Caster indie 3rd person shooter

Hey guys and gals. I am here again with another piece of news today for you. This time it is about an upcoming indie game for our favorite little system.

It has come to my attention by my good friend Vasiliy, that there is a new game that has a high possibility of getting ported to the Dreamcast. All we need to do is to show our support to the devs and let them know we seriously want this great game ported to the system.

Caster is an episodic game that presents an intense 3rd person action shooter experience with pulse pounding music that will keep you wanting more! And more you will have with all new episodes for FREE. That's right, buy the game once and get all additional episodes absolutely free!



Dash across Scenic Locations destroying bug like creatures called the Flanx using 6 Unique Attacks that include Massive Terrain Deformation and High Speed Barrages of Energy Blasts!

If you want to show your support please make a post at their blog here

You can find their main site and download a playable demo for your PC, Mac, or Linux based computer here.

It has some pretty revolutionary and innovative gameplay, so please give it a try and see for yourself why this is such an amazing game that deserves to be on the Sega Dreamcast!

Aero Fighters 2 (NEO4ALL) Review

Original release:

1994

Game details:

Standard controller

1-2 players

VGA box

The following game was not officially released for Sega Dreamcast. It is emulated using NEO4ALL beta 4 developed by chui. This is an evaluation of the emulation of the game as well as the game itself.

Using Team RDC's release you can play this game as though it is a commercial game with only a brief loading screen.

Emulation

Absolutely perfect. The game plays flawlessly. I encountered slowdown twice when there was really heavy action on screen, but I can't imagine that the actual hardware handled those times without slowdown.

Gameplay

I have to get this off my chest right away. I fucking love this game. Why? Because you can be a fucking dolphin. Nothing I had heard about this game prepared me for that. I always assumed it was a completely standard shmup (which it is), but you can be a dolphin. You don't see the dolphin; he's in the cockpit, but that doesn't change the fact that you're a dolphin. I'm also not going to lie in that I usually play the game through with several characters for a review. Not here. I saw the dolphin, I played the dolphin, and my review is based on the dolphin. If you play this game with any other character, you're doing it wrong. Shame on all of us as gamers for not holding this game in the highest regard throughout history. This was developed by mad geniuses.

I love the game so much because it's a totally normal shmup. There's nothing bizarre about it. If you came up to it in the arcade you wouldn't expect anything different in tone from 1942. But once you insert your coin and go to choose your character…there's a dolphin. Between missions, he jokes about how absurd it is. And when you get to the final boss… it's one of those monkey toys that claps the cymbals together, like this. I don't care if that's a spoiler. There's nothing good to say about this game except for how absurd it is. It is absolutely your average shmup. I don't know if this insanity persists for other pilots you can choose but it doesn't matter, like I said, if you're not the dolphin, you're doing it wrong.

While playing the game, you'll do missions in various real life cities. One of those cities is New York. This is based on the actual New York of course, and the Twin Towers are present. I was blindly shooting and found out you can blow them up. I cringed for a minute… but then I realized I was a dolphin flying a jet.

Storyline

YOU'RE A FUCKING DOLPHIN, FLYING A JET! GET TO IT!

Graphics

Very average. The dolphin is drawn adorably in the cut scenes between missions, though.

Sound

Also average. A disappointing lack of dolphin sounds should be noted.

Conclusion

Everyone should play this game. I had a blast with it for no real reason other than the absurdity that I was a dolphin. If you didn't pick up on that by now, you can be a dolphin and I love it. This is a great example of how a sense of humor and the developers having some fun can turn an average game into something great.

8.0/10

Super Baseball 2020 (NEO4ALL) Review

Original release:

1991

Game details:

Standard controller

1-2 players

VGA box

The following game was not officially released for Sega Dreamcast. It is emulated using NEO4ALL beta 4 developed by chui. This is an evaluation of the emulation of the game as well as the game itself.

Using Team RDC's release you can play this game as though it is a commercial game with only a brief loading screen.

Emulation

Super Baseball 2020 is another example of great NEO4ALL emulation. There's no slowdown at all during gameplay. There is definitely an audio problem with a chime sound that happens sometimes in the game though. It sounds very high pitched and seems to last too long. Once while playing this occurred and afterwards all of the sound effects stopped working.

