A Rough Guide To Dreamcast Express

For a console that was only really supported for three years (more or less), the Dreamcast has left an impressive mark on the landscape of the gaming world. Looking at the system retrospectively, it's true that the Dreamcast was something of a commercial disaster for Sega even considering the record-breaking launches and relatively impressive sales figures. That said, it still amazes me the sheer volume of paraphernalia that was generated around the brand - from alarm clocks and pocket TVs to pens, jackets, mugs, bags and even tissue box holders...the amount of merchandise and superfluous branded tat that was spawned to celebrate the arrival of Sega's final console is bewildering. Some systems died on their asses simply because the public weren't aware of the thing's existence; but Sega were clearly on a mission to make sure that didn't happen to the Dreamcast, and while the platform didn't quite reach the commercial targets they had in mind, nobody can say that the firm was stingy with the marketing budget.

Marketing the Dreamcast brand was not strictly limited to stamping swirls on tea towels and mouse mats though - in Japan at least, Sega took things a little further by allowing gamers to sign up for a 'partner' service which furnished them with exclusive demo and preview discs. These could be played in their Dreamcasts and offered a sneak peek at future releases and featured exclusive bonus content that wasn't available anywhere else. This series of discs was called Dreamcast Express and seven volumes were released between 1999 and 2000, and they each comprise either a single or double GD set packed full of imaginatively-presented content.

BBC News: The Unexpected Archive

The BBC News website is a service I use on a daily basis - indeed it's usually my first port of call if I want to read the news while I drink my coffee in the morning. Interestingly though, it's also a rather unexpected mine of forgotten Dreamcast-related news items, preserved in an internet-based time capsule for future readers to pore over. I've known about this for some time now, having done quite a bit of internet-based digital archaeology and digital preservation work in a previous employment role, but I thought it might be nice to share this valuable - and reputable - information source with you.

The Games That Never Were

We're big fans of the search for unreleased and leaked beta software here at the Junkyard, and in the past we've featured plenty of material focusing on the games that were rumoured yet never saw the light of day. There are a few games that we doubt we'll ever get to see running, let alone get the chance to play - Colin McRae Rally 2.0 is one - but as the recent discovery and release of Toejam & Earl 3 shows, sometimes miracles do happen.

It seems we're not the only ones with a fascination of the subject of unreleased games though, as YouTuber and friend of the DCJY pcwzrd13 has created a series of interesting videos detailing some of the lesser (and more well-known) games that were promised, but for whatever reason never made it to shop shelves. Here are episodes 1-3 for your enjoyment...

Throwing Sticks In Rivers

Why did the Sega Dreamcast fail? It's an interesting and popular question that, in light of Sega's current existence as a sort of undead shadow of its former glory, is never too far removed from the gaming community's consciousness.

Indeed, I think you can argue that the Dreamcast's failure and Sega's demise haunts the industry today. That idea that a company so fundamental to the business and culture of an industry can, with one infamous phone call, suddenly cease to be, end in such a messy and brutal way, hovers now like a grim spectre over all of gaming.

Guest Article: Why I Hate The Dreamcast

The Dreamcast Junkyard is, as the name suggests, all about the Dreamcast. While we do tend to focus on some fairly obscure and largely forgotten aspects of the console's criminally brief lifespan, one thing it'd be fair to say is that we tend to be - on the whole - quite positive about the system. Rose-tinted spectacles may or may not be involved in some respects, but the fact remains that the Dreamcast was a commercial failure and it's legacy as an almost universally acclaimed and unfairly shunned platform is something of a recent trend. With this - and the notion of freedom of expression - in mind, occasional freelance games journalist Martin Hinson offers an alternative perspective on the Dreamcast and it's current status as an almost mythical machine.

Martin, you have the floor...

I was asked by the lovely (ahem) man that runs this place to write an opinion piece on the Dreamcast. Why? Well, I've spent the majority of the last 13 years hating the system...or have I?

