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.

February goings on

February's shenanigans began with an early morning wake up on Sunday 2^nd for a 90 minute trip to the Vapnartak wargames show held at the Knavesmire stand at York Racecourse. A decent show by any measure, it occupies four floors of the stand, with most of the traders occupying the ground, first and second levels, with demo, participation and competition games mixed in here and there, plus more on the third level.

Taken before any of the public were let in.

No action at all in this shot.

As you can see from these pictures, it’s quite well laid out and there is a decent amount of space between stands, something that other shows in the past have lacked, especially Partizan when it was held at Kelham Hall. With a good amount of traders, there was pretty much something for everyone, and I know I lingered far too long at Dave Lanchester’s book stall for my own good, but that’s for another time. Of the demo games I saw, two caught my eye.

Look at the size of that thing!

Rather tasty looking too...

The “Down on the Adriatic Sea” game was a nice set up (Fiume 1920), topped by the frankly ludicrous pre-dreadnought at one end of the table and some really pretty looking forts. Then there was the Entebbe game, which, for me, looked absolutely brilliant. Whilst there was no sign of Elizabeth Taylor, I did feel that if I were at put a game like that on, I would add three competing camera crews. Impish, I know, but there was an indecent rush to dramatise the operation in the months after and there is the opportunity to be a little bit silly here and add a bit of humour for the players.

Attendance at the show was good but, like all Sunday shows, just after 2pm, Thanos must have clicked his fingers and pretty much all of the punters vanished, leaving the traders to have a wander about amongst themselves. Some things never change.

The venue remains one of the better ones, airy and well lit. Show food will never win awards but it must be said that York’s is at the better end of the scale. That could not be said for the bar. Now a bar at a show is always a welcome thing, but three 500ml bottles of a decent Theakston’s Pale Ale tipped the wallet at £17.40! Ouch!

This was sipped very, very slowly...

February saw the release of Locke and Key on Netflix. An adaptation of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s supernatural comic book series, this follows the Locke family as they discover that the ancestral family house is home to magical keys that can unlock doors (and people) in ways that are both good and bad. All is not well, though, as there is an entity after the keys for its own purposes. This one interested me from the trailer as it promised a dark, horror filled supernatural tale that, at 10 episodes, had enough room to breath but not sprawl about for seemingly endless episodes. My good lady, not a horror fan at all, viewed the trailer with some trepidation and warned that she’d give it a go but reserved the right to drop out at any point. She needn’t have worried.

You see, whilst Locke and Key is a supernatural drama, the horror elements promised in the trailer (and the source material which, I’ll admit, I am not overly familiar with) just aren’t as prominent as advertised. Yes, there are some mildly scary moments but it pulls its punches when it comes to delivering genuine scares. The story is good and I can’t fault the production values. The cast are, generally speaking, very good, with just a couple of instances of scenery chewing that kind of fit but also take a bit away from the beats of the story. Where the show really falls down though is its reliance on familiar tropes – the high school kids, whilst rightly focusing on the nerdier bunch of friends, ticks pretty much every box when it comes to jocks and “popular” girls. There are nods to modern day social media that have been added cos, well, it’s 2020, but some dramatic character beats are glossed over – the mother’s alcoholism being a prime example. Then again, the show has an issue with alcohol as one character polishes off a half of a bottle of whiskey and seems just tickety boo when dealing with an attack on the family just an hour later. I know the younger of us can handle booze better but that is pushing the bounds of reality. Oh, and Keyhouse, the family home is a lovely building but suffers from that familiar plot device – even with the doors open, you can’t hear shouting downstairs when you’re upstairs. Come on, it’s not that big a house! With enough story threads left open for a second season (still unannounced at the time of posting), Locke and Key is a decent show and worth a watch. It never feels like it is overstaying its welcome and the premise has promise. Give it a go if this type of show appeals.

