I miss the Dreamcast!! Anyone else ?

Outkast_IRE

Ah the days of Shenmue , Sonic, Chu chu rocket.
There was some real classics!!!

K.O.Kiki

On the one hand, Sega's failure to best Sony's marketing muscle & bow out from the hardware scene leaves me sad.

OTOH, I doubt I would've ever been able to play Ico & Shadow of the Colossus if not for the PS2's market dominance.

Retr0gamer

Sega did everything right with the Dreamcast except market it properly. They shouldn't have done a Sony with their terrible adverts that don't show any games. All they had to do was show Sonic Adventure and Soul Calibur in motion and perhaps the gaming landscape would be different now. The Dreamcast was a fantastic console. It had the third party support. Itactually had good games and a rake of them unlike the PS2 had at the time. It had the quirky games and even though it didn't have the support of EA, Sega were bettering them with their own 2K sports label. I love the console, for it's short life span it had so many great games and has it's own distinctive feel and look. I'm pretty disappointed with this generation since it hasn't given us an experience that couldn't have been done on the previous generation except with the odd exception like Dead Rising.

Mossy Monk

I must be one of the few who has never played a Dreamcast

Kimbot

Mossy Monk wrote: »

I must be one of the few who has never played a Dreamcast

You better get your hands on one so!!

I'm going to dust mine off today and fix the random reset problem then get a few games in. Class machine so it is.

Jazzy

WELCOME TO POWER STONE ADVENTURES!

wat a console

Firefox10

Crazy Taxi....Such a mad game!:D Still play my dreamcast the odd time.

Outkast_IRE

It had these creative accesabile deep games .
Like sonic for example it wasnt just a simple platformer they really outdid themselves

Anyone else own Ecco the dolphin man that was some hard game ,
gorgeous looking game though downright stunning not many games can be that beautiful.


The problem now is you have creative and little dept eg. Wii
Or PS3 spawning sequel after sequel .
If i had to pick one this generation it would be xbox360

What were your favourite games

roryok

I always rage at myself now for trading in so many of my old DC games back around 2000 or so (usually to buy more) costs me a bit to replace them on ebay etc.

love my dc but possibly more fond of the saturn if i'm honest (preferred the pad for fighting games)

noodler

I don't understand the love. Liked the look of Senmue and Phantasy Star Online but otherwise I will never quite understand the love.

I know it was technically the first online console and had quite another few 'firsts' but I wouldn't trade what might have been for the mountains of excellent games I got to play on the PS2.

That said, if Sega were still here in a console capacity, would we still have Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft?

hellboy99

I must go dust mine off, Soul Calibur and Shenmue were great, must go and see what other games I have lying around.

corblimey

No, I don't miss it at all....

'Cos I play mine every weekend still. Haha, I kill me.

As a little side note, I've got the DC to thank for the my upcoming trip of a lifetime to Japan. While looking for new games about 2 years ago, I stumbled across the bizarre Bomber Hehhe. I've managed to cobble together a rudimentary understanding of that game since I got it, but it piqued my interest in learning Japanese which I've been doing ever since, leading inevitably to my planned 3 month journey later this year around the islands of Japan.

Thanks, DC! Now, if only your controller wouldn't hurt my fat man-fingers so much

Retr0gamer

noodler wrote:

I don't understand the love.

If you remember around the time the PS2 came out the Dreamcast was a far better machine. The PS2 couldn't match the DC graphically, games like Shenmue, Ferrari F355 challenge and Soul Calibur were ahead graphically over anything the PS2 had to offer at the time. The PS2 was a bitch to develop for so it took ages for developers to start producing games to match and beat the DC, while the DC was a breeze to develop for since it was basically a windows based PC. Even still later games like Ikaruga and Under Defeat are on par with the PS2's best looking games imo. The PS2 also had a really had a lack of any decent games for almost a year. Then GTA3 came out and the PS2 picked up a lot of steam. It was still slow going for the PS2 with regards to it getting decent games, it wasn't until after 2 years and the DC was discontinued that the PS2 started to really deliver the goods.

Other reasons the DC was better was how Sega treated it's customers. People went crazy buying import DC's and Soul Calibur since they feared the usual awful PAL conversion. However they needn't have bothered since the DC offered a 60Hz PAL mode for all of it's releases and decent 50Hz modes. Sega also made sure that even it's most obscure games got a worldwide release with very few games staying in japan. Basing it's console off it's very popular arcade hardware also ensured arcade perfect or even better conversions.

