Collection Video! Oh god.

After Caleb made his video showing off all the Dreamcast stuff lying around his house, it inspired me to make a similar video of my own. Of course, that was over a year ago and now I've finally gotten around to it now that for once I don't have Dreamcast stuff waiting in the post, although you'll see a fishing controller in the video I received the day I filmed this.. which I believe was Thursday.
I may not have any of the charm, wit and skill at video blogging as the American Dreamcaster has, but hopefully you'll be able to make out all the mumbly crap that blurts out of my mouth here. I cut it down to just under 10 minutes and added music in a hope that it may be slightly more watchable so er...enjoy?

Just so you know, I have a couple more videos in the works as we speak so er, hopefully they;ll show up at some point if I get around to finishing them. Whoo! And all that.

Examining Yu Suzuki's 'Tower Of Babel' 1998 Dreamcast Tech Demo

Way back in May 1998, Sega of Japan held a conference announcing the impending arrival of its new console. It was to be named Dreamcast. The Sega New Challenge Conference was the first time that the world was formally introduced to Sega's successor to the Saturn, and the hype was very real. The gaze of the world's press was focused on a small lectern on a darkened stage, as Sega of Japan President  Shoichiro Irimajiri revealed the final form of the new console; while on a huge screen behind him tech demos showed off what the hardware was capable of.

1998 was a magical year.

The first of these demos showed a Irimajiri's head rendered in real time, while various effects were applied to it - lighting, textures and morphing effects showed what the Dreamcast could do. It also featured a glimpse of a fully rendered 3D Sonic the Hedgehog, the first time we got to see the model that would later be used in Sonic Adventure. To this day, the 'Iri-San' tech demo has remained undumped and is most likely locked away in a vault somewhere in Sega's Japanese headquarters.

 Image source: Edge Magazine issue 60

The second tech demo, and the focus of this particular article became known as the 'Tower of Babel' demo, where viewers were taken on whirlwind tour of a fully polygonal settlement built around the base of an enormous tower. The squat buildings set on an idyllic isle, the sun setting in the distance while the huge cylindrical tower rose above the winding streets. It really is a striking and curious scene, and while it may not seem very impressive by modern standards, back in 1998 these types of sequences had never been seen running in real time on console hardware; and as you might expect they were spread across the pages of gaming magazines the world over.

Image source: Edge Magazine issue 60

I personally remember seeing the images of the Irimajiri and Babel (or Babylon, as it's sometimes referred to) tech demos reproduced in glorious fuzz-o-vision in the pages of several magazines at the time of the Dreamcast's announcement; and being amazed and excited in equal measure. But then, after the initial excitement made way for the actual launch of the system (and with other tech demos coming along too - which have similarly never been leaked online); I pretty much forgot about Irimajiri's floating head and the mysterious little village huddled on that lonely rock in the shadow of a tower. That was until I finally got to see the thing for myself in real time, and thanks to the power of the internet, so can you...

In Praise Of Caleb...

It's been a while since Mr. Caleb, (the American Dreamcaster) walked into our lives and made The Dreamcast Junkyard a truly international affair... Apart from the Dreamcast love he's shown quite a lot, over on his excellent Hunyak Blog, he's also put quite a lot of sterling work over at our sister site, the Saturn Junkyard...

But he surpassed himself this week. You see apart from juggling about twelve jobs, and supplying residents of New York State with their lovely televisual pleasures, he's also taken the time to post me a shitload of unusual Dreamcast goodness...

Let's start with Smash TV, it was the winner of some sort of Homebrew development award... It's a lovely Robotron style shooter and it's so great to see new development on our favourite console... (but God Damn! - wouldn't it be nice to see something other than a shooter put out there? I guess Alice Dreams comes close - that was in the last package of lovely CDR's he sent me...)

Next there's Vampire Beat's Of Rage... BOR is a lovely cross between Streets Of Rage and erm... some other stuff... A fabulous piece of Homebrew that recreates the lovely linear 2D beat 'em ups of Megadrive/Genesis days...

But perhaps the newest kid on my Dreamcast block has to be the ability to play the lovely Lucas Arts classic "Monkey Island" from way back in about 1990... Yep, I'm able to access that lovely PC point and click classic tale of Mr. Guybrush Threepwood on my Dreamcast, courtesy of the lovely Scumm VM emulator...

It was a very lovely bunch of stuff! (Slightly disappointing was the failure of my CDR Street Fighter III - Third Strike, to load up... In the wake of the upcoming SF4, Games TM Magazine heralded SFIII as the best incarnation of the series..._

OK, I'd just like to say a big thanks to Mr. Caleb! He's a diamond! And thanks for expanding the Homebrew side of my DC collection!

