PlanetDreamcast | Community | Mailbag | 6/16/00

Community - Mailbag 6/16/00 - Miscellaneous - by BenT This was a week of great tragedy, for SNK announced their intent to cease and desist all US and Asian operations. ("Asian" refers to outside of Japan.) This means, of course, that the venerable Neo Geo Pocket is getting canned, and is being pulled from store shelves as we speak. What terrible news... the Neo Geo Pocket is/was the coolest little system to come along in ages. Sure, its library was skewed heavily toward fighting and puzzle games, but they were almost all top-tier titles that blew away what Nintendo's Gameboy had to offer. The Neo Geo Pocket was a truly viable alternative to Nintendo's lurching dinosaur of a system, and it's with great sadness that I watch it die. Sure, game development will still go on in Japan, but it just won't be the same. And this happened just as SNK was achieving widespread retail visibility, too. What a waste. Anyway, if you're interested in portable gaming and don't yet have one of these, I strongly advise you to raid your local stores immediately. As time goes by, Neo Geo Pocket software is going to become extremely difficult to find, and the last thing you'll want to do is pay out your nose on eBay six months from now. Rantings aside, it's time for another Mailbag -- a very mixed one, this week. Let's dive in. From: Korran Subject: 1 million dollar question Ok, if you can answer this ,without having to signup in Japan, then you are the true Sega master. Ready? Ok, we just bought the gameshark for the dreamcast, and as all you know, you can use it to play Japanese games, on US systems, now what you also know is that the import games will detect the USA modem and you setup for the internet. Now like most of you out there , maybe with this in mind, you, yourself might want to try playing your import online games, Here is the problem: The problem is, that when the system connects to your ISP, it will try to send info in Japanese and not in English, so your ISP cannot even understand your log in user name. Question: How do you get around this problem ? Let's play who wants to be the Sega master I know of no way to do what you're asking, short of replacing the system's BIOS with an American version. Any of you clever readers have a workaround? From: rentu Subject: virtual on, a quick question? do the import twin sticks work with US dreamcasts? i would hate to waste the time looking for them and/or ordering them and not having them work. thanks brian bergstrom Yes, they do. Good luck finding them, though. From: Joseph M. Subject: lightgun part 2 hey, since my last letter i exchanged the old gun for a new one (madcatz still) and the new one is dead on. i already beat all the training modes and the game and everything never losing a civilian and getting tons of headshots. just wanted to follow up on my last letter, so if anyone's gun does what mine did it is in fact defective. Glad to hear it. From: D-T-Ki_d00d_ Subject: Rare our way? Are there any Rare games our comin' our way? maybe a "Perfect Dark" port? thanx, D-T-Ki_d00d_ p.s. I wish I had your job... There's no way you'll ever see a Rare game on the Dreamcast, or for that matter any non-Nintendo system. If you wanna play stuff by Rare, you gotta buy an N64. Along the same lines... From: Marc Subject: EA Hello guys, I am just wondering....will EASPORTS release any game for sega DREAMCAST????? what�s happening to the DREAMCAST????? I think they�re following the same row as SATURN.....If they dont�t release more interesting and strong titles, they�ll be smashed by SONY�S PS2..... thanks for your attention. greeting, Marc. EA is never going to develop for the Dreamcast. They made the decision early and have stuck to it, despite much criticism from gamers and (just recently) from investors. There's not much we can do about it. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that sports titles are by and large the only worthwhile thing EA has to contribute to a console. It seems that Sega Sports is doing a fine job of covering all the bases there, so I don't really miss EA much at all. Still, I'm not a sports enthusiast, so a lot of people will probably disagree with that assessment. From: Sector Subject: Shining Force 4? HI, Do you guys by any chance know if there will be another Shinning Force sequal for the Dreamcast? I love the series, the best role playing game in my opinion. I hated the Final Fantasy style of combat mode. The zoom in battle sequence is what sets Shinning Force apart from the other role players. Not to mention the great story line and originality of characters and locations. The ability to promote your characters into fully armored fighters is also great. I would love to see this game in 128-bit and i'm sure alot of other people would agree. -Sector As was reported earlier this week, there are no Shining Force titles in development for the Dreamcast. With only a few exceptions, Sega has nevered seemed keen on updating their older games for the Dreamcast. Too bad. From: Ryan Lemon Subject: Dreamcast in the