Darts

More recently, in keeping with Darts' strong association with pubs and drinking, matches between friends or pub teams are often played for pints. The Dreamcast features games with the following ratings from the ESRB:. Garside was discharged as the magistrates found darts, indeed, to be a game of skill. The Sega Dreamcast currently has over 276 games available in its library.[5]. Garside asked for the assistance of local champion William "Bigfoot" Anakin who attended as a witness and demonstrated that he could hit any number on the board nominated by the court. Sega also developed the Dreameye, a digital camera for the Dreamcast, as well as a Zip drive for the console, but these products were never released to the public. An apocryphal tale relates that in 1908, Jim Garside, the landlord of the Adelphi Inn, Leeds, England was called before the local magistrates to answer the charge that he had allowed betting on a game of chance, darts, on his premises. The Arcade Stick itself has lived on beyond the Dreamcast, and adaptors are now available to use it on other hardware platforms.

On premises where alcohol is consumed, English law has long permitted betting only on games of skill, as opposed to chance, and then only for small stakes. Although it could not be used for many Dreamcast games, due to the lack of the analogue joystick, this helped cement the Dreamcast's reputation for 2D shooters and fighting games. The main traditional event is the ben. Sega also released the extremely heavy-duty and well-regarded Arcade Stick, a digital joystick and six buttons using the same switches internally as an arcade machine. The WDF World Cup (for national teams) has been played bi-annually since 1977. The only other light gun compatible games were Death Crimson OX and its Japanese only prequel, Virtua Cop 2 on the Sega Smash Pack, and a light gun minigame in Demolition Racer No Exit. While the PDC tournaments often have a higher prize money, critics would say they are less prestigious than those organised by its traditional counterpart, the BDO. Several third parties made compatible guns for the few light gun games released, including House of the Dead 2 and Confidential Mission.

In 1994 a breakaway organisation was formed, influenced by Sky Television, currently known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) - in the Netherlands often televised by RTL5. American versions of light gun games even blocked out using the official gun. The BDO organises all British darts players, with the exception of a small group of professionals. Sega also produced a light gun for the system, although this was not sold in the US presumably because Sega did not want its name on a gun in the light of recent school shootings. The BDO is a member of the World Darts Federation (WDF) (founded 1976), along with organisations in some 60 other countries worldwide. Steering wheel controllers and dance pads were also available. Its tournaments are often shown on the BBC in the UK, and on SBS6 in the Netherlands. Other peripherals included a fishing rod controller (used for all Dreamcast fishing games) and the maracas for Samba de Amigo.

Of the two professional organisations, the British Darts Organisation (BDO), founded 1973, is the older. There was a microphone peripheral used for Alien Front Online, version 2.6 of the Planetweb Web browser (long distance calling support), the European Planet Ring collection and Seaman. These include "Round The Clock", in which players must hit each numbered section in turn to win, and the more complicated Cricket. The Dreamcast supported a mouse as well as a keyboard which was useful when using the included web browser, but was also supported by certain games such as The Typing of the Dead, Quake 3 and Phantasy Star Online. Other games that are commonly played differ in their scoring methods. Unique to the Dreamcast among current console gaming systems, it could use a VGA adapter for output to a computer display and HDTV compatible sets (which provided much better quality than a television set). Although playing straight down from 501 is standard in darts, other variations exist, notably "doubling in", where players must hit a double to begin scoring, with all darts thrown before said double contributing nothing to his score. The Dreamcast controller was somewhat large and a few players found it difficult to hold.

Longer matches are often divided into sets, each comprising some number of legs. It also contained two slots which fit memory cards or the rumble pack; the uppermost one had a window through which the VMU's display could be seen. Since the double areas are small, doubling out is usually the most difficult and tense part of a leg. The Dreamcast controller offered an analog stick, a D-pad, a Start button, four gaming buttons (labeled A, B, X, and Y), and two analog index finger triggers on the underside. A throw that would reduce a player's score to one or below zero does not count, his turn ends, and his score is reset to what it was before that turn. In Japan, the Jump Pack was named the "Puru Puru Pack". Successfully doing so is known as "doubling out" or "checking out". Most Dreamcast games supported a rumble pack ("Jump Pack"), which was sold separately and could be plugged into the controller.