Gameplay

Super Baseball 2020 is more or less exactly what you'd expect from an early 90s 2D sports game. The fielding is more or less done automatically, and your only real responsibilities lie in batting and pitching. A lot of genres have made amazing progressions from the early days of gaming, but sports games make a hell of a case for perhaps the biggest transformation. Super Baseball 2020 is futuristic baseball. Robots take the field (whoever did the localization was clever, and RoboCop fans will spot a spoof in the naming), home runs are only a small segment of the stands (the ball rolls down back into play otherwise) and occasionally active land mines are added to the field. Seriously. You can also power up your players with money earned by making plays and scoring. This all sounds like it would make a pretty interesting game of baseball, but then the whole "early 90s sports game" thing rears its ugly head.

Since most everything is done automatically, the game degrades into a crapshoot of luck similar to Wii Sports Baseball. You do have some control over the fielding, which is typically very frustrating. Instead of giving you control of the fielder who is closest to where the ball will land, you're given control over every fielder the ball passes over. You could have a fielder running up to the ball, but when it gets close to another fielder you'll take control of them and unless you realize this is about to happen and react quickly, your other fielder will start running backwards as well. Another failing in this is that if there are multiple fielders on screen, all of them will move in the same direction. The strike zone is also quite an elusive mystery to me. As far as I can tell, it needs to be exactly over the plate, and not in the red zone on either side of it. Except half of the time it seems to not matter where you put it at all. Along with these problems, the AI is pretty brutal. It's near impossible to strike out the AI; they will swing on two strikes if the ball is anywhere near the strike zone and they will hit. Going back to something mentioned earlier, team power ups, these are pretty broken. It takes a lot of money to upgrade one of your players, money that is only earned by making plays and scoring. If you're losing then the AI is going to power up a lot and keep you stuck down in that hole. It's a pretty prime example of why the winner rewarding of the COD series really throws the game to one side and keeps it there.

I didn't have a chance to play the game with a friend for this review. Most of these issues would immediately disappear with another person to play with instead of the AI, so I'll recommend this as a game to play with friends.

Storyline

According to the back of the box, there was some kind of match fixing going on, so these guys are using super baseball power to play super baseball super normally. Or something.

Graphics

Knowing what the Neo Geo hardware is capable of, these are a huge let down. I understand this is a game from 1991 but even for that these graphics are poor. There's a bare minimum of animation here. If you swing at a ball and the batter holds back (the game will make judgment calls for you at times), they'll get stuck in the mid swing motion until your next swing. All of the players look the same; there's probably 3 different sets of character sprites swapped a million times.

Sound

It sort of fits with the whole future thing, but it's nothing noticeable. Like most of the game, the best thing you can say about it is that it's there.

Conclusion

Super Baseball 2020 is fun at times and wildly frustrating at others. It's a very dated game, but I could see it being enjoyable with friends.

6.0/10

Soul Blade (BLEEM) Review

Original release:

January 1997 (PSX)

Game details:

1-2 Players

Standard controller

VGA box

The following game was not officially released for the Sega Dreamcast. It is emulated using the leaked Bleemcast beta. This is an evaluation of the emulation of the game as well as the game itself.

Using TeamRDC's release, you can play this game on your Dreamcast as though it is a commercial game with only a brief loading screen.

Emulation

The Bleemcast beta does not allow you to save games and FMVs do not work. Soul Blade is emulated pretty well considering how Bleemcast usually works. There will be some white textures and the game doesn't run 100% full speed. The frame rate definitely varies depending on the stage and what's happening in the background. Once it has some time to load all of the textures it runs pretty close to full speed. In my opinion, the frame rate never dipped low enough to be unplayable, though it was a bit slower than I would've liked at times. The sound can also have stuttering to it.

