Chin up, the Dreamcast continues to live on through other consoles!
Most recently we've had REZ HD and Ikaruga on Xbox Live Arcade, giving HD gamers the chance to play two of the greatest shooters the Dreamcast ever conceived, and news has been released that Namco plan to release the original Dreamcast Soul Calibur on Live Arcade in anticipation for the upcoming forth installment. Have they really made that many already? It only feels like yesterday that Soul Calibur was rocking my world. Oh wait, that because it was, because it's still arguably the best in the series, and playing it on a 32" TV with a VGA cable is still an absolute wonder to look at, despite not being in HD.
On just about every system most recently we were treated to Sega Superstar Tennis, a Virtua Tennis spin off that salutes Sega's history of great characters (and Shadow), particularly the Dreamcast era that gets a huge representation in it with the inclusion of characters and locations from Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, House of the Dead and Samba De Amigo.The game is great fun and already quite cheap to buy if you haven't already. The games developer Sumo Digital seems to know why we love Sega more than Sega itself.
Speaking of Samba De Amigo, the upcoming Wii version of the game was shown off at a recent Nintendo event, along with some wonderful looking screenshots (but sadly no footage yet) and impressions that were mostly positive (except some complaints from people who can't play the game properly). It is looking beautiful and gives you the option to play the game with two remotes instead of a remote and a nunchuck, the first game to even do this on the Wii so far. While there is nothing quite like shaking two big plastic maracas that rattle, this new game will finally give this much over looked classic a second chance and this time it has the potential to be BIG.
Even the handhelds are not safe from the Dreamcast invasion, with a DS sequel to a personal favorite of mine, Bangai-O, on it's way to the DS, and the PSP getting ports of Crazy Taxi and Power Stone.
These alongside Sega Bass Fishing, House of the Dead 2 + 3 Return, Trigger Heart Exelica on Xbox Live and the Milestone Shooting Collection (Chaos Field, Radilgy and Karous) on the Japanese Import Wii, show that the Dreamcast's amazing library of games is spreading across all formats even today, years after the console stopped production. Be happy in the knowledge that those that never played the Dreamcast are only just now catching up with it's greatness, and that we were years ahead of them. =)
Farenheit 451: Dark Days At Gamestation...
My Dreamcast Collection...
How do! Lord knows it's been an absolute age since I've posted anything of note on the DCJY and I'm not about to buck that trend now. You'd be right in thinking that as a contributor, I'm about as much use as a chocolate fucking teapot. I did want to do a stellar review of Half Life, which I'm currently right in to, only to remember that our esteemed leader Tomleecee did it ages ago.
Wetrix
More shmupping action on the way...
Nice, huh? According to the developer (I think this is not really a project by NG:DEV.TEAM, but a side-project from some of its members) DUX will be released as soon as June/July with a price of about 20 euros.
Zero Gunner 2
"After the blast I had while playing Zero Gunner, I couldn't wait to try out its sequel, now on a real console instead of an emulator, so I popped the game in, turned on the Dreamcast, and...well, I liked some things but there's also some stuff that I really hate, so in the end I guess I have mixed feelings about this one.
To start with the good things, this game is beautiful. Really. Sometimes I end up forgetting just how powerful the Dreamcast is, and when I see it in action it blows me away. The textures are very detailed, the models have a great design to them, in that arcade fashion that only the Dreamcast seems to show, and the stages are really unique and impressive.
The gameplay is also very enjoyable for the most part, but the rotation system just fucks it all up. Unlike in the original ZG, where you would first lock onto an enemy and then rotate around him, here there's no lock-on system and you freely rotate your choopper. So far, so good. The problem is in the way this is done. To rotate you have to hold a button (thus stop firing) and then use the d-pad to rotate your ship. Now imagine doing this when all hell is broking loose around you! It's confusing, unintuitive and worse, it will most certainly make you loose lives, because you'll get so disoriented you'll loose any sense of direction and invariably run into enemy fire.
Unfortunately this is necessary, since enemies (and sometimes bosses) come from all directions, and sometimes the screen moves sideways or down instead of up. Shit... To make things worse, although this game offers many difficulty options, even the easiest setting is hard as hell. After two unsuccessful tries where I would always end up running out of credits in the last level, I thought "fuck it" and resorted to my life-saver, the Code Breaker cheat disc. With unlimited lives I eventually was able to beat the fucking game, but I immediately put it back in the shelter, since there's no extra modes to keep you busy, only a replay mode where you watch a previously saved game.