My journey started in November 1998. My local import shop, The Joypad, received their first batch of Japanese launch consoles, in which I initially had no interest. Three of the games were pretty poor in my opinion - probably the worst launch of all major systems - but when I saw VF3tb running, I decided I had to have one and subsequently shelled out a hefty £400+ for the pleasure.  
The system got off to a rocky start, however. Not only was the buggy Virtua Fighter 3tb the only decent game on launch, the system shipped with no RGB cables at all. Now, for those of you that don’t know, RGB was the best available connection to the vast majority of TVs during the standard definition era; and gave an arcade-quality image as opposed to the very muddy image from the standard cables. This irked me greatly as I already had an RGB-enabled PS1 system and a modified Nintendo 64 which output the same high quality signal. 

The Stars My Destination

Space. The final frontier. The immortal words of many a commanding officer of the Starship Enterprise. As a species, we have pretty much conquered the surface of our homeworld so why not cast our eyes towards the heavens? Explore the vast gulfs between the celestial bodies that make up our own solar system and the void beyond? Surely this is our destiny...one day. I'm enough of a fan of science fiction and science fact to know that this grandiose vision will never be realised in my lifetime, or the lifetime of my (hypothetical) children's children, but the notion of mankind's migration from this planet to spread our seeds amongst the stars and conquer the vast emptiness of the cosmos is one that has excited us since the dawn of civilisation itself.

Countless works of fiction have focused on humanity's struggle to leave the safety of planet Earth and create far-reaching networks - be those lowly colonies or planet-destroying galactic empires. Star Wars, Star Trek, Aliens, Firefly...Red Dwarf. The list is endless, and doesn't stop with the motion picture - 2001: A Space Odyssey (and sequels), The Stars My Destination, Gateway, The Forever War, Altered Carbon...all outstanding literary works with a common theme - that of our harnessing of wondrous technology and the breaking of the chains that hold us to the planet we call home. But what of games set in the black void? They too are numerous and the Dreamcast plays host to some of the finest space-based shmups known to man, but in this post I don't want to talk about those. I want to focus on the games that take the space-based shooting template and weave it into more of a dramatic story-driven production. Those games that involve a little bit more than dodging bullets and getting to the end of the level; and focus more on story lines, character development and fighting a tangible threat for a worthy cause. I want to talk space operas and happily, the Dreamcast has several that are actually rather good. Join me as we step beyond the veil and enter hyperspace to look at the best space shooters available for Sega's final entry into the games race...

Armada
Year: 1999
Developer: Metro3D
Publisher: Sega
Armada is a game that was only released to an NTSC-U audience, and this really beggars belief. I do remember reading a review in a UK magazine, getting really excited for it...and then being hugely disappointed when it's PAL release was canned. I'm still yet to find out why this happened, as Armada is a fantastic space-based shooter-cum-strategy romp. Played from a slightly isometric viewpoint, you are tasked with taking command of a starship and must pilot it across vast distances, fighting the titular bio-mechanical armada and hailing other ships in order to gain allies and free the galaxy of the alien threat. The story is quite involving and depicts a universe in which mankind has split into six distinct tribes but are forced to work together in order to fend off the aggressive armada who - for reasons unknown - are hellbent on destroying humanity. Controls are a little irksome at first - you control your ship's direction with the analogue stick in a sort of 'circular' motion (whichever way you rotate the stick is the way the ship points) and must use thrusters or the main engine to propel yourself, also using the ship's momentum to guide it safely through fields of marauding enemies.
Throw in plenty of combat, side missions, resource gathering, trading and teaming up with other wandering spacecraft and you have one brilliant adventure on your hands. You also have the ability to venture down to the surface of various planets and also to dock with space stations in order to buy and sell goods; and the coordinates-based map system makes finding hidden treasures and locations quite an engaging experience. As is the norm with this type of game, upgrading your ship and weaponry is as you'd expect, but perhaps the most interesting aspect of Armada is that it's intended to be played, Gauntlet style, with up to four players. I haven't personally experienced this (yet) but I would imagine it makes the game a lot easier with four commanders all flying around together and kicking alien ass. Armada is a game that is well worth tracking down if you're a US-based Dreamcast gamer, but likewise if you live elsewhere it's definitely worth looking for an import copy.