Gameplay

This game is definitely the precursor to SoulCalibur and the real surprising thing here is how little really changed. Don't crucify me if there are big differences; I'm pretty casual with the Soul series of games. History seems to have generally forgotten about Soul Blade in favor of SoulCalibur, but it's definitely not because Soul Blade is bad. It's a game that was definitely limited by hardware. The ambition is there, but the technology wasn't. If you haven't played SoulCalibur shame on you, but I'll describe the game anyways. Soul Blade is a 3D weapons-based fighter. There are edges to the arena letting you get ring outs, but you generally won't need them. It's a simple fighter, very easy to pick up and play and also very easy to be cheap. Due to its simplicity, it's a great game to keep around if you're into fighting games and have friends who aren't into the genre so much.

Storyline

This is devastating to me because I know it's there, I've played all of the SoulCalibur games plenty, but I have no idea what the hell is going on in the storyline of this series. It seems like a massive headache working it out. Don't worry about this.

Graphics

One thing Bleemcast does really well is cleaning up PSX graphics. The game still isn't great looking by any means, but it's a knockout compared to playing it on the PSX. I was impressed with the character's mouths moving. Many games from this era made no effort to move the characters mouths when there were voices. The character designs are much more simple than they are in SoulCalibur, but the stages have a similar feel to them. Even with the white textures that occasionally pop in on the characters (and somewhat more frequently on the stages), the game still looks better than it would on a PlayStation.

Sound

I've never been a fan of the music in this series, but it is very epic and orchestrated. I know some people really like the music, but it's not for me. If you enjoyed the music in SoulCalibur, you'll enjoy it here.

Conclusion

It's hard to really recommend the game knowing that SoulCalibur is out there with similar gameplay and far better graphics. That doesn't make this game bad, but it does make it more of a conversation piece over what a jump in technology can do for a game.

7.8/10

Savage Reign (NEO4ALL) Review

Original release:
1995

Game details:
1-2 players
Standard controller
VGA box

The following game was not officially released for Sega Dreamcast. It is emulated using NEO4ALL beta 4 developed by chui. This is an evaluation of the emulation of the game as well as the game itself.

Using Team RDC's release you can play this game as though it is a commercial game with only a brief loading screen.

Emulation

Savage Reign runs full speed and as far as I could tell has no issues at all. The game loads often though and it can be frustrating.

Gameplay

Savage Reign is a completely average fighting game with a slight twist to it. The stages have different levels to them. Some of these levels simply have a higher platform which may have some kind of danger element to them, like a floor that opens and drops you to the lower level. Some stages have a bar across the top that you can hang from. Along the bar there are items that you can kick off to hit your opponent. It's really novelty and fun the first time you play it, but it's just that; a novelty. It doesn't drastically change the game at all. The characters in Savage Reign also all have weapons, but this isn't really a weapon based game either. The characters still fight with punches and kicks, and the weapons are only used with a super move. There's nothing surprising that happens here, it's just another Neo Geo fighting game.

Storyline

These aren't the Droids you're looking for.

Graphics

These are nothing surprising either. There are some nice touches regarding the different levels of the stages though. If the other level is parallel to the first, the characters will turn around to face each other while they're on the different levels. The Chinatown stage is very similar to Chun-Li's stage in Street Fighter II… you could say the graphics are uninspired on some level.

Sound

Completely and totally average. Are you seeing a theme?

Conclusion

This review is short for a reason; if you've played a fighting game, you've pretty much played Savage Reign. The game is average in every regard. There's nowhere to take points away from the game, but there's nowhere to add any extra either. The different levels to stages are interesting and reminiscent of Top Hunter and give the game a bit more life, but you're not likely to revisit the game often.

7.5/10

New "DLC" coming to 4X4 Evo

Ever wished that you had new vehicles from the PC version of 4X4 Evo on the Dreamcast? No? Well neither did I till I seen it for myself.



Well soon cptPauer a user over at Dcfan.net.ru forums will be releasing a mod of the game. He has already released a pictures and a video showcasing a Jeep modded into the game.



He has said he will be releasing all tools so that you can mod your game yourself and add some nice car and track mods.

He is currently trying to include some 4x4 Evo 2 and Monster Truck Madness 2 maps and trucks, so I will keep you all updated on progress of this mod. It is people like cptPauer who bring us all these great Half-Life and now 4X4 Evo mods over from the PC to our faithful old Dreamcast.

If you could take the time to give him a big thanks it would go a long way to keep him motivated to keep bringing us some awesome new DLC content.

You can find the thread for the mod here.