I may seem angry at this game for being so hard, but that's not the case. Hey, Under Defeat it fucking hard, I was never able to beat it, and I still love it. My problem with Zero Gunner 2 is that it's not only hard due to unforgiving enemies, but also due to a fucking control scheme that makes no sense! You don't loose because you suck, you loose because the control scheme to rotate the damn chopper is insanely unintuitive and impractical, and that's basically my major complaint about this game. Of course you can eventually get the hang of it you practice enough, but I doubt it's worth it when the Dreamcast as such an awesome library of shooters.
I would still recommend it to shmup fans, but be prepared for a challenge."
PS - As a bonus here's a picture of my (somewhat) customized Dreamcast. The picture is a little old, and right now the console looks a little different (I won't say exactly what I did to it because you would call me crazy...), so maybe I'll take another photo sometime, if you guys are interested of course.
Welcome Nebachadnezzar!
Lord knows that this site has benefitted from the contribuitions from Caleb, and now I'm inviting the awesome Nebachadnezzar to sew his Dreamcast seed all over the 'Junkyard. (ooer!)
Welcome Nebacha! May we bask in the glory of your Dreamcast knowledge! Oh and BTW, enjoy the video! I'm not sure it's been here before...
Lost Bleemcast video (and more!)
So this post doesn't look quite so meek, here is a collection of some of the best Dreamcast related videos I could find recently.
A Space Channel 5 live dance show at E3 2000. Not just another excuse for seeing a girl dressed up in Ulala gear, honest. Sega's set up at E3 2000 was simply magical, wasn't it?
A Saturn and a Dreamcast slagging each other off. Like that ancient Dreamcast Vs PS2 one, sort of.
A early tech demo that teases us with Scud Race models. Why did we never get a port of that game?
Hot naked Dreamcast porn. Actually, it's a video tutorial on calibrating your GD-Rom drive.
Dreamcast Hip-Hop from 'The Big Cheese' Sure beats that song Mega64 did, even if he is singing in in his kitchen.
A run through the "What's Shenmue?" demo. With narration that points out the subtle differences. Worth watching just for the cameo by Sega executive Hidekazu Yukawa.
Mario Kart 64 (just about) running on the Dreamcast. These emulators are just getting more ambitious, aren't they?
A expansive guide to getting good at Street Fighter 3rd Strike. Brilliantly edited with clips of Shenmue.
Gamma Powered!
They have:
World's Scariest Police Chases: Deadly Pursuit
Played the PSX version to death with my flatmates when I was at University, and it was a pretty decent craic. Especially after several litres of Lidl cider and a couple of tokes on the bong. The unreleased DC version looks like it could've kicked it's ass though - the graphics are way better:
Thunderboats
Thunderboats appears to be an arcade style speedboat racer very much in the vein of Hydro Thunder. Indeed, if you view the promo video, I'm almost certain you can hear the 'engine power down' sound effect used in Midway's blistering racer...
Galleon
Eventually released on the Xbox, Galleon was intended for an earlier Dreamcast launch and in it's original form probably would have garnered the recognition it deserved. As it is, it's just an also-ran Xbox game clogging up bargain bins around the country:
PBA Bowling 2001
Bowling. The real life game, for me, is just a tiresome way of interrupting a good drinking session so why anyone would want to actually play a computerised version is beyond me. Maybe the developers had the same thoughts and duly pulled the plug on PBA Bowling. Grapics look alright though...
Picassio
Picassio is one of the most enigmatic and simultaneously interesting games that was promised but never arrived on the Dreamcast. You were meant to play a sort of lycra-clad cat burglar who broke into museums and stately homes etc to pinch priceless works of art. A bit like Hudson Hawk, only good. Here's a (slightly grainy) video taken from Unseen 64's YouTube page:
Capconmen
On the plus side, Regina's quite fit. Wonder if she's a natural red head.
