Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
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Sega Dreamcast. The best console ever. Why? See inside!
- Thread starter darkangel-212559
- Start date
darkangel-212559
Banned
darkangel-212559
Banned
You clearly never used it as a Tamigotchi then by ways of Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. Hell you could even hook it upto to the NGPC and download fighting characters from one of the SNK fighting games. Then it turned into a mini portable 2D fighter hand held console. I absolutely loved that shit.
Alphagear
Member
I agree.
Maybe I was too kind with my wording. Lets not forget the cable being at the bottom of the controller and being too short.
Shockingly the Dreamcast controller derived from the Sega Saturn 3D controller which was superior in every way.
darkangel-212559
Banned
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Time Stalkers is a fairly basic JRPG (though I don't think it's as bad as some say, it's roguelike or mystery dungeon-esque and it does have some pretty creative stuff even if it's not AAA) but it had a neat downloadable first person dungeon crawler game for the VMU that I played until it died.
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darkangel-212559
Banned
Nice I gotta try it.
SF Kosmo
Al Jazeera Special Reporter
I think it was less that GD-ROM was proprietary as much as it was the fact that DVD players were new, and having a game system that also gave you access to DVD movies was a huge selling point early in the PS2's lifetime.
GriffinCorp
Member
I hold a special place in my heart for the Dreamcast. What a fun time in my life (High School) and pulling all nighters with UT with split screen 4 player. Crazy Taxi, Shenmue - had one of the best libraries. I was crushed when my GamePro magazine came and announced Sega killed the Dreamcast.
Shrap
Member
I never owned a Dreamcast but I have a story about my first experience seeing one:
I grew up in a small country town. It was so small that just one kid in town and the surrounding area owned a Dreamcast... and every other kid knew it. So when my mate and I heard about it we decided to make the pilgrimage to his house to witness this holy gaming relic for ourselves. When we reached the outside of his house the first thing we noticed was the front porch - it was completely covered in chicken bones. I'm talking hundreds of them. It looked like something out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We both looked at each other slightly concerned but we were not about to be stopped by some ancient KFC leftovers.
We stepped up onto the porch and waded through the bone graveyard; every step crunching and snapping like overbaked corn chips. I then knocked on the front door.... and no one came. So I knocked again... Nothing. My friend and I yelled out and knocked harder. Suddenly we heard a distant croaky voice shout "the door is open". We figured it was his mum but she sounded like a witch that had chain smoked marlboro reds for a century. We were once again feeling apprehensive... but the allure of the Dreamcast continued to draw us and we were so close to witnessing it that we pushed onward.
As I opened the creaky old front door we were immediately smacked in the face by some sort of foul concoction consisting of rotting meat, wet shoes and ancient ashtrays. There was very little light inside so we could only make out the basic silhouette of the interior; ahead was a long hallway with a few openings on both sides. Although it was quite a wide hallway it was made narrow by piles upon piles of junk - there were precariously tall stacks of magazines, newspapers and clothes mixed in with tons of old food containers and random household objects. The smell continued to intensify as we walked single file down the narrow path formed by all this junk. We got about halfway down and looked over at the first opening to the right and saw the figure of a ghostly woman hunched over on a stained, decaying couch in a small dimly lit room. "Daniel's room is down the end" she coughed at us. "Thank you" we replied together somberly. We were definitely having a few more second thoughts at this point but we'd gone too far to turn back now and just ahead of us we could hear those comforting and unmistakable beeps and boops of gameplay. So we proceeded to the end of the hall and I pushed open the final door.
As we walked through the door we didn't see the Dreamcast at first. Or Daniel. Instead what we saw were mountains of pizza boxes stacked up to the ceiling like greasy, decaying cardboard pillars. Scattered throughout were hundreds of coca cola and pepsi bottles along with filthy clothes and various other unidentified rotting items. Once we stepped past the pizza box pillar next to the door we finally caught a glimpse of it - the Sega Dreamcast. The only one in existence for probably 100+ kilometers. It was unassuming and familiar; it looked the pale baby of a Playstation and a Saturn. But its familiarity made it no less glorious. We then looked up at the small glowing box and saw the game he was playing - it was some kind of a taxi driving game and it was undoubtedly crazy. So I then asked Daniel the most important question - "how is it?" and without looking away from the screen he simply muttered "yeah, it's pretty good".