My good lady and I have also managed to catch up a little bit with a DVD boxset: Blakes 7. We watched the first series last year and came to the general conclusion that whilst they accomplished miracles on the budget, it had not aged well at all. Still, there are four series in total so we said we’d get through them eventually. Series two is pretty much a direct follow up to the first, with just a couple of cast changes: Brian Croucher takes over as Commander Travis and we lose one of the main group near the half way point of the series – no spoilers but to be honest, it’s no great surprise given that the character was left on the shelf most of the time, so in the words of a Newcastle Upon Tyne resident, he had to gan… (Sorry, not sorry!).

Once again, the budget (or lack thereof) is plain to see, but considering what they managed to put on the screen, it’s not bad – think of how bad the first couple of seasons of ST:TNG look now. True, the model work varies from decent to just plain naff, and any backdrop work (Voices from the Past, I’m looking at you) is quite laughable. More serious issues arise from the acting which, outside of a couple of key characters, is rather iffy and certainly not helped by the writers wanting to prefix everything (and I mean everything) with the word “space”. Cos, you know, it’s set in space. With forty years hindsight, it seems to treat the audience with a degree of condescension that the RP accent highlights as well. Bless him, even Mr Croucher struggles to get his mouth around his lines whilst refusing to lapse into his real accent. There is also the feeling that they were trying to fill the timeslot with what they had rather than produce a show with episode lengths that matched the budget - you'll see far too many lingering camera shots and scene setting model work that just seems to be there to fill in the time. It is easy to mock a show that occupied a tea time TV slot but I genuinely like Blakes 7. The premise, the story lines and the feel of the show are just right, but it’s the execution of those that falls down – but as I have said above, they accomplished miracles on the budget and for obvious reasons, they couldn’t show too much violence or explore the more serious themes to their fullest extent. The show does, however, remain timeless for the ultimate double act of Kerr Avon (the late, great Paul Darrow) and Vila Restal (Michael Keating). The banter between these two is brilliant and you can’t help but think that Alan Rickman watched these shows when preparing for the role of Snape in the Harry Potter films.

An unexpected snow day also gave us the chance to re-watch (for me, at least) Edge of Darkness, re-released last year as a shiny Blu-Ray collection. No new content as such but the presentation is faultless and at times you forget you’re watching a thirty five year old TV show. For those who haven’t seen it, EoD is a classic political thriller, as DI Ron Craven (the never better Bob Peck) searches for the truth behind his daughters murder, leading him into the secret world of nuclear politics. I'll come back to this in a later post.

Reading wise, I managed to finish a couple of history books that joined the charity donation pile (I am trying to trim the library down a little bit at the moment. When I started encroaching onto the fourth bookcase, I realised I had a problem – and no, it’s not a shortage of bookcases, sadly…). I also purchased and finished the paperback edition of The Expanse series eighth book, Timat’s Wrath. Regular readers will know I am a fan of both the book series and the accompanying TV show (for which those of you who have Amazon Prime, you can catch up with all four seasons now, whilst for everyone else, seasons 1 to 3 are available on DVD and Blu-ray). Timat’s Wrath is the penultimate novel and you can tell straight away that loose ends are being tidied up ready for the finale. Some might feel aggrieved that familiar and favourite characters are bumped off with almost casual ease but the sprawl of story hanging after seven books means there has to be some culling and to be fair to the authors, they do it rather well. It only took three days to finish this one (the joys of public transport) and it left me wanting more. The Expanse series is one of those rare multiple volume stories that actually tells a tale, unlike say The Game Of Thrones books that are simply too long, meandering and padded to be enjoyable, at least for me. Of note with both series though and, it seems, most modern sci-fant fiction, is the fixation on food – what people are eating, the taste, texture etc, as if there is a writing school out there that teaches would-be authors that to get readers to empathise with the characters, keep telling them what they’ve had for dinner. It’s really not necessary.

And so that's it, until next time.

RISC OS? But why???

So came the cry the other day whilst at work as I was chatting to one of the developers about my RISCOSbits purchase from a few months ago. A gentleman of a similar vintage to myself and an owner of multiple Raspberry Pi’s, he is not afraid of a command line and is a self-confessed Linux nut. Naturally, being at work, we were obviously discussing a piece of code I was to test when the subject “maneuvered” towards RISC OS. He was quite interested in that, like me, he had experienced RISC OS back in his school days and was aware of it’s availability on the Pi.

