Pier Solar Collector's Edition Gallery

Pier Solar has finally shipped and the general consensus is that it's a fine game, and that Watermelon has done a really good job with the packaging and variations on PAL, NTSC-U and NTSC-J Dreamcast boxes. The ultimate variant of Pier Solar appears to be the Collector's Edition, and fellow Dreamcast collector and blogger Blue Swirl has supplied me with some images of the packaging, extras and guide book that come as part of this lovely set. The gallery is below, but here's what Blue Swirl had to say about the Collector's Edition:

I recently received the Collector's Edition of Pier Solar for Dreamcast and thought you might like some photos.

I went with the PAL variation, it came wrapped in custom gold wrapping paper (an early Christmas present!) and it's really nicely done with gold ink on the game cover, inlay and manual. They also authentically recreated the PAL Dreamcast cases too - hopefully the plastic hinges are a little stronger though!

There are some pictures of the guide too, which comes bound in a faux leather cover embossed with the logo. I have to say they do go to some extremes for an indie developer, it's very professionally done.

We have to agree that it does look very nice, especially the guide book. Pier Solar is out now and available to buy from Watermelon's website and you can visit Blue Swirl's Dreamcast blog here. Also, be sure to check out Caleb's Pier Solar first look video here.

A Quick Look At Arabian Nights: Prince of Persia

I loved Flashback. It was such an epic game. The rotoscoped animation of Conrad B. Hart, the cinematics, the fantastic storyline and pacing of the adventure. You really felt like you were playing a role in the greatest sci-fi caper ever told; you literally had the fate of mankind in your frail, meat-based human hands. I initially experienced Flashback on the Mega Drive (and later the Jaguar and 3DO) and once I'd finished it, I looked into other games that were similar in scope and design and eventually my quest lead me to buy an earlier title from the bountiful table of Delphine Software and US Gold: Another World.

I'm not going to lie in an attempt to look like some learned and well-versed gaming expert: I thought Another World was shite. Even though it was lauded by the press, I couldn't even get past the first couple of screens with that big black dog and those stupid snaggle-toothed slug things nipping at my ankles. Ultimately, Another World (or Out of This World if you're American) was tossed aside after about an hour of trial and error (and random outbursts of rage at the TV screen if I remember rightly). Before you start foaming on your yellowing, crumb-filled Amiga keyboard know this: I have since played it as an adult and fully appreciate the game now; but back then in my youthful 'fresh from Flashback' comedown period, I thought it was an impenetrable mess. A good looking mess with excellent cut scenes, but a mess all the same. I can only apologise for such adolescent idiocy.

Unknown Tantalus Shooter Revealed

This is the latest in our series of unreleased games reveals, and to be honest we're not really sure what to call it. The game - if you can call it such - is contained on a GD with the word 'Tantalus' scribbled across it with permanent marker. That's it. No name, no version, no date. For those who don't know, Tanatalus is a developer that did several ports for the Saturn including Manx TT Superbike, Krazy Ivan and both WipEout and WipEout 2097. They also supported the Dreamcast, with the most notable game being Looney Tunes Space Race, the cell-shaded kart racer.

According to Wikipedia, Tantalus are also working on The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD for the Wii U, which is cool. However, this post is about a game lost to the mists of time. A four player split screen demo with no name but a hell of a lot of Nazi imagery and more questions than answers. Is it the multiplayer component for a lost Dreamcast version of Return To Castle Wolfenstein? This sounds likely, but the video below will hopefully jog some memories...

Update: the CEO of Tantalus has revealed the story behind this demo!

Nice work guys! As far as we remember, this is a tech demo we produced, and presumably sent around to a few publishers. As much as anything, it was probably to showcase the fact that our Dreamcast tech supported four-player split-screen multiplayer. It never became an actual game.

Fantastic to see it though, we love a blast from the past.

Cheers,
Tom Crago
CEO - Tantalus

The mystery is solved...thanks Tom! 