UK I live in the UK (Northern Ireland, to be precise) and I don't already own a Dreamcast (I'm so broke, but I'm working on it) but I already feel let down by Sega. I don't particulary blame Sega, but I do put a lot of the blame on the British public. I don't know about other countries, but the people in the UK are somewhat blinded by Sony and their mass marketing. Since Sony's little console appeared on the shelves, a new breed of gamer has arrived, the casual gamer. These are the type of people who buy games on the content of their flashy graphics and/or endorsments by sport stars. The Playstation created these people because it made gaming accessable and "cool". Although this was great for computer gaming in general because it helped raise the profile that computer weren't for geeks and especially helped Sony's profits, I feel that now the computer games industry is damaged. The public perception over here is that "Playstation is god and we all have to wait for the new one" but I for one don'y follow this view. Although I do own a Playstation and am very happy due to my collection of triple-A titles, I am no longer excited by Sony. I'm a firm believer that a console is only as good as its games, and what I've seen so far for the Playstation2, Sony have got themselves a crap console. I can see right through Sony and a lot of other people can as well, but the 20-somethings that fuel our industry (over here at least) can't. This is why the Dreamcast is failing over here. There are simply too many people waiting for Playstation2, and not experiencing the absolutely brilliant games that the Dreamcast has to offer (like Crazy Taxi, Soul Caliber, etc). This I cannot blame Sega for. What I do blame them for is giving UK gamers (and European gamers) a hard time and little support. Because the Dreamcast's reception in America has been rather good, Sega has given a lot of support (and quite right it should). the point I'm trying to make is that you Americans get a 56k modem, we get a 33k modem, you get the chance of a free Dreamcast and keyboard or rebate and all we get is a free game (in the form of Chuchu Rocket). I've heard that Sega maybe offering a similar offer to the free Dreamcast for signing up to their ISP to European users, but I bet that it'll probably fall through. All I can say to Sega is don't give up on the UK market. I am really looking forward to online gaming through the Dreamcast and especially their excellent arcade conversions (which I consider the best in the world). If Sega withdraw from the UK market, what hope is their left for me and others like me. Ryan Lemon P.S. If I haven't already waffled on a bit already, I have some questions. 1. What details do you have of any future peripherals for the Dreamcast like the Dreameye, DVD drive, Zip drive, a mouse,and the "LAN" adapter? 2. What details do you have on the future online games? 3. This is a theory but I was wondering, with Dreamcast having Windows C.E. and being able to play online against P.C users in Quake 3 Arena, do you reckon that Microsoft's X-Box could play online with both the Dreamcast and P.C's? P.P.S. If there's a load of mistakes bite me. It was late. Thanks for the letter. Some answers: 1. No firm plans on Sega releasing DreamEye in the West. It seems likely, though, and was on display at E3. There is almost certainly not a DVD add-on, much less one that would play DVD games. (Can you say 32X?) The Zip drive is most likely dead. The mouse is coming in the not-too-distant future, and the LAN Adapter before the year is out. 2. What do you specifically want to know? We're going to see an explosion of online-compatible games around Q3, with titles like Quake III, Outriggers, 4x4 Evolution, and the Sega Sports titles. It's gonna rock. :) 3. That will depend on the specific game. Certainly, any game written for a console with online capabilities has the potential to be network-compatible with its incarnations on other platforms. It's entirely up to the programmers to make it work. Whether or not the game uses WinCE (yuck) shouldn't have a bearing on this. From: Nabnut Subject: DC Dead in UK Dear PDC, the Dreamcast is not quite dead in the UK - and even if it was, it's not due to "half-assed support" (well maybe here in Ireland - we didn't get internet access until April). It's just that the public buy PSX and nothing else. Ireland has the highest number of PlayStations per head in the world after Japan (this is a fact). But SEGA are trying - they gave us all a free copy of Chu Chu Rocket! on Friday which is nice. Also, about the whole mouse/keyboard thing for FPSes, couldn't you have a Turok-esque control system (ABXY buttons go foward, back and straife, while analog stick aims, each direction on the d-pad could be programmed to select a different weapon, right trigger could fire, and left-trigger could cycle weapons?) Nabnut A number of console FPS already use the setup you describe... I think the N64's Turok: Dinosaur Hunter may have been the first. It's better than digital, but will never beat the old mouse and keyboard combo in comfort