Slashdot Mirror
Games That Defined The Dreamcast
Retrogaming with Racketboy has a piece looking at some of the console-defining titles we miss from that little white box. From the article: "Phantasy Star Online - Sega was one of the main pioneers in online console gaming. While they had modest online offering with both the Genesis and Saturn, the Dreamcast was the first of their consoles to have online capabilities built into the stock machine. The Dreamcast came standard with a 56k modem and also had a (expensive) LAN/Broadband adapter available as an upgrade. Phantasy Star Online paved the way for Sega's groundbreaking online network and for later networks like XBox Live."
soul calibur. Only game I bought the system for, and the best game of the generation by far.
Samba De Amigo defines the DC for me. I still have a Jap and US Dreamcast and 2 sets of maracca controllers. Best party game ever.
was of course Crazy Taxi.
Space Channel 5, Seaman. To name a couple I can remeber from my collection.
Those bastards didn't even do a blurb about Chu Chu other than list it at the bottom. That game is an awesome party game and is the reason why I still keep a working DC in the room for get togethers.
When a person latches onto a platform it should be a life or death commitment.
This would be a solution to the "Dead Platform Problem" that plagues the gaming/computing world:
Amiga freaks
Dreamcast freaks
Xbox freaks
Xbox 360 freaks
When each of these marketplace failure platforms died it left its fanboys littering the Net making life miserable for the rest of the world. When a console/platform dies it should be like kings of ancient times where the loyal followers were buried along with the dead king.
The Tony Hawk games on the dreamcast were the best! Way better than their playstation or n64 counterparts. I actually 100%'ed TH2, which requires you to 100% the game with each character plus one custom character. That was a great game. Also, the dreamcast was able to play backups without a mod chip... that was THE reason I got one.
Those 2 were, to me, the defining dreamcast experience, for me. Though, I think you could kind of make a case for Hydro Thunder. (porting that arcade game to the console was cool... though, it was really more than the console could handle). I also really liked Rush 2049. The DC really did have some wonderful games. Heck, the only real sports game I picked up in the past several years, was the NFL 2k title. :-) Using the little display in the controller to pick plays, was pure brilliance. (so, I would have to add NFL 2k to that group)
What a great system. You were taken from us too young, may you rest in peace.
That game rules! I like it so much that I created the Propeller Arena Fan Site , where you can find tons of info/pics/music. Check it out, Dreamcast fans!
Circumcision is child abuse.
Fire ProWrestling D, great import game from Japan, easily the best wrestling game at the time (and still second only to Fire ProWrestling R for PS2).
Distributed proteome folding @ WorldCommunityGrid.org
Team Slashdot - Members:#1 Run Time:#1 Points:#1 Results:#1
Firepro wrestling D
best wrestling game of it's time and has still only been minorly improved upon.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
the broadband adapter IS significant if you're going to use the machine as a lightweight linux server. There's also schematics available for an IDE/Ethernet bridge for the ISA port.
links:
http://www.m17n.org/linux-sh/dreamcast/
http://dreamcast.fuzzymuzzle.com/dc-ide.htm
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Shenmue has to be one of the most defining DC games. Personally, I thought it was one of the greatest games of all time. Certainly, most immersive ever at the time. Just incredible.
Um, no.
Shenmue's voice acting and horrible script alone loses any chance it ever had at being immersive. Lines like the one I used for the title of this post combined with some of the worst recordings of people reading out loud made for a grating experience. (Seriously, people, try reading the lines a few times and putting some emotion into them instead of just taking whatever comes from reading the script the first time.)
Oh, and the ending? What an utterly anti-climatic experience.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Nobody mentions Rez? Sure it had a PS2 version, but the dreamcast one actually ran better. And it was astounding.
" Retrogaming with Racketboy has a piece looking at some of the console-defining titles we miss from that little white box. "
Remember the video chip it used? So different than everyone else. Great if your doing a console, lousy for a PC. That and driver support sucked. The game that came with my PowerVR card looked great for the time though.
Half Life, anyone?
Phantasy Star Online was easily one of the most gorgeous games I've ever seen; vibrant colors, detailed artwork, and the music was pretty kickass too. The gameplay was more like a networked Gauntlet rather than a real MMORPG, and there's nothing wrong with that.
The cheating, however, made it completely and utterly unplayable. Stupid game genie or gameshark or whatever the hell those cretins used.
