SEGA Powered 02 – March 2022

ISSUE 02 / MAR 2022

RARE CATCHES

The definitive collectors’ guide to SEGA hardware master system

Game Gear

mega drive

mega cd

32x

saturn

dreamcast

contents issue 2 / March 2022 17

58

60

66

features 17 the rarest of catches

Whether you’ve just got a Mega Drive sat under your TV (CRT, obviously) or a whole room packed with practically everything that’s had a SEGA logo slapped on it, this is the guide to SEGA hardware that you need to read.

26 overlooked & underrated

Our newest writer, Karl Burnett is a Master System obsessive that believes there are 10 (at least) Master System games that don’t get the love they deserve.

58 yeah yeah beebiss II

The weirdest game that never was, and how that game had a sequel written for it. It’s quite the story.

04 / S E G A P O W E R E D

60 special brew

Two interviews with new game developers and another two games to check out – it’s your guide to what’s hot and what’s even hotter in the homebrew scene.

64 blast from the past: steve jarratt

If you know gaming magazines then you know the name Steve Jarratt.

The man who edited S: The Sega Mag and went on to launch EDGE and the Official PlayStation Magazine stops by for a quick chat.

66 BLOCK PARTY

Dean and Marc both bought the Sonic LEGO set, but when it came to putting their sets together, it turns out that they had very different ideas of how it should be done…

www.segapowered.com

42

06

36

regulars 06 power play

Bits of news, the odd feature or two and the occasional strange bit – all revolving around the world we call ‘SEGA’.

31 the gamers’ guide to: puzzlers

Take two experts of a particular genre and see what they believe to be its shiniest of shining examples. This month: puzzlers.

70 the hardline

reviews/RE-REVIEWS

Based on the old Hardline from Sega Power, this is a breakdown of the games we think you should own.

Disagree? Write in and let us know.

36 powerslave exhumed (switch)

50 Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (MD)

74 retro shows

38 rush rush rally reloaded (DC)

52 Gaiares (MD)

76 community

39 flea! (DC)

53 Panorama Cotton (MD)

The classic Saturn shooter is back.

Two new Dreamcast games in one issue! And this one’s by Indie legends, Senile Team.

Finally, a game all about the bass player in the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

A variation on British Soccerball, only slightly less violent.

With the recent news of Gaiares being re-released, Neil goes back and takes the original for a spin.

54 Baku Baku (Saturn)

42 Skies of Arcadia (DC)

55 Mortal Kombat (MS)

48 Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster’s Hidden Treasure (MD)

56 Popful Mail (MCD)

A review 22 years in the making.

A classic platformer re-reviewed.

March 2022

There’s a massive retro community out there, and it’s filled with lovely gamers just like you. We’ll show you the groups to join and the online gamers to watch.

We can sum this game up in just four words: Space Harrier with witches.

40 clockwork aquario (switch)

It’s not often you get to play a game that’s a genuine Record Breaker.

Events going on around the UK, including conventions, fairs and anything else with ‘Retro’ and ‘Gaming’ in the title.

Three words for this one: Columns with food.

A classic 8-bit beat-’em-up, but can it still pack a punch?

Paul begged us to let him re-review this. Head to page 56 to his verdict on another well-known Mega-CD game.

S E G A P O W E R E D / 05

[game paused]

stateofmind ...all the feels, all the SEGA

ep d e d an t e ’r d, firs r u yo Lanthe you e n y it g id t e h W Toou h ppin upss no t! in y fli ld a tha , or I w g w ro re wwn. ctin r a ti o e en d exp

16 / S E G A P O W E R E D

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1987-2009 feature

THE RAREST OF CATCHES

No matter what your passion, setting out to collect is a difficult and expensive path.

Prepare for a painful education…

A

The 1986 SEGA AI Computer

www.segapowered.com March 2022

ny gamer with even a passing interest in SEGA will tell you the company first gained traction in the home with the Master System. And in the West, that’s a fair assessment. But those of a more dedicated nature will espouse the SG-1000, SEGA’s first foray into consoles, launching in Japan during 1983. Truth be told, it paved the way for everything, even if it would be nearly another decade until the dominance of the Mega Drive in North America.

