Mortadelo y Filemón: Spanish Point & Click Kickstarter for Dreamcast

Appearing on Kickstarter recently out of nowhere, Mortadelo y Filemón is the Dreamcast game coming in 2021 that you never knew you wanted until now! The game is a point and click adventure which is based on a popular Spanish comic series. 

From the project overview:

"Mortadelo y Filemón: El Sulfato Atómico is a point and click style adventure game, available in Steam, which has players trying to steal back a spray that turns insects into giants.

In this game our characters must rescue the atomic sulphate created by professor Bacterio of the claws of Bruteztrausen, general of an enemy state. This sulphate is a spray that increases the size of the insects, making them reach measures of meters! They will have to enter the State slyly to arrive at the governmental palace and take the sulphate.

DCJY welcomes Video Game Esoterica

In the latest episode of our podcast DreamPod, Tom, Lewis and Martin are joined by Anthony Bacon of the excellent Video Game Esoterica YouTube channel. In this episode, we discuss Anthony's YouTube journey thus far, as well as everything odd to do with the Dreamcast, legendary developer Kenji Eno, and his game D2. They even squeeze in some chat about the 3DO's failed follow-up; the Panasonic M2, and even the Apple Pippin. You don't want to miss this one!

Use the embedded player below to listen here on the main Dreamcast Junkyard blog, or alternatively you can grab the episode on either your podcatcher of choice or over on our YouTube channel.

Links to things discussed in the Podcast:

• Video Game Esoterica YouTube channel
• Junkyard article going over the Dreamcast PHS / Dreamwire service, and the official Dreamcast wireless adapter
• Dreamcast MIDI cable
• O.to.i.Re: Dreamcast Sequencer
• Junkyard article discussing Dreamcast non-gaming software for stock market, betting, car sales, education etc

Thanks once again to Anthony - be sure to check out Video Game Esoterica on YouTube and give Anthony a follow on Twitter.

5 Dreamcast Fan Translations You May Have Missed

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

Blue Submarine No. 6: -Time and Tide-

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

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

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

Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream

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

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

 

Retrospective: Taxi 2 (French-exclusive Dreamcast title now translated to English)

Thanks to the efforts of Derek Pascarella and his team, for the first time in history we can enjoy the obscure French-exclusive Dreamcast title, Taxi 2: The Game, in English. Derek has released the English translated version of the game just a few weeks ago and as a result I thought it was a perfect time to dive into this curious Dreamcast game that I’d never played before.

Before we dive into the game itself, let’s have a quick recap of the movie it is based on:

Taxi 2 is a French action comedy film directed by Gérard Krawczyk, released into French cinemas in 2000 with pretty significant commercial success. According to their website, the film attracted more viewers in its opening week than the latest Star Wars movie! Taxi 2 would go on to enjoy 10.3 million admissions in France, underlining its relevance. After discovering just how popular the movie was, maybe it isn’t such a crazy thing that this game exists after all!

As you’d expect, the plot of the game follows the storyline from the movie. Things get pretty wild. In a nutshell, the overall plot is that the Japanese minister of defence is traveling to Paris to sign a weapons contract between Japan and France. During the visit he is kidnapped by a group working for the Japanese Yakuza. Throw in some more kidnappings and law-breaking incidents before our very own protagonist, Daniel the taxi driver, has to step up and save the day with his high speed driving skills and blatant disregard for the law.

Let's take a look at Shenmue World from Shenmue Dojo

You may recall we featured the upcoming Shenmue World magazine Kickstarter here at the Junkyard in the recent past. Well, the day has arrived. What day is that? The day of Shenmue World's arrival, of course! Yes, Shenmue Dojo's crowd funded ode to all things Shenmue has started to drop through letterboxes around the world, and we thought we would give you a bit if a sneak peak at what comes in the package.

Please note that if you'd rather wait to see all this stuff for yourself, probably don't watch the video below as it contains major spoilers. Well, major spoilers if you backed the project without reading what you might get in return for your cash. Also, sorry about the little noise in the video. It's just something my ancient Sony camcorder does. I'll invest in a new one at some point. Suggestions for a decent, cheap camera that doesn't make a whirring noise appreciated!

The magazine weighs in at 162 pages and is packed with interviews, character profiles, Shenmue history, facts and figures and a history of the Shenmue Dojo itself. There's a lot stuffed into this inaugural issue, and anyone who backed it is unlikely to feel short changed. Furthermore, the additional items that come with the magazine are really rather cool and comprise a music CD, postcards, signed photos, stickers and a poster. It's a great package for the price (it was £20 including shipping, if I recall), and James and the rest of the team should be congratulated for creating a top quality magazine.