The last dart in the leg must hit either a double or the inner portion of the bullseye and must reduce the score to exactly zero. The 4X cards did not have the VMU screen or stand-alone abilities, but they had four times the space by switching between four 200-block sectors. Starting from a set score, usually 501 or 301, a player wins by reducing his score to zero. Most of these were manufactured by third-party companies (such as the Nexus Memory Card), although Sega eventually released a 4X memory card. A game, or "leg", of darts is usually contested between two players, who take turns in throwing up to three darts. Standard memory cards could also be purchased without the additional features of the VMU. Many of these electronic dart boards have dozens of different dart games and variations programmed in, and will even coach a player as to where to aim his next throw. It could also display a list of the saved game data stored on it, and two VMUs could be connected together (end-to-end, needing no other hardware) to exchange data.

One big advantage of the soft tip dart for the recreational player is the availability of electronic boards that will detect and score each dart hit, and track the score of each player. It could play minigames loaded onto it (a Chao game was obtainable in Sonic Adventure, for example). Other than the difference in maximum allowable weights of darts, soft tip dart rules are the same as those for steel tip darts. It had a monochrome LCD screen, a D-Pad, and two gaming buttons. Since the plastic tips are prone to chip, bend and break with use, even inexpensive soft tip darts are made with replaceable tips, and replacement tips are sold in quantity. The Visual Memory Unit, or "VMU", was the Dreamcast's memory card. While still dangerous, soft tip darts are less likely to cause serious injury if they hit a person, and are far less likely to damage items they hit if they bounce out of the board. Aside from the cosmetic differences in the case to accommodate the larger screen, there are no differences between the original Treamcast portable modified Dreamcast and the newer widescreen model.

The darts may be removed from the board by a gentle twist and pull. Recently, in 2005, the internet import store, Lan-Kwei, has started selling a "Treamcast" portable modified Dreamcast with a 16:9 widescreen LCD. The soft tip darts have semi-rigid tapered plastic tips that will penetrate the holes cast in the board to a depth of about .25 inches (6 mm) before lodging securely in place. In reality, this system is not any different than selling a Dreamcast pre-modified with a third party shell, as the system's internals still use first party hardware, and contain no modifications whatsoever aside from the outside casing and modifications for internal sound and video. The soft tip darts are, in general, lighter than the steel tipped darts, and have a lower maximum allowable weight. When the internet import videogame store, Lik-Sang, contacted Sega to ask permission to sell a modified version of the system with Sega trademarks on the system, they were told that Sega did not approve of the unit, and felt that it violated their trademarks. A relatively new type of board is the soft tip board, which is made of plastic and cast with small holes (about .08 inches, or 2mm) in the face. Many companies included software and a remote with the unit that enabled it to play MP3s and Video CDs.

In the televised game, the commentator frequently announces a score of 180 in exuberant style. This small system with its fold-down display resembled the later PS One. The highest score possible with 3 darts is 180, obtained when all three darts land in the triple 20. A third-party company from China named Treamcast released a portable modified Dreamcast which used the original first party Dreamcast components with a custom made plastic casing. However, in the official game, any dart landing inside the outer wire scores as follows:. Games in Europe were sold in jewel cases exactly twice as thick as their US counterparts, possibly to enable the inclusion of thick instruction booklets containing instructions in multiple languages. Various quite different games can be played (and still are played informally) using the standard dartboard. The 60Hz option had to be enabled on the game disc, however, but only a small number of games lacked it.