However, as you’ve no doubt gathered, I’m not Dino Crisis’s biggest fan. On the 32-bit consoles it’s probably par for the course, but not on a console that has stuff like Shunmue, Nomad Soul, Code Veronica, Headhunter or even Carrier knocking about. If you want a decent adventure game, go and seek out one of those badboys. If you want a by the numbers Resident Evil clone with a shit, cliché-ridden story, poo graphics (it’s even got that weird texture-warping thing going on that most PSX games have), and acting straight out of the Barry Burton Academy of Drama and Dance then by all means have a crack at Dino Crisis.
The Lost Golem is a Lost Gem
I first heard of this game while browsing through Segagaga Domain's Dreamcast write ups. Always a great place to get info on Japanese Sega releases, that. Described as a simple but clever puzzle game, I was intrigued as I do love me a good puzzle game.
So I tried to serach for more info, and came back with nothing. That was until I tried seraching for it by it's Japanese title Golem No Maigo, which gave me two excellent articles about the game by a Jeff M at his blog gogamego. The first claimed it to be "The Dreamcast's Best and Rarest Puzzler" with only around 500 copies sold, that gave a good description of the game play and features.
This was later followed by an interview with the games' developer who revealed that he was a student while producing the game, did a large lump of the work himself, and that the studio who put this out CaramelPot (who's logo looks like the Dreamcast logo stretched out) only ever made this one game before closing.
Now I just had to see this for myself. I was expecting when a copy did eventually show up it would cost a bomb like other rare games like Lack of Love, but it popped up on an Ebay shop for no more than £10, so I bought it.
Graphics wise the characters are very blocky crude models, much like those seen in Sengoku Turb, only in this case we're talking about a small team of student programmers and not the company that produced the Dreamcast's graphics chip. It makes up for the lack of any technical prowess with a very charming art style, including a beautiful colour scheme and characters you will find yourself warming up to, despite how simplistic they are. Even the instruction manual is full of cute child-like drawings of the characters. This charm comes across in the story as well, which I found a translation of at Gamefaqs...
masters of magic has come to an agreement that there would be only one of
them, nothing more. There were two peaceful countries, Pipiria and Mabel.
The kingdom of Pipiria was composed almost entirely by plains, with some
forests at the northern tip of the land. The magic sorcerers lived in that
forest during the peace time. Mabel, south of Pipiria, had an enormous lake.
On the lake, there was a wizard composing wizardry for Mabel, up on a tall
tower. One day, Pipiria was attacked by goblins and the people of Pipiria
lived in uncertainty and fear every day ever since."
So what do you do in this game then? Well, you play as the rock golem with it's big square body and beedy little eyes, who has to guide a king who seems to be lost and has no sense of direction. In each stage you have to guide him from one door to another using walls you can push around to change his direction. You see, much like the Lemmings series of games, every time the king comes across a wall he will turn in the next possible direction, either left or right, and he will do this no matter what. Even if he is about to walk straight towards a hole.
But getting the king into the exit is not all. You also have to make sure all the walls on the stage are linked to the red wall when the level is over, so the Golem can knock them all over in one push. This is where things can get complicated as you need to adjust the walls to move the king towards the goal and link them all together once he is heading in the right path.
There are many stage elements that will complicate matters more such as pole that will make walla rotate 90 degrees, and various types of enemies that will break down walls, get in the kings way or even attempt to kill him. half of the fun comes from seeing just how many ways the king can be bumped off. If a level is driving you mad you can push a wall into him, knocking him off the stage and landing on his fat arse.
There are about 100 or so levels in total with cut scenes inbetween every 10 or so of them. Once you have conqured all of those however the game is not over. Considering what a low budget, small staffed game this was, Caramelpot sure did utilize a lot of the Dreamcast's features. There's also a two player battle mode (which I have yet to try out) but the real life expansion for this game is the stage creator, which gives you free realm to produce a level using any of the games elements and save it to your VMU, as many as you like as far as I can tell. What's more, there is a link to caramelpot's website on the disc where you could download new stages and upload your own for others to play. It's a shame the website has long since vanished as i would have loved to try out some of the user created stages.
A note must also be made for their use of the VMU screen while playing. While it has no real purpose in-game, the animations displayed throughout the game are a nice touch, with a close up of the king's face in which ever direction he is facing, as well as death and victory animations amongst other things.
So if you ever manage to come across this rare but cheap game and like a good puzzle game that will get your brain going, I would defiantly recommended this, so long as you can get over the basic visuals.