This is probably the greatest thing ever, it runs full speed and emulation is only a little buggy. my main problem is the options menu. no words, just icons. and as far as i can tell, no way to change the control setup. my phone (moto X) is incompatible with controlers as well, so im stuck using the anolog square in the top right corner for all my sonic adventureing. but it gets the job mostly done, and i love it
Thanks for letting us know your experience with Reicast, Tyler. I managed to have a quick go on an android tablet with it installed yesterday - it was indeed very smooth. I had a quick go on Sonic Adventure and it ran as if it was running on an actual Dreamcast...very impressive.
Sure, I am not the biggest fan of hordes but wear and tear is the bigger reason for a spike in price. You do know that Optical Medium as a whole is a very fragile one.
Shenmue is probably the easiest game to go bad, you get a single scratch on the disc and it is game over.
I was recently playing Shenmue and my mint copy started hanging on Disc 2. Balls! I have to buy it for the 5th time now.
Monday, March 24, 2014
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Obviously, the best way to enjoy delights of the Dreamcast's exceptional catalogue of incredible games is to play on an original Dreamcast console, with an original GD-rom firmly ensconced in the disc tray. Yes, the VMU may beep and the GD drive may sound like it's grinding a sack of concrete to dust inside...but there's no better way to experience Spirit of Speed 1937 Blue Stinger Vigilante 8: 2nd Offence Soul Calibur. Got there in the end!
However, we here at the 'Yard appreciate that in 2014, not everyone owns a Dreamcast console, let alone a massive library of games be it due to financial or space-based reasons. Indeed, as is the current trend with retro games of all flavours, colours and creeds there are people out there who are intent on driving up the price of hardware and software to the point that it is no longer accessible to the average gamer. I'm not going to mince my words here - these hoarding traders are scum and I take great delight in telling them so whenever I spot a 'L@@K RARE' copy of Ready 2 Rumble on eBay with a Buy It Now price of £34.99. The Dreamcast Junkyard will not tolerate such activity.
With this in mind however, it is understandable that emulation is becoming very popular as it costs virtually nothing to get an emulator off the internet. Naturally, the whole legality of the owning of emulator software (or roms, as they're more commonly known) is a bit of a grey area but as long as you own the original software on a disk or cart, it's fine to own a back-up. Now the legal stuff's accounted for, here's the point of all that guff you just read: there's a new(ish) Dreamcast emulator available for Android devices! It's called Reicast, and you can get it from the Google Play store for your phone, tablet or even Ouya. Yep - the three people who still own an Ouya can now play some decent games, and as an added bonus you won't have to rub your fingers all over your device's touchscreen in order to earn some Kudos!
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I personally don't own a single Android-powered device (unless you count my old Huawei Blaze which is rotting in a box in the attic somewhere...which I don't), so I haven't been able to try Reicast, but judging by some of the videos I've seen it does appear to be a fairly solid emulator. I would imagine that you'll need a pretty beefy device in order to run DC games at a decent speed (running Android 2.2 and above), and the software is still in the Alpha stage so there are likely bugs and issues to be ironed out. You may remember that we ran an article on NullDC for Android some time ago, but Reicast looks like it may be the better option for more casual users - there's plenty of documentation on the Reicast forum and there's an official website too. Bear in mind that you'll need to 'acquire' a Dreamcast BIOS file in order to get the emulator working, but if you've played DC games on Reicast either on your phone, tablet or Ouya, let us know about your experiences in the comments section. Cheers dears!
"Reicast - Dreamcast in your Pocket"
3 Comments -
This is probably the greatest thing ever, it runs full speed and emulation is only a little buggy. my main problem is the options menu. no words, just icons. and as far as i can tell, no way to change the control setup. my phone (moto X) is incompatible with controlers as well, so im stuck using the anolog square in the top right corner for all my sonic adventureing. but it gets the job mostly done, and i love it
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Thanks for letting us know your experience with Reicast, Tyler. I managed to have a quick go on an android tablet with it installed yesterday - it was indeed very smooth. I had a quick go on Sonic Adventure and it ran as if it was running on an actual Dreamcast...very impressive.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Sure, I am not the biggest fan of hordes but wear and tear is the bigger reason for a spike in price. You do know that Optical Medium as a whole is a very fragile one.
Shenmue is probably the easiest game to go bad, you get a single scratch on the disc and it is game over.
I was recently playing Shenmue and my mint copy started hanging on Disc 2. Balls! I have to buy it for the 5th time now.
Monday, March 24, 2014