Shenmue 2 is 20 years old today.

First released on Dreamcast on 6th September 2001 in Japan, it came to Europe a few months later on November 23rd - and was an Xbox exclusive in North America when it eventually arrived in October the following year.

You can watch Digital Foundry compare the 2018 remaster of Shenmue I and II on modern platforms versus the Dreamcast original:

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Hello and welcome to the second of our Clash of Fans write-ups. This week we'll be getting together in pairs (virtually) and forcing each other to play a beloved game. Then we'll chat about what we made of it all. Next up is Old School RuneScape and Shenmue!

Matt: I have to admit, a good portion of my time allocated to this feature was spent signing up to RuneScape. It was frequently baffling - I somehow had an account already associated with Jagex which needed resetting several times, my usual handle (and my back up, and the back up to that) were already taken, and upon trying to buy membership, it wouldn't let me type in any credit card details.

It was similar to the only other time I tried to play an MMO - an evening wasted trying to get my head around Square Enix's account system to play Final Fantasy 14 in its infancy, forcing me to give up on what I hear is one of the best games in recent years - and a reminder of why I tend to stick to console games. There's only so many captcha screens I can take!

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It's been nearly 20 years, but it seems the original Shenmue still has a little left to offer. Fans have dug deep into the code to successfully unearth a secret move that was recently hinted at by one of the original developers.

The move - known as 'Shin Shōryūken', and a clear reference to one of Street Fighter's signature moves - was part of the original game but removed at the 11th hour at director Yu Suzuki's request. Maybe he was fearful of intervention from Capcom's lawyers?

It's been re-enabled, however, by an enterprising fan (as picked up by Shenmue Dojo). The dragon punch - look, let's just call it what it is - can't be activated in normal play, and in this instance has been unlocked in one of the cutscenes in the harbor, being utilised against greasy rocker Goro.

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The button-pushers at Microsoft are trigger-happy today: loads of new games are now available to play via Xbox Game Pass ahead of an official announcement.

Eagle-eyed users of ResetEra and Reddit spotted new games ready to install on Xbox One and on PC via the Microsoft Store, and have been working together to create a list of titles added to the subscription service today.

Highlights include Hollow Knight, which you can now install on your devices if you have an Xbox Game Pass:

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UPDATE 16/10/18 3:52pm: Sega has been in touch with a statement - "SEGA and D3T indeed had started exploring the feasibility of a full HD remaster for Shenmue I & II. That being said, we soon realised that this was a project with its own set of challenges. Working with original animations and characters but meshing them with enhanced HD visuals gave us a game that we felt would not meet the standards that Shenmue fans expect and deserve. Rather than going ahead with a release that may disappoint fans, we chose to focus on bringing the classic game to PC and modern consoles, so that new players could experience Shenmue's original charm."

Original story: Shenmue - a game of discovery and adventure. It's a timeless classic and one with a deep and fascinating history - which becomes even more compelling today. As we know, Sega tasked UK developer d3t with remastering Shenmue and its sequel for the current generation consoles and PC. What we received was a good game that brought classic Shenmue to today's machines, albeit with visuals based almost exclusively on the original AM2 assets. But what we now know is that prior to completing this work, plans were afoot for something considerably more ambitious - a comprehensive remake with completely revamped artwork more in step with the capabilities of the host platforms. We've seen it and today, you will too.

So, what's the story here? Well, the details are murky but as we understand it, this more in-depth remaster/remake was in development for quite some time before the plug was pulled due to budget constraints and development delays - and perhaps owing to concerns with the nature of some of the changes being made. We only have a rough idea of what happened and we can't presume to understand all of the business reasons behind Sega's change in direction, but the bottom line is that in common with other unfinished and cancelled projects, the work-in-progress video we received adds a further dimension to the history of one of gaming's most celebrated franchises.

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I remember my teens, my early twenties. I'm not talking about the febrile highs or the painful embarrassments - although I remember those too - but the sheer aimlessness, the great stretches of unoccupied time, the loafing. Waiting for the one daily bus into town from the Northamptonshire village where I grew up and killing time window-shopping until the one bus back; later, as a procrastinating student, ambling down Coney Street in York, pastry in hand, knowing my afternoon would end in me clocking the Super Mario 64 demo for the umpteenth time in GAME, as if I didn't have anything better to do. Maybe I didn't.

There's anxiety and depression at that age, a crippling fear that you will never find out who it is you are supposed to be and what it is you are supposed to be doing. But hand-in-hand with that suppressed turmoil goes a blissful boredom, a vacant, nothingy existence that might be enforced by a lack of money or purpose, but that has its own remorseless momentum. It won't let you go and the clock won't move any quicker to the time you want it to be - the time when something will happen. We like to romanticise youth as a frenetic blaze of glory, but for the young, dear God, life comes at you slow.

I remember it, but so different is my life now, it's hard to remember what it was really like. I did get a taste of it this past week, though, playing Shenmue for the first time.

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They've only been out a few days, but already mods are popping up for Shenmue I & II on PC.

While Sega remained faithful to the original presentation of the 2000 and 2001 classic Dreamcast games, there's been a few tweaks and improvements, most notably to scale the graphics with screen resolutions, provide a choice of modern and classic controls, and update the user interface.

But if you're looking to boost the look of Shenmue even further, the modders are already hard at work (thanks, DSOG, via PC Gamer).

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It may not be the full-on remaster/remake we might have hoped for, but Shenmue and its sequel are finally playable on modern hardware, courtesy of Sega and developer d3t. PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC releases are available, each delivering a remarkably close conversion of the Dreamcast originals, with one or two interesting tweaks.

Let's begin with the first game. It should come as no surprise that Shenmue HD delivers a higher resolution experience. Across all Xbox and PlayStation consoles, Shenmue HD operates with a 1080p pixel-count - whether you're gaming on base or enhanced hardware. The good news is that image quality is terrific. Shenmue uses a form of anti-aliasing that manages to clean up edges to the point where it's nearly impossible to see individual pixel steps. It's an extremely effective solution and it holds up well even when scaled on a 4K TV.

More importantly, in comparison to Dreamcast, shimmering is kept to an absolute minimum with thin objects and fine details appearing temporally stable in the HD version. In its original format, Shenmue exhibits a lot of noticeable shimmering and aliasing - something atypical for the Dreamcast. That's because Shenmue is one of the few games on the system to completely eschew mip-maps - something it shares with AM2's arcade games. My guess is that AM2 felt that the side effects of utilising bilinear filtering in combination with mip-maps - which leads to blurred textures at oblique angles - took too great a toll on the perception of fine detail. Thankfully, the new HD version handles this much more effectively, enabling clean surfaces devoid of shimmering and artefacts.

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Sega has given a final release date for its Shenmue HD collection, with the bundle that pairs the original two games with a gentle makeover coming to Xbox One, PS4 and PC on August 21st.

The collection will release with a physical version on PS4 and Xbox One, with the PC remaining digital only - and by pre-ordering now for your platform of choice you can get a 10 per cent discount. The remasters allow players to enjoy a new interface, plus the ability to play with either the English or Japanese dubs - the first time players in the west will have had that option for the first Shenmue.

Shenmue first came out for Sega's Dreamcast in 1999, its sequel following a couple of years later in 2001, and at the time it was the most expensive video game developed, and the last high profile game that legendary creator Yu Suzuki would make for the company that made his name.

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