Elend's Most Fabulous Creations!

If you scroll down a little bit, you'll see a wonderful post by Caleb , about the Dreamcast's 9th anniversary competition, hosted by our most wonderful brothers over in Germany, Dreamcast Scene, in conjunction with Redspot Games (creators of the most excellent Dreamcast 'shmup' Last Hope) and also, quite surprisingly Sega Europe!

In Germany, they do a much better job of keeping our beloved consoles alive, than we do in the UK or USA! Wanna know why? Check out this and this!

I checked into the first competition, couldn't answer the question, then forgot to check out the rest! Oh how I wished I had! For I might have been the luckiest man in the world and won this!!!! elend's most amazing custom Redspot Dreamcast!!! How fucking cool is that???

Gaze on it's awesomeness! Bask in it's beauty! Revel in it's glory! God bless Dreamcast Scene! God love Redspot Games! And God bestow all His ultimate gifts on the genius that is... elend!

Oh! And the most exciting part of the post!? The mighty elend is now a contributor on the Dreamcast Junkyard's little brother, the Saturn Junkyard!

You see? I get all the best people! I got the mighty (if short) Greek wonder of the world, Gnome, I got America's finest, the American Dreamcaster, Caleb, I got Germany's finest graphic artist, elend, and I got "the special one" the awesome NebachadnezzaR!!! Pride of Portugal!!!

...and it's our birthday party on the 13th! And I want to see all of our readers and contributors there!!!! (Yes especially you Gagaman(n)...)

Happy days!!!

The American Dreamcaster Champions "The Undead Console!"

Well Yee Haw! Kick it to the kerb homies! Hot diggity dawg and bless my cotton socks!

(Or whatever it is that our colonial cousins from across the pond say when they get excited...)

Yes folks, the Dreamcast Junkyard is set to become an international phenomenon, as the legendary Caleb (he of Dreamcast loving blog extrordinnaire the Hunyak), has decided to add his not inconsiderable muscle to the great Tomleecee's, 128 Bit Sega Mafia!

We've already got one media wizard on the team in the shape of the Gagaman(n), and now we've just secured another! Expect some great Dreamcast film projects coming up in the future, along with some obscure pieces of Dreamcast trivia and memoribilia, and some killer game reviews!

Caleb's work over at the Hunyak and The Saturn Junkyard has already proved to be of great merit, and I for one am excited about how his fresh insight and input, will give us more regular posts and interesting content. Here's to a new chapter in the history of the great Dreamcast Junkyard...

Rez - The Core

Hello world. I was recently contacted by a fellow by the name of Tjerk Otten about his Rez inspired, abstract short film on Youtube.

In his words:

"The story on this trailer is about humanity trying to hack into creation itself.

We try to unravel the great mystery of life itself all the time. We are creations on our own and

we try to expand our lifecycle in many different ways and try to know the human itself."

Tjerk is a self confessed Rez nut, and this is quite evident in 'The Core.' Wanna see what he's on about, fellow Dreamcaster? Cast your eyes downward and all will be revealed:

It's best viewed in HD and full screen, so if like me you have to rely on a pathetic mobile broadband dongle with equally pathetic GPRS connection, you could be waiting the best part of a decade for the whole thing to load...but it's worth the wait.

NullDC...On Your Phone

We've all seen the Treamcast and the other unofficial portable Dreamcasts created by very talented gamers with perhaps a little too much free time on their hands. They're pretty nifty little(ish) contraptions in the main - I mean, who wouldn't want to be able to play Spirit of Speed or Championship Surfer on a crowded train?! Sadly, the electrical engineering skills required to fashion such a device were not bequeathed unto us all, fellow Dreamcasters. For instance, I recently tried to replace the fuse in the vacuum cleaner's plug and ended up setting the curtains alight (long story, only 3% factual). But wait! What's this? Somebody has come to our aid! No longer do you need a doctorate in soldering in order to take your Dreamcast experience out of the dingy bedsit you call home:



That's right - now (or at least sometime soon) you can play DC games on your Android device! As you can see from the video, this new incarnation of the NullDC emulator for Android is in an early stage of development, but I still think it's pretty impressive. If they can sort out the frame rate issues, then this looks like a very interesting little app. Sadly, this particular Dreamcaster won't be able to experience it first hand due to the fact that I have a BlackBerry phone and tablet thingy, but it's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Once Upon A DreamShell

I bought a DreamShell SD card reader for about £5 from an eBay seller some time last year. After a few days, it turned up in the post (in surprisingly good condition too, considering it was sent wrapped in a folded piece of A4 lined paper) and I had a quick glance at some forum posts regarding ways to use the thing. All I could fathom was that I needed to burn some disc or other, and put some files on the SD card that should be inserted into the device before implanting it into the serial port on the back of the Dreamcast. And I won't lie - it looked like too much work; my mac wouldn't burn discs that the Dreamcast would see as anything other than a music CD and I couldn't really see what the point of the contraption was anyway. And so, the SD reader went into a box and was never thought of again...until now.

