Hosting Issues part 2

Well, due to my dodgy host I seem to have lost all the assets to my blog theme and I stupidly forgot keep a backup so the blog looks pretty ugly now, I will sort it though!

Thanks to the hard work from Kuririn84, japanese_cake and Eric Fradella we now have the pleasure of playing a new unreleased title for the Dreamcast, Millenium Racer: Y2K Fighters. 

The game is a Sci-Fi future racing game with influences from Tron and Wipeout, it did actually get a full release on PC in 1999.

For more information on how this happened and how you can play it yourself check this article posted by Tom from the Dreamcast-Junkyard.

So to celebrate I thought I'd knock up some cover artwork based around the PAL variation.

Hosting issues??

For some reason certain images weren't showing up so I moved to a new host, all seems to be fine now.

Metropolis Street Racer Vauxhall VX220 - Opel/Daewoo Speedster - Slides/Negatives

I managed to secure these a while back, they are the slides/negatives from the photos taken of the Vauxhall VX220 (known as the Opel Speedster outside of the UK and the Daewoo Speedster for the Asian market) for the promotion of Metropolis Street Racer.

Fans of the game will notice one of the images was featured in magazine adverts and various leaflets included with select Dreamcast games.

Apparently the car used in the photoshoot didn't have an engine so had to be dragged to various shooting spots. In one of the slides you can see some of the rigging at the rear of the car, I'm guessing it was pulled backwards and snapped with a slow shutter to give the illusion of speed.

The photos where taken on 4x5 inch large-format reversal film, this is usually used for high resolution digital scanning.

Pier Solar - Collectors Edition!

Just received the Collectors edition of Pier Solar for Dreamcast, very nicely done I must say!

This was available as a perk on the Pier Solar HD Kickstarter campaign which concluded on December 5, 2012, it was a long time coming but it was worth the wait!

I went with the PAL variation arriving wrapped in custom gold paper, following this high standard they used gold ink on the game cover, inlay and manual. They also authentically recreated the PAL Dreamcast cases too, the only telltale sign is a small embossed WM logo on the blue plastic.

The particular pledge level I went with also included the official guide book, bound in faux leather and embossed with the Pier Solar logo.

I have to say, WaterMelon do go to some extremes for an indie developer, it's all very professionally done.

It also comes with a faux leather bound guide too, also created to a very high standard!

New additions: Turn Me On!

I managed to get the alternative cover print for the mockup issue of Official UK Dreamcast Magazine which was given to SEGA as a pitch to secure the official licence as I mentioned here, the content of both are the same.

They really did a great job on mocking up the magazine as the quality is amazing with silver ink printed throughout, from what I can gather there where only 50 of each printed.

Comparing them to the actual version that went to press there are a few differences, I may do a more in depth post covering these at some point.

Dream girls - Alternative unused cover

A closer look how the banner on the front of the magazine changed on the final version that went to press

On a side note, there was also a mini sample issue which you could pick up for free from stores such as Electronics Boutique and HMV, this issue was basically a cut down version of the retail issue 0 but printed in half the size with only a few pages.

From left to right, the demo pitch, the free sample issue and the final issue available for sale

Mr Dreamcast...

I managed to get hold of a magazine that I've been hunting for ages, the elusive Mr Dreamcast, this mag only ran for two issues and was aimed towards a younger market. It was a project started by the ex editor of DC-UK, also an independent Dreamcast Magazine.

The second magazine, Dreamcast Strategies I have never heard of and I have no idea how many issues it had but its nice to have it in the collection.

Trigger Heart Exelica PAL Custom Cover Art

The next PAL custom artwork is for Trigger Heart Exelica, I used a mixture of promo artwork for this but I had to recreate the entire logo in Illustrator as I couldn't find a suitable one that fitted.

 

The images are heavily compressed so may have lost some colour information

Sonic Adventure - Reebok DMX competition

This is a video I made a few years ago, could this have been the first DLC for a console game? the video shows the European-wide on-line Sonic Adventure competition that ran from December 1st to January 14th, 2000.

Contestants from across Europe could download a specially designed version of the Sonic Adventure Emerald Coast course from a website only accessible through the Sonic Adventure game CD. Gamers are required to retrieve five pairs of hidden Reebok DMX trainers which Dr. Robotnik has stolen from Sonic's wardrobe, while still competing for the fastest completion time. Times where then uploaded to Sega's servers so that contestants could gauge their rating.
The winners would then be notified via e-mail and their names published on the Sonic Home Page and on Dreamarena at the end of the competition. 

The prizes included a personalized Dreamcast pod and £1,000 worth of Reebok sportswear. 

Neil Riddaway won the challenge by finishing in 46.09 seconds

Puyo Pop Fever PAL Custom Cover Art

My attempt at recreating a PAL version of the cover art for Puyo Puyo Fever, I managed to build it using the individual high resolution source images for each of the characters.

The images are heavily compressed so may have lost some colour information

D2 PAL Custom Cover Art

Here is my attempt at PAL region cover art for D2, I've gone for a simplistic look based on the intro of the game where you see the characters blood change from red to green before your eyes.

The images are heavily compressed so may have lost some colour information

Ikaruga PAL Custom Cover Art

Some custom PAL art for Ikaruga.

The images are heavily compressed so may have lost some colour information

New additions

I managed to get a couple of cool new additions, a green PAL controller on the right and on the left the demo/mockup edition of what would become the official UK Dreamcast Magazine, this issue was not for sale, it was a dummy issue given to SEGA as a pitch to secure the official licence, the quality is amazing for a dummy issue, it even has silver ink printed throughout, the cover resembles the actual sample and issue zero of the magazine but notice the different logo and font at the top.

There was an alternative cover which never got used in the final print, apparently there where 50 of each cover printed.

Hello world...

Just a quick test post to see if the layout works as should, I intend to use this as a blog to document my various collecting of Dreamcast items along with any cool homebrew and other exciting hardware projects related to the Dreamcast I come across.

My Complete PAL collection