PlanetDreamcast | Community | Mailbag | 5/19/00

Community - Mailbag 5/19/00 - Pass the cake, the Mailbag is back. - by BenT Wow.. sure seems like it's been longer than two weeks. E3 was pretty amazing, and totally blew us away. If you don't go in knowing exactly what you want to look at and cover, you can easily waste the whole first day just wandering in a daze from booth to booth. Not that that happened to us, of course. *cough* And of course, Frags didn't get sick and miss the second day, either. That would have been absurd. *clears throat* Anyway... E3 is behind us, I'm waiting for huge movie files to copy, and I have a ton of letters to post. Sounds like the perfect ingredients to make another Mailbomb! ... Wait, I meant MailBAG! Sorry. Right. Uh, let's hop to it. From: Mark Shellard Subject: Possible hardware problem? Hi there, I was given a Dreamcast as a door prize at work, a new in package machine. I bought hydrothunder right away and it seems to have bad "ram lag" on every track. Got the newer "Hot, new" version of Hydrothunder no change. so i thought that's odd for a console system, so I rented sonic 3 sonic cds would not work in the machine, I learned of their original problem and arranged to have a new one sent to me(hasn't arrived yet). I subscribed to dreamcast magazine after buying it, so now I have 2 copies of their demo CD may2000 vol5, the game dead or alive 2 looks just great, but it is VERY slow, it pauses for a half second every 3-4 seconds, makes the game hard to play. I talked to Devin at Sega when I setup to have my new Sonic sent to me and he suggested I was having known software problems. This was before I got the second demo CD with 2 cds doing the same thing, I really doubt it's a software problem. Do you have any good suggestions as to how to convince Sega I have a hardware problem? thanks for your time, Thanks much, Mark Shellard Sounds like hardware to me. Perhaps you should ask your employer or whomever bought the unit where it came from. I imagine it's been some time since the purchase, though, so in that case that wouldn't help. My best advice would be to call Sega directly: 1-800-USA-SEGA (872-7342). Knock their socks off. From: Al Pitterle Subject: Dreamcast Games I was wanting to play more Internet based games on my Sega Dreamcast, I already own a copy of Chu Chu Rocket, when I got an interesting e-mail. It (the e-mail) pointed me to a web site that linked to several Web TV based games. I used my Dreamcast and the Web Browser (V1.1) to connect to a site and found a single player game. It worked great. My feedback to you (Gamespy) is why didn't make their new web browser which might come out in may {I am not putting any money on that} more compatible with online game sites like Zone.com or Yahoo Games? Thank You in advance Al Pitterle Ps. I have already read a article that stated that they are not making the new browser to be compatible with the sites I have mentioned. PPS Where is the Backward compatibility? I would love to play Panzer Dragoon Saga on my Dreamcast!!!! We all know the Dreamcast browser is not the best piece of software ever written, and this is just another example of its inadequacies. As for backward compatibility, it's a really unusual feature for a console to have, not to mention that the Dreamcast and Saturn architectures couldn't be more different. Anyway, Saga plays just find on your Saturn, no? From: Oliver Smiles Subject: European DC compatability with Oz DC Hello, I live in Australia and have the chance to get hold of a UK Dreamcast thanks to a relative taking a trip overseas. (DC's in Australia are too expensive to consider getting.) My question is that if I did would the games in Australia be compatible with the UK DC? I know that with consoles in the past like the PSX all PAL systems have been compatible with one another but I thought I should make sure. After all I'd hate to get it just to find it didn't work. Thanks, Oliver Smiles (Sycada) First, let me state that Oliver Smiles is the happiest damn name I've ever seen. Wow. Getting to your question, our resident Brit, Tren sez: Yeah, the Australian Dreamcast is PAL and the Australian titles are PAL. The only problem would be the Internet software that comes with a UK DC wouldn't work in Australia as it rings a UK number, apart from that I can't foresee any difficulties. There you go. From: Chilly Willy Rice Subject: Trouble connecting can,t get get answer when dailing from modem always says can,t connect what amIdoing wrong Double-check with your ISP to see if your settings are correct. If they are, you might have to try another ISP... or run a thorough spell-check. From: Jeff Subject: Site Feedback hey! im glad I actually get to talk abut this! ever since I first looked at your site you had a hardware page. Every now and then I look back, and its like a voyage to the past. You guys never update it! Now, I realize that Hardware doesnt come out as much as