Dreamcast: Year Two by Andrew J Dickinson - Book Review

As the saying goes, good things come to those that wait, a refrain your humble scribe hopes is true when volumes two and three of From Vultures to Vampires eventually make their way into the hands of more than patient Kickstarter backers, but that's a tale for another time. Today, we're going to have a look at another long awaited publication that overshot its original estimated publication date by well over a year and a half. What went wrong?

Actually, it's more a case of what went right, as the editor/author of this project found himself Lost in a Cult (sorry, had to do it!), and that award-winning independent publishing group have gone from strength to strength since the very first volume of their journal, [lock-on]. Naturally, paid work should take precedence over a personal project (games, bills, eating, you know, the essentials of life), but Andrew was very conscientious in keeping backers updated as to why Year Two was delayed, and the end result does not disappoint.

Rocking in at over 180 pages (compared to the 110 of Year One), this A5 book is a monument to what is arguably the best second year software catalogue of any console. It's also a reminder that, whilst the games selection on the Dreamcast was a thing of beauty, the financials of Sega themselves were a bit of a nightmare, and by the end of the 128-bit wonder's sophomore year, Dreamcast production had finished. 

Featuring contributions by a number of names familiar to the retro scene, Dreamcast: Year Two begins with a walkthrough of that tumultuous year and a rather neat synergy with the five stages of grief. Then come the interviews: again, there are some familiar names and all have some interesting comments to make. A quartet of features take the reader to near the half way point before we get to the really fun stuff: the games.

If you look at the contents page above, you'll see many a famous Dreamcast titles in there, including two of my all time favourites: Metropolis Street Racer and Fur Fighters - honestly, the latter, despite its funky controls, is one of the best third person shooters ever made. The highlight is the piece on Spirit of Speed 1937, as well as an interview with the managing director of the studio responsible for the game. Widely regarded as terrible (some consider it one of the worst games ever made), its inclusion here is a lovely rebalancing, not putting it on a pedestal, but providing a re-appraisal that considers the good points the game has too. 

There are many screenshots included, as well as original artwork for some of the featured titles, interviews and the like. Production quality is high and, overall, this is a worthy follow up to Year One, and one can but hope that a Year Three Kickstarter is not too far away.

Speaking of Kickstarter, as a backer, there were also some more goodies too - postcards of the artwork, a couple of bookmarks, a sticker, and a DCY booklet centred on a period of gaming from 1998 to 2002. Five features and a round of of opinion pieces, this is a nice add on and well worth a read.

So there we are then - better late than never and definitely worth the wait, Dreamcast: Year Two continues the fine work in Year One and promises a cracking finale for Year Three - if only to see Headhunter get some more love - truly a classic of its time. You can follow the author on Twitter here and, although he may not have any further copies of Year Two for sale (he reckoned they'd be gone by the beginning of June), you never know, Lost in Cult might be persuaded to support a reprinted single volume once the series is complete... I mean, when you're Operations Director, you have to have some say, surely? ;-)

In any case, although much has been written about the Dreamcast and it's library over the years, this worthy tome adds yet further flavour to the machine's history and is highly recommended to all. Andrew and every single contributor to the book should be congratulated on a job very well done!

Dreamcast: Year One - A Review

Dreamcast: Year One by Andrew J Dickinson is a love letter. A one hundred and ten page love letter to be sure but a heartfelt one too, and if you’ve read my rambling piece about Sega’s final home console here, you can already guess as to why I bought this book. An unofficial telling of the console’s first year, I can honestly say that anyone who is a fan of the console (or videogaming history in general) should pick up a copy as soon as they can. Yes, it’s that good.

An A5 softback, this is a good quality publication with a glossy finish. Screenshots are well presented and the artwork is well matched to the topic. Overall, there is an air of quality about it and at £10 for the physical copy, feels good value too.

Beginning with the background to the genesis (see what I did there...) of Sega’s home consoles of the Nineties, Dickinson guides us neatly through the minefield of company politics and competitors in the home console market of the period to the eventual launch of the 128-bit wonder in Japan, North America, Europe and Australasia. For me, this was much like re-watching Death on the Nile – you know the story beats (if not quite remembering the specific plot points) and whilst you know how it ends, the story still has that car crash fascination that makes it hard to turn away from. Dickinson’s telling of the tale (the Dreamcast, not Death on the Nile) makes it all the more engrossing.