Bang! Gunship Elite
Year: 2000
Developer: Rayland Interactive
Publisher: Red Storm/Ubisoft
Yet another space-themed shooter that never saw release outside of the US, Bang! is a port of a fairly popular PC game that eschews Armada's RPG-lite gameplay in favour of all out combat. Played from a traditional first person cockpit perspective, Bang! throws the player into a universe where talk is cheap and big guns are all the rage. Actually, that's not wholly true as Bang! has a plot that is extremely convoluted and is explained in several fairly lengthy opening cut scenes. Having it's roots on the PC and being a game in the same mould as Wing Commander, this is probably to be expected, and the usual MacGuffin-based reasons for an intergalactic war between several different races is standard stuff. In this particular war, the magical source of all of mankind's energy is a substance known as Khá, and the Alliance is fighting a losing battle against the invading Sektar forces. Cue you, a rookie pilot, being fast-tracked through the academy and then pushed out into space on your own to complete a variety of missions that tread familiar ground for fans of the genre: skirmishes, seek & destroy and convoy protection missions are all par for the course here.
Controls are good and tight, even with the Dreamcast's lop-sided analogue options - accelerate and decelerate are on the triggers, you 'look' with the stick, and activate shields, fire and alternate your weapons with the face buttons and d-pad. Aside from the long-winded story and varied missions, the other ace up Bang!'s sleeve is the fantastic visuals. While the various ships and space stations do look a like tired by today's standards with their lo-res textures, the actual theatres themselves are packed full of lens flares, huge planets and asteroid belts and all manner of other spectacular particle effects. Once the action heats up, there's so much going on at times that you have to remind yourself that the Dreamcast is a system from the late 90s - Bang! really does look very, very nice even by today's standards. A great game in truth, and the only one I've yet found that features a 'fat bloke' in the credits:

Starlancer
Year: 2000
Developer: Digital Anvil/Warthog
Publisher: Crave/Ubisoft
While US gamers had a pretty decent choice of space shooters with both Armada and Bang! Gunship Elite also vying for their money, Dreamcast owners in PAL territories had pretty much one place to get their thrills - Starlancer. That's no bad thing though, because out of the three Starlancer is by far the best of the bunch...by a country mile. Coming from Chris and Erin Roberts - the designers of the previously mentioned Wing Commander games - Starlancer is a full-blown space opera in every sense of the word. Where Armada and Bang! are great, story-driven experiences in their own right, Starlancer takes it one step further by throwing the player into what is essentially a science-fiction blockbuster of a game, complete with pretty much every cliche of the genre you could care to mention. It also differs from the others in this list in that the enemy threat here is actually human - an alliance of space communists out to destroy the network of colonies and space stations created by the peace-loving allied nations of Earth. It's basically the cold war, but in space. You, as ever, take on the role of a rookie fighter called up to join the 45th volunteer squadron and provide fighter cover for the remaining vestiges of the allied battle fleet as the top brass try to come up with an effective strategy to thwart an overpowering enemy. While Starlancer does look quite similar to Bang! aesthetically, the similarities pretty much end there: Starlancer is all about tactics and commanding your wingmen to attack serious targets, deploying counter measures and working together to take down swarms of intelligent enemy fighters and gigantic capital ships. All the while, radio chatter from your comrades bursts from your headset and the orchestral music adds to the tension. Cut scenes are brilliantly utilised to advance the story and the missions can branch depending on your actions, making Starlancer a truly huge adventure.
As well as the main campaign in which you increase in rank the further you get, there is also as 'instant action' skirmish mode that lets you jump straight in to a dogfight and also try out some of the ships you unlock later in the main game. Another way in which Starlancer differs from Bang! is that there is a multiplayer mode, but whether it is still operational today (even with a broadband adaptor) is something I'm not sure on. The real show-stopper with Starlancer though, isn't the brilliant voice acting, outstanding visuals or rousing soundtrack; it's the way in which the game actually makes you feel like you're a small piece in an even bigger sequence of events. You aren't the absolute hero, there are other hotshot pilots out there too, and you all band together to fight a common enemy. Not only that, but you also have dialogue with enemy pilots so you aren't just blasting faceless AI drones and this goes a long way when creating a tangible living, breathing universe (so to speak) in which to set a story.

