Play Value looks at the Dreamcast

Not too bad. I disagreed with some points they made. Others were acceptable.

Powerstone was a 2 player game though. It was Powerstone 2 that was 4 player.

In the end I STILL think it was the rampant price slashing during the Dreamcast launch that really screwed stuff up. $250 vs $199? The same amount of people would have bought the Dreamcast for $50 more.

Celebrate the Dreamcast's Birthday!

9 years old today.

Honestly, I did not get the Dreamcast on 9-9-99 but I remember the ads. I do remember playing Soul Calibur with some of my swim teammates during heavy training months. That was the first time I ever saw a Dreamcast and I was enthralled.

In fact I would go on to buy that very same Dreamcast system later on and it would be my very first console system.

The best thing about gaming with the Dreamcast is that I have yet to experience much of what the system has to offer.

Do to the fact that I started my console collection in college I have never had the time to beat many of my favorite Dreamcast games.

Games I have beaten include all of the Resident Evil games, Sword of the Berserk, D2 and many of the fighting games.

Some of the notable games I have not gotten through are House of the Dead 2 (got to the very end a number of times), PSO, Skies of Arcadia, Jet Grind Radio and EGG.

So even though Sega has no official plans to go back into the console business there are plenty of games that I have yet to fully experience.

However, it seems like some fans are looking forward to next year. 9/9/09? I might have to make a video about this.

Retronauts podcast: Dreamcast Special

1up's Retronauts 49th episode of their podcast is a 2 Hour epic focusing (mainly, from about 40 minutes in) on the Dreamcast. Tycho from penny Arcade makes a quest appearance and it's a much listen. Go download it here.

RUMMAGE: Dynamite Cop

Blimey, has it really been a year since I last did a Rummage Video review? Either way, here's a new one for a favorite of mine: Dynamite Cop. I actually started working on this one way back in February/March, but coursework made sure it didn't get worked on for months until just this week where seeing all those Classic game Room videos inspired me to finally finish it off. It may or may not be obvious that the narration throughout was made at completely different times of the year, and while some of it was planned out before hand (like the previous videos), most of it was made up as i went along. Also, this is the longest of my Rummage videos to date: twice as long as any of the others in fact at six and a half minutes. Enjoy!<

Video of Single Player CounterStrike for the Dreamcast

This is still holding my interest.



Depending how skilled the map makers are this could turn out really good.

There is even someone working on making "They Hunger" (a Half Life mod with zombies and monsters) playable on the Dreamcast.

Screwattack and Classic Game Room show their DC love

Screwattack's Video game Vault tends to focus on NES/SNES games, but recently they've gone into a couple Dreamcast games: 18 Wheeler and Space Channel 5, the latter of which is above. I haven't posted the 18 Wheeler one because I can't find myself agreeing that it sucks, because it doesn't. The Space Channel 5 vid is pretty good though, even if it spoils the ending which I'm still no where close to getting near. Oh well.



Elsewhere, the Classic Game Room has returned with a new series on Youtube, which has already featured some quality Dreamcast lovin' in the form of a review for Le mans 24 Hours (one of my personal favorite racers on the system), a THREE PART review of the bat shit mental shooter that is Mars Matrix, and a review of the Dreamcast controller and VMU for good measure.

Mark is doing these on his own now (well, except for his dog who occasionally joins in to nibble on the odd NES controller), but he does an excellent job of showing off what made the Dreamcast so great in these new videos, and taking you back to what owning one back when it released was like. They're all essential viewing especially if you haven't played Le Mans or Mars Matrix before, both of which are rather underrated games. Below is the controller vid and the first part of the Mars Matrix review.

Tilt by Todd Levine.

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/consoles_i_have_known/tilt.php

ILLUSTRATION BY JENNIFER DANIEL

An excellent article from the Morning News.

It details the rise of the off white box and the brief dot-com boom in detail.

New Samba de Amigo adds familiar character

Pulled from UK Resistance.

Ulala+ Samba de Amigo = Good

They just need to add some more Dreamcast characters and games and I am probably gonna buy a Wii in a few years.

Plus that new House of the Dead game is looking pretty promising as well.

Guru Larry's Retro Corner - Shenmue

Do you know where I can find some sailors?

Sega Game Archive Room

http://blogs.sega.com/usa/2008/08/07/the-sega-game-archive/

That's pretty impressive.

It's sad that nobody remembers why such a room was created but it's nice that they are going to let people play the games. Hopefully this will lead people to create some cool games based on past greats. I mean they are making Mega Man 9 in retro format. Why not make some old retro Sega games?

I hope someone is smart enough to look through all those Dreamcast CD-Rs for unreleased games. With all those CD spindles there you KNOW there are some playable releases for titles we never saw.

I would have such a good time in that room. (Then I would try to sneak out with twin sticks under my jacket when I left)

Pulled from Kotaku.

Wind and Water Puzzle Battles Interview

Interview with Yuan-Hsi Chiang: Developer of the World’s Next Dreamcast Game

"Well, it’s a nice console with a dedicated fanbase. When I was younger, I would be extremely grateful when a Super Famicom (SNES) title arrived very late in its life, as it felt more like a tribute than a big commercial project. Many Dreamcast users around the world are really excited about this release! And the market, especially in Japan, is big enough to make it very profitable, which doesn’t hurt one bit!

On a more techie side, the DC is very robust, and supports true 240p RGB, which provides the definite 2D arcade experience. The controller suits the game perfectly, and there are practically no load times. There is also VGA and Arcade Stick support, so you can truly play this game any way you want on DC!"