But the SG wasn’t the only machine released that year: SEGA also debuted the SC-3000, the home computer version, and it performed respectably in Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe. Later, the Othello Multivision emerged – a SG/SC hybrid with dual compatibility licensed through Tsukuda Original.

Then, in 1984, the SG-1000 Mk II surfaced, with two detachable pads, followed by the SC-3000H, with an integrated, full-travel keyboard in place of the original rubber variant. Peripherals included the SR-1000 Data Recorder (for tape software) the SP-400 printer, and the SF-7000 Super Control Station, boasting a 3in Floppy Disc Drive and 64 Kb of additional RAM. SEGA even took a retrospective view with the SK-1100 Keyboard that effectively converted the SG-1000 into a SC-3000. Dig further, and you’ll discover the famed SC-5000, a potential SC-3000H upgrade that never made it beyond the prototype stage. Finally, in 1985, the ultimate version of the SG series arrived, notably the SEGA Mk III. Outside Japan, it goes by another, more familiar name: Master System.

But this is not a history lesson. No, this is a human study, a glimpse into the eco structures and sub cultures, built of their own stories, alongside SEGA’s own biography. With the sheer volume of consumer hardware released over nearly three decades, there comes the inevitable desire to research, hunt down, and ultimately own these oft-mythical beasts.

There comes The Collector. Meet the rarest SEGA games hardware, and see what you need to add to your collection.

Even before SEGA was a household name in the West, there emerged what remains one of the scarcest trophies to date: the 1986 SEGA AI Computer, a machine built for programming, speech recognition, music composition, and graphics creation. Got one? Do let us know!

SSEEGGAA PPOOW WEERREEDD //17 9

[game paused]

stateofmind ...all the feels, all the SEGA

34 / S E G A P O W E R E D

“

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When the code to destroy the lab has been doing a Keyser Soze the whole time

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reviews intro

reviews

separating the gaming wheat from the chaff reviews

42

36 PowerSlave Exhumed (Switch) 38 Flea! (DC) 39 Rush Rush Rally Reloaded (DC) 40 Clockwork Aquario (Switch)

re-Reviews 42 Skies of Arcadia (DC) 48 Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster’s Hidden Treasure (MD) 50 Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (MD)

48

55

52 Gaiares (MD) 53 Panorama Cotton (MD) 54 Baku Baku (Saturn) 55 Mortal Kombat (MS) 56 Popful Mail (MCD)

56

36

The sega Powered guide to reviewing

March 2022

Our Reviews section is split into two parts…

scored seven or above can be regarded as a hit in our book.

REVIEWS

RE-REVIEWS

New games, basically. Either official SEGA titles, third-party licensed ones or Indie gems. Scores are out of 10, and anything

Here’s where we take a look at older titles with fresh eyes.

Aged badly? Improved over time? We’ll let you know.

S E G A P O W E R E D / 35

OTHER reviews

MEGA “Definitely best when two people are playing.” 81%

Sega Pro

After conceding another goal, the red team were in no mood for a dance off

“For tense, nerve-shattering gameplay Speedball 2 is second to none.”

87%

REVIEWED ON

To be champions you will need to see this a lot

INFO

Release Date October 1992

Publisher Virgin Games

Developer The Bitmap Brothers

Price £10

Other Versions Amiga, ST, PC, Master System, more

50 / S E G A P O W E R E D

Get up, man! There are these goal things to score!

speedball 2: Brutal deluxe

The arena is packed out and the crowd are ready to see some full-on violence!

New recruit Paul joins Brutal Deluxe and hopes not to get his head kicked in!

I

t’s 30 years since Speedball 2 was launched on the Atari ST and Amiga.

I’d played the original game on ST but it never really bowled me over, however the sequel was a huge step up. Adding game modes including team manager, cup competitions, a transfer market and more soon had me completely hooked.

Speedball 2 has constantly hovered around my second tier of favourite games so I had to own it for my Mega Drive. There have been numerous Amiga games converted to the MD, and usually

with a fair degree of success. Thankfully Speedball 2 was a good example of that and the magazine reviews rated it between 80-91 per cent, praising the fact that it was incredibly simple and enjoyable pick up and play with a mate.