“It’s pretty horrible and clunky,” he opined, “and I wouldn’t like to fight with an OS just to get something done”

Well, thinks I, this is not what I feel and so we pitted pro’s and cons for a good twenty minutes before a tiresome sprint review called us away. It did get me thinking though. I could explain to someone with a passing knowledge of RISC OS why I think it’s a lovely little OS but how could I pass on that enthusiasm to someone who had never touched it in their lives? Hmmm…

The basic desktop.

Let me be clear from the outset, RISC OS is going to be a bit of a culture shock for anyone used to Windows, Mac OS and Linux and it is not for everyone. The three button mouse configuration and the thought processes behind it will take a bit of effort to embed and even I sometimes slip with muscle memory recalling a Windows mentality. What the RISC OS set up gives you is control and subtlety. That three button mouse layout (Select/Menu/Adjust), the method of window management and the sheer common sense approach of true drag and drop functionality: all add up to make RISC OS, for me, a lovely operating system to use. True, it originates from the 1980’s and that is (sometimes painfully) obvious now – consider how Windows and macOS have changed over that period, but that it not to say RISC OS is bad. In fact, whilst toolbars have taken over screen space (which isn’t such a problem with modern day high resolution displays), it just looks far cleaner to have the menu structure behind a mouse button press. It’s lightweight and offers little frippery. It can look “busy” as the screenshots attest but I was aiming to have quite a few folders and programs open at the same time. The main question though, is can it be used as a primary computer OS in 2020, and for me that answer is… mostly...ish.

Many, many windows.

Look at it this way. In this age of always connected, online dependent computing experiences, RISC OS harks back to a time where you didn’t have or need an internet connection. Troubling for some that statement may be, this is computing how it used to be before, say, 1994. Is that a bad thing? Well, it depends upon what you want to do. As an aside, you will need an internet connection in this day and age just to get new software, but once you have the software, for many tasks, you don’t need that connection any longer. In day to day use, RISC OS just doesn't need it.

For me, I want a content creation machine, something I can generate blog posts, general writing, the odd spreadsheet and a bit of coding on the side – hey, I’m a software tester who dabbles in the dark side. Know thine enemy, I say :-) Out of the box, my RISCOSbits machine covers that pretty well. Edit is a great little text editor but if you prefer something more feature filled, the announcement that Impression Style (not the fully featured Impression X) is now free was a boon. With Pipedream covering the spreadsheet duties and enough programming tools already on board, I feel most bases are covered. What helps here is the Pling store, where a decent variety of software is available for free or modest cost – think the Apple App store but a lot smaller. Size isn’t everything though and what is on offer should cover all of your needs. There is a fly in the RISC OS ointment that needs addressing though and this impacts what I do a lot with regards to Blogger and Wordpress...

These cover a lot of needs without resorting to additional software.

Web browsing. The included browser, !NetSurf, is basic in the extreme and isn’t suited to the modern day internet. This is a well known issue with RISC OS and is being sorted with the development of two new browsers, OWB and Iris. Both are in development at the moment and as such, not ready for the prime time just yet but they are more capable than !NetSurf and the situation is improving. 2020 looks like the year that RISC OS could be a replacement operating system for me. Rather than create blog posts and reviews for RVG in RISC OS and then transferring to Windows via a memory stick, I’ll be able to post online as per my usual Windows PC. This may also mean a new toy.

