Slashdot Mirror
Dreamcast Tribute Revisits Cult Console, Games
Buster Chan writes "NTSC-uk has begun their two-week long tribute to the almighty Sega Dreamcast, including an editorial recounting favorite memories of Sega's final (so far) hardware, as writers 'give their views of one of the most prolific consoles of recent times', the first 128-bit console. They also run new reviews revisiting Cosmic Smash, checking out Get Bass, and analyzing the very Japanese Tokyo Bus Guide." Although it was so long ago we can barely remember, what were your favorite Dreamcast titles?
While there were many, many good games for the Dreamcast, the one that stands out in my opinion is Ikaruga. In my opinion, it's one of the best verticle shooter games ever created.
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
Typing of the Dead ... the greatest game ever! (okay, not really)
... separates the men from the boys (and the afternoon I played it, women/girls, too). A group of maybe four of us beat it in a few hours, no real challenge. The fun part was finding the special endings (including when the main boss plummets to his death, only to miraculously bungee jump back onto the roof-top where the previous battle just took place, and then burps in your face).
... try to force the players to laugh so hard they lose.
truly awesome game
Man, did i suffer some RSI that day.
Linkage: here
Truly, the best part was the tongue-in-cheek engrish phrases you were forced to spell out. Which i think is a valid design choice
Metropolis Street Racing
One of the few games I felt that I had grossly underpaid. I love that game, it took racing games to a new level. Superb graphics, courses mapped out to block-by-block sections of real life cities. Awesome stuff.
Tho it lacked the upgrade and hotrod aspects of Gran Turismo it excelled in breaking the static driving game formula. Style, overall speed, top speed, number of passes, one on ones. Made it less monotounous than simply going track after track (tho there were hundreds of different tracks).
The AI was pretty weak but was very challenging none-the-less.
The realtime day and night was a nice plus too. If it was nightime in London and daytime where you really live (that is if you set your dreamcast clock correctly) it'd be night in the game, vice versa. Some rewards were only available during certain hours of the day. Made it interesting.
The sound was unique too, had radio stations (course Rad Racer had that) but it felt like you were really listening to the radio with commercials and DJ babble. Also when you went through tunnels the radio would cut out and you'd get static till you exited. Stations also reflected the country you were racing in.
This game later became Project Gotham and the superb PGR2. But it lost much of it's whistles in favor for flashier graphics. If you find this game it's worth the 5$ you'll see priced on it. Knowing how good it was after I played it, I would have gladly paid over $100 for it.
The gord speaks the truth about the dreamcast 128bit myth
You can still buy one, and at 50 bucks for a new one and 30 or so odd for a used it is hard to go wrong. In silicon valley 30 dollars doesn't even pay for the sushi.
The SHA-4 (well, SH7750) which powers the Dreamcast is _very much_ a 32-bit architecture. 32-bit memory/IO addresses, 32-bit words, 32-bit FPU, 32-bit aligned. However it can dispatch 2 integer instructions simultaneously (like the pentium), while chewing on up to 2 FPU ops as well. This is how 32 + 32 + 32 + 32 = 128 bits is claimed.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Still, the architecture is very nice and allows for high throughput without needing a lot of cache, deep pipelines, or high clock speed.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Soul Calibur (blew the arcade version away)
NFL2K (the first "beautiful" sports game, led to what is now a great line of 'ESPN' branded games)
Ikaruga (the hardest goddamned game I've ever played)
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (arcade perfect)
Rez (a beautiful, amazing experience)
Jet Set/Grind Radio (cell shading done right)
Crazy Taxi (insanely fun arcade driving)
Chu Chu Rocket (the best multiplayer puzzle game ever.)
Looney Tunes Space Race (a fun kart-style racer)
PowerStone 2 (chaotic 4-player fighting)
Tennis 2K2/Virtua Tennis (best tennis game, till M$ copied a la Top Spin)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (a port, but great)
Shenmue/Shenmue 2 (immense RPGs)
and of course, the homebrews and emulation (especially Feet of Fury and NESterDC)
The Sonic Adventure games were fun, but never captured the magic of the 16-bit Genesis games. Even with the new Sonic Heroes it's still lacking. Sonic 2 still is the best in the series in my opinion. The voice and music acting since SA1 is just comically bad. Please Sega, restore the dignity in that franchise! The old Sonic games had great music, now we have to deal with bad J-Pop while we fight Eggman (Robotnik).