games, but could you at least review some of the exisiting ones? you made one, ONE review of a not-so-good steering wheel. did you guys abandon all hardware reviewing? If you would just tell us which controllers were cool, that would make you site a lot better. I bought the preformance astropad Which i hate because of L/R buttons, they are cheap! now, this doesnt bother me beause I dont have many 4 player games, but it was a waste of 20 bucks. Oh yeah, One more thing. I looked at the steering wheels and that Radius Racing pad looks sweet. but it seems like its not out. I have had various reports of it not released yet, but that was while ago and they all said January 2000. so, I went to buy.com, (that was the only place I could find it being sold) and it said they would get it in stock in one to 2 weeks. Im like, ok, so I might have to wait a couple days to get it. so I ordered it and In my mail is a Normal DC controller. I went back to the site and it is still on 1-2 weeks. Im not yelling at you for this, but since it is on your site, could you give me some info on this sweet sounding pad? is it canceled? only out in Japan? very very hard to find? what? It was abandoned due to a lack of time. I'm not sure that I haven't mentioned this here before, but I'll say it anyway. PlanetPS2 finally got its own dedicated Site Director last week, so I was able to stop two-timing on PDC and running that site. 93.6% of my time can now go towards PlanetDreamcast, so you guys should see a lot of improvements and new features in the coming months. A good example is our Cheats Database, which recently went from majorly outdated to majorly cool. :) In regards to the Radius pad, we haven't seen heads or tails of it either. Just gotta wait and see. From: Kyle J. Subject: A good idea... I good idea would be to update your "Top 10" section... Where's Rayman 2, MDK2, Dead or alive 2, or Maken X or all of the new games that definately out-rank "NFL BLITZ 2000", "WETRIX+", and 'TOY COMMANDER"... Thanks alot! -Kyle- Yep yep. See above. I'm on it. From: Torn Subject: DC Price will dreamcast lower its price in U.S? Yes. At E3 Sega announced a new rebate in their SegaNet program, which gives you $50 back on the purchase of your system. Add that to the original $200 savings that a SegaNet subscription brings, and you've got one pretty sweet deal. From: John Bedinghaus Subject: fix the site up for dreamcast owners This was the first time I've been to your site, and I liked the content, but It totally sucks viewing through the dreamcast. I hate those stupid green boxes, and I have to move the analong stick side to side to read the text. I usually wouldn't write in to a site I just visited, but that shot at those crappy ps final fantasy games in the letter section got me interested in the site. Those games were all hype, and no fun to play (watch). The reson I surfed onto your site was to get some good n64 quake 2 codes, but they must not exist. ps. What's wrong with the ign site when using the mighty dreamcast? Yeah, designing for the Dreamcast crowd was overlooked when PDC was created last year. There's not much to be done about it at the moment, since all GameSpy sites now have a "unified" (similar) design. The programming dudes could probably throw together a quick hack that would make the front page news display all purty on the Dreamcast, but the rest of the site's content would be very difficult to "fix" in any reasonable way. Rest assured that the issue's on our collective minds, though. From: Largand Subject: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure I noticed that the playstation version has the super story mode and the mini games, on the back of the dreamcast case it states that it has the super story mode and mini games also, now all i see in the dreamcast version is the regular story mode, which i know for a fact is not the same as the super story mode, and the challenge mode, did capcom take those features out of the dreamcast version, and if they did then why did they leave it advertised on the back of the case for the dreamcast?? Capcom are stark raving liars. Well, at least in this case. Sony has a long-running policy wherein games that appear on other platforms must include some exclusive content or feature in the PSX version. In the case of JoJo's, the PSX exclusive feature is the super story mode that you're looking for, unfortunately. One amusing story about this policy comes from Lobotomy Software, the guys who made PowerSlave for the Saturn and PSX. Sony wanted an exclusive feature for their version, so Lobotomy simply changed the spiders in the Saturn version into scorpions on the PSX. Walla, a PSX "exclusive" is born. ;) From: Todd Esson Subject: New Review Feedback I love it! You guys should have done this in the 1st place! Cool, glad you like it. Next time we go back in time, we'll fix things up. From: J Whitt Subject: Format Hey PDC Team, Just wanted to comment on your