The World's Smallest Dreamcast?

OK, so you've probably seen the Yujin Sega History Collection Dreamcast that comes in a plastic egg like something out of a Dobuita toy machine, but we're confident we've found an even smaller example of Sega's lovely white system. Behold:
This is available from Etsy seller Bricksanity for the equally minuscule price of £1.99, is based on a Lego brick, and is a pretty darn cool novelty item - even more so if you collect Lego. One of these Dreamcast bricks would look amazing in any Lego house, and it comes complete with a controller, VMU, mains plug and RGB Scart cable. Sadly this, much like the fabled cake in Portal, is a lie. In actual fact you only get a controller (of sorts):

This is in no way official, but it's pretty awesome. I wonder if Sega Europe will order the seller to cease and desist...surely not!

Cease & Desist

If you managed to snag a Collectors Guide, you'll be pleased to know that it itself is now a collectable. That's because Sega's legal department has asked The Dreamcast Junkyard to cease sale of the guide as it isn't an official product, and naturally we will honour the request. For transparency, here's the email:

Dear Sirs,

We are pleased that you support the SEGA video game console Dreamcast and we note your creation of the Dreamcast Junkyard Ultimate Collectors Guide Book. This is however an unofficial title which is not authorised nor endorsed by SEGA and for that reason, we ask that you kindly cease sale of this book on your website and/or any other online channels as soon as possible. 

Please can you confirm that you have removed the book by emailing the Legal Dept.

As you will understand, in order to protect the brands within our group companies, we are only able to allow the creation of and promotion of authorised products and platforms.

We thank you for your understanding.

Yours faithfully

Legal Department

SEGA Europe Ltd.

For and on behalf of SEGA Holdings Co., Ltd.

Fair enough. It's not an official product and Sega have every right to request this. After all, they own the Dreamcast copyright and all that jazz. I have replied asking if there's anything we can do to make the book available again, so we'll see what they say. In truth, the upcoming Pix'N Love Dreamcast publication has probably had something to do with this...but c'est la vie! Once again, there is no love lost here (from our side anyway!).

Thanks to everyone who bought one and keep dreaming!

Japanese Dreamcast Promotion Disk

What with all the writing and playing of Dreamcast games lately, I'm developing gnarled claws where my hands should be. I blame that infernal controller with it's guillotine edges. No matter how much lard I rub into my palms, I just can't rid myself of the cramp and so I decided to make a lovely video for your delectation, rather than spend ages hammering out guff on my internet-enabled steampunk typewriter, while simultaneously listening to whale song playing on an 8 track. Hipster? You don't know the half of it squire. 

Anyway, a few weeks ago a chap named James sent me a rather spiffing selection of Dreamcast demos from the shores of Japan, and in amongst said collection was a GD labelled simply as a Dreamcast Promotion Disk. It also has 'not for sale' printed on it, and this piqued my interest. In all honesty, it's probably just a disk for use in shop-based demo pods and the like, but I thought it was worth investigating further. Cast your eyes downward, hit play and all will be revealed!

As ever, if you know more about this disk than I, please share the knowledge in the comments. Edit: it turns out the demo is from the Japanese Dreamcast Magazine, which I kind of suspected seeing as the logo for said periodical popped up at one point in the video. Still, an interesting item nonetheless as all of the other demos from that magazine are numbered and have a completely different look to them. More on those coming very soon!

10 Years Young!

Well, we made it. Today - the 7th December 2015 - marks a decade since this blog first started. Back in 2005 it was simply a place where I intended to document the reconstruction of the Dreamcast collection I had traded for a PlayStation 2 in 2001, but in the ensuing months it became something of a labour of love where every new game and peripheral I snagged on eBay was photographed and 'added to the 'Yard.'