Phantasy Star Online (v1 and v2) did support broadband, except for PPPoE connections. The problem is, you had to configure your DC first with a Japanese web browser, or the Japanese PSO disc. PSOv2 American did "support" BBA configuration, again, minus PPPoE, but didn't "officially" support it. When you put in PSOv2 (US) there was a config option which just launched the BBA config shell of DreamPassport 2. (the Japanese browser)
Why it was like this? PPPoE wasn't used in Japan, and therefore not part of the Japanese networking code. There also was, stupidly, no standardized code. Because of contracts with PlanetWeb, that's where some of the difficulties came in in terms of "official" American BBA support.
My favorite "game" on the DC was the web browser CD. Many, many times I was "grounded" from my computer, and I'd just plug in the DC into my phone jack and be online surfing away in just a few minutes. ;) It was a lifesaver, and I really thought it went under-appreciated!
Not really mentioned in the article, but was a fantastic game. I'd agree with many of the other games listed there, especially Crazy Taxi and Soul Calibur. I didn't care much for Space Channel 5 (would be good fun when drunk, though) and never played Shemnue. Both Sonic games were great fun but it does rightly say that it doesn't capture the feeling of the 2D classics, nothing was better than Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but it was still remarkably fun. Considering I still play many of these games I'd have to agree that they define what was and what is the Dreamcast to this day, golden nuggets of games that were overlooked when masses of WW2 FPS games were released.
Also, did anyone else play Sega Swirl? Simple little game that came on one of my demo discs, but it was brilliant fun.
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
I still own a Dreamcast and I still play Chu Chu Rocket.
In fact, for about 3 years straight I had people I barely knew knock on my door at 2am to play Chu Chu. Considering that there were usually another 1-2 people playing then, we'd happily invite them in and then pound on the controllers until our fingers hurt.
The only downside to Chu Chu / Dreamcast was no 16:9 support, and my projector is 16:9. Seeing Chu Chu on a 120" wide screen is the ultimate gaming experience.
If you don't have Chu Chu, go buy a Dreamcast and Chu Chu on eBay. Evercrack? That's like Tylenol compared to this game.
The only other system that has this game is the Playstation 2. This game isnt available to arcade emulators either, because the Capcom got smart and started encrypting stuff. Althougth the Dreamcast emulator Chanka will play this game.
I never got into PSO. I did, however, play a large amount of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Dead or Alive 2, Powerstone, Wetrix, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
Eternal Arcadia.
Phantasy Star Online did indeed support the Broadband adapter. I wasted several months of my life on that game.
The US release would use the BBA if it was configured, but you didn't have a way to configure it without the Japanese Broadband Passport disc (which I had).
Quake III Arena was the other game that supported it (the US release) and it worked really damned well.
Yes, but as a non-hardcore gamer I was able to easily download save games. That was a big plus for me.
I don't know why other consoles don't put at least a crappy web-browser in them. Unlocking everything for a party game takes way too much time, why won't Nintendo let me dowload someone elses save from kirby's air ride?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
You should definitely try the PC version, and the new game of the series coming out, called Phantasy Star Universe. Blue Burst (Aforementioned PC version) has episode 4, which is short, but very cool, IMO, and tons of the cool online quests. And no iffy console-to-the-internet issues. I'm kind of playing on-and-off, but once I get my new MacBook Pro :)
I think this was my favorite Dreamcast title, with the Sonic-like gameplay and mad trippy graphics. Un-official fansite here: http://www.nightsintodreams.com/
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers
Capcom vs SNK 1 and 2, Guilty Gear X, Marvel vs Capcom 1 and 2, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike (still great on DC despite the input flaws), Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Soul Caliber, SFZ3 (IMO, I know a lot of people disliked the balancing + the errors in translation from arcade), the Dark Stalkers collection, Project Justice, Virtua Fighter 3, Power Stone 1 and 2...
So yeah, it had the fighters lined up. For a lot of the DC fanatics, much like the Saturn fanatics (since that had a great turn out for fighters as well), the volume of near perfect arcade translations made the DC amazing. But, I guess that could be attributed to the quality of the arcade/console hardware as well. Naomi 1 and 2 and Atomiswave all being based around the same system making translation to the DC so easy really created a fighting game monster.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
I could really go for that broadband adapter. I recently in Japan and I checked out Den Den Town but couldn't find it. I did however find a modem for the megadrive.
this is the most important sig ever! In your face 446154!