Circular wires within the outer wire divide each section into single, double and triple areas. This was a first for games consoles, as no previous PAL console had offered the user an option to play games at full speed, using the ability of more modern PAL televisions to operate at 60Hz; and is a feature of all major consoles released since. The standard dartboard is divided into twenty numbered sections, scoring from one to 20 points, by wires running from the small central circle to the outer circular wire. As well as the VGA mode (again using an adapter), the European Dreamcast supported PAL video, in both 50Hz and 60Hz modes. There are many different board layouts that would penalize a player more than the current setup; however, the current setup actually does the job rather efficiently. A German company, Tivola, had been using a similar swirl logo years before Sega branded the Dreamcast with the orange swirl. Mathematically, there are 20 !, or 2,432,902,008,176,640,000 different possible combinations of arrangement of the dartboard's 20 sections (20 possible places to place the 20, 19 remaining sections for the 19, etc). This change in logo is thought to have been for copyright reasons.

Although this applies to most of the board, the left-hand side (near the 14 section) is preferred by beginners, for its concentration of larger numbers. The Dreamcast in Europe had its spiral logo in blue, similar to the logo on earlier Sega systems. By most accounts, the numbering layout was devised by Brian Gamlin in 1896 to penalize inaccuracy. Units manufactured with the version number of 2 would not read CD-R media and therefore could not be used to play pirated games, and also had the unfortunate side effect of not being able to play independent games such as the three bleemcast! discs, Feet of Fury, Inhabitants, or Maqiupai. The numbering plan known by many today has a 20 on top; however, a great many other configurations have been used throughout the years and in different geographical locations. The Sega Dreamcast Hello Kitty special edition was also available in a blue with all the same accessories. Soon, regional standards emerged and many woodworkers supplemented bar tabs by fabricating dart boards for the local pubs. The console and accessories are translucent pink in color with some printed designs.

As the wood dried, cracks would develop, creating "sections". The package contains a keyboard, a controller, a VMU, a mouse, and a Hello Kitty trivia game. There is speculation that the game originated among soldiers throwing short arrows at the bottom of the cast or at the bottom of trunks of trees. Due to its limited production, it has become an extremely rare collector's piece. The dartboard itself may have its origins in the cross section of a tree, although some historical records suggest that the first standard dartboards were the bottoms of wine casks, hence the game's original name of "butts". The Sega Dreamcast Hello Kitty was released in 2000 in Japan. In particular, the Yorkshire board differs from the standard board in that it has no treble ring and has a single, inner bull. In Japan, Sega released many varieties of the system, including limited edition Sonic anniversary editions, and Hello Kitty outfits.

Various designs of dartboard have been used, and regional variations remain in parts of Staffordshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire. Cases of different colors like blue, red, orange, and green were sold for replacements of the original casing. In the standard game, the dart board is hung so that the bullseye is 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) from the floor, and the oche (pronounced 'ock-ey'), or throwing line behind which the player must stand, is 7 ft 9.25 in (2.37 m) from the face of the board, though a few British pubs set it at 8 ft (2.44 m) or 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m). Similar offerings were sold through the Lik-Sang website. The numbers indicating the various scoring sections of the board are normally made of wire, especially on tournament-quality boards, but may be printed directly on the board instead. Electronics Boutique offered a blue Dreamcast through its website. Dart boards are usually made of sisal fibers and each section is lined with thin metal wire. In the United States, a black Dreamcast was released in limited numbers with a sports pack which included two Sega Sports titles.

. Available separately were an S-Video cable, a RF connector (included as standard in the UK) and a VGA adapter (see accessories below). As well as being a professional competitive sport, darts is a traditional pub game, commonly played in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, the United States and elsewhere. The unit was packaged with a video cable which supports composite video and right/left stereo audio. Though various different boards and games have been used in the past, the term 'darts' usually now refers to a standardized game involving a specific board design and set of rules. (This color was used as it is considered to be lucky in Japan.) Games were sold in jewel cases which initially had the Dreamcast name and logo on a white background, but later games used a black background (blue in Europe). Darts is a game, or rather a variety of related games, in which darts are thrown at a circular target (dart board) hung on a wall. The power light, like the Dreamcast logo in NTSC regions, is orange.