The fact is that the PS2 was a very poor console for a very long time and the DC was so much better in terms of everything it offered. The PS2 was like a backwards step in console design. Only 2 controller ports, no online out of the box (and only many months after the DC was discontinued did it offer online) and lack of 480P output until much later while the DC supported this for many games through a VGA cable. Dreadful PAL 50Hz conversions also plagued european gamers for the first 3 years.

The PS2 eventually became the better console but had it lasted longer I'm sure the DC would have been much better. For a console that had been discontinued after 2 years it has an amzing amount of great games. It was also the last time we would see Sega being such a great developer of games. Since the DC died we've only had Panzer Dragoon Orta and Valkyria Chronicles as stand out Sega developed games.

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If you remember around the time the PS2 came out the Dreamcast was a far better machine. The PS2 couldn't match the DC graphically, games like Shenmue, Ferrari F355 challenge and Soul Calibur were ahead graphically over anything the PS2 had to offer at the time. The PS2 was a bitch to develop for so it took ages for developers to start producing games to match and beat the DC, while the DC was a breeze to develop for since it was basically a windows based PC. Even still later games like Ikaruga and Under Defeat are on par with the PS2's best looking games imo. The PS2 also had a really had a lack of any decent games for almost a year. Then GTA3 came out and the PS2 picked up a lot of steam. It was still slow going for the PS2 with regards to it getting decent games, it wasn't until after 2 years and the DC was discontinued that the PS2 started to really deliver the goods.

Other reasons the DC was better was how Sega treated it's customers. People went crazy buying import DC's and Soul Calibur since they feared the usual awful PAL conversion. However they needn't have bothered since the DC offered a 60Hz PAL mode for all of it's releases and decent 50Hz modes. Sega also made sure that even it's most obscure games got a worldwide release with very few games staying in japan. Basing it's console off it's very popular arcade hardware also ensured arcade perfect or even better conversions.

The fact is that the PS2 was a very poor console for a very long time and the DC was so much better in terms of everything it offered. The PS2 was like a backwards step in console design. Only 2 controller ports, no online out of the box (and only many months after the DC was discontinued did it offer online) and lack of 480P output until much later while the DC supported this for many games through a VGA cable. Dreadful PAL 50Hz conversions also plagued european gamers for the first 3 years.

The PS2 eventually became the better console but had it lasted longer I'm sure the DC would have been much better. For a console that had been discontinued after 2 years it has an amzing amount of great games. It was also the last time we would see Sega being such a great developer of games. Since the DC died we've only had Panzer Dragoon Orta and Valkyria Chronicles as stand out Sega developed games.

Thats some amount of conjecture and assumptions for one post.

Your hardware arguments reflect alot of the current stuff that people say regarding the PS3/360. Specifically that although the PS3 is well-built and has alot of other features the 360 is preferable becasue it has better/more games.

ironictoaster

I have never played it either. What's the big deal about this Shenmue game and what did the little screen on the controller do?

Retr0gamer

noodler wrote: »

Thats some amount of conjecture and assumptions for one post.

Conjecture and assumptions? There's no assumptions there and the only bit that could even be considered conjecture would be about there being a lack of decent PS2 games in the first few months which is more personal opinion. Whatever, all i know is I got my PS2 9 months after it launched and was mostly playing PS1 games on it for a year due to the lack of decent PS2 titles while my mate was enjoying loads of excellent DC games.

corcaigh07

fully agree with retro, the dreamcast was a stunning console, i remember people around demo booths being absolutely gobsmacked by its capabilites, espcially by how good looking soul calibur was and how fun ready to rumble was.

* the games were stellar and regular
* online gaming with dialup, not without its flaws but amazing nonetheless, monaco gp, ferrari f355 and pso were terrific.
* the controller was extremely comfy
* Graphics are still stunning, jet set radio, shenmue, dead or alive, sonic adventure 2 all still look terrific and ive yet to get a VGA cable for my DC.
*right up until its death, the dreamcast was a superior console to PS2. theres no question that the ps2 is now far superior but if only dreamcast was able to carry on, it could have been matched or maybe lasted long enough to justify a new sega console.

in hindsight though, sega were right to cull it as soon as they did as pirate CD-R copies were starting to hurt sales very badly. console sales were also losing far too much money so it was best to just stop and cut losses.

BlitzKrieg

I have never played it either. What's the big deal about this Shenmue game

Shenmue was an imensely ambitious game, one that tends to be a love it or hate it kind of result. One of the most expensive games ever (it was when it was made, dont know if its been surpassed since) its tale was so vast that it was broken down into at one point rumoured twelve different games (it fluctuated during production). The game itself goes against alot of what we get today in games, it wasnt a very big scope in its setting or plot but it was huge in how focused the game was on little details. It was an RPG fan's wet dream in how much detail went into the games setting, every little detail had relevence and it was staggering for the time.

