Retro Fix:- Sega Dreamcast, Gone But Not Forgotten
The Sega Dreamcast, the last of former hardware giant Sega’s home consoles, and for some one of the greatest game consoles of all time. In a lot of ways the Dreamcast was ahead of it’s time, offering online gaming and downloadable content for games years before it was popularised by Microsoft’s Xbox consoles. In many ways the Sega Dreamcast is the Van Gough of game consoles: full of promise and talent, but mainly shunned and despised during it’s short life. Unable to handle it’s position in life, Sega quickly put a bullet through it’s chest, leaving it to die in a field. Yet, mere years after it’s passing it has become a highly regarded, well thought of machine.
Join us here at Newbreview to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the European release date of the Sega Dreamcast. (Today’s article is a joint effort from Mightyles and Braindead_Hero – ed)
BRAINDEAD_HERO:
October 14 1999, 10 years ago was the day Sega’s last attempt at hardware (Ignoring their arcade boards) hit European shores. Now we all know what the outcome was to this attempt but now comes time to look back at what was ultimately a failure but is revered as one of the best home consoles ever made.
The mid to late 90s were not good to Sega, after the success of the Mega Drive Sega was riding high but then a series of business blunders, namely the Mega CD and 32x quickly burned away any good will Sega had built with their fan base. Both the 32x and Mega CD were very expensive and pretty bad hardware add-ons for the Mega Drive and given their terrible support from games companies, both first and third party, many gamers were very sceptical about any new hardware. This was very much reflected by the Sega Saturn which performed poorly leading to that being prematurely discontinued in order for Sega to get the jump on Sony and release their next generation platform before Sony’s Playstation 2.
Despite all the problems and failures of the consoles (namely the GD-ROM drive and no support from EA) Sega were forerunners to many things that would become really core features for later console generations. The Dreamcast was arguably the first console with any serious online capabilities. It supported a 33.6kbit internet connection (this was in the dark days before broadband) as well as having it’s own internet browser. Also it was the very first console to have any support for Computer Monitors and HDTVs through it’s VGA adapter so whilst you can’t play in a ‘true’ high definition signal it could handle an ‘enhanced’ definition signal, which is something that the Playstation 2 had some serious problems with (especially in PAL territories, which incidentally means us).
One of the most interesting things to come from the Dreamcast is their partnership with Microsoft in development of the console. Many people complained with the Sega Saturn that it was simply too difficult to develop for, which in turn meant that game developers were much more willing to make their games for the Playstation, which was significantly easier to develop for. So in order to rectify this they got Microsoft to design the system software so the Dreamcast runs on a modified version of Windows CE (Similarly and interestingly this is similar to the Xbox’s system software). This meant it was really easy to develop for the Dreamcast and caused a huge home brew following which still remains today. Also this has the other effect of giving Microsoft a door into the console gaming market and given how the head of Sega of America at the time (Peter Moore) after leaving Sega went straight over to Microsoft to spearhead development of their forthcoming Xbox console.
Throughout it’s life there were some fantastic games for the Dreamcast and I will quickly list my personal top 3 as well as giving a brief description of why I really like them.
SOUL CALIBUR
The 90s were such a good time to be a fighting game fan, they’ve had a slight resurgence recently with the release of games such as Street Fighter IV but the mid to late 90s were truly a golden age and Soul Calibur was one of the last great fighting games to have ever been made. Released as a launch title for the Dreamcast just over a year after Tekken 3 came to the Playstation it really showcased exactly what the Dreamcast could do. The animations were so smooth and everything looked so detailed and vivid that it just blew anything the Playstation could do out of the water.
One of the best fighting games of all time?
However, the main reason I love this game so much is that it was so much more than 2 guys (or gals) beating the crap out of each other. The game had plenty of features such as unlockable costumes, new characters and plenty of different modes, the best of which is easily the mission mode where you have to complete certain objectives instead of just beating each other up. This truly was a brilliant showcase for what the Dreamcast could do and was easily one of the best looking games to come out of that console cycle.
Soul Calibur is also available on Xbox Live Arcade, however everything is unlocked from the start and mission mode is removed. It’s a decent port but not as good as the Dreamcast original.
SHENMUE
Shenmue is such a hard game to describe, but I’m going to do my best and most likely still fail to convince you how good it is. Originally this was designed as a Virtua Fighter RPG, a concept that at first sounds really strange, how can you make an RPG game out of a series of fighting games? Whilst the Virtua Fighter aspect was mostly dropped they did keep some aspects from that concept. The fighting system was very reminiscent of the Virtua Fighter games as well as only having one character throughout the game (instead of the parties of heroes from traditional RPGs) and it had a contemporary setting (as opposed to a medieval fantasy setting as many many RPGs have).