Soon after I started it,  The Gagaman joined the Junkyard and it became a two man operation, with the pair of us adding the occasional post about things we'd bought or games we'd played. We became a threesome (er...) when Barry joined, adding an international flavour with his views from across the pond in the US. The team and the variety of posts continued to grow as we later welcomed Father Krishna and Caleb, and then Martin and NebachadnezzaR, both of whom are no longer on the team here at DCJY but will live on as legends in the Junkyard's hall of fame. Yes, the line-up here at the 'Yard has undergone a few changes over the course of the last decade, but we like to think that the tone has remained constant - one of true passion for Sega's final console.

10th Anniversary Competition Bonus Stage - Winners!

Once again, massive thanks to Play-Asia.com for supplying us with the prizes for this, our final 10th anniversary competition; and thanks to everyone who entered. The VMU images seem to have flummoxed most of you (it wasn't meant to be easy!), but that said most of you got the vast majority of them right. So well done. Before we announce the winners, here are the answers:

How many did you get right? In truth, nobody got them all 100% correct but as stated in the original post, if that happened, the entrants with the next best number of correct answers would be crowned winners and recieve a prize. And so here they are:

1st Prize Winners: Mike Lodato & Alex Young

Runners Up: Yu Kajima, Ricardo Almeida & Anna Frohling

Well done to you all, and thanks again to Play-Asia.com for supplying us with copies of Dux and ReDux. Winners will also get a copy of our DCJY Collectors Guide. We hope you enjoyed the competition, and remember: keep dreaming!

Pier Solar Sega Dreamcast Version First Look

Here's a quick look at Pier Solar on the Sega Dreamcast! As you can see the pixels are all there, but I never found out how to hunt those evil bunny rabbits. Next time they'll get what's coming to them...

Apologies for the wonky sound. My Snowball mic is on the way out. Time to get a better setup.

Rez Infinite Coming To PS4

Rez is one of the Dreamcast's most iconic titles and the blend of trippy visuals and great music mean it is still a favourite with many gamers. The game has been re-released several times since the Dreamcast original in 2001, with PlayStation 2 and HD remakes but now Tetsuya Mizaguchi's musical shooter is heading to the PlayStation 4 with full 1080 HD visuals and VR support. Check out IGN's video below of the Rez Infinite reveal at the recent PlayStation Experience press conference.

It is quite ironic that after all this time, we are still seeing titles that started on the Dreamcast being brought to a new audience in 2015. You can read more about Rez Infinite at the PlayStation Europe blog here. Also, thanks to Ted for the heads up on this.

Official Dreamcast Keyring

Last week I received a small package and inside was a random Dreamcast-related item I bought off eBay. I wasn't totally sure what it was, but after I made this video (and also contacted the seller), it became apparent that it is in fact a somewhat rare, and totally official Dreamcast branded keyring that was given exclusively to staff of Sega Europe back in the day. The seller is an ex-employee and had been using it as a keyring up until the day they decided to flog it. I've never seen a keyring of this design, hence my bafflement at the thing once it appeared in the mail, but I thought it might be cool to share some images of it. The main body is made of solid metal (I'm not sure what type) and is quite weighty, and the wire has unscrewable ends that allow you to loop it through your keys. As I said, I've never seen a keyring of this design before, and certainly not one that's branded with the Dreamcast logo (it appears to be engraved onto the metal). Do you have one of these? Do you know anything more about it? Let us know in the comments!

An Open Letter To Discotek Media

Dear Discotek Media,

Congratulations on securing the rights to release Hi☆sCoool! SeHa Girls on physical media in North America (and by default, the rest of Western civilisation). As self-confessed Sega fans, we are eagerly awaiting this release and look forward to the extra content and interviews you will be including alongside the full 13 episode series.

We suspect you guys and gals may also be big Sega fans yourselves, as many of the older series you've published have ties to classic Sega titles as well, such as Fist of the North Star, Golgo 13: The Professional, and Super Dimension Century Orguss. There is certainly a lot of scope for overlap between the Sega and Anime fandoms and markets.


Fist of the North Star (aka Hokuto no Ken) was released as
Black Belt in Western markets. 