and versatility. From: Jason Xtreme Subject: PlanetDreamcast Reviews - Simple Request From now in reviews on could you guys post if the game is compatible with VGA..? It would help me out alot with trading DC games online and etc. If the game lists VGA compatibility in the manual or packaging, we include that information at the end of the review. Still, I imagine there are some VGA-compatible games whose compatability is not officially listed anywhere in the documentation. We'll start doing our own VGA testing to rectify this. Thanks for the suggestion! From: Rick Subject: gameshark support is bad Hi, i have the dreamcast gameshark and i love the fact that it lets me play import games, but besides that i think you should know about the support for this thing. As it goes this gameshark is not a pro so the customers cant hack the games themselves, and from what i have been reading in their forums, it seems that interact does not want anyone else hacking games except for them, they refuse to give hacking kits to other sites, now i like my shark and the codes that are available are very good, but now we are only getting codes for one or two games a week, and for games that have been out a while like sonic and dynamite cop there are no official codes, although some fans have posted so sonic codes that they have manage to find on their own.. When ever we post a topic stating out unhappiness with their support, especially in the sega decussion forum on their site, their moderator is very rude and he deletes most of the topics he dosent like, now i know that codeboy is working his ass off trying to get us codes , but i think he needs help big time. For a system like the dreamcast i think that the more sites that have hacking kits, the faster codes we the customes will get, as it goes now if not for the fact that it let me play imports i would have probably have taken this back already, could you get some answers why the situation is like this? Why they didnt make this a pro so we could hack our own games? And most importantly why they refuse to give out hacking kits to there sites? one of the moderators said that it would hurt their sales and business and that is why they didnt do it, but i think that the more codes the more dreamcast games sharks they sell. This is just my opinion in the subject... What can I say? It's a screwed up situation all around. From: Ryan Tsou Subject: FPS continued Alright, I can see how the dreamcast FPS games will kick. I probably will spend the countless dollars to buy peripherals and such just to play Half-Life on the dreamcast though I already own the much beloved game for computer. Also, renting Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament couldn't hurt either as they are also my favorites. Finally it comes down to a final question. These games surely will be awesome but what about the replay value. How the hell are you going to play all the numerous mods for Half-Life, Quake 3, and Unreal Tournament on the dreamcast? TFC, Counter-strike, and Action Half-Life are just a small portion of the great mods made for half-life. That's just a small portion of the multiplayer mods too. What about extra single-player levels? Also, Quake 3 has its 'Weapon Factory' and Unreal Tournament has its 'Infiltration.' What will happen to these great mods on the dreamcast? Will there even be mods for FPS games that are ported to the dreamcast? Most console FPS ports will not support complicated mods and add-ons like Action Half-Life or Jailbreak. It's just the nature of the beast -- console games are currently not as extensible as their PC counterparts. There is some good news, though. Quake III for the Dreamcast will have the ability to run server-side mods, meaning mods that do not require any special downloads or client packs. Hopefully other console-ported FPSs like Half-Life and Unreal Tournament will follow this example. From: Peter Y. Liu Subject: u r so wrong mortal kombat gold is the best fighting game for dreamcast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nah, everyone knows that Psychic Force 2012 is the best. From: Wisgary Torres Subject: HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA Damn Bitches Ps2 makers im gonna @!#$@ trash the damn ps2 maker factory or wherever the hell its made and im gonna change it all the ps2 maker makes dreamcasts and then im gonna go to te remaining ps2 chips and put plastic bombs ion it and when theyre all sold im gonna make the damn bomb explode and kill everyone that has a ps2 HAHAHAHHAHAHA IO WILL REIGN AS SUPREME RULER OF YOUR WORLD PUNY SONY HAHAHAH!!!!!! P.S. WATCH OUT NINTENDO IM WATCHING YOUR ASS TOO HAHAHAAHAHAHA IM GONNA MAKE YOU PAY FOR RELEASING YOSHI STORY HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU WILL DIE!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!!! AHHAHAHAHHAH!!!!!!!! OH AND BTW WHAT KIND OF A STUPID NAME IS DOLPHIN FOR A CONSOLE HAHAH!!!!!!HAAHAHAHHAHAH!!! Seek help. That's it for this week. Keep the letters coming, to this handy address. Sorry to be brief, but I gotta run. Until next week!