• Related: Shenmusings of Ryobots, Niaowu, and Shenmue III's Uncertain Legacy

Check out the Shenmue Dojo website and Twitter, and the Shenmue World Twitter if you'd like to find out more. Let us know in the comments if you backed Shenmue World and what your thoughts are.

The original Rez website has been fully restored

We love a story with a happy ending here at the Junkyard, and this one fits right in with that philosophy. Remember Rez? Of course you do. It's that psychedelic shooter with the wireframes and the flashing lights and the thumping soundtrack. You know the one. It's quite good too, apparently. Anyway, in the name of digital preservation and the fight to stop the internet simply becoming a portal to Facebook and YouTube, one man has taken it upon himself to resurrect the original Rez website. Well, the 2001 iteration, anyway.

That man is Brian Hargrove, and as described in his semi-viral tweet on the matter, he somehow managed to acquire the United Game Artists domain and restore the site to its former glory, with all of the content intact:

After many years, United Game Artists domain was finally released by it's skincare products owner. I was able to pick it up and I restored the original Rez website back to it's 2001 glory. 😅

Enjoy.https://t.co/NdzUCaVxJn pic.twitter.com/FF615nURDh

— Brian Hargrove (@turfmasta) February 8, 2021

Naturally, wanting to know more we reached out to Brian to ask what the story was here - skin care products? What's all that about then? Brian explained in his own words:

"I don't think the domain was held captive or anything, just never really used since 2003. After UGA was transferred to Sonic Team in late 2003, the site went down. I have no way of telling if registry ownership changed over the years, but there was an attempt at one point to make a WordPress blog, then it turned into some kind of skin care information site. 

"I knew I had always wanted to pick up the domain and at least restore the Rez homepage. I would check every few years, taking note of the domain expiration date on a Whois lookup. Every time it expired, I was never able to purchase it. Until 2020.

"Early in 2020 I checked the Whois and did see that it was expected to expire in November. So I made a note in my calendar to check back. November rolls around and this time I try Godaddy's expired domain auctions, and it was actually there! The owner finally let it expire and I knew it would probably be my only chance save it. I won the auction and collected all the site backups from Archive.org

"With a Linux utility, I was able to bulk download multiple years of the backup directly from Archive. The majority of the files were recoverable, with only a few images missing. I was able to restore it to what it was right before the site went down."

- Brian Hargrove

It's a pretty cool story, and definitely qualifies as what we like to call a labour of love. So what can you do with the Rez website? Well, you can read upcoming 2001 news, look at screenshots, download assets and do pretty much anything you could with a website from 2001. 

It's worth noting that the site predominantly features the later PlayStation 2 release of Rez along with the Trance Vibrator (and it's curious that the Dreamcast release of Rez is seemingly absent), but seeing as Tetsuya Mizuguchi's masterpiece is a game that's more synonymous with the Dreamcast, we thought it was worth sharing Brain's work here.

If you would like to see first hand how the superb Rez holds up on more modern systems, be sure to check out the official Rez Infinite site too.

JoshProd announce 5th wave of Dreamcast releases - 8 games incoming! (updated)

[Updated, originally posted September 2020 and updated February 2021] 

With JoshProd now releasing a video preview of their upcoming games for 2021, we can confidently say that any fears we had about the games running poorly have been addressed, at least for the most part. This article has been edited to reflect that.

The brand new February 2021 trailer can be watched below:

The last few years have seen a surge of new independent releases on the Dreamcast, keeping this 20 year old love affair we have with the console going strong. This year we've already seen Xeno Crisis from Bitmap Bureau - a multi platform, multi directional shooter that we liked quite a lot - and we're not far away from seeing the release of Xenocider from Retro Sumus, another title that is shaping up very well (something we can personally guarantee here at the Yard). The masters of the recent surge of releases, however, is undoubtedly JoshProd/Pixelheart. The French indie publisher has now released over 20 titles on the Dreamcast, and already had us excited for their upcoming release of the very promising looking Arcade Racing Legends, but have now upped the ante once more, with the announcement of a 5th wave of releases - all due (currently) to be released before the end of the year. I don't know about you, but any good news in this year of unpredictable craziness is most welcome.