Impression Style 

For a couple of years, a lot of my writing has been completed on a venerable Alphasmart 3000. A brilliant little typing device, it offers distraction free writing and a stellar battery life (only changed the three AA’s twice!). However, transferring text to my PC is slow and can’t be done without monopolising the Libre Office window that the document will occupy, so I can’t set the transfer away and move onto something else. Also, it’s starting to fail in little ways: the space bar is becoming less reliable (double spaces are a bane), the screen has a couple of minor issues and overall, whilst I feel it’s still a lovely machine, its time is probably due. At present I am using a three year old Lenovo Yogabook convertible running Windows alongside a Logitech wireless keyboard. I really think the halo keyboard on the Yogabook is a great idea, but it’s just not comfortable or accurate enough for sustained typing. This set up, using Libre Office, is quite nice, but really requires a table or rest to use properly and the USB OTG cable for the wireless keyboard adapter hangs in an awkward manner if I use the Yogabook in tent mode. It works, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a bit of a kludge and the Yogabook itself lacks ports and is woefully under-powered. Even using it with the wi-fi switched off (so purely as a text entry device and not typing directly into Wordpress or Blogger) has seen a drop in the battery life of the machine and where once I was getting 8 hours or so, it’s now down to about 4 before I need to reach for the charger – which also takes up the single micro-USB port so no more wireless keyboard for a couple of hours at least. Sadly, taking all of that into account means that, despite being a lovely little set up and one that is very portable too, I can’t see it lasting another couple of years.

This is where RISC OS comes in. When one, or both, of the new browsers are released in a stable fashion, my intention is to combine those with a new Armbok (Armbook but hey, typo’s). For a touch over £400, this will provide a native RISC OS laptop and proper access for my online needs. Yes, I could buy a Windows laptop for less, but I have worries there which I’ll get to in a moment. I like using RISC OS and am getting very used to how it works. And that’s the thing, it just works. No updates, no constant harrying from a notification centre and little privacy intrusion. Part of me would like to dip back into the macOS world but frankly the cost of entry is too high for me. With a new Armbok, I could centre my daily domestic computer use to RISC OS and only have to dip into Windows for the odd game and specific software packages.

So why not a new Windows machine? As noted above, there are a number of issues I have here. One is cost. Wait, you cry, £400 can buy you a decent laptop. True, but for one with the combination of performance and spec that would last a few years, you’d have to spend a bit more than that. Indeed, 8GB of RAM seems to be the standard acceptable now and if you want that much memory, the cost starts edging upwards. Then there is the bloat, the constant need to update and the sheer intrusiveness of information gathering in the OS. You can tinker with these but in the end, Microsoft’s recent history with Windows updates does not fill me with hope that the situation will get any better. Apple seems a bit better in this respect but then again, wanting £1k plus for your basic Macbook Air (ignoring the discounted 2017 model which is probably near the end of it’s life) is just too much. I am a tekkie but even I have limits on how much I’ll drop on kit.

So this brings me back to RISC OS. The operating itself is very resource frugal in both memory and  storage. The hardware, certainly for desktops, is easily repairable (remember, the RISCOSbits machine I have is just a cased Raspberry Pi 3B+ which costs in the region of £35…) and in regards to the Armbok, a lot of thought and testing seems to have been done in getting this to market. I am not saying RISCOS is for everyone – the very fact that it is not an on-line centric operating system would probably scare quite a few people off. The fear of not being connected at all times might do that, but consider this – how much of your day do you spend at a computer that does not require a connection? Ok, if you run a website, online business or need tools like Office 365 or Google’s online suite then obviously, you’ll need that but if you don’t need a network connection, then why have one? I know I get more work done when I am not online, and I suspect many other people do too and this chimes nicely in with the Armbok. Once the browser situation is sorted, I can work offline with a laptop offering 12 plus hours of use then quickly hook up to post what I need to. Overall, that feels like a tempting way of working and as a second machine that will do a fair bit of travelling, the Armbok fits the bill.

You don't even have to spend as much as I did to get started in RISC OS

You may think me a bit of a Luddite, harking back to an operating system that to this day lacks native wi-fi connectivity, but that would be to miss the point. I don’t need a 24/7 online connection and for the majority of my non-gaming computer needs, I don’t need a lot of what Windows and macOS offer. The Armbok will cover that and I will be using software that works for me. As noted above, RISC OS is not for everyone, and to be fair, it is a niche OS, but given a little bit of thought and use, it is a more productive OS compared to Windows/macOS, at least in my humble opinion. That it is still under active development and has new hardware being released for it speaks volumes. There is also an active show scene for users, and there are  a number of active content creators in YouTube - check out WiFi Sheep's videos for example, where you'll find show reports, introductory videos and much more. The market isn’t huge but then again, the cost of entry isn’t either. If you have an interest in alternative OS’s, or just fancy giving something less mainstream a try, then give RISC OS a chance. It’s not a perfect OS by any means but it is improving. You never know, you might find it useful for a second machine...

