Post a Comment On: The Dreamcast Junkyard

[Image]WAHEY!! Fuck me, it's been a while ain't it?! Well, just over a week actually - but that's long enough for anyone to go without a Dreamcast related verbal pebbledashing from the net's premier Dreamcast related media whore (left): The Dreamcast Junkyard.

So what's been happenin' in our collective absence?!

Happily, you'll all be pleased to know that I havn't been watching any more Will Smith films. Oh no - after the abomination that was Hitch (which incidentally, I only watched about two thirds of (the very threshold of saving one's masculinity when watching a 'chick-flick' or 'rom-com,' by the way...the Rule of Two Thirds is what I like to call it)), I have vowed never to watch another movie with a softly smiling male on the front of the box. Or Will Smith. Two birds/one stone - lemon squeezy.

Sadly though, even though I now posess the skills to a) pay the bills (thanks for that one, Wordsworth); and b) avoid SHIT films like a Mediaeval nobleman might try to avoid the plague infested village imbecile who is running throughout the castle naked and screaming; I do not posses the skills to avoid SHIT Xbox games.

For, you see weary reader, last week I was blessed with the purile stupidity to purchase Operation Flashpoint. What a steaming pile of gusset that is. That's the last time I buy ANY game on the merit of a sticker boasting "92% BUY IT NOW!!!!! - Xbox Fuckhead Magazine." Anyway, after nearly losing my retinas from 'playing' said bag of crap, I embarked on a quest to do something I've not done for a long time: trade a game! Yes, I was so infuriated by the lacklustre nature of Operation Slagpoint, I traded it for...you guessed it:

MOTHER-HUMPING DREAMCAST GAMES, BEHATCHES!!!

And these, in a Launch Party stylee, are they:

[Image]Y2K Willenium Soldier: Expendable
Playing like Robotron on acid, Millenium Soldier: Expendable is a top down no-brainer shoot 'em up best played with two pads plugged in, and with a few cans of your favourite alcoholic beverage being washed past your tonsils. Quite simply, it's brilliant. Some reviews that you may read floating about the net are less than favourable - indeed some verge on the scandalous, stating that Expendable is unplayable/rubbish/too easy/too hard (delete as applicable). I could go on, but won't, for fear of regurgitating my recent meal of fish heads and coal. I will though, say this: if you want frantic old-skool shooting, button bashing, fucking hur-uge explosions, mental amounts of stuff to blast, power-ups popping out of crates, and more strafing than is probably healthy...get a load of this: IT ROCKS!

And to all those people who think it's rubbish: Lighten the fuck up, man. It's meant to be a no-brainer, and Expendable pulls it off effortlessly.

[Image]Bombs? Trains? Guns? A bit risque in today's climate of fear

[Image]Not entirely sure what's going on here. Looks nice though.

[Image]What you can't tell from these shots is that your man runs like he's just shat himself. Ho ho!

[Image]Trickstyle
Ooh! A 'cool' game! Set in a future where everyone wears neon lycra and listens to banging techno choons, Trickstyle is a game about riding around on floating skateboards. Now, everyone knows Marty McFly invented hoverboards, but Trickstyle does a fairly good job of emulating his efforts (although sadly, Biff Tannon is nowhere to be seen). It's really quite a simple racer-cum-stunt 'em up, where you pick a 'trendy' youf character, and race around some futuristic cityscapes all the time trying to do a some 'rad' tricks and hopefully cross the finish line in first place. There are a few problems with Trickstyle, but lets look at the positives first. For starters, it was one of the more original launch titles for the Dreamcast, so kudos for that; and it was also the DC's answer to WipEout (sort of), what with it's soundtrack and styling. However, the graphics are a bit choppy (although still rather impressive), the training 'missions' are a fucking nightmare, and it's one of the most annoyingly difficult games on the DC. But these things aside, pretty solid stuff. One question remains though: Who the frig is Kurtis Mantronik?

[Image]Weeeeeeee, look at me!...(spew)

[Image]They really couldn't have got much closer to ripping off Wolverine without a Marvel shaped lawsuit landing on the desk

[Image]Reminds me of that old Milky Way advert this..."the red car and the blue car had a race..."

[Image]Fuck it. Can't think of anything to write about this shot.

After playing those two for a while, I feel like I've slipped off the couch and through a carpet based temporal rift back to 1999. Never mind though. At least the Dreamcast is back on the shelves, Steve Coogan is still funny and Big Brother hasn't been invented yet...which is ALWAYS a bonus.

On that note, my wireless keyboard has started playing up so I'm not writing anything else: if I have to keep pressing every key twice, I'm going to end up performing a Shaun Michaels Sharpshooter on the fucking thing. The moral? Stick to WIRES, people.

Wii crowd, take heed...