I'll never forget that day. Neither me nor my mate even got a chance to play it, but it was still worth every step of that journey.
I grew up in a small country town. It was so small that just one kid in town and the surrounding area owned a Dreamcast... and every other kid knew it. So when my mate and I heard about it we decided to make the pilgrimage to his house to witness this holy gaming relic for ourselves. When we reached the outside of his house the first thing we noticed was the front porch - it was completely covered in chicken bones. I'm talking hundreds of them. It looked like something out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We both looked at each other slightly concerned but we were not about to be stopped by some ancient KFC leftovers.
We stepped up onto the porch and waded through the bone graveyard; every step crunching and snapping like overbaked corn chips. I then knocked on the front door.... and no one came. So I knocked again... Nothing. My friend and I yelled out and knocked harder. Suddenly we heard a distant croaky voice shout "the door is open". We figured it was his mum but she sounded like a witch that had chain smoked marlboro reds for a century. We were once again feeling apprehensive... but the allure of the Dreamcast continued to draw us and we were so close to witnessing it that we pushed onward.
As I opened the creaky old front door we were immediately smacked in the face by some sort of foul concoction consisting of rotting meat, wet shoes and ancient ashtrays. There was very little light inside so we could only make out the basic silhouette of the interior; ahead was a long hallway with a few openings on both sides. Although it was quite a wide hallway it was made narrow by piles upon piles of junk - there were precariously tall stacks of magazines, newspapers and clothes mixed in with tons of old food containers and random household objects. The smell continued to intensify as we walked single file down the narrow path formed by all this junk. We got about halfway down and looked over at the first opening to the right and saw the figure of a ghostly woman hunched over on a stained, decaying couch in a small dimly lit room. "Daniel's room is down the end" she coughed at us. "Thank you" we replied together somberly. We were definitely having a few more second thoughts at this point but we'd gone too far to turn back now and just ahead of us we could hear those comforting and unmistakable beeps and boops of gameplay. So we proceeded to the end of the hall and I pushed open the final door.
As we walked through the door we didn't see the Dreamcast at first. Or Daniel. Instead what we saw were mountains of pizza boxes stacked up to the ceiling like greasy, decaying cardboard pillars. Scattered throughout were hundreds of coca cola and pepsi bottles along with filthy clothes and various other unidentified rotting items. Once we stepped past the pizza box pillar next to the door we finally caught a glimpse of it - the Sega Dreamcast. The only one in existence for probably 100+ kilometers. It was unassuming and familiar; it looked the pale baby of a Playstation and a Saturn. But its familiarity made it no less glorious. We then looked up at the small glowing box and saw the game he was playing - it was some kind of a taxi driving game and it was undoubtedly crazy. So I then asked Daniel the most important question - "how is it?" and without looking away from the screen he simply muttered "yeah, it's pretty good".
I'll never forget that day. Neither me nor my mate even got a chance to play it, but it was still worth every step of that journey.
InfiniteCombo
Banned
As a huge Dreamcast fan...
... I actually agree with this. That controller was an abomination. And with so many Capcom fighters on the Dreamcast, I don't know why they didn't (to my knowledge) release any official controllers with 6 face buttons.
Anyway, among the issues with the controller (some of which have already been mentioned):
- Horrible joystick
- Horrible ergonomics -- it was shaped weird and felt weird holding it. They took that same awful form of the Saturn analog controller and carried it over
- 4 face buttons with only one trigger on each side
- That Dpad gave me so many blisters. Thing was horribly designed, which is additionally puzzling coming from the Saturn which is the GOAT 2D controller.
- Wire coming from the bottom
- Additional weight with the VMU which, when combined with its awkward/uncomfortable ergonomics, made the hands tired after long sessions.
Thankfully 3rd parties came to the rescue. There are several 3rd party Dreamcast to Saturn controller adapters. There are also Dreamcast to PlayStation adapters which let you use either an OG (non-DualShock) PlayStation controller or the first or second DualShock controllers on the Dreamcast.