Next up are the interviews, and what a selection they are. Starting with former Sega of America COO Bernie Stoller, you get an on-the-spot measure of the challenge Sega faced when trying to get the machine into players homes. The conflict between Sega of America and Sega of Japan is laid bare and I learned a few new things reading through Stoller’s answers. The following three interviews cover the UK magazine scene of the period, with Caspar Field (DC-UK), Ed Lomas (Official Dreamcast Magazine UK) and Dave Kelsall (Official Saturn Magazine UK). These are revealing interviews of how gaming magazines operated in their heyday – and how Heath Robinson some of the production kit was! As noted in the book, at a time when titles like the Official Playstation Magazine had a circulation knocking on 500,000 copies per month (!), times were certainly different and part of me started feeling very nostalgic to those days of anticipation for the next issue of whatever mag I was into at the time. What you do get from this trio is the passion each brought to their job, and I can certainly say for DC-UK, that passion was obvious when reading each issue. The final interview is with Tom Charnock who runs the largest online community for the console, The Dreamcast Junkyard. This is a fan point of view piece and I cannot disagree with the gentleman’s thoughts at all.

The next section is a set of retrospectives (of titles both good and bad) that cover a good range of games (my favourite being Toy Commander which, at the time, simply blew me away with it’s graphical style and tongue-in-cheek gameplay). We also get a number of mini-pieces from Kickstarter backers about their most memorable games, which is a nice little touch.

Finally, we have the games list: every title launched in the console’s first year with box art and region specific release dates where applicable. Flicking through these pages made me realise just how many of these games I actually got to play at the time! Where the time and money came from, I have not a clue, but there were some good memories to enjoy from that section alone.

Naturally, since this is Year One, there is the promise of a Year Two publication and I for one will be supporting the Kickstarter for that book when it is announced. As per the update on the first book’s Kickstarter page (28/02/20) the second book should get a funding launch in May/June this year with a delivery date about the same time next year. In the meantime, you can (and should) buy this one. With the current Corvid-19 situation, only the digital pdf version is available at present (tweet from the author 17/03/20) but at a reduced price of £5, which is excellent value. Hopefully, physical copies will be available for those who want one when circumstances permit.

So there you have it, Dreamcast: Year One. A superlative look at one of the most underrated and under-appreciated home consoles ever released and a tome for any videogame fan’s library, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. You can keep up with the author via Twitter here, where you'll also find details about ordering a digital copy of this fine tome.

Why I love... the Sega Dreamcast

Look, it’s the hardware. No, seriously, look at it. Compact, solidly built, well designed, and for its time, powerful too. Care and thought were given as to what the Dreamcast should be, how it should achieve that and how it would do so whilst being as unobtrusive as possible. Not much bigger than the disc drive itself, four controller ports (for when multiplayer meant sitting in the same room as the other players – I know, how quaint!), and a quiet, yet reassuring, fan. The whole package just works, even after more than twenty years since its release. You don’t see the neat cooling system for the processor, nor the power supply that is built into the console itself, or the modem that promised (but didn’t quite deliver) online play. Nope, the Dreamcast is surely the ultimate in 1990’s console design. It is a half way house between the toy-like Nintendo’s, Sega’s Megadrive and the original PlayStation that preceded it, and the growing bulk that epitomised the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s original X-Box. In the following console generations, only Nintendo continued the playful console design with the Gamecube, Wii and Wii U. For me though, the Dreamcast is style and power in a perfect design.