As with their previous titles, JoshProd like to announce a batch of games at a time, with varying developers, genres and packaging formats. This wave we see 6 titles that cover platforming, fighting and lots of shooting, the return of a popular indie developer and a rather interesting multi-game set. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's have a look at the list of titles announced:

• Alice Sisters (Orionsoft)
• Rocketron (Astro Port)
• Satazius Next (Astro Port)
• Tough Guy (Panda entertainment)
• Supercharged Robot Vulkaiser (Astro Port)
• Wolflame (Astro Port)

As well as these, there's two other new titles coming to the Dreamcast - we'll get on to them later:

• Gigantic Army (Astro Port)
• Zangeki Warp (Astro Port)

Retrospective: Q*bert

Even though I started my gaming odyssey back in the late 1980s with an Amstrad CPC 464, there are some mainstays of the retro scene that just never really resonated with me. Whenever I take a cursory glance at the smouldering hellscape that is Twitter, I will invariably see stuff from people who are of a similar age, frothing about games such as Horace, Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner et al. For me, these titles hold zero nostalgia. I realise their importance as the foundation of what we now view as the vidya gaem industry, but I just never really saw any appeal in them, even at the time. Another title that fits neatly into this bracket for me, is Q*bert.

I do vividly remember being aware of Q*bert when I was a kid, but something about the name and design of the character itself left me cold; and the actual game, with its isometric boxes, bouncing deathy spring things (which I later learned was actually a snake) and fairly simplistic gameplay did nothing for me. I was much more of a Heroes of the Lance or Heavy on the Magick type of urchin. Although I did enjoy a spot of Super Robin Hood every now and then, if only for the high fidelity speech samples. Cough.

Why am I talking about Q*bert though? What's this got to do with the Dreamcast? Well, here's why, dear reader: Q*bert made an appearance on the Dreamcast, his orange tubular schnoz recreated in fully realised 3D texture-mapped ray-traced polytriangulargons™. This won't be news to a lot of people reading this, but as Q*bert was an NTSC-U exclusive, I'm guessing there are at least a few people who didn't know the foul-mouthed, mutated little aberration was given an outing on Sega's final console.

It is curious that a lot of these early 2000s reboots of classic titles were only released stateside. Many of those original titles were quite popular in Europe - the UK especially - back when they were contemporary so why PAL releases were off the table is a bit of a mystery. The Dreamcast releases of Frogger 2, Centipede, Mrs Pacman and the Atari Classics Collections are all missing in action, presumed dead (and don't even get me started on Yu Suzuki Game Works), and I'm at a loss as to why this is the case. 

Indeed, the gaming scene was massive in the UK during the 1980s, plus there was no 'gaming crash' as there was in the US. The aforementioned titles (or their prequels at the very least) were huge hits on this side of the pond. But no, none of these Dreamcast sequels to classic games of yesteryear were released in PAL territories, and you can add to that list Q*bert. Here's the rub though. While some may lament the lack of blue box releases of those aforementioned titles, you need not shed a tear for Q*bert's Dreamcast release, as it is - for lack of a better term - cack.

Lost Atomiswave fighter KenJu ported to Dreamcast

The number of Atomiswave games ported to the Dreamcast continues to grow, and one of the latest offerings from developer megavolt85 over at Dreamcast-Talk is one we thought deserved a bit of attention. 

KenJu is a 3D fighting game from DreamFactory which was intended for release on Sammy's arcade system, but was apparently cancelled before it could be launched into brick and mortar arcades. The KenJu story has a happy ending though, as you can now get a glimpse at this fairly enigmatic polygonal scrapper either on actual Dreamcast hardware or via emulation! Here's a video of some (ham-fisted) gameplay by yours truly:

There's not a great deal known about KenJu, other than it was in development by DreamFactory (of Tobal No. 1 fame), who for unknown reasons decided not to release the game and consign it to the dustbin of history. Until now, that is. As far as I can ascertain, KenJu was due to hit arcades in 2005 before it mysteriously vanished without trace. KenJu did resurface in 2016 when a collector of Atomiswave boards released footage of it running, and then it slipped back into obscurity once more. The game has a fairly appealing visual style, with psuedo cel-shaded polygonal characters fighting in some nice looking 3D arenas.

The general consensus is that KenJu looks a little like Project Justice: Rival Schools 2, but for me that's pretty much where the similarities end. It has some interesting characters and plays pretty well, but it seems to be missing that certain something...which may hint at the reasons for why it was quietly canned. That said, it's quite good fun and the fact that the Dreamcast is able to recreate the game so flawlessly opens up the door for even more ambitious Atomiswave games such as Premier Eleven. Who thought we'd ever see the day the Dreamcast got a decent footy (soccer) game?!

It's worth noting that as with the other Atomiswave to Dreamcast ports released so far, KenJu is only available as a GDI file, so you'll need some additional hardware to play it on an actual Dreamcast. Personally, I had no joy getting the game to run under either DreamShell or RetroDream using both a Compact Flash modded system or an SD Card reader via the Dreamcast's serial port. It did however run using a GDEMU, so you may want to give that method a go if you're determined to play KenJu on original (well, original modded) hardware. That minor hiccup aside, KenJu seems to be perfectly playable and also mostly complete.