Conclusion
The three games I've covered in this article are all outstanding titles in their own right. They all offer a unique experience yet are set in similar environments and all share the key elements of a good space-based adventure. In all of them, you play a lone pilot who is part of a threatened alliance. You are the archetypal underdog with the odds stacked against you and the fate of your people resting on your shoulders. The only thing standing between freedom and certain death are well-maintained laser cannons, a quick trigger finger, and - in some cases - the help of an ally or two. That said, all three of them are different enough to warrant owning them all in my opinion. Armada is more about exploration and upgrading; Bang! is more about solitary dogfighting and Starlancer's game is focussed on commanding squadrons and using tactics. That said, if I could only choose one out of the three, then it would surely be Starlancer; it just has it all - great looks, amazing gameplay and a totally engrossing storyline. It is easily one of the best games on the Dreamcast and if you like space-based shooters it should already be in your library.
Special thanks to friend of the Junkyard Pcwzrd13 who sourced both Armada and Bang! Gunship Elite for me from his native America and sent them over to Blighty in a package that also included a bonus game - Creature Shock for the Sega Saturn. Be sure, as ever, to check out his Youtube channel for some great gaming-related content.

Anyway, enough from me - what do you think about the Dreamcast's space shooters? Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments or head over to our new DCJY Facebook Group and get involved in the discussion!

Crouching Music, Hidden Tracks

Video game systems with CD players - weird, right? No?

I suppose not. In a world where most consoles can stream Netflix and cell phones are used to play games, non-game functions are increasingly a given in our beloved systems. However, I would bet at least a dollar (or a pound) that versus the hours and days spent actually playing games, my dear readers have spent mere minutes here:

A CD player? How quaint!

There's not much to say about the player itself. Even competing PlayStation had a similar feature, so it was not unique. However, a few years ago, I discovered a secret.


Gauntlet Giveaway Pewter Miniatures

I recently acquired a copy of the NTSC-U version of Gauntlet Legends. We have featured Midway's multi-player fantasy roaming beat 'em up here at the 'Yard in recent times, but I wanted to investigate something that is particular to the US iteration of the game. As a side note, I actually purchased this NTSC copy from an eBay seller for less than the price of a pint of lager simply because my PAL copy's case has mysteriously vanished from my collection. Very odd, but these things are sent to try us. Now I've told you my life story - lets get on with it. If you look at the front of the NTSC-U box (which is also the front of the manual, owing to the design of the US game cases), you will note this little graphic:

Respect

We're not ones to jump on a bandwagon here at the Junkyard. We pride ourselves on reporting on the lesser-known stories surrounding our favourite over-looked system. But the passing of Leonard Nimoy is an event that cannot be ignored by any media outlet - especially one influenced by the talents of such an iconic entertainer.

Mr Nimoy, as you probably know, was the voice of Caution: Seaman for Western gamers - at least for those whom SEGA deemed worthy. As a resident of the United Kingdom, I personally never experienced a PAL version of Caution: Seaman but I have played the NTSC-U game, and the reassuring dulcet tones of Leonard Nimoy eased me into a game released in an era way before celebrity voiceovers were even a recognised marketing tool. The Dreamcast Junkyard, regardless how unimportant we are, would like to recognise Leonard Nimoy's contribution to games and his outstanding career as an actor and icon.

