Dreamcast

My Life with SEGA puts the Dreamcast Dream Movie VCD player to the test

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Thanks to the efforts of Derek Pascarella of backdrift.net and ‘Pasca Entertainment’, Andrew Rosa reviews the Dream Movie VCD & MP3 Player from Innovation for SEGA Dreamcast.

Yes, the Video CD format may be as dead as 8-track tapes and MiniDisc. Regardless, the Saturn and Dreamcast VCD peripherals are rare, expensive, and in high demand. Aside from their ‘collectible’ status, why are so many SEGA fans so anxious to watch VHS-quality video on their SEGA consoles?

We honestly have no idea, but if you’re curious to see how this dated format fares on Dreamcast, as well as how it compares to Saturn, you’ve come to the right place.

Do you own the Dream Movie hardware but your disc is damaged or missing? Download the CDI file and burn a replacement today! You’re welcome.

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Retro Review: Space Channel 5 (Sega Dreamcast/PS2)

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The Dreamcast era was a unique time for SEGA when it came to marketing their characters. While the Saturn’s launch made the error of shifting the spotlight away from Sonic the Hedgehog, the Dreamcast launch proved that there was more than enough room for established characters as well as new faces. Joining Sonic was a lineup of first party and third party faces, from Midway’s Afro Thunder of Ready 2 Rumble and Namco’s Soulcalibur fighters to SEGA’s own creations.

Space Channel 5’s Ulala was without a doubt the most heavily marketed of these new characters, with her face seen just about everywhere. Ulala appeared in a promotional stage show at Universal City Walk, she dominated SEGA’s booth at 2000’s E3, she was seen in print and on TV and even appeared as product placement in the 2001 movie Josie and the Pussycats. There was even talk of Ulala hosting her own TV show! Suffice to say, there came a point in Space Channel 5‘s promotion where Ulala nearly overshadowed her own game. There is no doubt that Ulala is a fantastic character (she is a favorite of the SEGAbits staff, so much so that we named our podcast after her report show), but has the original game stood the test of time? Let’s find out as we look back at the United Game Artists’ classic Space Channel 5!

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Hucast Games announces Redux 2 for the Dreamcast

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We have a love and hate relationship with Hucast Games, while we admit we weren’t the biggest fans of their first entry due to technical issues, it felt even more slimy with they continued to re-release the game multiple titles and charging people for these new versions (see: Dux 1.5,  Redux: Dark Matters and the revision disc). Now the studio is ready to move on and finally release a full fledged sequel called Redux 2.

The game will come in three packaged variations:

The game is set to feature seven stages, new spacecrafts, a selection of new weapons, and 2-player co-op mode. While the game has not gotten a release date, Hucast Games is allowing users to pre-order their games now. Isn’t that generous of them?

Here are the different packages and first screenshots:

Regular Edition
Limited Edition [2-disc]
RDX2 Collectors Box [3-disc]
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Classic SEGA ads: Space Channel 5’s killer Dreamcast commercial

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SEGA fans love to wax nostalgic on old commercials. Whether they’re the fast paced and competitive ads of the Genesis/Mega Drive era, the bizarre ads of the Saturn era, or in the case of today’s featured SEGA ad, the American Dreamcast campaign featuring fun vignettes taking place inside the console. We’ve featured an ad from this campaign before, and its no wonder we’re going back to the same well because it truly is one of SEGA’s best. The campaign’s concept was simple. Viewers would be introduced to the Dreamcast console’s triangular orange light which acted as a gateway to a magical world inside the console consisting of several levels. On each of these was a different scenario, it could be a DJ party or it could be a sleepy cantina. Sometimes viewers would be treated to an epic crossover of characters from recently released and upcoming Dreamcast titles and every ad ended with a zoom out featuring the console, controller and the memorable slogan “It’s thinking…”.

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Grandia II getting a PC port based on the Dreamcast version

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GungHo announced that they’re re-releasing the acclaimed JRPG Grandia II on PC via Steam. While the game already got a PC port back in 2002, this will be a new port based on the original Dreamcast version. Aside from the usual Steam features like achievements and trading cards, the game will have both mouse and keyboard and gamepad support.

The port is the result of a survey GungHo put out, in which they asked fans which games by Game Arts they would want to see re-released and on which platforms. With Grandia II apparently getting a lot of support for a PC port. GungHo hasn’t said when we can expect to see this release or if any other much requested games like Lunar will be seeing re-releases as well.

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Year of the Developers: Experience synesthesia with SEGA’s United Game Artists

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This month we are proud to celebrate the unique and musical driven games of United Game Artists (ユナイテッド・ゲーム・アーティスツ). The team was made up of members of SEGA AM6 and headed by Sega AM3’s Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Unfortunately, the team was short lived and only released three titles under the ‘United Game Artists’ banner. Regardless, those three games have made such an impact on us gamers that we are still talking about them over a decade later.

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Classic SEGA Magazine Corner: GameFan says SEGA’s Jet Grind Radio is “the next BIG THING”

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As Smilebit Month comes to an end, we crack open one more classic magazine for a look at what gaming journalists thought of a SEGA classic. GameFan magazine was quite a unique publication at the time. From 1992 to 2000, GameFan not only covered general gaming news, but also anime, manga, and featured extensive import coverage. It really was the perfect magazine for gaming fans who were also steeped in anime and importing the latest and greatest RPGs and generally more off the wall titles. So, of course, it was only fitting that SEGA’s Jet Grind Radio received the GameFan cover treatment for their August 2000 issue and had a four page preview and interview with the then unknown Smilebit team.

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GOAT Store provides an update and cover art for indie Dreamcast game “SLaVE”

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During September of last year, longtime indie Dreamcast game publisher GOAT Store announced a new game entitled SLaVE. Described as a colorful first person shooter built around an enhanced Doom engine called 3DGE, SLaVE was due out in April of 2015. Since then, news has been light, but seeing as it is April of 2015 we finally have an update! Read the full e-mail from GOAT Store News after the break.

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How SEGA recorded authentic sounds for their console based 3DS themes

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Yosuke Okunari, producer behind the M2 3D Classics remakes and the newly announced SEGA themes for 3DS has posted behind the scenes pictures on how they got authentic console sounds for those themes. As seen above where they recorded the sound for the Dreamcast 3DS theme, I guess they start by using a really dirty and used Dreamcast to get the most authentic sound (how long has this console been left out in the sun!).

According to Okunari’s twitter post they went through 20 games for the SG-1000 before they settled at what boot up sound they liked the best, if the picture indicates anything they went with ‘Congo Bongo‘. Seems that SEGA has been very authentic lately with the sound of their 3DS stuff and that’s always nice to see.

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The SEGA Dreamcast wins Wired’s drop test

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As if you needed any more convincing that the Dreamcast is the best games console of all time! But just for the doubters ‘Wired’ have performed an ‘experiment’ in which they drop four generations of consoles, from the 16 bit, all the way to the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii. The survivors of the drop test (those which still function) are doused with Mountain Dew and tested again. There could only ever be one winner and naturally it was every ones favourite white dream machine!

So what does kill a Dreamcast? Well, my first one died when lightening struck the phone line by my house and I was playing Phantasy Star Online at the time. My second Dreamcast I had to put in storage, it died of a broken heart. However my 1991 MegaDrive/Genesis works perfectly after all these years and I’ve dropped that thing more times than your mum dropped her pants in college.

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