Boy, are these guys DIRTY. They're trashing my truck!

Let's start this review with an apology. Waaay back in April I would've reviewed Milestone's Karous. There's a couple of reasons this review fell through. One of them was the general lack of time I had, another was the tiring nature of the 'Dreamcast 2D shooter review' process. I didn't really enjoy Karous much, even while it was better than Radirgy. Should you be looking for quality 2D blasts on the Dreamcast make sure to pick up games like Ikaruga, Zero Gunner 2 or Under Defeat. If you're incredibly desperate for more 2D blasting action you might want to look at Castle of Shikigami 2, Psyvariar or Border Down next. If your hunger for 2D shoot 'em ups still isn't satisfied after that..well fine, go and pick up Karous. It's not terrible, just kinda mediocre, keep that in mind.

Right, now we got that out of the way, we're taking a look at..Lost and Found volume 2, a Saturn release by Oldergames. Better still..it's not a 2D shooter! Now we're talking! Oldergames is a company that actively looks for unpublished software and new developments and releases them on classic platforms like the Sega-CD, 3DO and in this case the Saturn. Lost and Found volume 1 was released back in 2004 and only saw a run of 25 copies! It featured an early version of an FMV adventure 'Rebellion' and a disc containing some unknown FMV footage. Not exactly the most shocking release ever, especially because you needed a modded system to run them. Still, that didn't stop people looking and paying loads of money for them after the sale ended.

Recently Oldergames announced a L.A.F. vol 2 and I was one of the fifty lucky people to be able to obtain it (at $29.95, not too bad a price) If it turned out to be rubbish, I'd be able to sell it to a lunatic for a tenfold! (just kidding there).
When L.A.F. 2 came in last week I was impressed with the overall package. Sure it's just a DVD case with some labeled discs and stuff, but overall it's a quality job by Oldergames. The package -once again- contains two discs. One of them holds an early development prototype of Three Dirty Dwarves, the other contains the same Rebellion proto that featured on volume one (as another chance for people to see it).

'Did you spill my pint?', 'What's a pint'?

'Get these damn dogs offa me!!'

Three Dirty Dwarves: Early development prototype

Three Dirty Dwarves, a scrolling beat 'em up, was released on the all Saturn markets (1996 USA & PAL, 1997 JPN). And boy did it get a hard time from the gaming press. It was deemed 'unfunny', 'frustrating' and 'poorly designed'. Now, to be honest, most of the criticisms pointed at TDD were justified and most of them could be re-used in this review. You see, as early as this prototype might be (or not, but we'll come to that) most annoyances already made it in. TDD features three characters running around city themed surroundings, beating up freaks, rats, spiked balls (?!) and mostly even more freaks. One of the 'dwarves runs around with a baseball bat and set of balls, another wears a (American) football helmet and tosses bowling balls (!) and the third dwarf simply uses a pump-action shotgun to dispose of enemies.

The dwarves themselves look funky and I must say I love the way Segasoft and Appaloosa used all the Saturn's fancy sprite effects like scaling and rotation on the backgrounds. It gives TDD a fresh look and I still think it looks really rather cool in places. The enemies in TDD are definitely on the weird side. The bosses certainly aren't any different, ranging from a guy covered with aggressive dogs to a full-blown gym-building walking around on loads of tiny feet (don't ask me).

So why is TDD such a let-down? First of all, it is -indeed- incredibly frustrating. When one of the dwarves is hit, he will be stunned and will need to be bashed by another dwarf to re-enter the game. When all three dwarves are stunned at the same time, the game will be over and you'll have to start over the level from the beginning. As most levels are rather long and feature a large amount of nasty obstacles, it's incredibly annoying to see your last dwarf being knocked out near the end of the level while you're desperately trying to knock the others back in. Most of the hazards you'll encounter seem to be created simply to annoy you, with loads of fast surprise attacks being launched against your slowly moving dwarves. It's hardly a fair battle. TDD desperately could've used some restart points and life bars, but the developers probably wanted to break the trend set by games like Streets of Rage and Final Fight, which -all things considered- wasn't a wise decision.

I could tell what's going on here but it would only frighten you more.

If this reminds you of Clockwork Knight 2, then well done to you.

So what are the differences between the retail copy of TDD and this? I'm not too sure, really. The old Appaloosa logo looked a bit peculiar during the opening screens, but other than that? Haven't got a clue. All the levels I tested (roughly eight of them) seemed exactly like those found in the retail copy. Even the password screen and cheat modes are available. If you were looking for scrapped levels and different sprites (like me) you might be disappointed because there's really nothing much to be found.

Three Dirty Dwarves isn't a total loss, though. Some of the levels are rather excellent (such as the cart chase one seen above), there's some very humorous bosses and the special attacks you'll be able to perform (after picking up enough power-ups) are rather cool. If you have a lot of patience (or better, a couple of friends, as this game is a lot more fun played with three) there is a chance you might have some enjoyable moments with it.

Rebellion

I never really came across any information on Rebellion before, to be honest. All that I could gather is that this version was in development around the time of the USA Saturn launch and that it was possibly SEGA (Segasoft) themselves that
were developing it. The game starts without any title screen or front-end and if you don't press a direction fast enough, the story starts with you being thrown out of some sort of base. By using the d-pad (do not try the analogue pad, it won't respond, regardless of its setting) you'll be able to move around. There's no directions, no story, no hints, no nothing. You just seem to wander around aimlessly, looking for some vital clues that might help you.

Hmm..getting to that door shouldn't be a problem..

'BZZZZZ!!!!' 'Aaaarghhhh!!' etc. Didn't I kill this guy in Corpse Killer?

The base consists of all kinds of futuristic materials and loads of different doors that seem to take you nowhere. If you're not careful enough, you'll come across one of the various enemies who take great pleasure in electrocuting you, performing various karate moves on you and 'dragging your sorry ass' out of the base. Should you be able to able to avoid them, there's a number of different chambers to explore. Sadly, most of these chambers have little function and all seem to loop into each other, even while that clearly seems impossible.

There's a couple of interactive puzzles to be found, but none of them seemed to do much. After some serious exploring I finally came across some sort of hidden passage, but at the end of it there was nothing but another wall. That's basicly the feeling you get when playing Rebellion; you're going everywhere but you're not getting anywhere. There's some 'fun' to be had trying to access all different videos available but that's about all you're going to get out of it.

Rebellion is a trip down memory lane, back to the days of Truemotion video, Digital Pictures, people dressed up as zombies and infinite ways to die. An era I didn't really enjoy to re-visit, to be honest.

'It's not safe'. Yeah, thanks for telling me that now.

There's the odd puzzle to be 'solved'.

Didn't know they used the set of The Goonies. "Choqwlate!!"

Apart from the impressive packaging, there's not much else of interest about Lost and Found volume 2. The Three Dirty Dwarves 'early development prototype' disappointed me with its completeness (i.e: it's nearly the same as the retail version) and Rebellion was perhaps a little too incomplete to get much out of (it crashed multiple times). Still, I'm not disappointed I bought this release, if only for the exclusive look at an unreleased game and perhaps it helped to secure more Saturn releases from Oldergames.

PACKAGING
Nicely done packaging including screenshots, each copy contains a serial
number from 1 to 50. The discs aren't printed but look decent. A small
leaflet or manual with controls wouldn't have hurt, though.

GAMEPLAY
TDD is pretty much complete, Rebellion should 'last' you about an hour.

VALUE
$30 would be much to pay in retail but in this form it's worth the money.