January 2020

So here we are. 2020. It feels like an age since I last posted and to be honest, I’ve not had much time to sit down in front of a keyboard outside of work. So, to get me started in the new year, I thought an update on what to expect in the forthcoming twelve months would provide suitable motivation.

Wargaming first and as always, there will be shows to attend. This year, these will be Vapnartak (York) in February, Salute (London) in April, First and Second Partizan’s (Newark) in May and October respectively, Claymore (Edinburgh) in August and possibly Border Reiver (Gateshead) in September. That last one will probably be the most interesting to attend as last year’s show was hobbled by another, larger show on the same weekend. It would be nice to see a better turn out this year, if only to keep a local show going. As for the others, all of them are good shows, with a wide variety of traders as well as demo and participation games. No doubt money will be spent throughout the year at each show and it’s always interesting to see what kit appears on the tables as well as catch up with some familiar faces.

On a gaming level, there will be the usual semi-regular meet ups of the TWATS. I may also get the boat load of Cruel Seas plastics (see what I did there) assembled and painted but let’s not get too excited just yet. Many a promise has been made in the past about actually getting stuff on the table. I also want to get my hand in on some plastic kit construction so I may end up putting some very sorry looking Airfix kit pics on the blog at some point. 

Videogames next and 2020 promises the release of new hardware from both Sony and Microsoft. This should be something to look forward to and, to a degree, I am, but that feeling is tempered by a growing lack of time to actually play videogames. I will probably buy the next-gen X-Box (it’s been a format of choice since the first X-Box and Halo: Combat Evolved), but will probably give the PS5 a miss until I get a proper idea of whether there are any format exclusives that might warrant a purchase. Alas, unlike the PS4, there is no Uncharted game on the horizon. In the meantime, the X-Box One and Nintendo Switch are getting some attention, more the latter than the former as it really is a handy portable system to have. Without even mentioning new games though, I'll probably spend most of this year trying to clear the backlog of titles that has built up over the past few months. 

Computing next, and I plan to dabble more in using Risc OS as an alternative to Windows. The aim this year is to shift more of my regular computing needs to the former platform and see what works and what doesn't. There are, admittedly, issues and limitations that I will discuss as time passes but I like Risc OS. I like the way it works and I love the drag and drop simplicity, as well as that menu button. I’ll expand on this later but it is going to be an intellectual exercise as well as a practical one. Even though Risc OS is a niche operating system, there is still a very active community and a sense of purpose, something akin to that of the still extant Amiga OS format. Plus there are some great games (and serious software titles) that are unique to the RiscOS world that really shouldn't be missed.

Retrovideogamer.co.uk remains a nice little side project for me and one that I will continue to provide retro reviews for as long as they’ll have me. After concentrating on the 3DO for a while, I’ll be shifting to other formats for a bit but will return to that under-appreciated 32-bit machine as well. Have a gander here if retro video games is of interest. If you have any titles that you want me to look at, you can leave a comment here or get in touch via Twitter here. There will be some retro stuff also appearing on this blog as well, content that I don't think will fit into RVG's remit.

Another side project is “Then There Were Two”, an irreverent podcast starring myself and Mr Eddie Carter of Attention Please infamy. With six episodes out now, we’re getting pretty good at the monthly release cadence and 2020 should see another twelve or so episodes hit iTunes (search for eddieap under Comedy) and PodBean. There is also a Facebook page here. I might even get to promoting the damn thing as well…

Then there is this blog. Lacking attention recently, I am thinking that the (frankly daft) plan of three posts per month was too much to keep up with, especially towards the end of the year. I’ll still be posting as and when, about hobbies, interests, games, films, TV shows, books and other ephemera, but without the self-imposed pressure to put stuff out regularly.

As for down time, well, when not doing any of the above, this year should bring some good TV shows (Star Trek Picard, new seasons of The Boys, The Umbrella Academy, Titans, Star Trek Discovery to name a few). Over the past month, my good lady and I have managed to catch up with the excellent second season of Lost in Space (here’s hoping for a third), the brilliant The Witcher (due back in 2021) and, in my humble opinion, the best sci-fi show out there at the moment, The Expanse, season 4. A fifth season is filming now and I am very excited for where the story will go for this one.