If you'd like to download the game for yourself, visit the Dreamcast-Talk forum thread here. Huge thanks once again to megavolt85 and other forum members who not only continue to expand the Dreamcast collection, but are also preserving some of the Atomiswave's most intriguing and lesser known titles.

Have you played KenJu on your Dreamcast or on an emulator? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Interview: Out of Print Archive

Many gamers of a certain age will no doubt recall those halcyon days when the only way to really get your fix of gaming news, was to await the monthly publication of your favourite magazine. The internet of the early '90s was far removed from the internet of present year, and as such watching video of new releases or flipping through hi-resolution images direct from developer on social media wasn't something you could do. Indeed, most of my early memories of using the internet to find out about new game releases involve sneaking into the school IT suite at lunchtimes to employ Alta Vista in my insatiable quest for knowledge. Oh, and using Game Sages to get cheats. Does anyone else remember Game Sages or am I just making that website up?

Kids these days will never know the anticipation of that illuminated N *shakes fist at cloud*

Yes, back in the day, the magazine was king and it was through reading those printed materials that I took an interest in pursuing games journalism as a profession. Nowadays, I'm actually quite glad that I am not a professional games journalist, such is the the way online discourse has morphed, but for a period back in the late '90s and early 2000s it was all I wanted to do with my life. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that ambition either. 

Magazines of that period, and more to the point - the people who created them, were our heroes. They were the influencers of their day. Gus Swan, Marcus Hawkins, Caspar Field, Les Ellis, Jaz Rignall, Radion Automatic, Zy Nicholson, Wil Overton, Paul Davies, Keith Stuart, Simon Phillips, Ed Lomas, Tim Weaver, Mean Yob...just a few of the names I can instantly rattle off as an avid reader of a plethora of UK magazines from the 90s and 2000s. And I'm sure those in other parts of the world, and of a certain age can name the authors of their favourite magazines too.

The point I'm trying to make is that magazines were a huge part of many gamers' formative years, and the popularity of podcast Maximum Power Up's superb series of interviews with journos of yesteryear proves this. Furthermore, one website which encapsulates the magic of print media and preserving those memories is the excellent Out of Print Archive. A repository for digitised copies of print magazines of a bygone era, the Out of Print Archive has cemented itself as one of the premier online destinations for anyone who is looking to re-read those magical tomes of their childhood and take a walk down memory lane.

For this reason, we thought it would be pretty cool to speak to the people behind Out of Print Archive, ask them where the inspiration for the site came from, their digitisation process for various Dreamcast-related (and other format) magazines, and to find out what makes them - and the Archive itself - tick. Enjoy...

DCJY: Thanks so much for agreeing to speak to us about all things magazines! Could you tell us a bit about who you are, and what your roles are at Out of Print Archive?

Andy: Hello, my name is Andy (meppi64), I’m from Belgium and I’m working my way through scanning all my UK magazines, editing and restoring them. I also do all the coding and design work on the website itself and I run the Twitter account.

Neil: Hi, I'm Neil, I'm from the United Kingdom (Scotland) and I am one of the admins at Out of Print Archive. One of my initial roles when starting the project was to reach out to the UK publishers in an effort to obtain permission (officially and unofficially) to archive their back catalogue of gaming magazines. 

This allowed us to archive classic video gaming magazines without the nagging feeling that a publisher might come along with a cease and desist order. I have also written the odd article on classic magazines and have caught up with a few important people from the magazines in questions for an interview or input for a feature.

What’s the origin story of the Out of Print Archive? When and why did you decide to set up the site?

Neil: I have always been a fan of classic gaming magazines which lead me to create my own digital retro gaming magazine called Retroaction in 2008. After the release of the first issue, Carl, a fellow retro gaming magazine fan commented on how the ‘zine reminded him of the classic magazine GameFan, particularly its design and layout. 

He asked if he could post the news of the release with a small write up on the retro gaming forums where he was one of the admins along with Andy. This in turn introduced me to the world of magazine archiving and to Andy and his fantastic method of archiving Official Sega Saturn Magazine. I knew then that I wanted my own magazines to be archived in a similar way.

By 2009, we felt we needed to start our own archiving project. One that was totally transparent: free from ads, donations, or any other hindrance. Our main reason for this was to follow on from one of our main goals, in that to reach out to the publishers from yesteryear and get their permission to archive their back catalogue of magazines.

Andy: Originally I came across just 3 digital scans of the Official Sega Saturn magazine online, this must have been somewhere around 2004-2005. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find any more. Reading through these made me remember just how incredible this magazine was and how it was seemingly lost to time, hardly 6 years after the final issue was released.


So this set things in motion for me. I started the hunt down a complete set, with the goal to scan them (in a rather poor fashion at that time) and looking for various ways to get them into peoples hands again. From here, it snowballed into collecting a lot more magazines.


