DreamingOn (Updated 18/01) - BlueStinger

[Welrain]

Thanks to Noobish Hat and his Chronological N64 project for providing the inspiration for my own little Chronological project starring - Dreamcast and the Official Dreamcast Magazine.

I've set-up a little blog here: http://www.dreamingon.net which I'm going to keep up to date with my experiences along with this thread. Any comments would be gratefully received.

[Welrain]

Dreaming On

It?s now coming up to 11 years since I queued outside Electronics Boutique at midnight to pick up the Sega Dreamcast. This was the first time I had picked up a console at launch and I absolutely adored it from then to its untimely and ill deserved demise (and a little beyond). As I have grown slightly disillusioned with the current generation of consoles I thought it?d be interesting to revisit the Dreamcast and do so with a twist.



Each month I will read a copy of the Official Dreamcast Magazine and shall revisit the games reviewed in that issue. So effectively I will be playing in the order of release. I also get the chance to play a number if games that I either skipped or simply couldn?t afford as most Dreamcast games are now available for a few quid via ebay.

So join me as I revisit the the Dreamcast ? chronologically!

[Welrain]

Official Dreamcast Magazine - A Taster



Well to get myself in the mood for the pending arrival of my Dreamcast (should be Monday!) I tracked down the taster issue of Official Dreamcast Magazine. If you wish to join me you can download and electronic copy of the magazine from Retromags.

As a taster for a soon to be released console the content is more or less an advert for both ODM and the Dreamcast. The cover itself is revealing ? ODM is clearly trying to move away from magazines of old and into a stylish new direction. Although in my eyes they immediately fail via the ?Turn Me On!? text on the cover.

Next I spotted the release date and cost plastered everywhere ? 23 September 1999 and ?199.99. In reality the Dreamcast didn?t get a release in the United Kingdom until October 4th 1999, not the best start.

Content wise there are the following articles.

Dreamcast Revealed ? all the facts about the Dreamcast?erm..Revealed. Lots of excitement ? Mind Blowing Games! Online! VMU! Much is made of the value of getting online with the Dreamcast rather than having to buy one of this expensive PC jobs.

First Up ? A few paragraphs bigging up (or confusingly in some cases ? not) the ten release games. There are Blue Stinger, Incoming, Millennium Soldier, Racing Simulation: Monaco Grand Prix, Virtua Fighter 3tb, Trick Style, Sega Rally 2, Sonic Adventure, Speed Devils and Powerstone.

Fourplay ? First of all??SIGH?. Four ODM readers (not sure how that?s possible given that this is the taster issue of an unreleased magazine!) play some launch games and their comments are documented. It?s all very stylish.

You Know your Obsessed ? a Husband and Wife have tattoo?s of Video Game characters. Stylish! My next mission is to track them down and find out if that was a good idea a decade later.

And that?s that. As a taster is does what is says on the tin ? presents the basic information and gets the appetite wetted for release day. The influence of the ?new? direction is clear. I?ll sign off with a little prediction by the Editor-in-Chief:

?It promises to be one hell of a ride?

[noobish hat]

Woah, so you're actually going to be more accurate than me by keeping time with the mags? October issue in October etc. I think that will add a lot to the experience, because Christmas/Summer releases will all match up and feel more exciting. I would have liked to do that with the N64, but I would have had to wait until April next year to start. The N64's lifespan is obviously longer too, so it's also good for me to be able to 'fast forward' time a little if I feel like it by reading two mags a month or whatever. The Dreamcast seems like a good candidate for this kind of project, but what about the online stuff? Are you going to be using the surviving private servers wherever you can? And are you going to be VMUing it up a notch? Can't be playing Sonic Adventure without raising some Chaos!

[Welrain]

I doubt I'll be able to keep time as I want to spend some decent time with the games but we shall see how things develop.

I think that apart from PSO and perhaps Quake 3 all the other online servers are long dead. I will try to get online with PSO though as it's the only way to play. I never spent much time with the VMU first time round but I'll give it go now.

[S3M]

Ugh the official dreamcast magazines, one of the worse DC mags it has to be said, a poor wanna be lads mag that didn't review a lot of the DC games.