The reason why I picked this game is that it is the first time I have experienced what I would consider a living world. By this I mean I really got the sense that all the NPCs in the game had their own schedules that they did and they actually lived in this world as opposed to simply standing in one place waiting for player interaction like so many other games. Nowadays we are used to seeing games where the NPCs have their own thing and this kind of world has become common in games such as Oblivion and Grand Theft Auto IV, but Sega had done it way back in 2000 and for that Shenmue really needs to be revered.
Sadly the original Shenmue has never been ported or re-released on any other consoles other than the Dreamcast, but the sequel Shenmue 2 was ported to Xbox and is compatible with the Xbox 360.
TYPING OF THE DEAD
OK so this seems a bit of an odd choice and I’m sure many of you are going to say (or most likely e-mail me) where the hell is Sonic Adventure? But let’s face it playing that game now (which I did try to do for this article) is a bad idea as the game does not hold up well at all. I want to talk about Typing of the Dead as it is just such a crazy game, not an especially good game, but it does really show that when Sega knew their time was coming to an end they decided to go out with a bang. You used the Dreamcast Keyboard peripheral to play the game and as a little fun aside all the characters are seen in game with Dreamcasts strapped to their back with keyboards out in front of them.
Typing of the Dead is based on the Light gun game House of the Dead 2, however they removed the light guns and instead put in keyboard control so instead of shooting zombies they have word boxes that appear over them and you have to type the word to kill them. Everything from House of the Dead 2 is in there including the ‘stellar’ voice acting but the whole keyboard typing tutor aspect of this makes it such a weird and at the same time brilliant idea. This is a fully fledged keyboard tutor, it will keep track of your words per minute and all those things you need to get better at typing it just puts it to a really weird background. In a time when crazy Japanese games were hard to come by games like this really raised a smile and when you get word combinations such as ‘groping is a crime’ coming at you you can’t help but laugh.
Typing of the Dead was released on the PC as well as Dreamcast so if you look around online you will be able to find it knocking about somewhere. (NOTE: Typing of the Dead was never officially released on the Dreamcast in Europe so unless you know what you’re doing with imports you can only get the PC version which is available on the budget labels)
MIGHTYLES:
Ten years ago on this very day I was likely sat in my front room, staring intently, slack jawed and near silent in front of a bright, new, glistening white box that had been hastily plugged in to our television. You see, the night before I had gone in to my local Electronics Boutique (now known as GAME) and queued up with about fifty or so other people, mostly twice my age, to purchase Sega’s latest home console the Sega Dreamcast. My father and I queued for about half an hour before we were given a certificate by the store’s manager to certify that we were in fact insane for coming in this late in the evening. It was a school night, and I did not care. When the clock struck midnight the cash registers came to life as Robbie Williams’ Let Me Entertain You blasted out through the speakers, and dozens of happy people wandered out in to the streets, clutching their new purchase closely to their chest, and made their way home.
As soon as I got home I hastily opened the box and plugged the machine in. Awakened by the commotion, my brother came in to the front room in time for us to play our first game. Sonic Adventure. What a sight it was, the glorious 3D graphics, the detailed environments, and the fantastic music. I will never, ever forget that first level on Sonic Adventure where, after sprinting along a pier a killer whale jumps out of the ocean and begins to eat the path behind you. Sure it was pretty much impossible to fail this section of the level, as all you had to do was hold forwards, but at the time it was breath taking. Sonic Adventure was, on reflection, a fairly mediocre game with glaring issues, such as a dodgy camera, bad voice acting, indecipherable story, and god awful fishing levels courtesy of Big The Cat, but on that night 10 years ago none of that mattered one single bit.
Flash forward 18 months later and Sega announce that they are pulling the plug on the Dreamcast and withdrawing from the console market all together. A lack of sales and diminishing profits were to blame, despite the console having an avid following and an exceptionally strong line up of games. Many gamers were holding out on buying a Dreamcast thanks to the impending launch of the Playstation 2, with it’s promise of DVD playback and superior graphics. Still, it is best not to dwell on such things, lest we become bitter. Let us instead look back at some of the better games to be released on that little white box of dreams, and remember it at it’s best.
JET SET RADIO:
This futuristic roller blade/graffiti game arguably popularised the cell shaded look that was so popular in games around the turn of the millennium. You took on the role of a member of a street gang in Tokyoto, and had to tag your territory, facing off against not only the police, but rival gangs as well. As you progressed through each level you could unlock more characters to choose from, each with subtle differences in speed and strength. What really set the game apart was it’s fantastic soundtrack. To this day I still find myself humming the track Sweet Soul Brother.
It’s hard to describe what made this game so special in written form. It’s one of those games that you have to play to truly appreciate how good it is. While I appreciate that this game is not for everyone, mainly due to it being one of those “crazy Japanese games”, it really is worth recommending to everyone if only so they can decide for themselves if they like it or not. There is a sequel available on the original Xbox called JET SET RADIO FUTURE, and some might say that it is a better game, but to me the original still holds a special place in my heart.