Abandoned Dreamcast Needs A Home

Once upon a time, a guy out walking in the woods finds an abandoned Dreamcast amongst the grass and bushes covered in mud, leaves and - quite possibly - dog excrement. What happens next is just pure magic, and - I won't lie - brought a single, swirl-shaped tear to this gamer's eye. Click here for the full story, as detailed on imgur.
Thanks to friend of the Junkyard PCwzrd13 for the heads up - be sure to check out his YouTube channel for some great Dreamcast and general gaming-related content.

The Rarest Dreamcast Hardware On Earth?

Sega Dreamcast SFL-20001P Control Unit
*Updated! We have new info on this. Scroll to the bottom for the update*

Allow me to be presumptuous, but I'm going to guess that if you're here at the Junkyard reading articles about a console that has been out of production for well over a decade, you're either a) a Dreamcast enthusiast; b) a retro-gaming enthusiast; or c) both. For these reasons alone, I'm also going to presume that you dear reader, know a thing or two about so-called 'rare' hardware; and more specifically rare or lesser-spotted Dreamcast hardware. You know the kinds of thing I'm talking about - the Divers 2000 and the various special edition consoles that occasionally pop up on eBay for astronomical sums of money. Think the Resident Evil STARS edition, or the Hello Kitty variants that surface every now and then. Hell - you might even own one or two. There's something that I can guarantee the vast majority of people reading this don't own though. Not only that - I would wager that the vast majority didn't even know of the existence of this Dreamcast variant - I certainly didn't until I stumbled across DreamcastGaga's article a few days ago. Allow us to present the Dreamcast SFL-2000P1 Control Unit.
Sega Dreamcast SFL-20001P Control Unit
As mentioned in DCGaga's original article, the Control Unit originally surfaced on eBay in late 2014 and was snapped up for a mere $123 (that's about £80) by an eagle-eyed bidder. This was probably down to the fact that the item was listed rather ambiguously as 'Vintage Sega Dream Cast Japaneses Metal Console,' [sic] and not (as I would have listed it) 'Rare as Rocking Horse Shit Hitherto Unknown Dreamcast Box Thing.' 

Indie Review: Powder

I'm going to level with you: I don't particularly like RPGs. While I can totally appreciate why a lot of people love them, I've just never got on with sprawling story arcs, random battles, item collection and all of the other aspects one would generally associate with the genre. I'm also totally aware that there are many, many sub-genres within this particular channel of gaming and that to say I don't like RPGs is probably a little bit short sighted on my part. I mean, I really enjoyed Link's Awakening on the Game Boy and Ocarina of Time on the N64, have battled through all of the Mass Effect games and even got pretty far into Virtual Hydlide on the Saturn before the desire to vomit explosively enveloped me...but those aren't really the kinds of game I'm talking about.

I'm talking about learning spells, calculating hit points and wading through loads of text. Frankly, I just find traditional RPGs boring. That's just my (admittedly ignorant) opinion and I totally respect that people reading this may have just spat either cornflakes or a Pot Noodle (or both?) all over their computer or phone screen, but I haven't even attempted to play Skies of Arcadia yet because I just know what I'm going to get in that particular package; and I spent about 8 minutes playing Final Fantasy 7 before I removed it from my PlayStation and stuck Alien Trilogy back in. You can take a horse (me) to water (RPGs), but you can't make it drink (play them). Brackets were used in that last metaphor to clarify what I was trying to convey with my cack-handed grasp of wurds and stuff. Keeping that last sentence at the forefront of your cerebellum, allow me to explain that very recently I was made aware of a home brew roguelike RPG that has been ported to the Dreamcast and can be played using an SD Reader.

Powder started life as a Game Boy Advance project and is the brainchild of programmer Jeff Lait. Writing on the Powder website, Jeff explains that the game was borne out of his desire to play a roguelike RPG on his handheld:

"I created POWDER for one simple reason: I wanted a roguelike on my GBA. The standard RPGs were annoying me with endless battle screens against weak enemies to unfold a drug induced plotline. I wanted a game I could just jump into, and start killing things. Having had more hours than I'd care to log playing Nethack, ADOM, and the Diablos, I knew the exact type of game I wanted. The problem was I didn't see anyone publishing it any time soon."