John Lowe. The standard Dreamcast unit is made of white and grey plastic. Bob Anderson's Official Website - The Limestone Cowboy. Phantasy Star Online, Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament , Outtrigger, Bomberman Online, and POD Speedzone included support for this device. Jocky Wilson. The modem module in the Dreamcast could easily be replaced with a broadband module to allow networked gaming over Ethernet. Raymond van Barneveld. As the DreamKey web browser was customised to only work with Dreamarena, Sega subsequently offered a free replacement version which would allow connection with the user's own Internet service provider.

Phil Taylor. Dreamarena ran until the beginning of March 2002. Jelle Klaasen - Youngest dart champion at 21 years of age. The service was free, and the game servers hosted within it could not otherwise be accessed from the Internet. Trina Gulliver — First women's darts champion. This was created and operated for Sega Europe by a partnership between ICL and BT (ICL developed the web sites and software, with BT providing the dial-up capabilities and network infrastructure). Bobby George. In Europe, the online service was known as Dreamarena.

Steve Beaton. The games still playable online are Quake III Arena, Starlancer, 4x4 Evolution, Phantasy Star Online, Maximum Pool Online, and Sega Swirl, which still have dozens of players online. Mervyn 'The Swerve' King. Fans have developed servers for playing Phantasy Star Online; the North American version of Quake III Arena can still be played online by finding or setting up a server using software and a map pack released by Sega. Eric Bristow. Although the online features of most commercially-released online-capable Dreamcast games are no longer supported, some games are still playable online[4]. The Minuteman Dart League, an ADO member, organizes players in the Boston Metropolitan area (http://www.mmdl.org/). Other major online games include 4x4 Evolution (first crossplatform online game), Starlancer, and Ferrari F355 Challenge.

The American Darts Organization is the world's largest national dart league, facilitating the organization of members' regional divisions, and promoting the sport via pub-based teams and individuals across the country (http://www.adodarts.com/). About twenty-two games, including Quake III Arena and Phantasy Star Online, supported SegaNet. The American Darters Association offers league organization for casual singles players throughout the United States (http://www.adadarters.com/). The SegaNet online dial-up service (US$29/month membership) attracted 750,000 subscribers in America alone. In professional rules, a dart's tip must be touching a scoring section for the dart to count. The Dreamcast was one of the first home console systems to offer online gameplay with the game ChuChu Rocket! (which was distributed free to Dreamcast owners in Europe). Variations on this rule exist - some judge that a dart which obviously hits a scoring section but then subsequently drops out will count if caught before it hits the floor. In Europe, the final version of DreamKey was 3.0.

Any dart that does not remain in the board after throwing (for example, a dart that hits a wire and bounces out of the board) also scores nothing. Version 3.0 of Planetweb included broadband capabilities, Java, Flash, and mouse support. Hitting outside the outer wire scores nothing. Dream Passport was the Japanese browser, Planetweb was used in America and DreamKey in Europe. The term "bullseye" can mean either the whole central part of the board or just the inner red section. Dreamcast consoles came packed with a disc containing web browser software allowing dial-up Internet access. The central circle is divided into a green outer ring worth 25 points (known as "outer" or "outer bull") and a red inner circle (usually known as "bull", "inner bull" or "double bull"), worth 50 points. Other well known implementations in graphics started on Sega's console by developers were cel-shading and bump mapping.

Hitting the thin inner portions of these sections, roughly halfway between the outer wire and the central circle and again coloured red or green, scores treble (or 3x) the points value of that section. Also, a few notable games were not compatible with this mode, including certain Capcom fighting games and 2D shoot-'em-up games. Hitting the thin outer portions of these sections, coloured red and green, scores double the points value of that section. This was likely due to lack of knowledge on the subject. Hitting one of the large portions of each of the numbered sections, traditionally coloured black and yellow, scores precisely the points value of that section.