great & awesome review format for Gundam Wing: 0079 Side Story or whatever the heck its name is. How did you capture those videos and screens? They look great. If you ever need someone to do the news or review something, give me a message ;-) From: Jason Xtreme Subject: Vid Capture what do you use to take snapshots of games? Frags and I have Studio DC10 video capture cards in our computers. It's supposed to be pretty good for a consumer capture card, and has both Composite and S-Video inputs. That's hooked up to an ASCII S-Video input selection box, which allows you to plug in up to 6 audio/video sources at once. It's essential gear for anyone who has a bunch of consoles, but unfortunately they're not produced anymore. (NCS currently has some in stock, if you've got $50 burning a hole in your pocket.) Unfortunately, the DC10 has at least one major flaw: it can't capture or take snapshots of low-res video! That's why you don't see movies in our reviews for games like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure or Plasma Sword. So why did we buy them? Ask Fragmaster. :| Anyway, to get screenshots for lo-res games we fall back on Snappy, an absolutely crap screen capture device that runs through a computer's parallel port. Frags has been using it since he started PlanetDreamcast, and it unfortunately still comes in handy. Beastly little thing. Snappy, that is. Not Frags. I'm sure that's a lot more than you wanted to know, eh? The moral here is research your purchases. From: THE DARKMASTER Subject: old school games I was just wondering. Why don't you guys try bringing back some of your older titles. Games like Streets of Rage, Shinobi, and Golden Axe. Those games did pretty well. That was on a 16-bit system. Now imagine them on a 128-bit system. I'm a playstation hater. They deal with radios and stuff like that. they shouldn't come into our world and do better than us. I heard about castlevania ressurection. I was really looking forward to getting it. After someone told me that it was cancelled I was disappointed. They said that 3D just wouldn't work. I beg to differ if that be the case. All someone has to do, is sit down and watch a good Dracula movie, and take notes.I would suggest using someone other than Simon's mommy. How about this, make a game like one of those old kung-fu flicks. With the same movement and sound effects. I think it would do well.Yeah give it a good storyline, should do just fine. Also you should make more Street Fighterish fighting titles. That way when you finally beat the game it's still worth something. You can always challenge a friend. Remember Arch Rivals That could probably be done as well. Just give it more attitude and violence. Beating up cheerleaders, coaches, and fans, as well as players. Totaly thrashing them with chairs, kicks,stomps , and double team efforts. Even have it were you could attack people before a game. If they can't walk they can't play. Have a famous rapper do a soundtrack. Try the same for Streets of rage. And especially Shinobi. I'm pretty sure you'd know who to get for Shinobi. But just in case you wouldn't. It would be Wu-tang. See now not only are the games good to play. They're also good to listen to. I do hope that you at least consider my ideas. Hopefully I'll see them in EGM magazine soon!!! Hello, THE DARKMASTER. First, I'd like to thank you for writing to us here at the PlanetDreamcast division of Sega Enterprises, Ltd. Your enthusiasm for our games is appreciated. While the idea of Shinobi tossing ninjitsu throwing-chairs at incensed basketball players to the phat beats of a pseudo-mystical African-American rapper has merit, we unfortunately cannot accept unsolicited ideas for new games. Besides, that idea was already used in Atari's I, Robot and Broderbund's Battle of Olympus. Thanks for your continued interest! Sincerely, PlanetDreamcast From: Jono M. Forbes Subject: Soul Reaver 3 Hi Gang, People at planet DC- I recenly beat Soul Reaver (and I think it is one of the best games in history), but it says 'to be continued' at the end. Are you planning a Soul Reaver 3? Jono M. Forbes Hello, Jono M. Forbes. First, I'd like to thank you for writing to us here at the PlanetDreamcast division of Sega Enterprises, Ltd. Your enthusiasm for our games is appreciated. While the idea of a Soul Reaver 3 sounds quite intriguing, we'd like to gently request that you let us finish making the second goddamn game first. In the meantime, you might try searching for the super-secret cake bonus round in Soul Reaver 1. We trust you'll find it quite rewarding, not to mention moist! Thanks for your continued interest! Sincerely, PlanetDreamcast From: D-T-Ki Dood Subject: What's this supposed to be??!! the mailbag is one of those fiendish cotraptions which force us, the casual, impressionable readers to write and (against our will) wait in anticipation to see our own written words along with some other pointless text. when something