Fast and Furious But how does Speedball 2 hold up today? Luckily, very well. Its simplistic gameplay is the main driver behind this. As soon as you get back into the swing of when to take the risks and try for point multiplier and where to

strengthen your team, it feels like not a day has gone by since first you first played it. I remembered which teams to fear early in the season without even viewing their stats. (Steel Fury, in case you are wondering.)

For single players there are four different game modes included: Knockout, League, Cup and Practice. The League will give the biggest challenge as there are two divisions to conquer. The transfer market helps with this but there are also other ways to turn your group of no-hopers into a team to be feared.

www.segapowered.com

re-review

stream of the crop Games streaming service Antstream has around 50 Mega Drive games to play, and Speedball 2 is one of them. If you’re not signed up, then head to www.antstream.com pretty sharpish.

final verdict Paul For the price I would say buy it as playing against friends is really fun. When my only gripe is that when a player is injured you don’t have the “Ice cream! Ice cream!” shout from the stands (a memorable Amiga moment) you know you’re onto a winner!

A Brutal Delight

dean

Here you’ll find a few details about the game

It’s lovely that Speedball 2 is one of those games – like Sensible Soccer – that it doesn’t matter how many years it’s been since you last played it, it’s still a joy to fire up and have a blast on. Which, incidentally, is what we did – and something I recommend you do, too.

in a word: pugilistic

neil Is this football with spikes? There was a film about it. Are the BicMat brothers in it? I held the paddle thing but couldn’t do a goal. My grandson told me I ‘sucked’ but I can eat solid food. In conclusion, Speedyball 2 is a game for Seeger. When’s dinner?

In a word: confused

Marc The Transfer Market can add some quality players to your team Power ups are scattered around the pitch to give you short-term boosts that can make a key difference – especially the one that zaps your opponent. Alongside these, the pitch itself has two features that can help: a warp which moves the ball to the opposite side of the playing area, and a button to throw the ball against

to electrify it. This means that while your team has possession of the ball it will go straight through opposition players, who are unable to stop it! With each match lasting three minutes, you need to be quick and make your decisions count.

The two-player mode is more basic, with only one-off, best of three or

Gratuitous violence in the name of sport – and no VAR in sight! Speedball 2 may look simplistic but it’s still great fun to play, especially with a mate. Using the arena to your advantage takes some getting used to but Speedball 2 is still a good laugh.

In a word: destroY! best of five matches to choose from.

However it’s so much fun! Collecting a power up to freeze your friend’s team for five seconds while you dance around them and score is hugely satisfying!

Pretty much everything from the ST/ Amiga originals came across to the Mega Drive intact – including the iconic music and most of the in-game speech.

Everything about this game reeks of class. It’s playable, fun, smooth and a spoton conversion, and at the end of the day you can’t wish for more than that.

Everything about this game reeks of class. It’s a spot-on conversion Hitting the domes can give you some valuable bonus points March 2022

S E G A P O W E R E D / 51

SPECIAL BREW Another regular feature for SEGA Powered, Stephen Cassidy will bring you the very best of the SEGA homebrew scene each month. Developer interviews, news, previews and updates, if it’s new and exciting in the homebrew community, then we’ll be featuring it right here

O

Lara Returns

n October 25 1996, Lara Croft made her debut exclusively on the Sega Saturn – despite what the PlayStation Twitter account posted on the game’s 25th Anniversary. While the page got the release date wrong for the PlayStation game, it was correct to say Tomb Raider changed the course of gaming. It’s a landmark title and a reference point for all subsequent 3D action/ adventure titles.

SEGA’s next console would see twice as many Tomb Raider games as the Saturn, as Dreamcast owners got Last Revelation and Chronicles. Some niggles and frame rate issues aside, the two PC to DC ports are decent games.

Thanks to coder HiStat and the Open Lara project though, the original Tomb Raider is now making its way to the Dreamcast.

The Open Lara project has seen Tomb Raider ported to various systems including the original Xbox, 3DO and even the Game Boy Advance.

HiStat has previous form with the Dreamcast, and brought the littleknown – but charming – 2004 side-scroller Cave Story over to the system a few years ago.

