreamcast introduced this now hugely popular feature to a generation of console gamers. Finally, our very own Mike Phelan talks about the Dreamcast's many weird and wonderful peripherals (there's a lot).

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.