as fiendish as this goes bad, a pattern is broken, and that ruins my whole week! I hope you're happy. I take the time to write you, and you let the server go bad. where' the humanity. before I give you time to think about what you did (or what you let the mail server do) I have 1 question: what's with the cake? is that some sort of private joke? that's all. bye, D-T-Ki_d00d_ What cake? :/ From: Dracmonster Subject: Where the hell is my mailbag?! Alright, is Frags holding the letters hostage or what?! Two weeks in a row without a mailbag! Explanations, please. =) First there was an email server calamity, and then there was E3. That'll do it, believe you me. It looks like clear sailing for the near future, though! From: DaLynX Subject: Messiah is an RPG actually u say in ur little thing its action, but its officially billed as an RPG... i mean its an action RPG, but an RPG none the less, the goal of the game isn't ta go kill, its to infultrate.. if ur REALLY good, shots need not be fired Or not. I'm sick of the term RPG being used loosely for every freaking title out there. Zelda is not an RPG, people, and neither is Messiah. Gosh dang darnit. From: John Yoon Subject: Sega GT I just heard the news today... I can't close my eyes and make it go away... Now I feel Bono's pain. If it is true that Sega GT is going to be a direct port of the Japanese version with NO new cars or tracks, it is not going to come CLOSE to achieving the greatness of that other Sony driving game. While I realize that Sega is in somewhat of a rush to gain market share to stave off the impending PS2 onslaught, as a gamer, I feel somewhat dissed. One of the coolest things about Gran Tur is the HUGE selection of cars. If you love cars, this adds SO much replay value to the game (those in the know, you know what I mean). Who wants to drive around in 100 variations of an underpowered rice-rocket? Okay, that's a little extreme, but seriously, how can you compare, much less even mention in the same breath, a Nissan and a Ferrari? I don't think anyone dreams about driving or owning a Skyline GT-R. While this is a damn fine piece of automotive engineering, it doesn't inspire awe or wonder, or, as the case may be, lust, which a (insert Ferrari or Lamborghini model of choice) certainly does. Even if it's only a videogame, driving a Ferrari is just DAMN COOL. I have no doubt that Sega GT will have spectacular gameplay, which is the most important thing in a game - I'm just disappointed that Sega will not make this game GREAT by adding more cars. Well, given Sega's situation, I guess they have to make tough decisions to ensure that they don't get steamrolled by the Sony juggernaut. I'm out like the Spurs. john yoon aka jjybruin I'm afraid I'm not really into driving sims as much as you are, but I can see where you're coming from. Good points. And uh... I like blue cars. From: Daniel Di Iorio Subject: about Resident Evil hi my name is daniel. i was just wandering if you could please tell me what resident evil's are going to be released in the future on the dreamcast. thanks. Hi Daniel. It's odd; I once knew a karate expert by that name. But anyway, at the moment there are no new Resident Evil games headed to the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast "value edition" of Resident Evil 2 was released in the UK earlier this year, but it doesn't look like we'll ever be getting that here. Of course, if a new Resident Evil game does get announced, you can bet the Resident Evil Survivor's Guide will be on top of it. From: Slipknot Subject: Resident Evil do u have codes like unlimited ammo and invinsabilaty? iu could please send or o u have a good sie 4 this? There is an unlimited ammo code for the demo version, but to the best of our knowledge no such codes exist in the final game. Speaking of Resident Evil, there's a very cool quote in the current issue of NextGen (6/00) from Shinji Mikami, a producer for the series. He states, ""If I didn't have to consider whether it would sell or not, based purely on creating a great game, Dreamcast is a better environment." And further: "PS2 is harder than Saturn, hands down". Interesting little statements, no? (And further proof that money is the root of all evil.) From: Uno50Uno Subject: ? should tony hawk be on the list to? Sure, why not? Since the last Mailbag we've gotten a lot of good suggestions for improving PlanetDreamcast, and we'll be implementing a lot of the more feasible ones in the coming months. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. Question: Now that Sega's riding high off E3, do you think they can maintain the momentum against the looming Sony juggernaut? Give us your two cents! Welp, it's 11:42 and I have to ride my bike home (no car!) and get some sleep, so I can come back bright and late tomorrow morning to button up our E3 coverage. So, methinks I'll be headed home, right about now. Have a cool weekend, and don't eat anything I wouldn't.