Father K's Dreamcast Round Up!

Well, dear readers!

What a great time it is for the Dreamcast Junkyard! Our esteemed leader, Tomleecee is back and posting again. The Gagaman(n) is coming out with some amazing posts including Fideo Friday, Dreamcast DIY furniture guides, and another bout of sublime Bleem analysis. Caleb (The American Dreamcaster) has made his first stunning post regarding Scumm Emulation, so I think its about time I chipped in my 'two penneth's worth' and updated you all on what's been happening in my Dreamcast recently.




First off, Caution Seaman. If you've never experienced this title, then its high time you did... Indeed, the first time I ever posted on this hallowed blog, it was to postulate on the virtues of this particular title. However, I only got approximately half way through the 'game' before I gave up. This summer, I decided to play the game through it's conclusion. Believe me, that's quite a commitment. It means being attentive on a daily basis, being careful about your care package and the order in which you do things.




The care and attention has reeped rewards however. My Seaman is now in the final stages of its evolution and become the frogman merely hinted at on the cover of the box. Like all good naturalists, I have taken photos of these rare and sought after creatures. So enjoy! There are loads of pictures on the Internet of Seaman in his fish stage of evolution, but until I'd raised the little tyke myself, I had never seen his amphibious persona... If you don't know about this game, have a look here... and here...



OK next up, Chef's Luv Shack. This game is somehing of a 'virtual game show', with South Park's Chef as your genial host. I love South Park, but having been extremely underwhelmed by South Park Rally, I wasn't expecting much. The game pits opponents against each other in a 'first to the buzzer' quiz, with crazy categories, and general knowledge questions. In between rounds, opponents have to play simple arcade mini games against each other. This is a perfect party game, something which non-gamers can pick up and play, and a title which actually delivered far more than I had hoped for. I played it at about four in the morning with a mate, after a few ales, and I would suggest the game is best appreciated in this manner. For a better review look here...







Third is Fighting Vipers 2. Originally a Saturn game, this fighter was given a second outing on the Dreamcast. Because I'd enjoyed it so much on the Saturn, I was very keen to accquire its Dreamcast incarnation. I ordered it for (I think) £6, from the wonderful Chips. However, like Daytona USA 2001, when I eventually got it, it didn't live up to my expectations.



First of all, it felt 'light'... a strange description I know, but it's the only way I can describe it. Punches and kicks didn't seem to connect in the way that other Dreamcast fighters like Soul Calibur, Dead or Alive or even Virtua Fighter 3tb did. One of the great and innovative features of this game is it's characters. Unlike the usual stereotypical fighters we see in the affore mentioned games, Fighting Vipers has a skater, buxom rollerblader, BMX rider, guitar axe-man and so on... And they'll use those attributes on you, whilst performing show boating tricks at the same time. Its also rather nice when you smash your opponent through the 'ring' thanks to a particular lethal combo. I re-evaluated my opinion, when playing it against my games nemesis Tay. Its much more fun in 'versus mode' than playing it on your own... For a much better review, look here...

Number 4. Ikaruga. No, I've not re-mortgaged my house to buy an original copy, but I have had a CDR of the game for years, which has never been played. My recent purchase of Last Hope has turned me into a bit of a 'shmup' fan, and finally popping into my Dreamcast left me very pleasantly surprised. This game is fan-fucking-tastic! The first thing you notice is the visual gourgeousness of the 3D backgrounds.

Depsite it's retro gameplay, the visuals look very current gen. A top down shooter, (based on the switching between black and white enemies and your response to them...) Ikaruga rocks... The trick is, using the L and R trigger to switch your absorbtion potential... If your enemy is white, then you become 'white' and you can absorb the white enemies attack. Geddit? I only found this out after several plays, where I died repeatedly... Literally translated as 'speckled dove', Ikaruga was released in 2002, and was heralded as the LAST Dreamcast game, ensuring it sold out almost instantly. It eventually got a release on the Gamecube, but still remains a much sort after title for the Dreamcast. Warning!