Within the last couple of years there has also been the enhanced Dreamcast controller from a group called "Retro Fighters" which addresses most (all?) of the issues I noted above. I own one and while it still has issues, it is in many ways a HUGE improvement over the original Dreamcast controller.
lostinblue
Banned
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InfiniteCombo
Banned
Yeah, that's the one!
Huh, interesting, it's showing "In Stock" for me. Are you in the United States? (Second EDIT: I am looking at Amazon, which is where I bought this controller from, and it shows it in stock there, even with Prime shipping. But you're right, on their own website, it's out of stock!)
EDIT: when I bought mine several months ago, I decided to go for the black controller, since I have the black "Sega Sports" Dreamcast. Having the black Dreamcast is sweet, in my entertainment center the Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast are all next to each other and all are black. It's a nice look
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Physiognomonics
Member
Done? It's far from being done.
etc? How insulting. It's going to be done when you will talk about Toy Commander you ignorant. ;-)
InfiniteCombo
Banned
This is 100% correct.
Not just for the Dreamcast, but for all my retro consoles in general: if the games don't involve a lot of reading, 11 times out of 10 I get the Japanese import version, compared to the getting the American version.
Benefits of Japanese imports:
- Superior cover art, almost every single time
- Thick manuals IN COLOR and full of pictures compared to the sad black-and-white thin pamphlets that come with the American versions
- Sometimes additional content (characters, stages, options, etc)
- Often cheaper (in many cases I've bought imports complete in box that ended up being cheaper than the loose cartridge/CD of the American version) and in better condition than the American counterparts
Shtef
Member
I experienced online play for the first time in my life with dreamcast. I had quake 3 arena, unreal tournament, sonic adventures, soul calibur, chu chu rocket and resident evil code veronica, such a fun times. Unfortunately I had to sell it so I can buy ps2, which was very popular in my country and nobody was carrying dreamcast anymore.
shoplifter
Member
Sojiro
Member
Yeah I didn't mention in my post about PS2 hype being a factor in the DC demise, but it definitely played a part for sure. EVERYONE I knew was waiting on the PS2, the hype around it was unreal, hell it was the first console I went after on the day it launched and was met with a huge line of people that I did not expect to be there. I had to wait a couple of months before I could get one for myself. PS2 being an affordable DVD player also was a big deal for the console for me and my group of friends. Funny about your experiment with Madden and NFL2K, but I totally believe it, a recognizable brand name is hard to beat, even if it is the inferior choice.
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Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Neat. Has anyone made a programmable DC controller with 2 sticks and remaps for things like left stick > < abxy and right stick > < left stick and similar? When emulating DC with my DS4 I remap it so games like Outtrigger and MDK2 play with the familiar modern twin stick scheme (even with digital only input for the left stick, I guess I could map it so it works as d-pad > < abxy and just having look/aim on the right stick but that's not as comfortable to grip on the DS4). It may require a bit more fiddling depending on the game and its control scheme but it's pretty ace in gameplay.
They released arcade sticks. Several of those Capcom fighting games are 4 button like MvC2, Tech Romancer, Power Stone (3) and Project Justice, with SFA3, MvC, Jojo, the CvS games and Vampire Chronicles left for 6 buttons (I guess Power Stone 2 is also 6 button but the scheme works with the special attacks on the triggers, it's not like Street Fighter games where you'd have to set one of the three kicks and punches there making combinations weird and tough to accomplish). SNK games are also usually 4 button and other fighters the same or even less. But that d-pad is just bad.
I guess the thing to do is find a Saturn to Dreamcast adapter and use Saturn controllers (or similar modern controllers like the Hori Fighting Commander and the 8Bitdo M30, I have the former and it's ace) where applicable (I always find the Sc and DoA2LE side stepping weird with a d-pad).
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Havoc2049
Member
I love the Dreamcast and it was my daily driver console from 9/9/99 until the day the XB launched, but Gunvalkyrie on the DC looked slow and clunky compared to what finally ended up on the XB. Gunvalkyrie was also quite the looker the day it launched in March of 2002 and took advantage of the power of the XB.
lostinblue
Banned
No, hailing from Europe, perhaps that's why.
It's still out of stock, but I've stumbled upon the coloured ones yesterday and those are in stock for me (black, translucent blue/red etc).