The Kingdom of Retarsia
The first time I saw Soul Calibur I literally missed my mouth and spilled my drink a la Airplane! Crazy Taxi was an early and more gentle GTA. I left Ecco on the screen as background "art" at a party that had some kids at it...they went nuts moving the dolphin around the screen (and the graphics caused a lot of the adults to beg for turns too). Playing Shenmue inspired me enough to take a trip to Japan (though I didn't get to the area Shenmue takes place in).
This console was my introduction to Lik-Sang as I bought the ethernet adapter, two DC-2-PS2 adapters so I could use a mouse/keyboard with the webbrowser. Hell, I even bought the soundtrack to Jet Set Radio.
I could go on and on about great moments I've had with this console. It "felt" right...I never had a problem with the controller as some people did, and even played Tetris on the memory unit (thanks Marcus!)
To me, this was the first console that got everything right; great graphics, great controller (to me), and an online community through the console itself (modem then ethernet). Though I have an Xbox, it feels like a bit of a warmed over Dreamcast and I still think the graphics on the DC are better than the PS2 (my opinion based on games I've seen).
Skies is one of the greatest RPGs I've ever played, and truly shows that modern RPG games can still be fun. It's a bit cliche in many respects, but I've not played another RPG that was nearly as good since Xenogears or the old SNES games like FF IV/VI and Chrono Trigger.
I liked MSR, but it didn't hook me as much as Test Drive LeMans did. Infogrames Melbourne House are some talented programmers that really managed to squeeze a hell of a lot out of the Dreamcast (and they claim that they had plenty of room to spare!). Anyway... Back to MSR. It's definately one of the most unique racers I've played, and has a lot of cool aspects that make it very original.
Shenmue will always be one of my favorite game series. I loved the first game, and was blown away by the sequel, which I imported from Europe. I wish all the time that we'll see a third game in the series, to close the story... Maybe next generation. The games have some quirks, but it definately does a lot very well. It's a great series. In fact, I love Shenmue 2 so much, that I started playing it again a week ago; probably my fourth time through it.
SEGA Bass Fishing is fantastic, especially with the fishing controller. Marine Fishing is also quite cool, even though it feels a lot more arcadey. I have unfortunately not had the opportunity to pick up the second bass fishing game.
Soul Calibur is a classic that we played the hell out of before the DC was released in the USA. My buddy had the game, imported from Japan, and we played it all the time through the first half of 1999. We ran a game store and had the unit set up on a kisok, hooked to a 17" monitor with the VGA box, connected to two official arcade sticks. I can't tell you how many pre-orders we got for those things, just by having his personal demo unit. I kinda feel like we were a part of gaming history, peddling the amazing console by tempting people with the greatness of Soul Calibur.
There are other games that I really enjoyed as well. Near the end of the Dreamcast's life, it was possible to score TONS of fantastic games in the $5-$10 price range. I managed to get lots of great games; Sword of the Berserk, EGG, Vanishing Point, Expendable, Draconus, etc., at super low prices. Great stuff.
All totalled, I think I have about 60 Dreamcast games. I was pretty crushed when SEGA stated that they were going to halt the production of the system and the games, and thought that I might stop buying console games all together. My Gamecube has filled part of the gaming void with a few Dreamcast ports and unique and original titles, but it still doesn't have some of the flair of the Dreamcast, even if it does have its own style of excellent games.
I think that this is one console that will be remembered for a very long time. It's a shame, actually, that many people didn't really start to notice it until it was too late. I see countless stories about people who picked up a $50 Dreamcast and couldn't believe that there were so many kick-ass games avaiable for the system, wishing that they had purchased one earlier.
In Japan new games are still released for Dreamcast every month. A lot of them are playable even if you don't speak Japanese. Some of the more recent releases that I'd recommend are: Border Down (2003), Psyvariar 2 (2004), Puyo Puyo Fever (2004), and Shikigami No Shiro 2 (2004). Dreamcast should resurrect in North America so that these great games, and others, can find the fans they deserve.
"I am a fictional character."