Dark Matters Redux for Sega Dreamcast & Hucast Review

Greetings Readers, Reader, Random person who found this blog by doing a Google search for something else but this was the link that appeared first.

It has been awhile, but that is pretty typical for me. As I have mentioned before I like to take breaks from collecting from time to time, but especially around the holidays. This year I took an extended break, but now I am back and ready to get back int he swing of things. So lets begin with a review of Dark Matters REDUX, and the company that makes it HuCast.  To start I offer a picture. If a picture is worth a thousand words, well then this picture is worth one thousand and nine words and none of them are positive.

Regret does sum it up. Before I go too far let tell you what Terrible Title Dark Matters Redux is. This is a new game made for an old system, (the Dreamcast) that was crowd sourced on Kickstarter. The game is a SHMUP (Shoot'em Up) set in space much like R-Type, Gradius, and the like. The Campaign started in  May 2012, and the delivery was set to be in December 2012. I thought that the delivery date was ambitious, and it was. The game arrived in February 2014. That is quite a piece further down the road then Dec 2012, but things happen. It seems that video games are always delayed, so I wasn't surprised or upset by this delay as I was pretty much expecting it.

As this a collecting based review I won't say much about the game play. It's a SHMUP, if you like them, you probably like this. I found some enjoyment in it.

REVIEW:

The Shipping: Holy Mother of Cats, wtf? The worst shipping I have ever seen. Seriously Hucat, what is wrong with you? This game was shipped in a yellow mailer, a YELLOW FRICKEN MAILER!!! The choice of shipping packing material is mind bogglingly stupid, made worse by the fact I bought the Collectors Edition Steelbook.Within the yellow, non-padded mailer was no bubble wrap or foam, or paper or anything. Yup just a steel book flopping around in some sad, limp, yellow envelope. Needless to say mine has a few large dents. Also, the discs all came loose and were semi scratched. The 4 disc soundtrack that came with it also had all of it's CD's come loose. Serious Fail.

The Case:  So when they added the Steel Book Collectors edition to the Kickstarter it wasn't pictured and it cost $100. I upgraded figuring it would be pretty sweet given how good the Kickstarter campaign and initial art looked. I was wrong, so very very wrong. Please review the picture above. You might notice that the super awesome collectors edition steelbook turned out to be just a plain steelbook with a shitty sticker affixed to it (the back has no art either). If the sticker didn't tell me this edition was special I surely wouldn't have guessed.

The Art: What art? Please read the bit about the sticker again.

The Extra's: A sticker and the soundtrack. The sticker is a sticker, I am not a 6 year-old girl with a sticker album so I couldn't really give two F%^Ks about a sticker. The soundtrack is scratched so yeah.

The Cost: For $100 this should have been better. If you want to subtract $10 for shipping, well even at $90 it should have been better. Hucast really cut some corners and after several good experiences on Kickstarter I didn't expect my first bad one to come from a company that does this for a living.

The Final Verdict: This was a waste of money, Hucast did a terrible job on delivering this product. This is a niche product in a collectors market. Hucast clearly didn't understand who their target market was when they decided to make a special edition. If I was Hucast I would be embarassed  of the way things played out at the end. Please pass on any Hucast goods, I cannot in good faith recommend them.

A rebuke to anyone asking about "The Game". I am a collector first, gamer second. I bought a product that was geared for collectors, if I just wanted to play I could have paid $10 for a digital copy.

Thank you for reading,
~Johnny~

I have a Facebook Humor Page: Why Is Everybody So Bad At Everything? If you like the little jokes I put in the links, this is of the same ilk.