This is why we are penning this open letter. There is an exciting opportunity for you to capitalise on the recent “Dreamcast Renaissance.” No less than six new independently published games were released this year, two successful kickstarter campaigns funded additional games for the coming years, and the phenomenal success of Shenmue III took everyone by surprise and elevated Sega and Dreamcast nostalgia back into the mainstream consciousness. The Dreamcast is once again hot property and its star will only continue to rise.

DreamPod - Episode 20

iTunes
Stitcher
Buzzsprout
UK Podcast Directory

Massive thanks to Carlos for taking part in this episode. For further information on Xenocider and AMEBA, be sure to visit Retro Sumus' official website, Twitter and Facebook. You can also check out Dreamcast.es here and read all about Retro Barcelona here. Enjoy amigos!

MSR Alpha Gameplay Footage

A few posts ago we looked at the newly-discovered alpha version of Bizarre Creations' exemplary Dreamcast driving sim Metropolis Street Racer. James, the owner of the GD kindly sent me some gameplay footage of this November 1999 alpha which he recorded from his TV, and so I set about creating a little video showing some of the more interesting aspects.

Below you will find the fruits of our combined efforts, and the video highlights some interesting things from this early version of MSR that are missing from the final build. For instance, the 'lens flare' effect from the vehicle brake lights and the real-world shop front textures. Other things such as the audio placeholders, the real-life recordings of actual radio stations (complete with traffic updates for the M4 and British Telecom adverts) and a very early recording of Live Your Life as sung by Richard Jaques in what sounds like a broom cupboard. Anyway, enjoy the video.

A Quick Look At Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu

Of all the popular American sports, ice hockey is probably my favourite. I know other countries (including the UK) play ice hockey and have domestic leagues, but for me the NHL is the go-to for fast, ice-based violence/fun; and the similarities it shares with soccer make it quite easy for me to enjoy. There are two teams, two goals, two goalkeepers, and a thing that needs to be put past said 'keeper to score a point. Simple.

At the other end of the spectrum, NFL - or American Football - is the least penetrable to me. To my stupid foreign eyes it looks like a chaotic mishmash of rugby and Gaelic football, two other sports I have very little interest in. Sandwiched betwixt these extremes like two slabs of pastrami are basketball and baseball. Basketball is alright, but it just seems like the teams take it in turn to score (yawn), and baseball is just rounders with a bigger bat and 90,000 screaming drunks lining the field (probably). Oh, and there was a film starring Kevin Costner about it once. I think it was called The Postman. But I digress.

T3's Sega Dreamcast Anniversary Special

November 27th 1998 marked the Japanese release of the Dreamcast. It was a momentous occasion, and while not on the same level of notoriety as the bat-shit crazy European launch that featured drunken cameos from Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn and Verne Troyer, it's still an important event. 

As it's November 27th 2015, the 17th birthday of the Dreamcast, T3.com has featured the story as one of its main articles. In the name of transparency, I must admit that it was written by me and the process involved the laying out of most of my peripherals and random Dreamcast components all over the living room table so they could be photographed (much to the annoyance of my girlfriend), but thanks must go to Rob Jones for asking me to write a feature for such a prestigious website. If you don't know, T3 is one of the world's foremost technology and gadget magazines and websites and is published by Future Publishing. You can find the article here.

16ths: The Dreamcast Start-Up Theme

Hey! I started doing YouTube videos just this past year, and one of the series I do is about short pieces in video game music. The Dreamcast's boot tune is one such piece. Even though some older systems had musical start-ups, most of the others weren't as good - certainly, they probably didn't have the same caliber of composer. Anyway, prologue aside, here's the video:

Sega Central Features The DCJY Collectors Guide

Sega Central is Sega Europe's regular YouTube series in which presenter Dan gives details of competitions and shares Sega-centric news and developments. The latest episode offers viewers the chance to win some great Sega-related prizes and also looks briefly at the upcoming Warhammer: Night Goblins, but by far the best bit - to us anyway - is that the Dreamcast Junkyard Ultimate Collectors Guide gets a mention! Fame, fortune and stardom...at last! Well, almost. The video is below, but remember you can also purchase the Guide (which also doubles up as an incredible Christmas present, I hasten to add) by moving your mouse pointer thingy and clicking here.