SC was the game that made the Dreamcast for me and pretty well everyone I worked with. The combination of a DC with the arcade sticks couldn't be beat. Hell, we had the Japanese version first and when it was released over here we switched over to the North American release, but the Dreamcast in the lunchroom never went more than half an hour without someone starting up a match. It was a game that was fun for a newb and got more fun as you learned. I love the way you could basically make your own combos and you didn't need to memorize 15 button moves to kick butt.
Y'know, it's nice that this person put Chu Chu Rocket in his "Games That Nobody Played - But You Should" list. Really, it is. I've always considered it a classic and hope that Sega eventually makes a WFC version of it for the Nintendo DS.
But for as much as this guy likes the game, it'd be nice if he wrote his own synopsis rather than cutting-and-pasting verbatim sections from the Wikipedia article on the game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Chu_Rocket). I kinda recognized key phrases (especially "Although a simple concept, this quickly becomes frantic with the relentless speed of the mice and four players fighting over them."), given that I wrote the majority of the article over a year ago.
This somewhat makes me want to look up, on Wikipedia, the other games he mentioned. I wonder if I should be a jerk.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Powerstone 2 was the best party game I ever owned. To give you an idea, imagine a fully 3d arena with a fixed camera in one corner. Players manuver like in a 3d platformer (Mario 64). They have health meters and try to beat eachother down. There are weapons and whatnot to pick up, ranging from "The Big Gay Hammer" and "Halibut" to ray guns and motorcycles. The game accepted up to four players simultaneously. It was a blast. I wonder, has this new genre been dropped after the PowerStone series? I'd think it would be picked up for millions of sequels, but the economics of the game industry doesn't reward new genres. Franky, I was so happy with my existing DC games I totally dropped the ball on PS2 and Xbox1, so I don't know what's out there anymore.
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was another awesome beat 'em up for the dreamcast.
I loved that console... sniff...
I love the Dreamcast. Still have mine plugged in, and my collection of Dreamcast games close at hand.
My top five would be:
1. SoulCalibur. It still looks great, still plays great. Raised the bar on fighting game quality higher than any other game had, and kept it high for a long time after the Dreamcast was dead.
2. Jet Grind Radio. Possibly the only Dreamcast game I've played more than SoulCalibur.
3. Skies of Arcadia. I consider this to be one of the top 5 console RPGs I've ever played, and boy have I played a lot. Huge explorable world, a plotline you didn't see every twist coming a mile off in, and characters that weren't paper cutouts. And at the time the graphics were jaw dropping.
4. Toy Commander. One of the most difficult "kids games" I've ever played. The replay value is great, it's quite a long game, the variety of vehicles and environments are awesome. It really does feel like playing with toys as a hyper-imaginative kid.
5. Ikaruga. I downloaded this game once it became obvious that it wasn't going to be released in the US for the Dreamcast (and its release was unconfirmed for the Cube) and this was the title that decided that I was buying a GameCube. It may not be the best shoot-em-up ever made, but it just blew my mind the first time I played it.
There are SO many more awesome games that hit this system that languished in obscurity that I could (and have) talk for hours about them. The day the Dreamcast died was a sad day for me.
i never had the chance to play PSO, but soul caliber and jet grind radio are amazing. im in the process of trying to find a copy of Mr. driller, after playing it and the chicago museum of science and industry's Game On exhibit.
...which was reserved for the people who could actually figure it out. No comparison.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
When I think Dreamcast I think Grandia 2 and Skies of Arcadia.
The Farewell Tour II
Thanks guys! All these comments, pictures, and stuff are making me think the Dreamcast is some gameplay-heavy-but-with-cute-graphics dream game device, so.. I just went on eBay and bought one with a bunch of games for like $60. I'm sick of all the new stuff on the PS2, and these games sound great for quick play (I hate storylines or long games).. so thanks, and let's hope I have fun with it when it arrives :)
My favorite game was Shenmue, I think this RPG is second only to Ocarina Of Time.
I would say there are a few more games that define the DC. They would be Rajirugi(Radilgy?) and Under Defeat. Two shooters that were released *this year* (Feb and Mar). There have been a few fairly recent releases for DC (most if not all are shooters). However, there has been speculation that Under Defeat will be the last official DC game.
