PlanetDreamcast | Community | Mailbag | 6/15/01

Community - Mailbag 6/15/01 - AOL, Racing and Canned Games - by RaptoR Saturday means mailbag! This week's mailbag contains a variety of questions and comments, so let's dive in... Welcome to the PDC Mailbag. Every week we toss in a bunch of letters from our readers and do our best to dazzle you with wit and wisdom. Roughly, that translates to copying/pasting your emails and writing the first thing that comes to mind. But hey, you take what you can get. If you have something you want to contribute to the Mailbag, send it to this address! From: [email protected] Subject: hi can you tell me if i can use my own server ie aol to connect and go online thanks paul Unfortunately you can't use AOL to access the net through your Dreamcast. This is because AOL uses a special software rather than a regular windows dialup connection to connect. However, you can use any ISP that provides you with a dialup number with your Dreamcast. From: steve davis Subject: whats up with half-life is it canceled or something thats about it Yep, yesterday we received word from Sierra that... "Sierra regrets the cancellation of Half-Life for the Dreamcast due to changing market conditions" For more information, read digitaltaco's post on the main page. From: Jonas Subject: Shenmue II I dont relly have news but I whant news. Do you know a place on the net were you can find info about Shenmue II? Greatest regards Jonas That would be right here on PDC. We' (with the help of our news hound, Celeryface), will keep you up-to-date on all the latest developments regarding top DC games like Shenmue II as they arrive. Keep checking the front page for more info. From: BaSe Subject:   Hi there, In the top racing games you've missed the best of the DC crop of racers. MSR deserves a place on there. Its so much better than Wacky Racers, as well as Sega GT. Come on dudes, get it up! BaSe What? Wacky Racers but no MSR? We'll add it right away. From: Damnation R. Subject: Networking DC and PC Fellow Dreamcast users, I have a question for my newly purchased DC; is it possible to network my DC to my PC if I try it useing the broadband adapter? If I do that, would I still be able to play all those online games (yes, those many hundreds... Like Phantasy Star Online.... and.... and.....) withought any problems? If it makes any difference (which I doubt) I use COX (lol, I still love saying that) for my cable. Another side question, who makes the video card for the playstation? I know nVidia makes it for Microsoft (yummy XBox and GeForce 3) but what about the DC? Thanks. -Damnation What do you mean by 'networking your DC and PC together'. You can't plug a network cable into the back of your Dreamcast and expect it to communicate with your PC, but you can use your cable connection with your Dreamcast if you've got a Broadband Adapter. PSO doesn't officially support the BBA, but to be honest there's very little lag anyway. In reply to your other question, both the PSone and PS2 use a graphics chipset created by Sony. The Dreamcast uses the PowerVR 2 chipset, which is used on some (perhaps a little dated) PC graphics boards. From: [email protected] Subject: hi do you know any cheat about streets of rage 2 ? Check out our sister site, GameSpy's CheatingPlanet for all your cheating needs. From: Charles Woodard Subject: I don't know about errors in the existing data, but I know that Shenmue II, Virtua Tennis II and Dragonrider: Chronicles of Pern have at least been announced and you don't even have them listed. I'll admit that a few recently-announced games have slipped past the Dreamcast Games Database, partly due to the PDC shuffle, amongst other things. The section should be updated very soon. From: Viktor Subject: DC Problems Hi, i read on the mail bag page that John, the guy from Czech, has some problems getting connected to the web with his DC. You answered him to enter the account details of his own ISP but this doesn't work when you try it with Europen software! In Europe there is only one (old) webbrowser available: v1.5. It is a special version which differs from the one you get in America: You can't use your own account because Sega is under contract with one ISP in each country where the DC is officially sold (Spain/France/England/Germany/Italy) and that's why the European browser software is customized to one particular ISP which is very expensive. As a result you can't access the internet from Czech with the regular software as they get their Dreamcasts from the other European countries. If John wants to get connected to the web he'll have to download the American webbrowser v2.0 or v2.6 and burn it on CD (I'd recommend v2.0 as it has better compatibility with PAL-games). Here's a link to a German where you can download the webbrowser: http://www.dreamsaves.de/ds/download/pc-stuff/browser/body_browser.html The burnt webbrowser-CD will work with any European DC without a modchip or a boot-DC. With it John can enter his own account details. They are saved to the DC-internal memory and the PAL-games will use the new account instead of Seganet to get connected (this will work with most PAL-games, not with all)! Now John should be able to use the webbrowser and play online games with his own ISP. When he doesn't own a CD burner or can't get the software for any reason he can also get the American NTSC version of an online game (e.g. Quake 3 Arena) and enter his account details there, it should work the same way. I hope this'll help John Greetings, Viktor Thanks for all the information, Viktor. This should help other Dreamcast owners from the Czech republic who are having problems getting online. From: [email protected] Subject: To whoever will be answering this, i must implore you to answer this quetsion: are there any good lightgun games, import or otherwise for the dreamcast. I am a lightgun game nut and love House of the Dead, but i don't want to buy the DC lightgun for only one game. Please tell me if there are more in existence. Thank you The only other light gun shooters available for the Dreamcast are Confidential Mission and Virtua Cop 2, which is available on the Sega Smash Pack Volume 1 disk. In my opinion it's worth buying a Dreamcast gun for these games alone. With Dreamcast add-on prices dropping all the time, you might be able to pick the gun up for as little as $10-20 if you shop around.   From: Rich Bennett Subject: Question Since the Dreamcast is going away, I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to buy any "extra supplies" that I might need in the future. I tend to hold on to systems and play them for a long time, even after they have been supported. Before I purchased my Dreamcast, the last system I owned was a Genesis, and I played the hell out of that thing up until 2 or 3 years ago. One of the reasons I stopped at that point was that all my controllers were beat to hell. Sure, I could have gotten some new ones off eBay, but I didn't. So, that in mind, what extra supplies should I get? Two or three extra controllers? A few extra VMU's? Should I buy the race wheel now just to have it should I get a racing game later? Should I even buy an extra system and keep it off to the side in case my current system goes through a melt-down? Rich Bennett The Dreamcast may be dying, but it's certainly not worth stocking up on peripherals just yet. We can expect to see Dreamcast units and add-ons becoming more and more rare by around mid-2002, after Sega stop publishing new Dreamcast titles. If you want to beat the rush, try and pick up any peripherals you might want by early 2002. These might include the standard controllers and memory cards, as well as rarer items such as the arcade stick and DC gun. Dreamcast prices might even have fallen enough for you to pick up a second console at an affordable price. From: rtompson456 Subject: [email protected] who i want to buy dreamcat Congratulations, your letter has received the PlanetDreamcast "WTF" award. That's it, the end of this week's PlanetDreamcast mailbag. But never fear, we'll be back next week with more witless answers to your Dreamcast questions and comments. Want to have your say? Mail this handy address.