Of course, it’s more than just the box. There is the controller too. After the rather small PlayStation pad and the ergonomic challenge that was the N64’s pad (honestly, going back to that after twenty years revealed great muscle memory and tremendous hand cramp!), the Dreamcast's controller is ergonomically excellent. Big enough to fill your hand yet light enough not to become a nuisance over a long gaming session, the pad allows you to comfortably grip the outside edges whilst your index fingers fall neatly onto the left and right triggers. The analogue stick is balanced just about right, with less give than the PlayStation’s woeful effort (indeed, I have never enjoyed using the official PS controllers because of the feel of the sticks) and the D-pad is clicky without feeling stiff. It’s not perfect (nothing is), and without any Visual Memory Units/Memory Cards in place, it can feel too light and insubstantial. That also betrays the slightly too-cheap plastic used in the construction, with the nagging fear that the analogue stick and triggers might not stand up to too much use but I can honestly say I’ve not had a DC pad fail on me yet. The connecting cable is also a bit of a nuisance, stick out of the bottom of the pad rather that the top which would be facing the console. Finally, the era of the Dreamcast betrays the early days of 3D gaming, equipped with only one stick: first-person shooters in particularly fare poorly against the twin stick pads of the PlayStation and X-Box.

Enough about the hardware. What about the games? After all, software sells hardware, and it’s here that the Dreamcast proved itself. From the jaunty playfulness of the menu screens – so different from Sony’s and Microsoft’s more sombre experiences, to the half decent (for its time) web browser, the initial user experience is one of fun. I have fond memories of using the Dreamcast’s internet browser long before I could afford a decent PC but having said that, harking back to a 56.6k modem and a 14 inch CRT television is probably not a good thing in this day and age.

On to games then, and I’d like to focus on just three titles. Yeah, I know, there were dozens of decent, and more than a few great, titles for the Dreamcast but these three stick with me now and have the added benefit of being system exclusives, at least until the Dreamcast was retired, when two were ported to the PlayStation 2 and the third was improved in a spiritual sequel on the X-Box. They show what the Dreamcast was capable of and why it was such a generational leap ahead of the PlayStation and N64, even giving the PS2 a great run for its money.

First up, Metropolis Street Racer. “It’s not about how fast you drive. It’s about how you drive fast.” Never has a tag line described a game this perfectly. That it appears at the end of a ballsy intro sequence that mixes real world driving and in game clips shows straight away that the developers were aiming for something special. A real world racing game with some nice arcade flourishes, MSR lived and died by its Kudos system. Set in, for the time, stellar recreations of London, Tokyo and San Francisco, MSR puts you behind the wheel of dozens of real-life vehicles and inventive tracks, and dares you to have fun. Using the Dreamcast’s clock to provide real-time day/night cycles adds a touch more realism and, whilst the handling of each vehicle is mostly realistic, the game never forgets that you’re supposed to show how well you can drive. It can seem a little unforgiving to modern day gamers but then challenge was always part of the fun. True, the cityscapes are a little flat, but the sheer amount of texture work that was put into MSR is astounding and, compared to previous gen titles, looks amazing. Hell, even the PS2 struggled to offer something as visually exact. But what really does it for me is the soundtrack. Written by Richard Jacques, each track nicely takes the piss out of its respective genre and to this day, I still think of MSR whenever I hear Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince – the mock song in MSR is that good. If ever a single soundtrack demonstrated a composer’s talent, MSR’s does it for Jacques, and there is more from him later on. MSR’s developer, Bizarre Creations got the template so right that once the Dreamcast was discontinued, they created Project Gotham Racing for the X-Box. Pretty much an updated MSR, it did well enough to spawn three increasingly good sequels, this time with licensed music (I discovered Spanish industrial metal band Freak XXI purely through their contribution to PGR3). Naturally, the PGR series expanded the number of cities, with Edinburgh, New York, Sydney, Las Vegas, the Nurburgring, Moscow and Quebec City being featured in later titles. One of the cool things in PGR2 was the real-world shop fronts in Edinburgh, to the point where I could stop outside the in-game Edinburgh store of my then employer and see what mobile phone deal was being advertised (in a very pixelated way, a Nokia 8310). The thing is, without MSR, that would never have happened and it’s MSR that is the star here. Demonstrating the true graphical capabilities of the Dreamcast and proving to all and sundry that the generation of the PlayStation and N64 had truly ended, MSR may have been matched but never bettered.