And that’s it, a quick summary of the year to come. If you have any comments or suggestions, I welcome them and if you’re on Twitter, you can follow and contact me here.

And by the way, by my counting, this was my 100th post. Huzzah!!!

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...

Recent Reads - November 2019

Becoming Superman is the autobiography of J. Michael Straczynski, probably best known for creating the sci-fi show Babylon 5 in the 1990’s, but whose career is much more varied. From animated series (He-Man, She-Ra, The Real Ghostbusters), live action TV (Captain Power, Murder She Wrote, Jeremiah and Sense8), films (Thor, Changeling) and comics (Spiderman, Superman), there isn’t much that he hasn’t done – and that’s not including the “Guide to Scriptwriting” which is a go to book of its kind ever since it was published in 1982.

Buy this book. Seriously, but it now!

When this book was announced earlier in the year, I mentioned it to my good lady and she kindly offered to buy me it for my birthday. Having read it over a couple of days, I can honestly say this book made me laugh, cry, cheer and despair – and that’s just the cats!

Straczynski’s life is related with humour and a degree of honesty rarely found in most biographies. Indeed, there is little varnish here at all. Beginning with how his family made its way to the United States, and then detailing the lives of his parents, it certainly feels as if nothing has been left out. Once the set up has been completed, Mr Straczynski takes centre stage for the rest of the book.

It is not an easy read and more than once, I asked myself how exactly Straczynski ever ended up being a functioning adult. Despite the knock backs and travails, he succeeded not only at that but also brilliantly in his aim of being a writer. Along the way, you’ll find out how screwed up families can be, the pitfalls of trying to make a career out of writing and the sheer unfairness of the entertainment industry. You also, however, meet some of the colleagues and friends that have helped and nourished Mr Straczynski, and how deep the human spirit can be when you find yourself in a precarious situation. Individuals (and characters) include the late Harlan Ellison, Michael O’Hare, Jeff Conaway and Andreas Katsulas.

What Straczynski does do very well is reinforce the point that if you believe in something enough and you keep trying, there is much you can achieve. This book is evidence of that and throughout the harrowing struggles of Straczynski’s life, he never gave up. Whether it be personal issues, fighting his corner at work or hangovers from his family, his self-belief and self-awareness have carried him forward. This is a very worthy read and highly recommended.

Fiction next and “Show me a Hero” by Patrick Alexander is something a lot more cynical. Set in the then future 1980’s, (being published in the late 1970’s), it posits a Britain ruled by a far left dictatorship where personal freedoms have been crushed and a weakened resistance group are trying to bring own the government. The main character, Tom Ashman, is a high level operator with the resistance, planning a gold bullion raid to fund its ongoing operations. The primary antagonist is Colonel Julian Cunningham, chief of the Secret Police.

Alexander’s writing is terse and no-nonsense. There is little frippery and, whilst most of the characterisations suffer because of this, the two foes are defined well enough to hook you into the story. With some very on-the-mark jibes about British politics (few of which have dated at all - make of that what you will), “Show me a Hero” is an engaging tale well told. Tonally, it feels very much like those typical ‘70’s TV shows The Sweeney and The Professionals. Dated, but on the mark. There are a couple of issues though: due to the lack of smaller character development, motivations for some actions are muddled, and there is a fascination with military kit and weaponry that borders on a fetish – though not to the point of the terrible Jerry Ahern written series of post-apocalyptic novels under the Survivalist banner. It is the ending, though, that gives “Show me a Hero” its biggest punch and elevates this book above similar pulpy tomes. Truly, it ends with a wonderfully British cynicism that remains timeless.

Speaking of pulpy books, this brings me neatly to the first seven Clive Cussler-penned Dirk Pitt novels. Seven??? Well, a recent holiday to the US meant a fair bit of flying and loitering around airports so I dusted off my aged Kindle and downloaded these titles to see if, what I recall were decent stories when first read in the late 1980’s, were worthy of that recollection. As L.P. Hartley (was he J.R.’s brother???) wrote, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” and boy, is that apt here.