SAMBA DE AMIGO
Forget Guitar Hero and Rock Band, here is one of the first home plastic instrument games to use actual licensed music, featuring tracks by artists such as Ricky Martin and Reel Big Fish. Armed with two bulbous bright red maracas, connected to a sensor that sat on the floor, you were tasked with shaking your maracas to the beat of a song. The sensor on the floor would detect how high you were holding the maracas as a sort of precursor to the Nintendo Wii sensor bar. As well as shaking the maracas you were often tasked with posing, holding the maracas in a certain way, in order to score more points.
The better you did on the song the more elaborate the background animations would become, and the happier the demented monkey Amigo would become. Likewise if you performed badly then the background would become sombre with skulls filling the sky. As well as having the arcade mode, which contained some 5 or so songs, there was an original game mode with over 30 songs available, utilising not only licensed tracks, but some classic Sega tunes such as the Afterburner theme tune. You could unlock more songs by beating challenges in the challenge mode, which ranged from incredibly easy to frustratingly hard. There was a two player mode included, but as there were as few as 2,000 sets of maracas available in the UK, finding another player with a set of maracas could prove difficult.
Samba De Amigo typified the typical Sega Dreamcast experience in many ways – quirky Japanese arcade games, oozing charm and madness. Although there is a version available on the Nintendo Wii I do not recommend it as the Wii has proven unable to recreate the actual height based mechanic of the Dreamcast original, instead sensing the direction you are tilting your remote. Sure it looks and sounds like Samba De Amigo, but it just plain isn’t Samba De Amigo.
POWER STONE 2
One word describes Power Stone 2. Absolutely-bat-shit-mental. A sequel to the Dreamcast launch game Power Stone, Power Stone 2 ups the ante by taking the premise of the original – an arena combat game in which you must collect three power ups (aka Power Stones) to grant yourself super powers and defeat your foes – chucks in four player VS mode, as well as a co-op mode, expands the size of the levels dramatically, and adds a huge arsenal of frankly bizarre weapons. Power Stone 2 is perhaps to strange to ever really be successful, but it is also too beautiful an experience to ever let it die.
Arena combat at it’s finest!
The concept was simple enough, take four players and have the fight it out in ever expanding arenas, and arm with with a series of different weapons made available through opening chests. Take for instance the Tomb level; you start out in a fairly typical Aztec like tomb fighting it out and avoiding falling rocks and spikes coming out of the floor, then about a minute in to the fight, the entire floor collapses leading all of the players to falling down a dark hole. When you reach the bottom a gigantic boulder appears and starts rolling towards you, Indiana Jones style. At this point all thoughts of defeating your opponents have to stop, and instead you must focus on making it to the end of the tunnel. At the end of a tunnel a secret door is revealed that will allow only two players through, the unlucky ones that don’t make it are flattened by the boulder and dumped in to the next room. The final room contains a giant cat statue that shoots lasers out of it’s eyes, and a roulette wheel that will either grant health bonuses, or cause massive damage to anyone brave enough to spin it. It is complicated, frantic, and fantastic fun. That’s just one of about half a dozen arenas to choose from.
Forgive me for getting excited, but it’s hard not to when discussing this game. While it may be a love it or hate it style game, once it gets it’s hooks in you then that is it, you’re hooked for life. I have not even managed to mention the weapon creation mode, in which you take weapons you collected during the adventure mode and combine them in order to make new weapons. While there were simple items such as the bazooka, made by mixing a medium bomb with an iron pipe, there were dozens of utterly mad items you could make, such as a portable black hole, or a 20ft long dragon slaying sword. Even now, nearly 10 years later, and I still have not created every single item in the game!
Power Stone 2 is a game that is crying out to be released on Xbox Live or on the Playstation Network, but at the moment it has only been ported to the PSP. I can only hope that Capcom are secretly soldering away at a port as we speak.
Excellent article guys. I never touched a Dreamcast, but this makes me want to go out and find one.
My original Dreamcast developed a fault a few months back, so I recently purchased a new one off of ebay with about 70 games. Sure I already had half of them, but I absolutely love it. The only problem is that the old lightguns don’t work with modern LCD TVs, so I can’t replay classics like House of the Dead 2 and Confidential Mission!
Not one mention of Crazy Taxi!?!?!
I did consider doing a small “other games you MUST play” bit on the end, and Crazy Taxi would be right at the top of that list. It’s hard to just choose 3 games to talk about from all the fantastic games on the Dreamcast.
If there’s enough of a demand for it we could always write a follow up article.
I loved Crazy Taxi in the arcade. Am I imagining things, or did it make its way onto the PS2 as well?
Indeed it did! And the GameCube. Unfortunately these ports just weren’t good enough. Definitely pick up a DC immediately. Fantastic gaming kit.
I don’t think it did… I know the third game came out on Xbox, and you can get Crazy Taxi 1 and 2 on PSP, but it may very well have. Quite a few Dreamcast games found their way on to other consoles – Resident Evil Code Veronica, Space Channel 5, and Rez to name bu a few.
Sorry Tom, I didn’t see your comment before I posted mine!