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, simply amazing.
great graphics, sound, music locations and story.
great fun to serious and causual gamer alike.
I brought it into work and used the VGA adaptor to show someone who had just bought one of the first PS2s and he was blown away and vowed to buy a dreamcast just to play the game.
Hell, even my mum like swimming about as ecco just for the experience.
Why they never released an official sound track I will never know, but check around on google and you can download all the tracks as ripped from the PS2 version.
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
In addition to the games people have already mentioned, I add the following:
Napple Tale
Sakura Wars 3 and 4 and the ports of 1 and 2
Hanagumi Taisen Columns
Sonic Adventure
Guilty Gear X
Virtual On Oratorio Tengram
Psychic Force 2012
House of the Dead 2
Typing of the Dead
Mr. Driller
Grandia II
Moero Justice Gakuen (aka Rival Schools)
Unfortunately I think many of these games only came out for DC in Japan. Some have been ported to PS2, Xbox, or GC, but not all. It is really a shame that the system had no support. If they had advertised it a little when PS2 missed that first Christmas season, they could have sold millions.
My other first post is car post.
Sadly I mislaid the tv adaptor dongle somewhere moving houses, otherwise it'd be under my tv ousting the ps/2 - at least some of the time. Thats the problem with consoles tho, something better comes along and the old one gets relegated - not enough SCARTS to go around.
Soul Calibur on the DC was/is by far the best 3d beat em up, the PS2 sequels dont hold a candle to it, DOA is gimmicky and Tekken floundered. The only thing close was VF, but that was a different game and SC played better.
Metropolis Street Racer, maybe i'll get an xbox sometime and give Gotham a try, but the grandparent game rocked.
Shenmue - have some regrets over this one, got it at the end of the DC's life and managed to get the first CD scratched and couldn't get a replacement.
Space Channel 5 was awesome - anyone know if the music is available mp3 anywhere? up down up down choo choo choo
Taxi was a laugh for 30 mins at a time, was great fun powersliding into the punters and scaring them.
Chu Chu Rocket. Best puzzle game ever and free too!
Powerstone, didn't really get into it. Lot of people swore by it tho.
Would love to get that and my Saturn hooked up again for some good old fashioned fun games. I remember all the stuff coming out on the PS at the time was derivative ported crap.
That game defined... well... OK, bad example.
I liked how many Dreamcast games were something out of the norm...
- Rez
- Pop n Music
- Seaman
- Samba De Amigo
seven two six five
seven four six one seven
two six four two e
The reason is simple - I never bought a steering wheel for it. Worse, all of my friends were better than me at it.
:\ My new HDTV doesn't have a VGA-in. This was a VERY stupid oversight on my part, and the picture is just abysmal using S-Video. The cheapest I could get a VGA to Component adapter was $100! It's awful man...awful.
These days, my Dreamcast is gathering dust, and it's not for lack of love.
So I need a VGA adapter, and then a VGA -> Component Adapter. It's cruel. That, and I've wanted to grab a pair of guns and House of the Dead 2, but most places still want more than $25/gun. Insanity.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Seriously. I'm not a screaming-at-the-other-drivers sort of nitwit, and Ecco the Dolphin had me swearing at the screen and throwing the dang controller. Both versions had this same trait. They were maddening.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/kd-vtca2.htm http://www.digitalconnection.com/products/video/9a 60.asp - Audio Authority 9A60, $112. And that's the cheap one!
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
I liked Jet Set Radio probably the best, but there were a lot of fun titles available.
Don't forget about Unreal Tournament. It was compatible with a certain version of the UT PC code, so you could play a LAN game with other people, assuming you all used that patch. Sure, it might not have been the best setup, but it was workable. The dreamcast players never really stood a chance, as the controls didn't give enough response to be able to play well. But you could still play. I believe that Quake III also had a similar ability. Maybe not the best use of the broadband adaptor, but still another use.
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
I'm not suprised that this hasn't been mentioned yet on Slashdot but the original Virtua Tennis for Dreamcast with 4 controllers was possibly one of the greatest multiplayer sports games ever created. Easily possible to sit around and play that game for hours upon end with your friends.
Sure, it wasn't formally released, but it was pretty amazing to see HL on your TV via the DC.
There was a version of Web Browser 2.0 that was released in the US that would config everything for PSO. Granted it came out much later than the Japanese release, but it did eventually come out.