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
You're comparing finished product to early footage. It looked very impressive on DC. Not much slower in some action bits, other than the 30fps making it appear so. It was going to be very different with lightgun shooting + controller roaming a la Wii. It was uniquely clunky on the Xbox too.
Anyway, I missed/forgot that Ao no 6-gou - Saigetsu Hito o Matazu - Time and Tide/Blue Submarine No. 6 - Time and Tide was fan translated. It's interesting with nice visuals in its cel shaded characters and underwater parts. I can't find great user footage so the old Japanese trailer works.
SEGA-SKY Portal - Blue Submarine no.6 'Time & Tide' - English Translation for Sega Dreamcast
Portal SEGA-SKY | Piszemy o konsolach SEGA Dreamcast i SEGA Saturn oraz automatach arcade Naomi, Atomiswave i emulacji.
sega.c0.pl
Edit: this game is slick, it has great presentation in the adventure parts (though characters aren't very animated and what animations they do have are for the close up dialogue boxes, when viewing the scenes they're static) and the submarine sections look pretty nice. Gameplay probably won't amount to much going by how the controls are. It works but there are no real advanced maneuvers like full 6DOF, rolls or strafing, you can just pitch (with limits), yaw, thrust forward or back and switch between a few weapons and tools. I guess it's like a slower, more methodical and story based Treasures of the Deep contrasting its frantic arcade action. The translation seems fine, some wording could be better but whatever. In the very first saving note some text warning you to not turn off the console doesn't wrap properly but in subsequent cases it does, maybe there are other minor errors. Sadly there are in-engine scenes and VA where subtitles couldn't be added unlike in the cut scenes/dialogue boxes so they've opted to have the original VA in the background with a neutral male voice translating like it's done in documentaries etc., it's not terrible, just a bit of a shame.
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Cockles & Whelks
Banned
Speed Devils Online. Flawless 5 player online racing. Damn that game was a lot of fun.
Team Andromeda
Member
SEGA America did wonders with the DC, lovely cases and in many cases having better artwork on the front and inside to their games. In fact, SEGA America did so much right with the DC, its shame SEGA Japan PR dept was useless and SEGA Europe was run by the Muppets
Bryank75
Banned
Havoc2049
Member
You're comparing finished product to early footage. It looked very impressive on DC. Not much slower in some action bits, other than the 30fps making it appear so. It was going to be very different with lightgun shooting + controller roaming a la Wii. It was uniquely clunky on the Xbox too.
Anyway, I missed/forgot that Ao no 6-gou - Saigetsu Hito o Matazu - Time and Tide/Blue Submarine No. 6 - Time and Tide was fan translated. It's interesting with nice visuals in its cel shaded characters and underwater parts. I can't find great user footage so the old Japanese trailer works.
SEGA-SKY Portal - Blue Submarine no.6 'Time & Tide' - English Translation for Sega Dreamcast
Portal SEGA-SKY | Piszemy o konsolach SEGA Dreamcast i SEGA Saturn oraz automatach arcade Naomi, Atomiswave i emulacji.
Edit: this game is slick, it has great presentation in the adventure parts (though characters aren't very animated and what animations they do have are for the close up dialogue boxes, when viewing the scenes they're static) and the submarine sections look pretty nice. Gameplay probably won't amount to much going by how the controls are. It works but there are no real advanced maneuvers like full 6DOF, rolls or strafing, you can just pitch (with limits), yaw, thrust forward or back and switch between a few weapons and tools. I guess it's like a slower, more methodical and story based Treasures of the Deep contrasting its frantic arcade action. The translation seems fine, some wording could be better but whatever. In the very first saving note some text warning you to not turn off the console doesn't wrap properly but in subsequent cases it does, maybe there are other minor errors. Sadly there are in-engine scenes and VA where subtitles couldn't be added unlike in the cut scenes/dialogue boxes so they've opted to have the original VA in the background with a neutral male voice translating like it's done in documentaries etc., it's not terrible, just a bit of a shame.
Blue Submarine No. 6 Time & Tide looks cool and a type of game I would like. I enjoyed the strategy RPG submarine game on the NGPC, Dive Alert. Cool that someone did an English translation. I'll have to burn it to CD and fire it up on the Dreamcast.
