Dreamcast Year One with Andrew Dickinson

Players

Squidge

Jay

AndrewD

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Content Warning

There’s one mention of Covid-19 in this episode, but it’s in passing. We don’t dewll on it since this is a show about nonsense and video games, but I thought that it would be a good idea to mention it at the start of the notes.

At 26:05, Squidge says:

Without the disc being scratched to hell

At 57:43, Andrew says:

Balls to the wall fun

Show Notes

We had the great fortune to chat with Andrew Dickinson about his new book Dreamcast: Year One

if you’re at all interested in the Dreamcast, you should definitely check out this book

I had the chance to read a pre-release copy of the book and, as soon as I read the first page, I knew that we needed to have Andrew on the show to talk about it. Whilst this episode was being edited

by the amazing Squidge

he’s available for hire, too. Check this page out for details

I actually took delivery of the book, and showed it off on twitter:

Due to the recent changes at Twitter, we are unable to embed tweets at this time. We apologise for the inconvenience.

It doesn’t have nearly the number of exclamation marks as some of Andrew’s earliest writings

something that he used to add too many of, back in the day

also, a sure sign of madness - but the good kind

and is based on a similar format to Sandeep Rai’s PS Vita: Year One.

The fact that there are people out there who were born after the Dreamcast was discontinued, and are coming to it now makes me feel super old. But it’s also really cool, because the Dreamcast is one of my favourite consoles.

One of the more “interesting” parts of the Dreamcast’s history

aside from the CEO of Sega having moved from Sony after successfully launching the PlayStation

was the way that it was advertised in the UK vs how it was advertised in the USA. Here’s what Sega UK spent almost all of their marketing budget on

and here is what Sega US spent theirs on:

The story of how Andrew was put in contact with Bernie Stolar is really interesting and involves a wonderful system called Zoom Platform. A real world case of the Six Degrees of Separation.

I retell the story of when I managed to get a pristine copy of Final Fantasy IX from a store in Japan

Due to the recent changes at Twitter, we are unable to embed tweets at this time. We apologise for the inconvenience.

a story that I first brought up in Jay’s Japan Diaries

I talk about how Halo was dumped to the web before the OG Xbox was released. Here is where I got that shocker of a fact from:

Convince Me To Try

In later episodes of the podcast, we’re going to be adding a section called “Convince me to try”. The aim of this section is that it’s the job of one of the hosts or guests to convince the others

and perhaps some of the listeners

to try a new game or system. In this episode, I asked both Andrew and Squidge to convince an imaginary person to try a Dreamcast. Their only direction from me was:

Jay:

what would you do to convince someone to try the Dreamcast? Would be a specific game, or a series of games?

Andrew’s Essential Dreamcast Games

• Shenmue
• Power Stone
• Soul Calibre
• Space Channel 5
• Jet Set Radio

With Phantasy Star Online thrown in for good measure

Squidge’s Essential Dreamcast Games

• Tokyo Xtreme Racer

Squidge incorrectly called this Tokyo Highway Battle

that was a game on the PS1

• Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
• Psychic Force 2012
• Resident Evil 2
• Resident Evil 3
• Phantasy Star Online

Jay’s Essential Dreamcast Games

• Phantasy Star Online
• Resident Evil: Code Veronica
• Shadow Man

Thunder Plain Games

For those who are new to the pod, we have a section called “Thunder Plain Games” which might be vaguely reminiscent of a certain programme on BBC Radio 4

but for copyright reasons, it is completely different

The usual rules the Thunder Plain Games are:

• You have been trapped in the Thunder Plains
• You will get help, at some point in the future
• Before you are sent there, you can pick a number of video games to take with you
  • You can have an Internet connected game, if you wish
  • But you cannot tell anyone that you are stuck in the Thunder Plains or ask for help

However, we changed the slightly for this instance of the game; the rules this time are:

• At least two of the chosen games have to be Dreamcast titles
  • BUT they have to be from the first year only
• And two games for any other system

Andrew’s Choices

• Power Stone (Dreamcast)
• Crazy Taxi (Dreamcast)
• Resident Evil: Origins Collection (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch)
• Call of Duty: Warzone (PS4/Xbox One/PC)

Top Three Resident Evil Games

I dropped this one on both Andrew and Squidge - they had no idea that I was going to ask this:

Jay:

Top three Resident Evil games, in reverse order. Quick. 3, 2, 1

Andrew’s Top Three

It was tough for Andrew to list them all, and he spent a little time making his decisions.

• Resident Evil 2 (2019)
• Resident Evil (2002)
• Resident Evil 3

Squidge’s Top Three

Whereas Squidge was ready with them. It’s almost like we’d recorded a pod about our top survival horror games shortly before this one

or did we?

• Resident Evil: Revelations 2
• Resident Evil 2*
• Resident Evil Gaiden

* Specifically the Dreamcast release

External Links of Interest

• Support us on Ko-Fi
• Our Facebook page
• Us on Twitter
• Andrew on Twitter
• Andrew’s podcasts:
  • Dreamcast Years
  • The Switch Island
  • Three Prix and a Podcast
• Sandeep Rai’s PS Vita: Year One
• RetroArch
• Flycast
• Zoom Platform
• Six Degrees of Separation
• Disc rot
• Dreamcast Barber on Twitter
• Dreamcast Junkyard

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

• Intro music is Behind the Lines by Ian Sutherland
• Spoiler Break music is Spectrum (Subdiffusion Mix) by Foniqz (BandCamp)
• Pallet Cleanser music is Various Dreamcast related sound effects, including bootsounds and sound effects from the Japanese ads © Sega
• Outro Music is I N e e d Y o u 私の側て by G.H (removed from BandCamp)