Why the Dreamcast still has what it takes

It was the night before Christmas... actually it wasn't. It was about a week before Christmas. I was playing CoD: World at War on my XBOX 360 and I realised I was bored. Really, really fucking bored; Run. Shoot (using crappy WWII guns). Run. Shoot. Grenade. Die. Run. Die. I was beginning to wish I was hurling the grenades at SEGA, angry at them for buggering up the 32X, Mega CD, Saturn and Dreamcast. For selling games on Sony's Gaystation. So much rage, so much hate. So I turned it off, headed down to Entertainment Exchange (CEX.co.uk) and got £33 for my annoying, boring FPS. Sure, I am dissing CoD a bit too much - it's an OK game. I preferred CoD4 massively though. This is not the point though. The point is... what did I do next?

I booted up my Dreamcast. Yes, it's 2009. Yes, that makes the DC 10 (as we all know), but the point is that the Dreamcast is still a console that, with a bit of time and effort, can take centre stage once again. And here's why:

Gameplay

Arguably the Dreamcast's biggest selling point (or resale point) is that it has some of the best games ever made for a home console. Yes, the Mega Drive, NES etc all have great games, as does the Saturn... but it's the Dreamcast that has the top tens (as seen on our very own DCJY) which are constantly argued over. I could like a top 20. Easily. Top 30? No problem. This console has so many great games that keep your coming back for more. The VMU is another added bonus. I'm lucky enough that I don't give a crap about what people think about me to be looking after my Chao whilst walking through the Arndale shopping centre. There are so many top - notch titles that are so different in every way that the Dreamcast will always stay.

Graphics

OK, so the XBOX 360 and PS3 have HD graphics that display 1080i no problem and lifelike... bla bla... People are calling the Wii 'revolutionary'. Sure, it has a neat controller, but it's graphics are very close to the Dreamcast's graphics (I think that if SEGA were still developing DC it could match it), which shows why the DC can still live on strong today. The Wii not revolutionary. The Dreamcast had a fishing controller and maracas that are actually better than the control system in the Wii version of Samba. Look and Shenmue and Virtua Tennis. Gorgeous. Not impressed? Get a VGA box. Still not impressed? Sod off.

Longevity

It's 10 years old for God's sake. 10 years old. The community is huge and people love this system. It's going to stick around for a long time. It's been noted that Sony et al. think that this generation (current) of consoles will last longer than any other post 1990. With that in mind, I think the Dreamcast community will also live long and prosper.

Multiplayer

4 built-in control ports. Powerstone 2. Endless party fun. Many racing games also support this, as do some of the FPS games. This really is a great console for people with friends that want to play games. Being as people have started playing Wii's after dinner parties thesedays, I say "bring out your Dreamcast".

Online connectivity

Back in '98 when the DC was released in Japan, the internet was not used by most people. Broadband didn't exist in the UK and people had only dreamt (no pun intended) of playing against or with people that weren't in the same room. Anyway, the DC has a built in 33k/56k modem which would make dialup calls and connect to SEGAs servers.

I didn't play much online back in the day because of the dial-up costs and subsequent lack of useable phoneline once you're in. Anyway, the Dreamcast can still connect to the internet. You can either use dial-up or your Broadband Adaptor (left in pic) to connect to the internet to browse or, more importantly, play online. The games that currently work online are:

Phantasy Star Online
4x4 Evolution
Sega Swirl
Quake 3


Getting these games to play online using custom servers isn't the easiest thing in the world to do, but if you need a hand, I might be able to help. I played PSO for the first time yesterday and I loved it. I met a couple of German guys in the DC-Talk/Schthack lobby that helped me get started as I had no idea what to do in the game. When I levelled up they both congratulated me! It was great. I kind of see why all those people like WoW now... the community spririt on PSO is great. What's more, you're playing with people on a 10 year old console, when we could all be playing some HD games instead. This brings us full circle.

The Dreamcast is getting older and some of the games are starting to look a little dated, though there are many games full of eye candy. There are games that will keep you hooked for weeks and others that you'll only play for an hour or so, just to beat a lap time or high score. There are innovative games like Samba de Amigo that will have people asking you why your Wii is a funny shape and says SEGA on it.

I purposely left out shooters and arcade beat 'em ups.