I've got two DCs that rearely get hooked up anymore. Yes, there were some great games but many of them have been ported to other systems by now. There are a few games that I will still play though and oddly have not been added to the list by anyone else...
There are several fishing games and even a fishing controller for the DC. They are Sega Bass Fishing, Sega Marine Fishing, and Reel Fishing: Wild. If you happen to have access to a them, give them a shot. Not the deepest games but fun for a bit.
Other games that get the occaisional play are Tech Romancer (Kikai-oh), Power Stone 1 and 2, Chu Chu Rocket, and Typing of the Dead. Yes, TotD with two keyboards is amazingly fun. Crazy Taxi also gets a nod because there have been many ports but they just didn't feel right.
There are other games that I enjoy but they all have had better ports or sequels on other systems now.
I'm not sure if you're referring to DCLinux or the schematic.
...although the only thing I ever did with it was play asteroids and the doom clone that was on there (prboom?).
DCLinux was cake. At the time I was only mildly experienced with linux and I managed to get the thing running with no issues whatsoever.
if you're referring to the schematic, then yeah. I agree with you.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
The Dreamcast still has 2 great sites supporting it - DreamCast Scene and the Homebrew and Emulation site DreamCast News. Even a few weeks ago a game released in Japan sold 10,000 which was exceedingly impressive for the commercially dead console, that game was Under Defeat a game much like Thunderblade.
C'mon, this game was fun to play, despite the sheer redneckness of it. Plus the sequel, SEGA Marine Fishing was no slouch either. I bought a fishing controller just to play these. They are the definition of console defining.
Other titles on DC that r
eally defined its image:
Jet Grind Radio
Space Channel 5
Soul Calibur
Chu Chu Rocket
Virtual On Oratorio Tangram (or whatever it was called)
Power Stone
Samba de Amigo
I got my DC when they went on clearance ($99) and found most of my games used or on closeout. I wanted the unique games, and I bought most of he games above. I also bothered me that the sequel to Star Gladiator was DC-only, and a disappointment. SG was a great fighting game on PSX, and the sequel was not an improvement.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
I wonder, is there a working Dreamcast emulator that will allow one to run (a significant number of) these games?
Typing of the Dead!!! I'd totally forgotten about that gem! It was a hell of a lot of fun and actually, honest-to-Buddha improved my typing speed and accuracy. :-)
I had high hopes for Virtual On, but the controls just seemed too damn awkward to play it well. The game itself was spot-on, and with better sticks would've been a classic.
Likewise with Silent Scope. The controls were less of a problem there, but still somewhat hampered an otherwise fantastic arcade port.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
...in the article itself, no less! (See the section on imports)
Having copies of Rez for both systems, I'd have to say that while the Dreamcast version looks a bit better (that anti-aliasing helps a lot with all those lines!) the PS2 version does run more smoothly (and has support for that vibrator thingy, which sounds silly, but when you've got the controller and the trance vibrator beating along with sound from the game, it's pretty cool...)
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Whenever I read any entertainment title that begins with NIGHT* I immediatly am confronted with the whorors of NIGHT TRAP(tm). Pleeease, the KITES OF NI do not like hearing that word! Don't say it!
Pop N Music 1, 2, 3 Append and 4 Append. Only because it was a great four player game that was easy for anyone to pick up. The people that sucked hardest would get less keys to control. It was always fun with a little drink in your system.
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
I still have my DC at home and it is actually my only console, and I have to say that the game that is most addictive, by far, and has gotten me the most joy and literally hours upon hours of engaging play is wetrix and wetrix only! It is a clever twist on the game that many of us hold dear to our heart and oh my gawd is it addictive! The first time I picked it up I couldn't put it down for 4 hours, because that is literally how long the runs take. If you have a DC and haven't tried it yet definately get it. The game, in short, is a 3d version of tetris where you use the pieces to build up and tear down walls, sculpting a plane that you are given. Your objective is to create containers to hold the water that is occasionally dropped at you. You also get meteors which evaporate water or punch holes in the surface. You have to keep the water from dripping off. Simple rules, which usually makes the game insanely fun :)
Did the dreamcast log on to an actual sega network? It says so in the last sentence of the post, but I remember most games aside from phantasy star online logging onto individual game networks, via ps2 style peer to peer gaming. Am i wrong?
-K1down
Best DC and PC game out at the time was QUAKE III