This game is fucking ROCK hard, but worth the perseverance... For a much better review, look here...

High five? Tech Romancer... This is a 'mech' game from Capcom. If you don't know what a mech game is, its a giant robot game. Think Transformers or Ed 209... Beautiful anime graphics, Japanese dialogue with English sub-titles and lots of weapon based combat. Each character comes with its own story mode. You can also play in 'vs. mode' against a pal... I've only dipped my toe in the water of this title, but I like what I see so far... To find out more look here...

So there you have it! That's my recent Dreamcast activity in a nutshell. I've recently scored Ill Bleed, and am about to receive Zombie Revenge and Godzilla Generations (plus the Space Channel 5 soundtrack CD) , so I should have something else to talk about soon... Incidentally, my Wii really hasn't seen much action... I did think it was gonna rock my world, and so far it hasn't. The Dreamcast still holds my attention and the lion's share of my console love. However, for my musings so far on Nintendo's run away success, please check out Father Krishna's Wii-kly Sermons. If I may also shamelessly plug another couple of sites, for all Saturn related nonsense, please check out mine and Caleb's, Saturn Junkyard. For anything Master System (the Dreamcast's great grand father) related, please check out a collaboration between me and Gnome... The Master System Junkyard!

This is FK, for News At Ten, signing out! Good Night dear children, wherever you are...

New Dreamcast Game Revealed: In The Line Of Fire

A few months ago we showed off some images of a brand new first person shooter that didn't actually have a name. If you don't know what I'm talking about, cast your mind back to those pictures of the clowns holding invisible guns. If you still don't know what I'm blathering on about, simply cast your peepers downward a few pixels and refresh your memory:

Remember now? Excellent. The guys behind the 'unnamed shooter' have been hard at work behind the scenes, it seems and have finally put together a fully playable build of the game. Oh, and it has a name now too: In The Line Of Fire. I'm not usually one to blow my own trumpet (much), but I thought I should mention that I had a small hand in choosing that name...but this isn't about me. It's about a brand new story-driven first person shooter coming exclusively to the Dreamcast...and we've played the alpha build!

Watch out for June!

Remember when I use to, you know, write here? I know, I haven't been very active here since sometime in February, but I have my reasons! I have just under 3 weeks left to churn out loads of coursework for Uni, working on stuff like this and this, but once that's all out of the way, I have lots of articles I want to write up. These include:

ROOMMANIA #203: Another quirky Japanese title that barely anyone has played will be arriving in the post soon. Think the Sims, only involving ping pong balls and a lot of smoking, so I've heard. Can't wait to give this a go!

MORE BLEEM! Yes, more Bleemcast compatible Playstation games will be tested and shown off. There's around 200 games out there that this emulator can run, and I intend to try as many of them out as possible!

and best of all...

A NEW ABILITY I JUST DISCOVERED FOR THE FISHING CONTROLLER. As in another game that works as well as Soul Calibur does. I'm not kidding, and you'll be thinking "why didn't I think of that?" when I reveal what game (or should I say, two games) it is! Much like Space Channel 5 with the dance mat, I found this by pure experimentation. You'll just have to wait and see!

Anyone new to this blog will not know that when I post, I post big fat juicy articles that take about ten hours to write and still end up full of terrible typos that make them virtually un-readable. Some ofthem even manged to get "digged", whatever that means. Here is a bunch of links to the best ones:

CONTROLLER THINGYS

VMU WONDERS

DDR FOR DREAMCAST

SAMBA DE AMIGO: INSIDE OUT

DREAMCAST MEMORABILIA

SAMBA DE BASEBALL!

Why the article above turned out to be guff!

SOUL CALIBUR + FISHING CONTROLLER

DREAM KEY STILL WORKS!

TOP 5 EMULATORS FOR DREAMCAST

COMMON THEMES IN DREAMCAST-LAND

EXISTENZ - HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH DREAMCAST!

DREAMCAST IS ART!

THE DREAMCAST REFUSES TO DIE!

DREAMCAST GAMES THAT SHOULD BE REMADE ON WII*

* That's remade, not ported, as the Digg link got wrong.

Now if you'll excuse me, all that full caps text has given me a headache. To send you off, here's a direct embed of Caleb's brilliant Soul Calibur with fishing controller video, for those who are too lazy to go to his blog. Rock on, the All-American Dreamcaster!