I met Neil as well as Carl, who has since moved on to other projects, on a message board and after a lot of trial and error, as well as seeing how several scanning projects handled things in ways we didn’t agree with, we decided to set up our own site. Focussing on putting quality above everything else, but also doing things with respect towards not just the publishers, but also the editors, writers, designers, etc.

Basically all the people who originally created these magazines we all fell in love with at one point of our lives.


Wow, so we effectively owe the creation of the Out of Print Archive in some way to the Official Sega Saturn Magazine. Not what I was expecting! You clearly have a love of print media - what are your earliest memories of print magazines?

Andy: My earliest memories of a print magazine has to be Club Nintendo. Not quite sure how I found out about it, but I believe there was some kind of postcard included with certain NES games, which you could send in to Nintendo to request a subscription. Once you were signed up, every 2 months you would receive a free copy of Club Nintendo magazine, which lasted from 1989 to 1993.

Neil: My earliest memory of print magazine is picking up C+VG in 1988. I was fairly late to notice magazines, considering I had been playing games for at least three years up until that point, but C+VG opened my eyes to the wonders that were out there. I eventually reserved a copy of C+VG and continued to receive a copy of it until the early 2000s. My other earliest memory is of grabbing a copy of Amstrad Action in 1989. It was an anniversary issue where they gave away a cover-mounted cassette tape with demos and freeware stuff. This issue also reviewed one of my favourite computer games of all time, Laser Squad.

Shenmusings of Ryobots, Niaowu, and Shenmue III's Uncertain Legacy

Ryo Hazuki is an android, right? I’ve suspected it for a while but after finishing Shenmue III recently, I'm going all in on the Ryobot theory. It explains too much not to be canon.

Ryo has always been a bizarrely stilted and stoic character, of course. That much isn’t news. Yet after accompanying him for every waking minute across three games – games which depict the painstaking minutiae of everything from longshore crate logistics to the mid-‘80s weather record of the Kanagawa Prefecture – Ryo still has not pooped.

Ryo can look, but he can't flush. pic.twitter.com/G33eXA15dF

— Brian Wonderworld (@VirtuaSchlub) January 27, 2021

In fairness, few protagonists in fiction are forthcoming about their physiological functions. But, unlike Ryo, they at least behave in ways that can be reasonably interpreted as human-like. Meanwhile, Ryo acts less like a person and more like an emotionally unavailable animatronic, programmed in the languages of kung fu and non sequiturs.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to knock him. The technology behind Ryobot was very impressive for 1987.

Oh, and did I mention the shared consciousness between Ryo and his friend, Shenhua? She is also an android, probably, in addition to being the unwitting mascot of a junk food brand for some reason.

OK. The point of this write up is not to espouse the incontrovertible theory that Ryo is a semi-sentient robot, even if it is also that. Back when it came out in November 2019, I had put about a dozen or so hours into Shenmue III before dropping off of it. After leaving him in stasis at Hotel Niaowu for a full calendar year, I recently (and finally!) caught up on Ryo’s journey to date. I also realized we hadn’t yet discussed the game in-depth on the Junkyard since its release. With all that, I’m really here to work out my thoughts on Shenmue III in hopes of making some sense of its place in the series’ legacy. But first let’s take a step back, and into the shoes it hoped to fill…

As for many fans, the first two Shenmue games were formative for my interest in gaming. For a medium where kinetic action and instant gratification shaped the bedrock of most gaming experiences, it was oddly refreshing – if jarring – to play something with such love for mundanity and contempt for players’ impatience. Ironically, it was my own impatience that led me to buy the Japanese version of the original Shenmue, several months before its western release. I couldn't say why; I didn't even speak Japanese. Hell, I was barely pulling a passing grade in English class.

Yet, even then, my 14-year-old mind was blown by Shenmue’s unabashed indulgence in the ordinary. I was taken aback by its audacity to let me knock on neighbors’ doors, chug orange Fanta*, and stalk an entire community of busy folks for no other reason than because I could. When the events of Shenmue II set Ryo loose to explore Hong Kong, seeing it all scale to a bustling, urban setting was revelatory all on its own. Shenmue I and II’s detailed and lively locales immersed me in their astonishing sense of place and community. They felt like genuinely bustling locations that could believably exist without me. They also challenged any assumptions that video games always had to be, well, game-like. Through its novel approach to worldbuilding and interactivity, Shenmue invited me to inhabit its worlds – not only as a player – but as a resident and visitor.

* Vending machines in the Japanese version of Shenmue were stocked with licensed Coca-Cola products rather than our beloved “Jet Cola” and “Frunda” off-brands (also, was Bell Wood a person, or...?)