Donald Duck Goin' Quackers Review

Release dates:
North America: December 13, 2000
Japan: Unreleased
Europe: December 15, 2000 (As Donald Duck Quack Attack)

Game details:
1 Player
VMU compatible
VGA Box
Widescreen support
Jump Pack compatible
Standard controller

There are a lot of Disney games out there. ”Aladdin” for the Genesis/MegaDrive is one of my favorites. I remember that ”Tarzan” for PC was great. I haven't played a lot of Donald Duck games though. I've played one on the GameBoy Advance called ”Donald Duck Advance” (?'s, !'s and @'s included) which was developed by UbiSoft, the same guys that made ”Goin' Quackers” for the Dreamcast. Are they any similar? Yes, my friends, they definitely are. How? Read on.

Gameplay
Disney games are made for kids. You can't argue with that. This game...well. My dad, whom was sitting next to me while I was playing the game, said ”you can tell that it's a game for kids because it's the same thing over and over again”. He said this while I was playing through the first level in the first world. In total, there are four worlds. When I made my way to the end boss of the second world, he changed his opinion, dramatically. I don't even want to talk about this one. I think it took me seven tries to beat the freaking ”Beagle Boy”. After that came the Halloween themed world. This one was harder. Much harder. I won't describe this world in detail but it sure fits the Halloween atmosphere. I also never thought it would be this easy to control Donald Duck with the Dreamcast controller. They did a great job on this one.

It sure is a hard game, albeit there's a lot of replay value in it. Sure, some parts of the game (like the bosses) you might want to forget about. But other than that, it's great. It's fun, has a lot of humor in it and features both easy and hard bits. You collect ”tortilla chips” in each level to unlock the boss level. The reason I call them ”tortilla chips” is basically because they look like tortilla chips. The game ”flows” and it's easy to figure out where to go and such. It sure was frustrating at times but the Halloween feeling compensated a bit.
So don't get me wrong, it's a ridiculously fun game. If you're either a fan of platformers, Donald Duck or video games you'll surely love this. It features challenge and entertainment. What more could you possibly want from a game? A good storyline? Good graphics? Good music? Luckily for you, it features all three.

Storyline
There's a storyline in this one, folks! And a pretty good one at that. I just have to say that it's very well written. It's funny, it's quirky and it's cool. The introduction is great. You get to see Donald, Gladstone Gander and Gyro Gearloose watching TV. The reporter on the TV, which is Daisy, is inside Merlock's temple. Merlock then notices Daisy and kidnaps her. Your quest is to rescue her before Gladstone does. There's nothing advanced or innovative about the story, but it's still charming and funny.

Graphics
As I said before, it features good graphics. Better than good, the graphics are great. Even though it has a cartoon feel to the graphics, they still look great. I can't really tell you how or why. The animations are fluid; the characters are well designed and look like they should; the more important textures are in a higher resolution and this was rare in console games in 2000; Donald's animations he makes while standing completely still are really funny and cute and the level designs are creative. Although, they are repetitive. Each level follows this kind of pattern. It doesn't matter if it's easy or hard, it still follows the same pattern through out the entire level. The same enemies and the same holes where you can die 24 times. But all the levels look great and still pleases the eye, which is a problem with Playstation games and Nintendo 64 games. Oh god, the games for those systems look horrible. I got Rayman feelings while playing the levels with the side-scrolling view and Super Mario 64 feelings (I don't know why it's always this plague of a game) while playing the third-person levels. Yes, it's a hybrid, people! Give UbiSoft some credits for this. They sure deserve it.

Sound
I also said that it features good music. Why would I lie to you guys? You're my homies. Right? No, it doesn't have any hip hop music in it but there's some scary music in the Halloween world. The music is good through out the whole game. It sure fits the environment in the levels. It makes such a difference.

Fun fact: they reused the sound in this game for the GameBoy Advance version. Same thing goes for the level design.

Conclusion
Another great Disney game. This time on the mighty Dreamcast. As I said before, if you like video games, you'll love this. You might want to pull your hair while playing it but just stack up on some extra life in the first two worlds and you'll be fine. It's fun, it features great graphics, great music and Donald Duck!

9.0/10