 

i start to have similar feelings torward my ps2 now that many retrogaming collections are coming out...

i loved my dreamcast but the disappointment on the lack of decent rpgs made it fade in the years. tought some conversions were really ace like capcom vs snk 2, KOF 99 ecc

 

just yesterday i played san francisco rush 2049 (battle mode) with 3 of my friends for hours.

it never gets old, love this game.

and there is so much more the dreamcast has to offer.

try playing virtua tennis with the fishing controller. "wii style" controls but a whopping SEVEN YEARS EARLIER!

 

shenmue 1

shenmue 2

grandia 2

skies of arcadia

...

 

I agree that the DC was one of the great consoles, but there's alot of fanboy drama involved hence a good deal of bias..

 

Yeah and thats already the end of the list Grandia 2 and Skies of Arcadia were ported to PS2/GameCube and I wouldn't count Silver as a really decent one. Shenmue is no RPG but an Adventure/Simulation ect. There were of course some decent RPGs, but the majority (while there was still a lack of them) of them remained to be available in Japan only (like Black Matrix).

 

i just got a VGA box and the games look amazing. i just have to adjust the screen every time i start up a game... i really enjoy my dreamcast and enjoy collecting for it. but that doesn't stop people at work making fun of me for owning one.

 

Same...nobody around here has a Dreamcast. I've never ever seen someone have one. I did turn my friends on to Space Channel 5 though, lol.

 

A lad at work said he'd liked Dreamcast, and that it was impressive because it was the first console to run Windows. Cue a slightly awkward debate... he really didn't want to back down.

The joys of working in an IT department.

On-topic, as much as I love my Dreamcast and as much fun as I've had with a lot of its games, I don't think many of them would make it into my top 10, or even my top 20. There are a lot of brave, interesting titles that came out for it (Rez, Jet Set Radio, Space Channel 5, Shenmue etc), but the games that got the most play on mine were the various shooters (Ikaruga especially), and Soul Calibur/DOA2. Oh, and Tony Hawks 2, but I don't think the DC can really claim that one as its own.

 

but tony hawks 2 looked best on the dreamcast

 

That's where learning Japanese really does show it's perks if you love RPG games. The DC has far too many great titles in it's mother tongue.

Yakumo

 

just look at the release lists.

barely 300 titles in the US and over 700 in japan...

 

http://the-dreamcast-junkyard.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-dreamcast-still-has-it.html

 

I write for the Dreamcast Junkyard but wasn't sure if anyone from here read on there - I wanted to get the opinions from the guys at my favourite forum, without just linking to the DCJY.

I am sure SEGA USA had a lot to do with that... "more sports, less RPG"

 

I haven't seen the Xbox port but it's bound to look better (though I wouldn't fancy playing it with a first-party d-pad). Anyway, it's a multiplatform game, not a Dreamcast exclusive.

 

I would love to see the Dreamcast pushed - really strained - to it's limits; it died too early. The best looking games tend to come at the end of a console's life cycle when the developers are used to the hardware and start using tricks and quirky methods to get as much as they can from the system.

For example, Conker's Bad Fur Day surpasses anything before it graphically. The PS2 achieved some stunners at the end of its life, the same with the Mega Drive and NES (Gunstar Heroes, Comix Zone, Toy Story for the former.. SMB3, Battletoads ets for the latter)

The Dreamcast seemed to act as 'stop gap' between the PS1 and PS2. The PS2 hype machine, IMO is the main reason for the Dreamcast's death. In retrospect, the controller wasn't suitable for many game types, and the VM was relativly expensive. If it needed a small amount of memory inside (a la the Saturn), to come with composite leads rather than shitty RF and to have support from EA.

The Dreamcast just wasn't 'cool' or 'bad' in comparison to the PS2- 'sleek', black, and the sequel to the console that introduced many to gaming, and also made gaming 'cool' for the mainstream.

 

Mine came with composite. I think they all did.

Dreamcast was awesome as hell to own around 2000-2002. Games were super cheap. It was sort of like how the 360 is now. Kicked ass and the competitor didn't have shit for the first year or two, cheap games, online play, etc. PS2 had crappy games until the Dreamcast died. Everyone just watched movies on it and waited for good games...eventually Xbox came out, me and my friends went for that. Xbox was great for the last few good Sega games.

 

not in england.

when i went to london a few years ago i just saw units with RF.

 

Seriously? They came with RF new in other places? Wow.

 

RF in the UK