Sega is betting its future on the Dreamcast console it will release later this month, but has already admitted to teething problems with the ambitious new unit. The 128-bit Dreamcast, with built-in sound, modem and Internet access, is Sega's answer to increasing domination by Sony and Nintendo. Sega's president, Shoichiro Irimajiri, said: "I am personally not used to losing a fight" and that breaking-even meant selling three million Dreamcasters. The real sales target, he said, is 10 million within three or four years, and Sega has no fallback plan if Dreamcast fails. It has sold about five million of its current console, the Saturn.
Even before the Dreamcast release on November 27th, Sega has admitted production problems with its graphics chips. Irimajiri said: "The yield rate is a little bit worse than we expected." Sega will fight to establish the Dreamcast in the lucrative Asian market before it is released in Europe next year. See GameZone next week for a full Dreamcast preview.
Grim Fandango, PC CDRom, £34.99. Required: Pentium 133/32MB/Win95-98
Lucas Arts know a thing or two about graphic adventures. Games like Day of the Tentacle, Sam 'N' Max, Monkey Island, The Dig and Full Throttle constitute a very impressive pedigree so when a new release appears expectations are obviously high.
Grim Fandango does not disappoint. The player is Manny, a guy with the ultimate dead-end job, as a kind of travel agent for the Department of Death. This entails picking up (reaping) people in the Land of the Living, and selling the souls the best travel package through the Land of the Dead until he meets his quota. Manny is trapped in his own purgatory. What he doesn't know is that he is in the middle of an embezzlement ring that is preventing him from getting the proper clients - it is up to the player to sort this out.
Graphic adventures, particularly of this quality, have been thin on the ground recently. Fans of the genre should not hesitate on this one, and others might just be convinced.
Graphics/Sound/Play: 91%/89%89%
Bust-A-Groove, Sony Playstation, £34.99
Parappa the Rappa started it and Bust-A-Groove is the latest game to have users twitching a game-pad to the sound of music. In Bust-A-Groove though, the real theme is dancing. There are 10 characters to choose from (plus four hidden) and the objective is to make them dance to the music as rhythmically as possible.
With the help of precise timing in on-screen commands, the dancer will carry off progressively outrageous moves, but one missed beat means going back to square one. In competition, players can hinder opponents with some very nasty moves, but of course the opposition can do likewise. Bust-A-Groove is fun at times, although by no means easy. This is a fairly new game genre and like others in this style, it certainly won't appeal to everybody. A great workout for hand-eye co-ordination is guaranteed nonetheless.
Graphics/Sound/Play: 87%/88%/76%
R-Types, Sony PlayStation, £29.99
For fans of the R-Type games in the arcades many moons ago, this is an opportunity to own them both. R-Type and R-Type II are included on the CD from Virgin Interactive, but without improved graphics or sound. This is the pure thing - just as remembered. For the uninitiated, the player controls a ship (R-Type) that encounters waves and waves of enemies and obstacles. The real treat is the number of power-ups that can be accumulated by those who stay alive long enough. Doing reasonably well, the ship can (with the extra power-ups) blast an entire wave of enemies in a split second, but losing a life sends it back to a pitiful single laser.
Very simple and very addictive, this may not be enough to entice new players, but nostalgic fans will lap it up.
Graphics/Sound/Play: 74%/70%/74%
GameZone: games@irish-times.ie