Yu Suzuki and AM2’s magnum opuses offered a remarkably ambitious and unorthodox vision for what video games could be and how players could engage with their spaces. In bankrolling their vision, Sega rebuked all conventional wisdom that big budget games ought to be marketable and fiscally viable. Shenmue I and II were neither – or at least not either enough – and Sega paid a steep price. Beyond failing to recoup its massive development and marketing costs; beyond its eventual retreat from the hardware market; Sega presented a perennial Exhibit A for the downsides of risks to an increasingly risk-adverse games industry.

After that, it seemed unfathomable that we would ever return to Shenmue’s amazingly ambitious, immersive, and bustling world. Nearly two decades later, we still haven’t.

Review: Xenocider

Full disclosure: The Dreamcast Junkyard has been reporting on the development of Xenocider pretty much since we learned of its existence, and prior to that we reported on Retro Sumus' previous foray into indie dev, Ameba. Over the years we have built up something of a friendship with Carlos Oliveros and the development team working on Xenocider. However, in the interests of transparency and 'ethics in games journalism,' we will not be giving Xenocider a free pass. This review will be conducted with the same unbiased cantankerousness as you've come to expect here at the Junkyard. With that out of the way, on with the review!

Retro Sumus first appeared on our collective radar way back in November 2014, when the Spain-based indie developer announced a visual novel starring a down at heel detective trying to solve a mysterious, supernatural murder. That game was Ameba, and since it was first introduced to the community it has been put on the back burner. Not because of any kind of internal turmoil, development hell or the game quietly becoming vapourware; but because Retro Sumus turned their attention to another project that was initially going to play second fiddle to Ameba. That side project appeared to hold more appeal to the development team and as they pivoted away from Ameba, the projects switched places with the former going into hibernation and Xenocider - the other game - stepping into the limelight.

Now, almost 7 years later, and after a number of huge revisions and an entire lore being created, Xenocider has finally landed on the Dreamcast. A bespoke, independently developed title, created and sculpted for the best part of a decade to run exclusively on Dreamcast hardware and utilising a game engine built from the ground up. You really couldn't make this up. And now, at long last - and much to the relief of the long-suffering dev team, no doubt - Xenocider is finished. It's real, it exists, it is playable on an actual Dreamcast...and by jove it's glorious.

As my learned colleague Mike Phelan alluded to in his comprehensive Arcade Racing Legends review, it would be quite easy for us Dreamcast fanatics to frothingly praise any and every new game to hit the console as a marvel, a wondrous and near perfect experience, simply by virtue of it being a game released for the Dreamcast. To proclaim everything as amazing, awesome, fantastic (or to use any number of other equally meaningless superlative descriptions) is far too easy these days; to turn a blind eye to a game's shortcoming and to give it a free pass simply 'because it's on Dreamcast.' I am all too aware of this trap, and I refuse to fall down into it. I am a hard man to please and I don't believe in sycophantically announcing every new Dreamcast game as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

With this in mind however, I'm quite confident in saying that Xenocider, for all its faults - which we'll cover later - still manages to elevate itself to the upper echelons of the Dreamcast indie library and sit proudly up there alongside stuff like Xeno Crisis, Alice Dreams Tournament, Leona's Tricky Adventures, Wind & Water Puzzle Battles and Sturmwind. That's because this is a game crafted with obvious love and devotion not only to the Dreamcast, but also with a devilish wink and a nod to other games it clearly takes inspiration from; simultaneously offering a refreshingly original take on the sci-fi shooter genre while presenting the discerning Dreamcast gamer with a hoard of gameplay modes, and as many extra bells and whistles as you'd normally expect to find in a current gen title.

Before we get to the game itself, it's worth mentioning the love and care that has clearly gone into creating the whole Xenocider package. From the excellent bespoke cover art drawn by DC Comics' Agustin Padilla, to the quality of the printed booklet and covers, to the artwork on the game disc itself (and on the bonus music CD if you have the two-disc special edition), everything about Xenocider's physical appearance exudes an air of professional attention to detail that is fantastic to see in an independently developed Dreamcast game; and like the JoshProd, Bitmap Bureau, Yuan Works and Duranik titles which came before it, the faux NTSC or PAL styling of the boxes means Xenocider will slot nicely in alongside its contemporaries on any discerning Dreamcast owner's shelf of indies.

So what of the actual game then? Well Xenocider is essentially an 'into the screen' run and gun shooter much in the style of retro favourites such as Space Harrier and Sin & Punishment. I'm not remiss to use those two titles as comparisons as Retro Sumus themselves have often cited those games as inspirations for Xenocider. Here though, you take on the role of Xara, a cybernetic Oppenheimer - quite literally a destroyer of worlds - who must planet hop through the star system, wiping out all lifeforms in her wake before eliminating an end of level boss...and ultimately the very planet itself. Pretty hairy stuff, we're sure you'll agree, and it's upon learning the main objective of the game that the title starts to make more sense. Furthermore, to reveal quite why all this death-bringing is going on would be to reveal spoilers...so we'll say no more.