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Playing more, the fan translation leaves a lot to be desired, I encountered more mistakes and weird wording, but it makes it playable. In the adventure part even the NPCs are just part of the 2D background until you talk to them and get the cel shaded model with the dialogue box. I didn't realize this when using a heavy CRT filter so yeah, all the areas are static as they're just pictures. There are in-engine cut scenes using the dialogue models too (or maybe they can just be considered more advanced/animated dialogue scenes) and anime/CG. Underwater I don't think it's as good as Ecco or even Deep Fighter but it's not bad either, it looks pretty clean and the enemy models I've seen so far are pretty nice. Some weird fish, nautilus type things, sharks and crabs with ranged attacks. I guess you have to play carefully initially, I ran out of ammo in the very first low stakes salvage job by attracting more enemy attention than I should and trying to fend them off rather than just head to the objective and only deal with those necessary for the operation. Upgrading the sub at the store seems decent with different armor, engine, battery options, as well as different weapons & tools.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I never had a DC, but I rented it and one of the games I rented was Armada. Only played it for one night and it was awesome. Hard as hell though. It was like Diablo but in space. If a similar game was made now it would be better as you now got dual analogs for twin sticky gaming.
LordBlodgett
Member
Dreamcast is definitely one of my top 5 ever consoles as well. There were so many bangers. The game library rarely misses.
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I don't think it ever was going to be twin stick shooter style, it just had the asteroids-esque thrusting and rotations etc., with the space theme and ARPG-esque cooldowns and such on top. There was a sequel thingie, Armada Online.
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JackMcGunns
Member
It has a successor, that's the Series S imo, amazing little package with the backing of a giant where games will never go dry and can even play all the DC games via RetroArch
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Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I didn't know people were overclocking their Dreamcasts lol, that's neat (but surely carries risk). It seems to help a ton with some areas in Shenmue II. I can't find many videos and stuff though. I don't think any of the emulators support such a function yet, it'd be a sweet addition to have eventually.
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Kokoloko85
Member
Loved it.
Top 5 console, number 1 depending on the day.
What a great collection of 1st party games
Top 5 console, number 1 depending on the day.
What a great collection of 1st party games
Doctor Hades
Member
I absolutely loved the Dreamcast despite it's short life and lack of EA support. It still managed to have a very impressive library. Shenmue 1 & 2, Sonic Adventure 2, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Power Stone 1 & 2, Grandia 2, Skies of Arcadia, Metropolis Street Racer, NFL 2K, Soul Calbur 2 (what a game that was for its time!) and so on and so on.
The Dreamcast 2 was even better. Oh sorry, did I say Dreamcast 2. Oops, I meant the Xbox, of course. Seriously though, with that early SEGA support and games like Project Gotham Racing, the Xbox felt like the true successor to the Dreamcast and was a seriously awesome console with its revolutionary (for consoles) hard drive and online gaming and DLC.
The Dreamcast 2 was even better. Oh sorry, did I say Dreamcast 2. Oops, I meant the Xbox, of course. Seriously though, with that early SEGA support and games like Project Gotham Racing, the Xbox felt like the true successor to the Dreamcast and was a seriously awesome console with its revolutionary (for consoles) hard drive and online gaming and DLC.
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
The last official release was Milestone's shmup Karous, March 8, 2007. 8+ years seems pretty good to me. Still, even without knowing such details I'm sure you've heard of consoles like the Virtual Boy or Vectrex.
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German Hops
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
RAIDEN1
Member
Yeah but all the "Big Gun" developers however many there were had jumped ship by 2003 by the latest ....(I am guessing)
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Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
The last Sega-made release was Puyo Pop Fever, February 24, 2004. I'm not sure if another big publisher released something later on but ~5+ years seems okay to me. Still, even without knowing such details I'm sure you've heard of consoles like the Virtual Boy or Vectrex.
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
It just dawned on me today that Dreamcast and PS1 have the same NA birthday 
Imagine those two having to hold birthday parties at the same venue. Talk about tension
Anyway happy birthday Dreamcast!
Imagine those two having to hold birthday parties at the same venue. Talk about tension
Anyway happy birthday Dreamcast!
Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Gray? The games weren't that bad lol.