First off, the positive points. The seven novels: Pacific Vortex, Mayday!, Iceberg, Raise the Titanic!, Vixen 03, Night Probe!, Deep Six, demonstrate Cussler’s improved writing (note – Pacific Vortex was the sixth novel published but the first continuity-wise. It was a first attempt at a novel by Cussler and published purely as a “curio”). As each book was released, it shows Cussler becoming more adept with intricate plots and action set pieces. The familiar template of historical prologue followed by “present day” action is well established by Deep Six, as is the expansion of the Pitt universe. Characters change (smoking being the prime example here – veritable chimneys at the start, with only a couple of cigar smokers by book five) and a definitive timeline is in set up, placing the action of these novels in the then-future late 1980’s. As fantastical action thrillers, these are easy reads and decent enough time fillers.

The negatives? Sigh…

The simple stuff first: Cussler’s characterisations. Essentially, villains are two dimensional and are there to be beaten. There is never any doubt that the good guys will win. Also, Cussler’s depiction of women is, at least in these novels, dire and tone deaf. Even by the time we get to Deep Six, published in 1984, he still can’t write from a woman’s point of view without coming across as more than a little sexist. Some might say old-school gentlemanly, but a lot of female characters are there to be ogled, perused and rescued. Even supposedly strong women are no match for Pitt’s sexual magnetism. As for the other male characters, well, when one (in Iceberg) remarks of a woman “She’s too young for menopause, she must be on her period”, you know he was writing to an audience. Mayday!, however, is the one that takes the prize for the most awkward handling of a woman: Pitt’s actions, if undertaken today, would land him in court. After finding a beautiful woman still grieving her husband’s death eight years prior, he gives her a hard slap about the face and then they promptly have at it on a beach!

Then there is the representation of gay characters. Reading Iceberg again left a nasty taste in my mouth as Pitt masquerades as a gay man to fool the villain of the piece. The portrayal is offensive, all over the top camp and clothing. The language used to describer Pitt’s behaviour (“a goddammed homo act” and “he thinks I am a faggot”) are just plain nasty – though I suppose period accurate if we’re going to go there. The introduction of St. Julien Perlmutter in Deep Six starts to even out the balance but even then, upon receiving a welcoming hug, Pitt’s response is asking if Perlmutter wants a kick in the crotch. I know, as I noted before, the past is a different place but attitudes really have changed since then.

The presentation of technology in the earlier tales is very 1970’s, with computer banks and seemingly omnipotent computer decision making – very Dr Who! Cussler is, though, on more certain footing when it comes to cars and diving. 

I would like to say I’ll continue the Pitt series until the end of the solely Clive Cussler penned stories, and maybe the first he co-wrote with his son, Dirk – the humorously titled “Black Wind” - purile of me, I know! For me, I find when a co-author is added, books tend to lose that certain spark that made them decent. Then again, by that point in his career, Cussler had become so formulaic. It might not make much of a difference.

You may think I have judged these a tad harshly considering when they were published, but then again, it is useful to see where the author began and where they ended up. As you can still buy newly published (co-authored) Pitt novels today, I think it is worthwhile re-reading these and calling out where they have dated extremely poorly. Not high literature by any means, they are still worth a go if you like light-hearted thrillers. Just bear in mind that political and social attitudes have changed significantly since their first publication.

Oceans Ventured by John Lehman

John Lehman is a qualified A6 Intruder bombardier/navigator who served as Secretary to the  US Navy from 1981 to 1987. In Oceans Ventured, he relates his role in the naval build up and honing of the US Navy of the 1980's into an organisation at the peak of its capabilities. In doing so, Lehman starts by giving a potted history of the US Navy up to the late 1970's from where his account really begins, detailing the negative political and military effects of the Carter Administration. He then continues until the end of the Cold War, finishing with an epilogue detailing his thoughts on the current state of the US Navy and the geopolitical pressures it faces today.