But the gameplay itself was very slow, very narrative focused and it took time to get into and while there was a large arcing plot the immediate tasks felt borderline monotonous in their goals (get a job, look for sailors etc etc) but too many including myself, the monotony added to its greatness because it was a game where you could wade waist deep in its depth, and it made the player play the game as a proper role playing game, rather then having the story/game structure being two very seperate components.

In the end the game got very good with some great plot twists, excellent villians and nice diversity to its gameplay. It ended on a high note.

Shenmue 2 took all the elements from shenmue 1 (even if you have a saved game all your items from 1) and brought the overall scope out a bit so it was bigger. didnt have the same details as the first game, but it was grander and kept enough of the first games elements to make it a charming sequel.

By todays standard alot of what shenmue did would be standard in the do's and dont's of gaming (a fair few donts were learnt aswell as do's such as QTE events)

overall its a game thats worth trying even if you didnt like it.

and what did the little screen on the controller do?

the vmu.

thats actually the memory card. It doubled as a tiny handheld device. Some games could download stuff to it to be played outside the full game. Sonic adventure took the biggest advantage with a tamagotchi like chao game that when put back in the full game resulted in a stronger chao for the player.

Otherwise it was used for a variety of things, including health meters (code veronica) tips, scores, team layouts etc etc.

It didnt get enough use due to the short lifespan of the dreamcast. But it was a great touch and a decent memory card to booth.

MooseJam

owned one, yes it was great, shame it wasn't a success commercially , it deserved to be

Retr0gamer

I think Shenmue cost nearly 70 million to make and Sega needed something stupid like nearly every Dreamcast owner to buy a copy to break even. Although saying that the budget was mostly wasted on the saturn port and the planned sequels would have made it back since the engine was already there.

theteal

ye've all made me really want to fire it up, it's been a while. . .if i only i could find the bleedin' games. . .where's crazy taxi, my fingers haven't been in pain in a while!

Gummy Panda

Dreamcast had some awesome games. Loved Shenmue but hated sonic. House of the dead was also a lot of fun.

But it was a noisy piece of hardware, kinda like the xbox 360 (or my dreamcast was a faulty one). I think DVD also helped kill it as it had no DVD playback and when the ps2 launch, they were bundling DVD players with the dreamcast to try compete.

Retr0gamer

The DC is definitely a noisy machine, even worse than the 360.

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Conjecture and assumptions? There's no assumptions there and the only bit that could even be considered conjecture would be about there being a lack of decent PS2 games in the first few months which is more personal opinion. Whatever, all i know is I got my PS2 9 months after it launched and was mostly playing PS1 games on it for a year due to the lack of decent PS2 titles while my mate was enjoying loads of excellent DC games.

The conjecture relates to the degree of success the DC would have had if this had happened or that had happened etc.

Kiith

I absolutly loved the Dreamcast, if only for Shenmue. Probably one of my favourite games ever. I remember being absolutly blown away by it at the time, and loved the QTE events.

I wanted to kick Lan Di's ass, bang Nozomi and kill Megumi and her ****ing cat.

Do you know where i can find some sailors?

Firefox10

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The DC is definitely a noisy machine, even worse than the 360.

I don't think you can get anything worse than the 360 for noise! Except maybe the vacum cleaner.:D

Seeker

I like to play Shenmue every few years. Now I cant find my DC. Going nuts!

Firefox10

Hmm...I might take it out now and have a go at Soul Calibur and Rez. Another classic.

Retr0gamer

noodler wrote: »

The conjecture relates to the degree of success the DC would have had if this had happened or that had happened etc.

It was speculation not a statement.

Firefox10 wrote: »

I don't think you can get anything worse than the 360 for noise! Except maybe the vacum cleaner.:D

Trust me it's worse. It's a really tiny console, the smallest one I have out in fact, and the fan that keeps it cool is really noisy. The disc drive is just as bad. When you play skies of arcadia you can tell when a random battle is about to happen from the disc spool up just beforehand.

I think the worst thing about the DC is that it's probably the only console that failed that was also a brilliant machine. Every other console failure deserved to or was destined to fail due to poor handling by the manufacturer but the DC was a great powerful machine with an amazing software catalogue and third party support.

Outkast_IRE

I think one of the reasons it failed was the saturn and how sega abandoned the customers with that . people were actually afraid to buy the dreamcast in case it went down the same route. Granted it did go down the same route but it was a good couple of years i enjoyed:D

BlitzKrieg

nice sum up of the console here

http://www.onnetworks.com/videos/play-value/sega-dreamcast?autoplay=true