Evangelion typing tutor Translation Complete! Taxi 2 and Doraemon Next?

A little over ten days ago, I posted a write up on the Junkyard about a very exciting English translation patch for the rather niché but very cool Neon Genesis Evangelion typing tutor Neon Genesis Evangelion -Typing E Keikaku-. In my post I explained how the earlier stages of the game were fully playable to non-Japanese speaking players, while levels 5 and 6, along with the game's bonus stage, were not. Translator Derek Pascarella had explained translating these particular stages would be a pretty daunting task to undertake. Well, it only took him nine days to crack! This means the game is now completely playable in English!

If you would like to read Derek's detailed explanation of how he did it, check out his patch notes here. As for grabbing yourself the completed patch, you can do so at the GitHub Repository here. So grab your DC keyboard, and make sure read the Patch Notes before you patch it/play it!

With one completed project under his belt, Derek definitely has a bright Dreamcast translation career ahead of him! And he's not slowing down anytime soon. He seems to already be on the lookout for his next translation project. One of the games he's been looking into is the Japanese-excusive Boku Doraemon, a delightfully colourful little game featuring the well-known blue robot cat that sees players exploring a really nice-looking 3D world and playing mini games. DCJY writer The Gagaman wrote a good piece about it many moons ago, so if you want to learn more, check that out. Anyway, below is some proof of concept footage that Derek put up on his YouTube channel. He did stress to me, however, that this translation is still early doors, and that there are some technical hurdles that still present themselves that could pose the risk of putting a halt to the project.

The other game in Derek's sights, is the rather infamous french-exclusive Taxi 2 - Le Jeu. Based on a movie that you might have seen if you're French, this game is notorious for being really expensive, and really crap. While a language barrier is the least of this game's problems, it's still cool to see any Dreamcast game translated. Derek let me know that this project is more likely than Doraemon at this moment in time. Check out the work in progress footage below.

If you're wondering why Derek has chosen such obscure games to translate as his first few projects, he addressed this in a comment on his Doraemon video: "part of translating a game is feasibility. While I do have a development background, there are many unique things about working on Dreamcast and Saturn translations. As a result, I'm starting with proof of concepts and also "cracking" games that are easier to understand from a technical perspective. I only just started getting into doing these translations". If you'd like to follow Derek in his translation journey, you can find his Twitter here.

Are you excited for these Dreamcast translation projects? Have you ever experienced the direness that is Taxi 2: the game? Sound off in the comments below!

DCJY welcomes DC-UK founder Caspar Field

In the latest episode of our podcast DreamPod, we were lucky enough to be able to (virtually) sit down with the former Deputy Editor of Edge Magazine Caspar Field. Let's be honest though - most of us know him as the man who launched the iconic Dreamcast magazine DC-UK; and who then went on to launch the short-lived (but equally excellent) Mr. Dreamcast magazine.

Here, in episode 87 of DreamPod, regular hosts Andrew, Tom and Mike chat with Caspar about his time at Edge, the beginnings and end of his tenure at DC-UK, the Mr. Dreamcast project, his successful career in the games industry, the launch of the Dreamcast, the tank shooter Red Dog and its potential PS2 sequel...and a host of other random things you've probably never heard about before.

Huge thanks to Caspar for appearing on our podcast, huge thanks to the graphics maestro Lewis for his artwork, huge thanks to Andrew for sorting this interview, and huge thanks to you lot for listening to our podcast (hint: you don't want to miss this one!).

Be sure to follow Caspar on Twitter, and remember you can find all of our previous episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and pretty much every podcatcher out there. If you like what you hear, feel free to subscribe and give us a review. Cheers!

Retrospective: Bang! Gunship Elite

I love a good sci-fi shooter. The massive scope of interstellar wars, huge capital ships blasting the crap out of each other and swarms of nimble little fighters darting between the carnage. It's every kid's dream scenario and one above being a fighter pilot. Why settle for flying a jet through a planet's boring old atmosphere when you can pilot a warp speed space fighter through the stars, dodging asteroids and putting plasma torpedos down the exhaust chute of a small moon space station? No brainer, really.