Headhunter received some, unwarranted in my view, comparisons to the seminal Metal Gear Solid, upon its release. With great stealth mechanics and some neat VR training missions, you may be forgiven for comparing the two titles. However, Headhunter was tonally a different beast, yet when it failed to match these preconceptions, the reception from gamers turned a little sour which is grossly unfair on Headhunter, in a similar vein to In Cold Blood on the PlayStation (a lesser known classic from Revolution Software), which was also given an MGS comparison, but that’s for another post. What you got with Headhunter was an accomplished third-person stealth action title that offered solid gun play, great game design and a polished presentation that recalls the best of Paul Verhoeven. You play Jack Wade, the titular headhunter tasked with solving the murder of his boss and unraveling a conspiracy regarding organ harvesting and betrayal. The game switches between on-foot sections and a marvelous motorbike traversal system that really warrants a game all on its own. What really lifts it though is the live action newsroom sequences delivered in a superbly mocking and cynical style, tongue firmly in cheek and knowingly winking at the audience like a signal lamp with a stutter. Topping all of that is the score, another tour-de-force by Richard Jacques. Sweeping and majestic where needed, intense and heart pounding in action sequences, Jacques gives Headhunter the cinematic polish it so richly deserves. Challenging and thoughtful in equal measure, Headhunter could not have been accomplished on any earlier hardware and only the lack of a second analogue stick makes the controls a little unwieldy. Ported to the PS2, which also received a less that stellar sequel (which in itself saw an X-Box release), I still think Headhunter stands up to this day and if you want to play it, try the Dreamcast original if you can.

Finally, we have Fur Fighters. Cartoon animals, all out gun play and violence. A lovely mix, I am sure you’ll agree. Fur Fighters was developed by Bizarre Creations and offers a third-person shooter with a dose of on the nose humour as you take turns as one of the Fur Fighter team out to rescue your children who have been kidnapped by the evil General Viggo. Bizarre Creations were on a roll during this period of their existence and FF confirms that they were more than just a racing game studio (their later X-Box 360 title, The Club is also a forgotten gem). The cartoon nature of the game is handled well and the environments hark to the best of 3D platformers with added weapons. That impression is added to by the nonsensical nature of the character voices, a trait that Rare cornered the market with in titles such as Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie. Whether you like that style is down to personal choice and I must admit that I find it more than a little tiresome after a short while. The worst I can say about the game is that the controls are a smidge clunky, once again due to the lack of a second analogue stick on the controller. Fur Fighters filled a niche on the Dreamcast and received a PS2 port which added cel-shading to the graphics and proper voice acting. These weren’t entirely successful and the title just seemed to disappear among the crowd on that platform, which is a shame. It does take a decent amount of effort to complete but once you do, you’ll have accomplished a great deal of puzzle solving and seen every animal related joke under the sun, but the main thing is you’ll have had fun doing it. This stood out on the DC and remains a great game to this day.

So there are just three of the numerous titles that show the Dreamcast for what it was, a great games console. Of course, there were many more: Shenmue 1 and 2, Wild Metal, Confidential Mission, Typing of the Dead, Quake 3, Hidden and Dangerous, Shadow Man, MDK2, and Toy Commander are just some that I owned back in the day, and each was a joy to play. I’ll be honest and admit I never used the online play facility, nor were the other three controller ports used – I was, and am to this day, a primarily solo games player, Mario Kart with my good lady being the exception.

I still have a Dreamcast. Not the original system from 1999, but a second-hand one from an excellent local games store, Games Galaxy. For a very decent price, I picked up the machine, Headhunter and Crazy Taxi and, let’s be clear, could have spent a whole lot more, especially when I saw the Neo Geo, Super Famicom and PC Engine range they offered. Having such a shop just a couple of miles away that also offers a great variety of current gen titles is a wonderful thing and if you’re ever in the north-east of England, I heartily recommend detouring to Consett and perusing their stock. Their Facebook page is here so you can see what I am talking about and if you do go, the owner will be more than happy to oblige if he can.

I’ll slowly increase my DC software collection as time and funds permit and I can certainly see quite a little collection forming as time goes by. I just need to add a VGA or HDMI adapter to improve the video quality and truly see what 640x480 should look like. Although twenty years old, there is plenty of life left in the Dreamcast and it remains one of my favourite systems to this day and that would be purely down to the games mentioned above. They were genuinely a generation ahead of previous systems and it took later rivals a while to match what Sega had achieved. Now if only Sega would get round to releasing a Dreamcast Mini...