Still in the early stages of development, HiStat released a build of DC Tomb Raider over Christmas with analogue support and a firstperson view, which is a lot of fun.

ETA: TBA Developer: HiStat Download: https://github.com/histat/OpenLara-dc

ETA: TBA Developer: PSCD games Download: https://pscdgames.itch.io/bio-evil

16 bits of Evil

C

60 8 / S/ ES G EG A AP P OO WWE R E RE D ED

apcom treated us to the stunning remakes of the second and third Resident Evil games in 2019 and 2020. And while they are undoubtedly modern games, they also remain faithful in spirit to the originals, and are great way to catch up with the series if you want to revisit Raccoon City on a current-gen platform.

While the original title did get a loving remaster it hasn’t had a remake (yet!). Instead, Russian Mega Drive coders PSCD games has been working on a ‘demake’ called Bio Evil since 2017, and it looks stunning. The entire game world has been reimagined isometrically, and S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team members, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine have been faithfully recreated in polygons.

Originally an R&D project, Bio Evil actually includes rendered cutscenes and is looking very promising from what’s been released so far.

Formed in 2019, PSCD has released a number of Mega Drive games and is currently hard at work on its run-and-gun platformer Thunder Paw. You can check out PSCD’s catalogue and download a demo of Bio Evil from the link above.

www.segapowered.com www.segapowered.com

Q&A

homebrew

A Striking Resemblance

When Indie developers Luke Benstead and David Reichelt unleashed a demo of Driving Strikers and announced it was Dreamcast bound, we sent Marc off to find out more…

Tell us a bit about yourselves and what you’ve worked on previously.

Luke Benstead – I’m a professional software developer by day, and hobbyist game developer by night! Most people in the Dreamcast scene would know me for inventing the DreamPi software image [1] for connecting Dreamcasts to the Internet, and running and maintaining the Dreamcast Online [2] website that shows when people are playing online.

David Reichelt – In my day job I work as a programmer in the games industry. I’ve been around in the Dreamcast community for around two and a half years and have been dabbling with the Simulant Engine [3]. Prior to that I was contributing mostly ports to the OG Xbox scene.

How did the idea for Driving Strikers come about?

L - For Halloween, David and I sort of spontaneously started working together on a tech demo using my Simulant engine after chatting on the Simulant Discord server. It was intended that it would be a full game but we’d only given ourselves three to four weeks to do it, and so had to drop that idea. When that demo was released, a lot of the feedback we had was that it was a shame it wasn’t a full game.

About a week into November, David came up with a list of demo ideas that we could perhaps put together for Christmas, and we chose a driving/soccer/Rocket Leaguestyle game but from a 2.5D viewpoint. It seemed like something that was achievable in the six weeks we had.

Tell us a bit more about the Simulant engine you’ve been using.

L - Most people think Simulant is quite a new thing, but it’s something I’ve been working on for 11 years.

It originally started as a collection of useful game development code I’d written, then around 2014/15 I started trying to clean it up into a proper game engine. Around that time I discovered the Dreamcast community and invented the DreamPi. I was looking at this [Simulant] engine thinking, ‘could I port this?’.

I ended up writing an entire OpenGL and OpenAL library to make that work, and it’s only just got to the point that the features and performance are good enough to write Dreamcast games in it.

Simulant also supports Windows, Linux, OSX, PSP and Android in some form, although some platforms are more complete and working than others.

When is the game due for release, and will it be a commercial release as opposed to a free game?

LIFE’S A BEACH We have been granted the first look at an early build of the Blue Sky Stadium, a beautiful beachthemed level that the team tell us was inspired by the Emerald Coast stage on Sonic Adventure. It may be an early build but it’s already looking absolutely fantastic with the rippling effects of the water and the shadows casting off the palm trees. An absolutely perfect spot for a bit of beach-car football we reckon.

As we were going to press…

…we heard that work on…

L - I’d like to have a full digital release quite early in 2022, and a physical release later in the year. It would be a commercial release, yeah.

Have you got any plans for any other Dreamcast games in 2022?