I've played loads of these types of games over the years, on an assortment of consoles, and for the most part they all adhere to a familiar template. Usually played from a cockpit view, with a useless 3D radar display, 360 degree movement that can prompt the evacuation of one's stomach via the oral cavity, and some honest to goodness blasting action. Colony Wars, Rogue Squadron, Darklight Conflict, Starlancer, X-Wing, Yager, Spirit of Speed 1937, Battle Engine Aquila, Star Fighter 3000, Elite Dangerous, Star Wars: Squadrons...I could go on. Note I also used the term 'sci-fi' and not 'space' shooter. That's because some of these games take place within the atmosphere of a planet and thus render my opening paragraph null and void. But y'know. I'm just looking out for the pedants among us. And the fighter pilots I probably enraged with my flippant comments on their awesome jobs.

Anyway, the point of this is that the Dreamcast played host to a number of sci-fi shooters, with one of them even taking place not in the vacuum of space, but under the waves of some unnamed digital ocean (see Deep Fighter). I did take a brief look at the various sci-fi shooters on the Dreamcast several years ago, but I thought it was a good time to take a more in-depth look at one of those titles, and one which doesn't really get a lot of air time these days. Air time. Space. Geddit? Sigh. Anyway, let's take a gander at the rather oddly titled Bang! Gunship Elite.

I find it interesting that enigmatic developer Rayland Interactive decided to call their game Bang! Gunship Elite, rather than just Gunship Elite. The addition of the exclamation hints that they may have been expecting you to actually shout "Bang!" before pronouncing the rest of the title like a normal human would. To be honest I'm fine with that, and from now on any time I say the name of this game aloud, I shall indeed either be bellowing "Bang!" at the top of my voice (socially distanced and from behind a mask, of course); or inflating a balloon before popping it with a pin. 

If nothing else, that'll cement Bang! Gunship Elite in the psyche of anyone who knows me; or indeed anyone who sees me walking down the street with a handful of balloons in one hand and copy of the game in t'other. Actually, the more boring explanation for the addition of the Bang! bit is that the game was - judging from an early Rayland Interactive page I found on the Wayback Machine - originally going to be titled 'Big Bang' or something similar.

I feel I've gone off on a bit of a tangent here, so let's get back on the correct flight vector. Bang! Gunship Elite is a space-based sci-fi shooter for the Dreamcast and Windows that was only released in North America. This is especially curious because developer Rayland Interactive was based in France. If anything you'd have thought the game would have been a PAL exclusive if nothing else, but no. It was published in the US in December 2000 by Red Storm Entertainment and received fairly average reviews, and to be honest having spent a few hours playing the formulaic campaign it's not hard to see why.

Before we move on to the game itself though, it's worth talking about Rayland Interactive some more, simply because there is virtually no information about the fate of this outfit anywhere online. It seems that prior to Bang!, Rayland developed a vehicular combat title called Mad Trax that was released on PC in 1998. This was followed in 2000 by Bang! Gunship Elite and a nomination for 'best start-up' at the Milia 2001 interactive media expo. According to the remnants of their website on the Wayback Machine, a further title called ZooLooz was also in production, but I can find no information on it or further evidence that this game was ever finished or released. After May 2001, Rayland Interactive simply ceases to exist.

Retrospective: Stunt GP

Way back in the mists of time, I took a look at the various radio controlled car racing titles on the Dreamcast. It may surprise you that there are no less than three different games featuring such toy vehicles battling for supremacy on miniature circuits in the Dreamcast's library; with Toy Racer and ReVolt complementing Stunt GP in the virtual toy box. This time though, I'm turning my attention squarely on Stunt GP, as it is a game I am very fond of and which doesn't really get a lot of time in the limelight. That's about to change though, as we navigate the plastic highways and byways of Team17's often overlooked foray into the international sport of bashing radio controlled vehicles around a deserted car park.

Released exclusively in PAL territories, Stunt GP joins titles like Giant Killers and Headhunter on the list of games that were never officially released in the rest of the world, and as such I wonder just how many people even know the game had ever seen a Dreamcast release. Stunt GP did receive a PC release and a later PlayStation 2 port, but the Dreamcast game is something of an oddity especially when you consider that Team17 released its other Dreamcast titles worldwide. 

Of course, the Wakefield-based developer is better known for its Worms franchise on Sega's little white box; with Worms World Party still being regularly played online via the magic of DreamPi. It's also worth noting that while Team17 developed Stunt GP, the game was published by Eon Digital Entertainment. Doing a bit of Googling, it appears that Stunt GP was due to be published worldwide by Hasbro but for some reason the deal fell through and Eon stepped in. I'd love to know more about why an NTSC release never happened, and who knows - maybe somebody reading this can shed some light on that particular mystery.

Either way, coupled with the lukewarm reception for the more widely-known PlayStation 2 variant, this PAL exclusivity is potentially the biggest reason for Stunt GP's relative lack of visibility on the Dreamcast. To my eyes, this is a great shame because - in my humble opinion - Stunt GP is actually one of the most enjoyable 'kart' style racers on the system.