Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
Happy Sega Dreamcast 25! Now our favorite futuristic console is old enough to rent a car, and then go all Crazy Taxi on everybody.
I bought mine on 9/9/99. I was working at the Dinkytown Pizza Hut at the University of Minnesota campus that night. I borrowed someone's car and headed over to the nearest Target, where I bought the Dreamcast, a VMU, a second controller, and copies of Soul Calibur, NFL 2K, Hydro Thunder, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, and Trickstyle--the latter which I later swapped out for Sonic Adventure. I brought it back and hooked it up to the televisions, thanks to a nice little video output underneath the bar, and we proceeded to have a blast playing everything.
Most Friday and Saturday nights in 1999 and 2000, we were playing Dreamcast games until dawn. NFL 2K and 2K1 were the most popular, but Ready 2 Rumble, Virtua Tennis, Chu Chu Rocket, Crazy Taxi and San Francisco Rush 2049's Stunt Mode were the most popular. Most everyone who worked there were college students or in their mid- to late-20s, diehard gamers (a couple would bring over their Nintendo 64s to play Goldeneye), and they absolutely loved Sega's new machine. They were amazed at its compact size, as well as the visual fidelity of so many games. Everything was running at 60 frames-per-second, arcade quality and sometimes even surpassing it.
I also enjoyed playing the demo discs from Official Dreamcast Magazine, which I collected and read religiously. Somewhere, the final issue is available online, which featured the magazine's ranking of DC games to that point. I'd love to see the former staff get together and write an updated list, just to see where their opinions stand today and what they thought of the latter games like Phantasy Star Online, Ikaruga and Sonic Adventure 2, to say nothing of the enormous indie/homebrew scene that blossomed as Sega bowed out of the hardware market, barely avoiding bankruptcy. I often think to myself that DC's indie scene was one factor that sparked today's retrogaming and indie gaming revival.
Now, there were things about Dreamcast that frustrated me. The controller could have been better, more comfortable, more ergonmic. Obviously, a second analog stick should have been included. I think we could have done without those VMUs with their two-day battery lifespan. And we could do without all the BEEEEP!! and GRZZZKKK!! sounds coming from the console. This is one noisy piece of hardware. It's like listening to cicada mating calls just before they croak.
But, oh, what fantastic videogames! This was the final stand for classic arcade games and it couldn't have been better. Thank God for Capcom and Midway, who were firing on all cylanders from start to finish. Thank God for the 2K sports games. Thank God for the online play, which is still available to this day.
Dreamcast is like a famous rock star who dies at 27, just when they're hitting their stride. The damn thing was killed in the States after 18 months! Less than that! How was that even possible? Oh, yeah, that's right: PlayStation 2 hype in the year 2000, which brought Sega's 1999 momentum to a complete halt. Go look at the sales data and see for yourself (they're available on the NeoGAF archives). Software sales just dropped dead. Nothing would turn things around, and Sega sure as heck tried their best. The hype surrounding PS2 was so enormous, we've never seen anything like it before or since. Cue one up for Sony's brilliant marketing strategies, as well as their smooth talent for bullshitting the gaming public with the most ridiculous claims. You'd think they were running for public office. 88 million polygons per second! The US government might not allow it into the country because they classify it as a supercomputer! Saddam Hussein might steal the PS2 and use it for his secret missile programs!
Look, Sony were at the top of their game, they had the hottest new brand, and they had a killer app--DVD--that was the real reason they got into the videogame business. There was no way a company as comparitively tiny as Sega could survive, even if their finances were on solid ground. Unfortunately, as we all know, they were hemmoraging money, the DC was stillborn in Japan (Sega foolishly assumed Virtua Fighter would bail them out yet again), and sales in the States just weren't enough to keep them alive. And the kids weren't buying the games. I'll bet more than a few of them were burning discs, thanks to a newly-arrived company called Napster. Go ask the music industry about the early Napster days.
In the end, what matters is that Dreamcast has one of the greatest software libraries in the history of videogames, continues to have new independent software support to this day...and were you aware that Grand Theft Auto 3 is currently being brought to the console? The PC version, no less, which is graphically superior to its PS2 cousin. Prepare to be amazed. We never got to see this console pushed anywhere close to its limits. Early games were originally intended for Saturn, many third-party games were ported from PS1 and N64. How many videogames were created from the ground up for Dreamcast? Not many. It's really surprising, and was more than a little frustrating at the time.
Whatever. This console still rocks and still deserves to be played. Forget all that PS5 Pro and Switch 2 hype and just get yourself a Dreamcast.
Here's my current Dreamcast Top 20. These change around every few months, and I could easily write down another 20 games, as could all of you. But these were the ones that I loved the most when it was all happening, and they have my undying love to this day.
Sega Dreamcast Top 20 (September 2024)
I bought mine on 9/9/99. I was working at the Dinkytown Pizza Hut at the University of Minnesota campus that night. I borrowed someone's car and headed over to the nearest Target, where I bought the Dreamcast, a VMU, a second controller, and copies of Soul Calibur, NFL 2K, Hydro Thunder, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, and Trickstyle--the latter which I later swapped out for Sonic Adventure. I brought it back and hooked it up to the televisions, thanks to a nice little video output underneath the bar, and we proceeded to have a blast playing everything.
