Importing the PAL Version

Friday 12th October 2001 will go down as a black day for Shenmue fans across the world and especially the US. It was the day Sega sold out, slapped their loyal Dreamcast fans across the face, and sold the rights to Shenmue in the US to Microsoft and their Xbox. All is not lost however if you live in the US and want to play Shenmue II in English as it is still coming to the UK and Europe thanks to Sega ditching the UK distribution (seriously). Sega handed distribution of it's first-party Dreamcast games to another company called Big Ben Interactive who have a contract to bring Shenmue II out, meaning that Micro$oft can't touch the PAL release no matter how much money they throw at it. Therefore anyone in the US can import a copy from the UK from November 30th and stick their middle finger right up at M$.

What is PAL?

PAL (phase-alternating lines) is the TV system used in Europe, Africa, and Australasia. In the US, Canada, South America, and Asia a different system called NTSC (National Television Standards Council) is used. PAL actually gives a much better picture than NTSC as is has 625 lines instead of 525 for NTSC, but as most games are developed in Japan and the US (NTSC territories) they are bordered to make up for the additional 100 lines and run 17.5% slower on PAL because PAL TVs are 50Hz (updates 50 times a second) as standard and NTSC TVs are 60Hz. Don't worry, most PAL DC games have a 60Hz option so that PAL gamers with a 60Hz TV don't have to suffer a bad conversion. This means that you'll be able to play a PAL version of Shenmue II just the same as it would have been on an NTSC system.

Is the PAL version the same as the US one?

Yes, the PAL version is exactly the same as the US one would have been. That means subtitled with Japanese voices and not with English voices.

Great! Where do I get it?

Unfortunately it's not that easy. Dreamcasts have a regional lockout which stops games from one country working in another. This is common to all non-handheld systems because it stops hardcore gamers importing games early and taking profits from the local release. There are two main ways to get around this which I will outline below:

• A Mod Chip - Most importers like Video Game Centre or National Console Support should be able to do this for you. It involves soldering a small chip to the DC's motherboard in order to stop it checking the game's region. However it does involve opening up your DC and therefore voiding the warranty and can cost around $30. You could also buy a cheaper, do-it-yourself chip but should you mess up and ruin your DC you've got no comeback. There is a guide to installing one yourself here.
• A Boot Disc - If you are a more casual importer a boot disc is a good choice. It simply involves inserting the disc, then removing it and replacing it with the import disc. If you have access to a PC with a CD-RW drive you can burn your own onto CD using a utility from here. The game may not work with all of these though, so I'd recommend buying a DC-X boot disc which is guaranteed to play all imports. You can buy it here.

So where can I buy the game?

Importing from the UK is much harder than from Japan as the games are less readily available due to low (or non-existant) demand. It's not impossible to find somewhere that can help you if you poke around on a search engine, though. If you can't be bothered, here are some of the best UK-based stores that can ship the game to you:

Video Game Centre
Gameplay
Computer Exchange
CA Games
Project K

If you want to order it from a store based inside the US, go to Cart Mart.