Massive thanks to the lovely people at Sega Europe for the shout out, make sure you go and subscribe to the YouTube channel after reading this! Meanwhile, I'm off to go and have the Sega logo tattooed onto my forehead.

We See In Pixels

This week I was privileged enough to guest on the brilliant We See In Pixels podcast. While the normal state of play on the podcast is to focus on modern gaming news and releases, regular hosts Mike, Jas and Amy do occasionally discuss retro games and systems. As the Dreamcast is enjoying something of a renaissance at present, I was asked if I'd like to appear on the show and wax lyrical about our favourite white box of tricks, and naturally I said yes! Being a regular listener of the podcast anyway, it was something of an honour to be asked to guest host, and in turn I'd be honoured if you'd take the time to go and have a listen to We See In Pixels Episode 24: The Dreamcast...cast.

You can also find and subscribe to We See In Pixels on iTunes here.

A Quick Look At The Dreamconnector

For some reason, the notion of using peripherals designed for another console with the Dreamcast has always fascinated me. Much like emulation, it's the idea of tricking the hardware into doing something it wasn't intended to do. Stupid machine. Look at it, doing my bidding. Oh how I laugh at the stupidity of machines. And, until Skynet gains self awareness and smites me for my hubris I shall continue with my arrogant taunting. To this end I recently purchased the Dreamconnector, a cool little device hailing from China that promises to allow the user the God-like power to trick the idiot Dreamcast into accepting Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, PC PS/2 keyboards and even steering wheels as legitimate input devices.

Who's 'thinking' now? Eh?! And as I stand here in my pants screaming hysterically at an inanimate console, I find myself and return to a reality in which I'm aware that a device called Total Control also exists, but as far as I know it doesn't allow for the use of a PS/2 keyboard as well as controllers.

10th Anniversary Competition: Bonus Stage - In Association With Play-Asia.com

***Competition Now Closed***

Earlier in 2015 we celebrated the Junkyard's 10th year in existence with a series of three competitions in which entrants could win a limited edition Dreamcast Collection vinyl record. These were supplied by our good friends at Sega Europe and the triumvirate of triumphant winners produced the goods when it mattered. Competition 1 was won by James Steel for his awesome Dreamcast montage, competition 2 was won by Ricardo Almeida for guessing all the games, and competition 3 was won by João Borba for his outstanding time attack performance in Sega Rally 2. Rounds of applause were initiated, party poppers were pulled and everyone had a jolly old time. Huzzah!

The thing is, the actual 10th anniversary of this hallowed blog occurs on the 7th of December and we thought it was worth celebrating the momentous occasion with another competition. A bonus stage, if you will. And so, with the help of online super store Play-Asia.com, we are very excited to announce that we're wheeling out the bunting for one last time. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Dreamcast Junkyard 10th Anniversary Competition: Bonus Stage!

Once again, massive thanks to Play-Asia.com for supplying the prizes for this celebration of all things Dreamcast. If you're not familiar with Play-Asia.com then you must have been living under a particularly large rock for the last decade, as they are probably the number one retailer (and now publisher) of new, independent Dreamcast games anywhere on the planet. Want proof? Go here and look at the selection on offer. Not only that, but Play-Asia.com is regarded as one of the best sources for Japanese games and merchandise across a whole range of other systems too, not just the Dreamcast.