This book had been on my wish list since publication, mostly because the late Cold War period is my thing. Having read this book over the course of a couple of days, I have to admit to being more than a little disappointed with it. It's not Lehman's writing per-se that is an issue, though his habit of jumping around with his chronology is a tad confusing. Nor is it the substance - generally there is enough detail in the vignettes to make this book worth reading. No, it's more that there are enough gaps and omissions to make you wonder what he has deliberately omitted and that makes this tome feel a little lacking.

I do have an issue with the potted history. Lehman guides us through the thinking that a strong naval force can protect and project a nation's beliefs, but when he gets to the War of 1812, his history moves onto shaky ground. Yes, the American 44's were superb fighting vessels and proved that the fledgling Navy could tackle a larger foe but Lehman is extremely disingenuous when noting the 44's record of disrupting British trade whilst ignoring the much larger Royal Navy's record in blockading US trade (and hence tax raising ability) for a much more disruptive economic effect.

There are also some factual errors. The most glaring was the Falklands War dates (2nd August to 14th June 1982!) and the comment that the Royal Navy  re-took the Islands. True, the Navy was key to the whole operation but I think there would be many who served in the RAF and Army who would add comment to their role in the conflict.

Politics rears its ugly head quite often in the book as well, with some bi-partisanship being recognised but with an overall theme of "Republican good, Democrat bad!", even to the point of commenting that some people were good at their jobs despite their political leanings. Hmmm.

Then we have the central argument. The presence of a renewed and reinforced US Navy, especially in the Atlantic and Mediterranean effectively ended the Cold War. That's not something I agree with and to be honest, once America started deficit funding it's arms build up, there was  no way the more economically constrained Soviet Union could hope to keep up. The argument about forward operation of carriers off the Kola Peninsular is also controversial and is probably better off decided on the wargaming table. I for one would not have liked to have been in CINCLANT's shoes if ordered to test out that theory. It's also here that Lehman's chronological jumping becomes the book's most confusing element, as does his habit of listing by year how many new ships the Soviets were building - ignoring the fact that ships take years to build so I am sure at one point he's added up the number of Slava-class cruisers to  way more than the four actually launched.

His treatment of the Soviet Navy hierarchy is also suspect, with quotes used to demonstrate how fearful and fawning senior Soviet Admirals were of their American counterparts and their kit. Except, as far as I know and have read, they weren't. Lehman is also being a tad disingenuous by complaining that the Soviet naval build up continued after the change in political relations, so that new ships were being commissioned into the early 1990's. This ignores the time and effort spent in constructing them in the first place and you would never expect anyone to scrap such expenditure on a whim. Finally, there is a lack of detail in some of the revelations, most notably the Kamchatka Peninsula overflight in the early 1980's. This is the second text to reference that operation but doesn't give any specifics. Even the declaration of American carrier ops in Norwegian fjords could have done with a bit more detail.

It is in the epilogue though, where Lehman climbs fully onto his soapbox and truly shows his political colours. He ponders the (in his mind) correct decision to scale down the fleet after the Cold War ended but then laments that force sizes are too small to meet the present day threats which the US Navy might face. I think Lehman is wrong here. The forces built up in the 1980's are pretty much either retired or near end of service life (with the exception of the carriers). Whilst technical advances have made individual ships more potent, they have also made them more expensive and Lehman avoids the question of how a force equivalent to the 1980's US Navy would be funded. Deficit funding back them worked as there was a period  afterwards where spending was reduced. Compare then to now, where the War on Terror has, amongst other things, left America with a debt pile that is eye watering (some $22.8 trillion!) Fiscal pressure alone would make any comparable naval build up now simply unaffordable, and that isn't including the controversial budgets for the new Ford-class carriers, the abortive Zumwalt-class destroyers and the pork-barrel that is the Littoral Combat Ship. Lehman here seems to want his cake and eat it, a  powerful naval force without considering how it could be paid for.

So, if you ignore the above issues and take Oceans Ventured as what it purports to be, you'll probably  enjoy Lehman's book. Similarly, if your politics fit in here, it could be one for you. As for me, I expected a bit more of a history and detail so it rates as ok-ish but quite a bit of a disappointment overall.