Since the GBA original, Powder has been ported to various other formats including the Nintendo DS, Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Recently though, Dreamcast.es forum admin Indiket successfully translated the source over to the Dreamcast and the source has - rather helpfully - been turned into an SD Reader-compatible ISO file by DCeric so that morons like me can get involved and begin dungeon crawling.

Having A Blast With Cosmic Smash

There are some games on the Dreamcast that I'm pretty sure would not have translated well from their original Japanese to the West. Only recently we looked at a dating sim from the land of the rising sun, and while it did look intriguing, I think it's safe to say that it would probably have sold less units than a DVD boxset of a wall of wet paint drying. With this in mind, let us turn our attention to another title that never saw the light of day outside of it's native homeland - Cosmic Smash. The reason I draw a comparison between it and the aforementioned dating sim is that Cosmic Smash is a game that by it's very nature transcends all of the usual barriers for localisation, and yet it is glaringly absent from both PAL and NTSC-U libraries.

500 Likes!

Just a little update to say thank you to everyone who has clicked the 'like' button on our Facebook page (it's here incase you're interested). There's not been much activity here at the 'Yard in the past week due to real life commitments getting in the way, but normal service will be resumed from tomorrow...so stay tuned. Once again - thanks to everyone who reads and supports the site/Facebook page.

Strafing, Not Stirred


I make no secret of my love for the Doom franchise - as I've stated here and on other sites many, many times previously, Doom is one of my all-time favourite games and it's sequels and spin-offs are games I hold in extremely high regard. Due to this slightly worrying affection for all things Doom, I have amassed quite a collection of variants of the game and have pretty much every iteration of it for consoles - the only one I don't have in the collection is the 32X port and that's only because I don't actually own one of those mushroom-shaped monstrosities anymore. I have waxed lyrical about my penchant for id's sprite-based (and polygonal, the the case of the 3rd instalment) shooting series here at the 'Yard in recent months, but in this post I wanted to share some images I took from within one of the best mods I think I've ever seen for Doom...and one that I have had the pleasure of sampling via my Dreamcast SD card reader: the GoldenEye 007 total conversion.

Sports Jam: The Devil's Playground

That odd title will become clear soon enough, but first let's get down to business. Sports Jam is a conversion of an arcade game that is really little more than a collection of short and sweet mini-games based loosely on a plethora of different sports. Developed by Wow Entertainment for the NAOMI system and then converted - almost perfectly - to the Dreamcast, Sports Jam encourages players to pick one of twelve events to try their hand (or some cases feet) at, in an attempt to get either high scores or meet the criteria to move on to the next of four rounds.

Complete each round successfully, and you win the game...and that's pretty much the entire game in a nutshell to be honest. Unlike most other arcade-to-home conversions of the era (Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, Virtua Fighter 3tb et al), Sports Jam doesn't really add much bespoke content to the mix and so the replay value is somewhat limited...especially when you take into consideration that a lot of the 'events' on offer here actually only last for around a (Swatch-sponsored) minute and a half each, or a set number of 'tries.'
Sports Jam Baseball

Living with a Lack of Love


How can you live the good life?


Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates believed that knowledge was the key. Study hard in the natural sciences and the knowledge it would bestow upon you would free you from the petty shackles of human problems.


Seneca, the famous Roman stoic, believed this too, but also stressed the importance of active participation in mundane human affairs, be it politics or business. For Seneca, isolated reason alone could not lead a person to live a good life.
Your life in Lack of Love begins when this robot arrives on the alien planet. What is his mission?
Equally Thales of Miletus, one of the Seven Wise Men of Ancient Greece, believed that the good life came from observing moderation in all things. Always checking oneself so that ideological and practical extremes were never reached.