The Gagaman's London Gaming Market Haul

So last weekend I went to the first ever London Gaming Market. Run by the same people who bring you the wonderful Play Expo further up north, it was nice to finally have an event like this nearer my way. I haven't got any photos to share of the event unfortunately but there was two reasons for this:

• It was quite a small venue
• It was very very very crowded

Literally the second the doors opened till near the end when I left around 2pm it was shoulder to shoulder, you could barely move in there! I was afraid it was gonna be like a mad rush to grab bargains with everyone tearing each others eyes out, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Unlike other busy conventions I've been to like EGX and MCM Expo, a majority of people all desperate to have a browse here were polite and courteous and weren't shoving in. I don't think I have both said and heard 'sorry' more times than I had here, heh!

There are photos on the Facebook page for the event, photographed by Alan Chang. You might even spot me in a couple of them!

Dreamcast wise there was quite a lot on offer at the stores, with a good selection of PAL, American and Japanese game and a few nice boxed systems and accessories like the Mr. Yukawa box console and a boxed arcade stick. I wouldn't say I spotted much in the way of rare games per say, certainly not anything from my most wanted list, but I still managed to spend quite a bit of money in total on a few curiosities.

One thing that is great about the Dreamcast is there is still a lot of games that can be picked up for less than a tenner, of which every game I grabbed were around that price. I particularly wanted to grab a few American games as they don't come up quite as often, and postage from America is usually too expensive. I bought a majority of my games from Console Passion, who had the biggest selection and some of the fairest prices.

Here was my total haul, though considering where we are you're only interested in the Dreamcast games right? I've given each game I picked up a go so here's my first impressions on all of them, after the jump!

The Dreamcast 2016 Calendar

Tokyo Game Show 2015 seemed to feature quite bit of retro tat, some of which was Dreamcast-branded. Remember those hideous shoes? Exactly. Some of the stuff on sale was decidedly less garish though - the Dreamcast desk calendar for example. Regular reader and all-round good egg Ross (he who sent me the Twin Stick from Japan) happened to bag one of these lesser-spotted calendars and overcame extreme technological difficulties over in the Land of the Rising Sun (that is, no internet connection at home. Luddite) to scan and email me the various monthly 'pages' that make up the 128-bits of the year 2016. Or something. Oh, and before you start foaming all over your keyboard I know the Dreamcast is technically 32-bit. Anyway, here's the calendar in all it's glory:

In case you're wondering, the game featured on January's page is Otsukare! Guru Guru Onsen - a Japan-only collection of online mini-games like Trumps, Mahjong and Shougi (a type of Japanese chess). These calendars have appeared on eBay for quite astronomical sums in recent weeks, but Ross assures me they were on sale for ¥700 - which is about £3.75 in real money. Beware of eBay crooks!

Who Dat? Dreamcast: Not the Console - the Anime Lady!

Did anyone here watch the anime SEGA Hard Girls last year? It was a short lived 13-episode series of only 11 minutes a pop, and starred the Mega Drive, Sega Saturn and Dreamcast as school girls attending a Sega high school where they are warped into games like Space Channel 5, Jet Set Radio and Virtua Fighter to earn medals. It's a very odd premise, and I'm really surprised that in this day and age, and so long after Sega stopped making consoles that they would make something like this. That said, it is so full of in-jokes for hardcore Sega fans it's hard not to like.

This video by friend of mine DiGi Valentine is a review/analysis of sorts of the character that represents the Dreamcast, detailing her design, personality and importance to the anime series. DiGi does a particularly good job of explaining her ditzy, zany attidtude attributed to the fact that she has a built in modem like the console. If you liked the video, go to DiGi's channel to see more character reviews including plenty of other Dreamcast icons such as Ryo from Shenmue, several Street Fighters and even Big the Cat.

MSR Playable Alpha Discovered

I remember the first time I ever saw a screen of Metropolis Street Racer in a magazine. It was a tiny little image that showed a couple of sports cars blasting through a Tokyo bus station, and what really excited me was that a game featuring real-world locations was coming to the Dreamcast. As we all know, MSR isn't one of those fabled games that was teased but never released - it went on to be one of the Dreamcast's most championed racers, and even spawned a host of semi-sequels on the Xbox and Xbox 360 in the form of the Project Gotham series.