Via www.siliconera.com


I liked the interview a lot. The guys over at Yuan Works seem to really want to preserve the pixel art that makes retro games so great.

I am also glad to hear that the Japanese market for Dreamcast games is still great enough to generate profit. Hopefully we can see some more games in the future.

Racketboy's List Of Most Valuable Dreamcast Games

The ever wonderful Racketboy continues to service our retro gaming passion with yet another fabulous post about our favourite console. One thing I love about Racket is that he constantly makes consoles such as the Dreamcast and the Saturn look essential in these 360/Wii/PSwhatever times. And as we all know, THEY ARE!!

So you can check out the list of most valuable games here. You can also check out the most relevent Dreamcast games for today here, the games that defined the Dreamcast here, the cheapest Dreamcast games worth your time here.

Oh, and if you are in the mood for a little more Racket browsing, why not check out the best Dreamcast multiplayer/party games here, the sega Dreamcast 2D fighter's library here, the Sega Dreamcast 2D shooters library here, the Dreamcast's essential import list here, the Dreamcast exclusive's list here, and finally the Dreamcast *shudders* ports on other systems here...

We at the Dreamcast Junkyard salute you Racket and applaud your tireless work in keeping our favourite consoles relevent in this ever changing gaming world. Keep up the good work!!!

Oh and BTW, I once had the honour of interviewing the great man for our sister site, The Saturn Junkyard. You can read that post here...

How can you sum up Shenmue?

If you haven't checked out Jonathan "Persona" Kim's webcomic over at GameSetWatch yet you really should...



Also PSO...



Check out his website for more stuff.

Wind and Water Puzzle Battles

A bit of information about the upcoming Dreamcast port of Wind and Water.

Blatantly stolen from the headlines at DCEmu UK http://dreamcast.dcemu.co.uk/

From the Wind and Water website.

"The Dreamcast version will feature a new package design, as well as an extensive manual with new artwork, in both English and Japanese! The final package will resemble closely the pictures you see below:" (Official Site)



It looks like there is gonna be some pretty good packaging for the puzzle game! And it looks like there is going to be VMU support!

Perhaps they could have gone with a DVD case design but the classic CD case looks pretty sweet.

Simon Jeffery Confirms Dreamcast 2, Shenmue 3, and Seaman 2 (on opposite day)

Just remember that this clip was filmed during "opposite day" so everything Mr. Jeffery says is the complete opposite from what he really means!



Wow that's some cold truth there.

"Fanboys" want Shenmue 3? Well, Nintendo doesn't listen to those whiny hardcore gamer peas anymore. So why should Sega listen to Sega fans?

Pulled from Kotaku

Some new Controller bits and bobs.

Got some stuff I've got my hands on as of recent here. First off, a Dreamcast controller I found at a boot sale this weekend which I believe to be rather unusual. For starters it's a bright green. These different coloured controllers are pretty hard to find in the UK as they were onyl sold online, but this is obviously not a European one as it has a orange logo on it, but rather a Japanese one. What makes it's truly unusual though is the little "Millennium 2000" symbol printed on it. Have a closer look.

I looked it up on Dreamcast Gallery, and it looks as though these were made in at least Green and blue, and only sold for a limited time, most likely between December 1999 and January 2000. Even better, the controller is in perfect condition considering it was amongst some guy's standard PAL collection without a box. Only problem now is I have way too many standard DC controllers (a total of 9!) so I'm gonna have to sell off a few. If anyone wants a spare controller or two, I'm selling 3 of them on Ebay right now, as well as a spare fishing controller. I'm holding on to this one though, as at some point I'd like to own one of every colour they did, not including those ridiculously rare patterned ones.

What I especially like about these semi-transparent ones is you can see all the circuitry inside the controller that makes it tick, and if you look closely in that second photo you can see a Sega Logo printed right onto the circuit board. I got a similar black controller a while ago but something tells me it may be fake: there's no Sega logo and the Dreamcast logo font looks different. To solve that issue I took the controller and a official white one apart and part the proper Sega parts in the Black shell, why not?

Meanwhile online I finally decided to purchase a Total Control 3 from Play-Asia, who typically decided to have a 25% off everything sale days after giving them my money. Darn!

So I've been through quite a few of these controller adapters now. First a simple Playstation one, followed by what was supposed to be a PSX and Saturn one but turned out to be PSX and PC keyboards instead, then another Playstation one with a VMU slot that I manged to blow a Dreamcast's controller ports out with (leaving me with a total of 3 dead Dreamcast's out of 5 currently) and finally one with PSX and Saturn but no twin stick compatibility. Bah!

This one however is just for Saturn controllers, but the main reason I bought it was for it's compatibility with Saturn Twin Sticks. You see, Saturn Twin sticks can be bought for about £30 but Dreamcast ones are £50+, but why buy a DC one when you can get the cheaper Saturn one then run it on the Dreamcast as well with a adapter? Is anyone still following this?

So how does it wok with this infamous Virtual On controller? Well, like a charm really, although it hasn't exactly made me any better at the game. Sometimes it seems to confuse a left stick movement to the left as pausing the game but otherwise but that may of just been a dusty connection or something. I also had a go at some other games to see if I could find some magic new control scheme ala the Fishing controller with Virtua Tennis but so far I haven't found anything that really fits the twin stick style. Sadly Bangai-O doesn't let you change all the button mapping, otherwise you could adjust it to have the left stick move the robot and the right to shoot in said direction, which would have been ace. Oh well.

So that's all I have to report as of recent. I still have to sort out those videos I promised you, including a couple new Rummage videos which are about half done.