Most Friday and Saturday nights in 1999 and 2000, we were playing Dreamcast games until dawn. NFL 2K and 2K1 were the most popular, but Ready 2 Rumble, Virtua Tennis, Chu Chu Rocket, Crazy Taxi and San Francisco Rush 2049's Stunt Mode were the most popular. Most everyone who worked there were college students or in their mid- to late-20s, diehard gamers (a couple would bring over their Nintendo 64s to play Goldeneye), and they absolutely loved Sega's new machine. They were amazed at its compact size, as well as the visual fidelity of so many games. Everything was running at 60 frames-per-second, arcade quality and sometimes even surpassing it.
I also enjoyed playing the demo discs from Official Dreamcast Magazine, which I collected and read religiously. Somewhere, the final issue is available online, which featured the magazine's ranking of DC games to that point. I'd love to see the former staff get together and write an updated list, just to see where their opinions stand today and what they thought of the latter games like Phantasy Star Online, Ikaruga and Sonic Adventure 2, to say nothing of the enormous indie/homebrew scene that blossomed as Sega bowed out of the hardware market, barely avoiding bankruptcy. I often think to myself that DC's indie scene was one factor that sparked today's retrogaming and indie gaming revival.
Now, there were things about Dreamcast that frustrated me. The controller could have been better, more comfortable, more ergonmic. Obviously, a second analog stick should have been included. I think we could have done without those VMUs with their two-day battery lifespan. And we could do without all the BEEEEP!! and GRZZZKKK!! sounds coming from the console. This is one noisy piece of hardware. It's like listening to cicada mating calls just before they croak.
But, oh, what fantastic videogames! This was the final stand for classic arcade games and it couldn't have been better. Thank God for Capcom and Midway, who were firing on all cylanders from start to finish. Thank God for the 2K sports games. Thank God for the online play, which is still available to this day.
Dreamcast is like a famous rock star who dies at 27, just when they're hitting their stride. The damn thing was killed in the States after 18 months! Less than that! How was that even possible? Oh, yeah, that's right: PlayStation 2 hype in the year 2000, which brought Sega's 1999 momentum to a complete halt. Go look at the sales data and see for yourself (they're available on the NeoGAF archives). Software sales just dropped dead. Nothing would turn things around, and Sega sure as heck tried their best. The hype surrounding PS2 was so enormous, we've never seen anything like it before or since. Cue one up for Sony's brilliant marketing strategies, as well as their smooth talent for bullshitting the gaming public with the most ridiculous claims. You'd think they were running for public office. 88 million polygons per second! The US government might not allow it into the country because they classify it as a supercomputer! Saddam Hussein might steal the PS2 and use it for his secret missile programs!
Look, Sony were at the top of their game, they had the hottest new brand, and they had a killer app--DVD--that was the real reason they got into the videogame business. There was no way a company as comparitively tiny as Sega could survive, even if their finances were on solid ground. Unfortunately, as we all know, they were hemmoraging money, the DC was stillborn in Japan (Sega foolishly assumed Virtua Fighter would bail them out yet again), and sales in the States just weren't enough to keep them alive. And the kids weren't buying the games. I'll bet more than a few of them were burning discs, thanks to a newly-arrived company called Napster. Go ask the music industry about the early Napster days.
In the end, what matters is that Dreamcast has one of the greatest software libraries in the history of videogames, continues to have new independent software support to this day...and were you aware that Grand Theft Auto 3 is currently being brought to the console? The PC version, no less, which is graphically superior to its PS2 cousin. Prepare to be amazed. We never got to see this console pushed anywhere close to its limits. Early games were originally intended for Saturn, many third-party games were ported from PS1 and N64. How many videogames were created from the ground up for Dreamcast? Not many. It's really surprising, and was more than a little frustrating at the time.
Whatever. This console still rocks and still deserves to be played. Forget all that PS5 Pro and Switch 2 hype and just get yourself a Dreamcast.
Here's my current Dreamcast Top 20. These change around every few months, and I could easily write down another 20 games, as could all of you. But these were the ones that I loved the most when it was all happening, and they have my undying love to this day.
Sega Dreamcast Top 20 (September 2024)
- Soul Calibur
- NFL 2K1 (or 2K2, but this is the one we played at the time)
- Phantasy Star Online (same for PSO ver.2)
- Hydro Thunder
- Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
- San Francisco Rush 2049
- Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
- Test Drive Le Mans
- Virtua Tennis
- Crazy Taxi
- Tony Hawk Pro Skater
- Ferrari F355 Challenge
- NBA 2K2
- Dead or Alive 2
- NBA Showtime
- Marvel Vs Capcom 2
- Resident Evil: Code Veronica
- Power Stone 2
- Chu Chu Rocket
- NHL 2K2