Buses are behind barriers in the final game

But lets go back to that early image I mentioned (see above). Looking at it now, it's clear that MSR underwent some drastic redesigns before it became the game we know and love today and it'd probably be fairly safe to assume that the early alpha version had been lost to the mists of time, or at the very least rotting on an old Bizarre Creations dev kit in a rubbish tip somewhere. However, we're very happy - and slightly shocked - to report that this isn't the case.

A Quick Look At The NeoGeo Pocket Link Cable

I recently picked up a NeoGeo Pocket Link Cable for the very reasonable price of £30. That may seem expensive for what is essentially a bit of wire, but these things seem to be getting rarer all the time and so for that price I snapped it up sharpish. The only other one I've seen for sale recently was around £50 and they regularly go for upwards of that on eBay. Before I get ahead of myself, I should probably explain what the NeoGeo Pocket actually is - I sometimes forget that not everyone is as au fait with antiquated gaming technology as I am, and in turn I know there are people with far greater knowledge than I possess...so I'll try not to get anything wrong!

The NeoGeo Pocket was a handheld console released in 1998 by SNK that initially featured a monochrome screen but was later re-released with a colour screen and rebranded as the NeoGeoPocket Color (I'll overlook the missing 'u' on this occasion). It's a nifty little piece of tech and has a rather lovely clicky microswitch thumbstick like most other NeoGeo consoles do. The system's library isn't very large and the screen can be a bit hard to see sometimes due to it's lack of either a front or back light, but it does hold a certain charm and the library is brimming with cool portable versions of popular SNK franchises like The King Of Fighters and Samurai Shodown et al.

What's also quite intriguing is that Sega and SNK collaborated in order to add Dreamcast compatibility to the system and a select number of Dreamcast and NeoGeo Pocket titles are able to communicate and allow various items to be unlocked or data to be swapped between the two systems. Obviously, both the Dreamcast and the NGP come from a pre-WiFi or NFC era (although apparently there is a wireless connector for linking NGPs), so the only way it was really feasible for these two units to connect was via a link cable. And that's exactly what this little post is all about.

Not to be confused with the NeoGeo Pocket system link cable (pictured above, NEOP-10021), the Dreamcast link cable (NEOP-22020) allows you to connect your NGP/NGPC to the Sega system via the serial port on the rear of the console and the Ext. port on the top of the handheld, but vitally only a handful of games actually make use of this function. According to Racketboy.com the full list is:

• King of Fighters R-2 (links with King of Fighters ’99 Dream Match and Evolution)
• SNK vs Capcom – Match of the Millenium (links with Capcom vs SNK 2)
• SNK vs Capcom – Card Fighter's Clash (links with King of Fighters Evolution)
• SNK vs Capcom – Card Fighter's Clash Expand Edition (links with Capcom vs SNK 2)
• Cool Cool Jam (links with Cool Cool Toon)

I own four of the titles listed (KoF R-2, KoF '99, KoF Evo and Card Fighter's Clash) and so I set about trying to get my Dreamcast to communicate with my NeoGeo Pocket. As a side note, I own the original NeoGeo Pocket and not the Color variant and so I rarely play on it due to the difficulty I regularly encounter trying to see the screen. 

The monochrome version does have some 'ghosting' issues, especially in fighting games (which sadly make up most of my library), but the screen is nowhere near as bad as something like the Tiger Gamecom. The reason I mention this is because most of the downloadable and uploadable things in both KoF R-2 and the two Dreamcast titles are things that you must earn points to unlock. And as I've barely played R-2, I didn't have much in the way of spendable currency.

From what I could tell though, the vast majority of items are artwork images and the like, so while it's a nice little extra feature, you aren't missing much if you don't happen to own a link cable. What's interesting is that the link cable works with both the NTSC-J and NTSC-U King of Fighters games, with a Japanese NeoGeo Pocket, while all being connected through a PAL Dreamcast using a boot disc to play imports. Just thought that was worth sharing, although it's common knowledge that the NGP is region free. When it comes to ascertaining what the uses are when linking Card Clash to Evolution...well, I have no clue to be perfectly honest. I couldn't actually tell if it was even doing anything when it was linked so I'm none the wiser. If you know better, enlighten us in the comments!