Still interesting idea and a very good excuse to play the dreamcast. Out of interest GMASS do you have all the official demo disc's as well for the dreamcast. If you do I have a question, I write the PAL Dreamcast faq on gamefaqs and I was wonder if you could confirm if I think it's the third or the one numbered 3, demo disc comes with the DLC for Dynmite Cop on it called the Detonator Pack for the PAL version? Should unlock some extra characters if you use it.

Afraid the PSO servers where shut down along time ago, I think there might be unoffficial one's however.

[Welrain]

I've been reading your faq a lot Shining3Master. My stuff doesn't arrive until tomorrow but I'll have a look.

btw your mirrors for the faq are dead, with only gamefaqs left. Can I rehost for you?

[Welrain]

I'd have loved to do the project with DC-UK but I'd struggle to get hold of a full set. I will have a couple of issues that I'll be referencing though.

[S3M]

I've been reading your faq a lot Shining3Master. My stuff doesn't arrive until tomorrow but I'll have a look.

btw your mirrors for the faq are dead, with only gamefaqs left. Can I rehost for you?

Yeah I haven't got around to updating the one on gamefaqs yet the new url for my website is here http://shining3master.fortunecity.com/

Thanks for the hosting off I'll keep it in mind next I do an update, it's another one of those things I've been meaning to do for years.

It's a shame that DC-UK were also one of the first to go, I only have their last issue! Dreamcast Magazine was the longest but the mag was rather rubbish, still better than the official one.

[sj33]

Ugh the official dreamcast magazines, one of the worse DC mags it has to be said, a poor wanna be lads mag that didn't review a lot of the DC games.

In all fairness, the magazine moved away from that approach after a while and became a decent production. The earlier issues were indeed quite painful, attempting to appeal to the non-existant 'lifestyle gamer' audience that some committee decided existed. Once it became clear that the Dreamcast was destined to become niche, the magazine soon shed this element and became quite decent in late 2000/2001. Of course, after so long of relying on Sega Saturn Magazine (and Sega Magazine and Mean Machines before that), it was never going to compare.

Are you guys playing every title? Or choosing the cream of the crop from each month?

I believe the SCHTHACK PSO fan servers do support the Dreamcast versions of the game to some degree, though their primary focus is understandably Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst.

[Welrain]

I'm going to play as much as possible but I'm limited by what I already have and a non-existent budget.

[Lyris]

I liked ODM, but I didn't read the first ones. I do remember they published a letter from some "pissed off otaku" (self proclaimed) who decided that the new magazine "wasn't fit for him to wipe his arse with" or something. How pretentious!

Although they did have a point; I remember the first issue had a ridiculous number of pages dedicated to some pointless fashion-wannabe Japanophile thing. I think it was an EDGE retrospective article that mentioned that this was actually a last-minute replacement after Sega Europe effectively censored an article about online gaming (since they didn't have any for the launch).

[sj33]

I remember that letter. The guy was a bit of an arse for refering to himself as an 'otaku', but he was basically critisising the whole 'lifestyle' approach of the earlier issues. I suspect he used to read Sega Saturn Magazine which had a large amount of Japanese coverage, so the ODM approach might have been disappointing. It was hard to disagree with him, but we were spoiled by Richard Leadbetter et al. and their heavy import coverage, the lifestyle approach felt like the antithesis of this. His arguement fell apart because he chose to use the term 'otaku', basically. It is ironic that in it's later life, ODM orientated themselves more towards the 'traditonal' gamer.

[Lyris]

Yeah, it was expressed in the wrong way, even although the guy was right.

I'd guess that the Dreamcast ended up being responsible for creating a new set of "otaku" like gamers in the end.

[S3M]

In all fairness, the magazine moved away from that approach after a while and became a decent production. The earlier issues were indeed quite painful, attempting to appeal to the non-existant 'lifestyle gamer' audience that some committee decided existed. Once it became clear that the Dreamcast was destined to become niche, the magazine soon shed this element and became quite decent in late 2000/2001.

Really??? I only read the later issues and still found it to be very bad, the overal quality of the mag shows by the lack of people who talk about it and remember it.

It just wasn't a very good magazine overal, I found the reviews to be a bit hit and miss as well. They even had the cheek to insult the Saturn and SSM which really give you an idea of how desperate they where at times.

Give me DC-UK any day of the week.