L - I’d like to go back and complete my 3D helicopter game Swirling Blades [4], which is something I’ve been building for a while, but there are other ideas I’d like to experiment with. I’d love to see what a Doom Eternal-inspired game would look like on Dreamcast-period hardware. A racing game is something I’ve also always wanted to write, too.

…the online version is…

What kind of game modes can we expect to see in Driving Strikers? There is exciting talk of having an online multiplayer mode.

D - Similar to Luke, I’m open to test how viable a fast, firstperson shooter would be on the Dreamcast. It’s definitely How much of a challenge will this be?

L – There will certainly be a League mode, and perhaps some kind of World Cup mode; potentially some more party-game modes, too. We haven’t really planned that far ahead! We’ve set ourselves another ambitious deadline though, so hopefully we’ll see the full game in the first half – or even quarter – of 2022.

As for an online mode, I’m not ruling it out yet, but it’s going to be really really hard to pull that off in a short timescale.

something I’m looking forward to. Other than that, I really think we should see more 3D platformers similar to Rayman 2 or Banjo-Kazooie on the system.

We are hoping to bring you more news on Driving Strikers over the coming months but if you can’t wait till then, you can find updates on the progress of the game over on the game’s official Twitter page: @DrivingStrikers.

1 https://dreamcastlive.net/downloads 2 http://dreamcast.online/now 3 A powerful game engine for Dreamcast, developed by Luke – https://simulant-engine.appspot.com 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgPTeFIaOYU

www.segapowered.com March 2022

…going very well indeed

Fingers crossed

SSEEGGAA PPOOW WEERREEDD //61 9

IT’S SHOWTIME! Gaming shows and markets were few and far between during 2021, but the year did end rather spectacularly with the fantastic Video Game Market in Doncaster on December the 5th. Paul and Marc – in a SEGA Powered and SegaMags capacity – were both there…

72 / S E G A P O W E R E D

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retro shows

The second show we’re covering this month is the Retro Games Fair in Leeds on Saturday, February 5. Again, it was a fantastic day with some incredible stuff for sale. Here’s a few pics to whet your appetite for the next one – which will be held in the summer

THE MAIN EVENT(S) This part of the page will bring you a list of any upcoming shows we hear about. So here’s a few to get you started…

FEBRUARY

Video Game Market

Saturday, February 26 – 11am-4pm Doncaster Dome Leisure Centre

Press Start Gaming Scotland Sunday, February 27 – Midday-4pm Queen’s Hotel, Dundee

MARCH

London Gaming Market Sunday, March 20 – 11am-4pm Royal National Hotel, London

APRIL OLL ’22

Saturday/Sunday, April 9/10 – From 10am Norfolk Showground Arena

Nerdfest

Sunday, April 17 – 10am-4pm The Boiler Shop, Newcastle

MAY

Collectorabilia Saturday, May 7 Leeds Marriott Hotel

JUNE

Leeds Anime & Gaming Con Saturday/Sunday, June 18/19 Leeds Marriott Hotel

JULY

London Gaming Market Sunday, July 3 – 11am-4pm Royal National Hotel, London

AUGUST

Retro Games Fair

Saturday, August 6 The John Charles Centre for Sport

NOVEMBER

London Gaming Market Sunday, November 13 – 11am-4pm Royal National Hotel, London

March 2022

S E G A P O W E R E D / 73

POWER down

Join us!

Aanndd that’s yer lot. Sorry to end quite so abruptly, but we do hope it’s given you a flavour of what you can expect from the full version of the magazine.

If you’re new to SEGA Powered then hello, it’s lovely to meet you – albeit virtually. As you’re reading this then you clearly have excellent taste in magazines, so I suspect we’d get along swimmingly.

SEGA Powered is a professional magazine created by independent writers with industry backgrounds. We’re proud to have worked on some of the biggest games magazines in the UK, and hopefully you’ll see some of that experience leaking out onto the pages.

SEGA Powered is a monthly magazine, and goes on sale towards the end of the month. You can find out more about the magazine by following us on Facebook (HERE) or Twitter (HERE), or feel free to pop by our Discord server (HERE).

Finally, you can head to our website (HERE), where you can pick up a copy of the magazine in either digital or print formats.

Thanks again for reading.

Dean Mortlock – Editor