In summary then, the link cable is a nice little oddity to own - especially as it was relatively inexpensive and they are now quite rare. As for usefulness? I'm not sure I can recommend that you go out and spend a small fortune on one. There's no real benefit as far as I can see other than it's a cool item to have in your collection. The build quality is very nice and the little box halfway down the cable has a nice chunky SNK logo on it...but that's about all there is to it. I did read in an old Dreamcast magazine that Sonic's Pocket Adventure was going to have some sort of connectivity with Sonic Adventure 2, but I guess that never materialised.

As a footnote, I guess it's quite apt that these two systems have intertwined lifespans. They do have certain similarities in that they were both the plucky underdog and both lived relatively short lifespans. Happily though, they've now found each other again in the great Dreamcast Junkyard in the sky and the link cable is the tie that binds them.

Space Channel 5 Tankōbon Guide Book

Space Channel 5 is the epitome of acquired taste when it comes to Dreamcast games. You either love the ultra-camp aesthetic of Ulala's dancerific battle against the invading Morolians, or you cringe so hard your face literally turns inside out. I fall into the latter category sadly, but I still recognise the appeal of a game that is basically a rhythm-action game with tweeness taken to the Nth degree.

As with many Dreamcast games, Space Channel 5 enjoyed a glut of merchandise - especially in Japan, and recently I was lucky enough to stumble upon the Space Channel 5 Tankōban Guide Book.

ISBN 4-575-16207-8

Take The Bullet Revealed

Take The Bullet is one of the more infamous cancelled games for the Dreamcast. Developed by Red Lemon Studios, it was an ambitious first person shooter in which you could also use the light gun to shoot onscreen enemies. This kind of thing had been done before (Resident Evil Survivor on the PlayStation is one such example), but nothing on the scale of Take The Bullet had been attempted.

The game was to feature a full on single player campaign, alongside a 4-player multiplayer split screen mode that also added bots into the mix. The solo game involved the player assuming the role of ex-marine and bodyguard Jack Travis, and it was up to you to protect Presidential candidate Kincaide through a varied series of missions (although evidence suggests they may have been mainly escort missions, Travis being a bodyguard and all).

I recently got to play a very early build of this mysterious game, and while I was unable to try it out with the light gun, I was able to capture footage from the first two missions.
While it is clearly very rough around the edges and has very little in the way of sound effects, voice acting or music, this early version of Take The Bullet was spread across several discs - one of which was the split-screen multiplayer death match (interestingly labelled as 'E3 Demo'). I managed to play this death match against an AI bot in single player but I recently had some pretty severe computer issues (basically a failed hard drive in my MacBook) and as such I lost all that footage.

Nikkei Dreams: Business On The Dreamcast

The Dreamcast is often described as a system that was ahead of it's time, and in many ways it was. You only have to look at all of the ingenious peripherals and add-ons; even the lowly memory card, the VMU, is a technical marvel when you think about it. The entire range of official and unofficial enhancements is as staggeringly large as it is diverse, but perhaps the most important of them all is the one many of us forget is even there these days - the little modem stuck to the rear of the system. While the modem and the internet services it allowed played something of a minor role in PAL territories, and online gaming was a huge success in the US, over in Japan the humble modem played a much more interesting part in the story of the Dreamcast.

While the Dreamcast is first and foremost an entertainment machine, the modem allowed Sega Japan to look beyond it's primary function and decide that the console should also be used for other, non-gaming purposes. For instance, the console was installed in Toyota car showrooms and a whole range of bespoke 'Doricatch Series' GDs were produced. These were little more than advertising demos for various Toyota vehicle models and are today some of the rarest examples of NTSC-J exclusive Dreamcast software on the planet.