SoulCalibur-Fishing
Uploaded by Blandco

Let There be Light(guns)

On the first day, God said "Let there be lightguns," and not, as is wrongly recorded, "Let there simply be boring old light." Cough. That's because God, in His infinate wisdom, knew he was onto a good thing when he planted the idea of videogames into Man's tiny, naked-ass mind. Of course, as we all know, games were shite until Man ate the Kebab of Knowledge, quaffed the Pint of Ingeniousness and invented the Mighty Dreamcast:

And lo, House of the Dead 2 was spewed forth unto the world like so much bile from the gullet of a 16-day old corpse, and it was good. So good infact, that Sega didn't give us another lightgun game for about 3 millennia...

At this juncture, I'd like to share with you a small musing I had earlier on. Bear with me. Anyone played Knife Edge on the N64? It was a pathetically bad 'lightgun' game...on a console without a gun. Now - if I had a) the intelligence; or b) the inclination to invent an N64 lightgun, and plug it into said 1920's themed console (it's pure art deco), would Knife Edge have the ability to recognise the lightgun? Hmmm. It's like that shit about the tree falling in the forest and nobody being around to hear it. Anyway, back to the real world (sigh).

Yes, after all the zombie blasting and enduring the horrendous dialogue of HOTD2 (who can forget such ambiguous gems as "Die - like G did," and "Don't come" (Snigger)), Sega rewarded us with:

Confidential Mission!

Yep, the newest entrant into the Junkyard is here - gleaming and shiny like a new 2 penny piece cast adrift in a particularly watery dollop of dog shit. However, in direct contrast to the evil, murderous, death-dealing shennanigans that go on within Confidential Mission, the circumstances surrounding the game's arrival in the 'Yard bring a tear to the eye. For, you see, Confidential Mission was donated to the cause by long time reader, supporter, and indeed commentator of this very blog - Father Krishna. Father Krishna - fellow Mancunian, Dreamcast lover and owner of the only Dreamcast collection visible from space - discovered that he, in his all knowing omniprescence, actually owned TWO copies of CM...and the rest is (recent) history.

But how does CM play? As you've probably already guessed after reading all the preceding guff, CM is - gasp - a lightgun game! The second one after HOTD2 infact. And it's a fucking stormer. After completing HOTD2 something like a bazillion times, it's refreshing to actually get to shoot some real-life peeps, and not already-dead buffoons with Sugar Puffs for teeth. But I'm jumping the gun (arf!).

In CM, you play as the decidedly un-heroically named Howard Gibson - a recent graduate from the James Bond school of smoothness. Armed only with a pistol, you set off (with your lovely blonde partner, Jean Clifford) on a 'confidential mission' to stop an evil genius (Agares) holding the world to ransom with a hijacked military satellite laser. Playing like Virtua Cop on anabolics, CM is big, brash and loud. It has great visuals and the game takes you through some really cool environments with loads of stuff to shoot and civilians WHO GET IN THE FRIGGING WAY. Ahem. Similarly to Virtua Cop, it features terrorists to cap and also the familiar green reticules that appear around an enemy and slowly turn red before he fires. An interesting feature in CM is the 'Justice Shot,' whereby if you manage to blow the gun out of an enemy's hand, he will surrender, thus furnishing you with more points. I don't bother with that though - I just shoot to kill. Maybe I'll try to get a job with the Metropolitan Police...

Confidential Mission is fairly short lived compared to HOTD2 and doesn't feature alternative routes through the levels (of which there are only 3), but it does offer some brilliant variations on the usual 'shoot, shoot, shoot' mentality of the genre. For example, during the second mission you hang upside down from the roof of a speeding train and as such must play that section from an upside down point of view. Also, to break up the monotony Confidential Mission throws in the odd time-limited task, such as firing blobs of glue at air vents to stop deadly gas from filling the room. Ace.

Like I said, CM isn't a massive game, but it features a great training academy filled with Point Blank style mini-games (above), and also a mode called 'Another World' where you play through the arcade mode but enemies appear randomly. An added bonus also appears in the manual - the page footer reads "The last trump for the peace of the world." Righty-ho.

So, all in all, a fantastic post-pub blast that breathes new life into the old dual Dreamcast lightguns (Health Warning: Playing with dual guns is only for the most hardened Dreamcaster. Do not attempt if you are of a weak disposition). Sadly, upon inserting the Microphone you still can't take Private Hudson's advice and use 'harsh language,' but you can't have everything:

And once again, many thanks to Father Krishna for supplying it to the 'Yard.

Oh, and through playing Confidential Mission, I think I may have stumbled on something that is as Earth-shatteringly amazing as playing Soul Calibur with a fishing rod. Watch this space...