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A TRIBUTE TO THE DREAMCAST - by Mr Biffo

22/2/2017

54 Comments

 
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I attended Sega's lavish UK launch party for its Dreamcast with my friend and Digitiser columnist Violet Berlin. I remember her greeting the actor Verne Troyer with the words "Hello, Mini-Me!", which - as I remarked at the time - I'm sure he loved.

The only other celebrity I remember being there was Paula Yates, who had brought her young daughter Peaches along. I never saw her talking to anyone, and though it's easy to read much into her behaviour, thanks to what we now know, she seemed to me rather alone... just sort of wandering around the party with Peaches on one arm, and a large wicker bag on the other.

It's heartbreaking to think that neither mother or daughter are with us anymore. Indeed, it's probably only a matter of time for Sega too; such is the curse of the Dreamcast.

Here's a funny thing: when I wrote my "tribute" to the Sega Saturn, I repeatedly referred to it as the 'Dreamcast'; a grotesque error that wasn't picked-up by my in-house sub-editor, whose knowledge of gaming, we've established, stopped at Duck Hunt.

Indeed, the only "game" she plays these days, is some bizarre app on her phone where she has to combine alpacas into some manner of twitching,  composite, horror, by repeatedly tapping on them.

Fortunately, Digitiser2000's canny-eyed readers wasted little time in pointing out my embarrassing error - but the interesting thing (he says, in a bid to make a virtue out of his sloppiness) is why I made that error in the first place.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have ever referred to the Nintendo 64 as 'GameCube', or the Master System as 'Mega Drive'... though when I consider, say, the various PlayStations, they more or less blend into one - a bit like a twitching, composite, llama monstrosity, in fact.
BIG ISSUE
I think the issue is this: once consoles became disc-based, the leaps from one generation to another became incremental pigeon steps.

​Worse still, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between, say, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 - supposedly rival systems. This issue is hardly helped by Sony and Microsoft offering multiple different models of their respective machines.

But that's now. The Dreamcast was released 18 years ago in the UK - and at the time it was very different from its predecessor, in almost every respect. Perhaps the reason I confuse the Saturn and the Dreamcast is this: both were notable as unmitigated disasters for Sega, the latter being such a flop that it was discontinued less than 18 months after its European release. 

Thus, the last console Sega ever released was here and gone in a heartbeat. RIP Dreamcast, we hardly knew ye.
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TRAGIC, YEAH?
The story of the Dreamcast is something of a tragedy.

Following all of its missteps with the Saturn, Sega was determined to get everything right next time - and by and large it did.

The Dreamcast was cheaper to manufacture, it was easier to develop games for, it was priced right, and had a confident launch line-up - which this time included a proper Sonic The Hedghehog game.

Heck - it even looked nicer than the Saturn had, with its all-white, bulky PlayStation 1 feel, Tamagotchi-infused controller, SNES-like buttons, and nice swirly, hand drawn, logo, which the canny wags on Teletext's Digitiser video games pages would later suggest resembled a flushing lavatory.

Furthermore... the games! It's hard to argue with the impact of Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, or Shenmue - three games which together have more or less written the rulebook on the ubiquitous open-world epics we get today. Phantasy Star Online was - yes - an online role-playing game, at a time when such a thing was still a novel idea.

Then there's Power Stone, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Soulcalibur, Skies of Arcadia, Samba de Amigo, Rez, Space Channel 5, Seaman, Metropolis Street Racer, Virtua Tennis... the Dreamcast didn't just have some good games - it had some truly great games, and the influence of many of them can still be felt today.

If you don't believe me, then just listen to this amazing noise: hsssrrrrrrrrrtthtttttthhhhhhh-ufrfffr!

RADIO GAGA
Perhaps the most questionable game released by Sega on the Dreamcast was Segagaga - a satirical role-playing game set in 2025, at a time when Sega's fortunes have diminished so much, that the company commands a mere 3% of the overall games market.

Featuring cameos from various Sega characters and franchises - at one point, the player finds themselves working in a retail store alongside Sega's proto-mascot Alex Kidd - the aim is to save Sega from the brink of bankruptcy by recruiting developers, and releasing original hit games.

Along the way a Sega executive states: "Game development is a very special job that requires a very special person. The high stress levels often drive our staff members to become... subhuman. They're violent and need to be caged. But we need them to make good games. This is the unfortunate truth of the game industry."

Which all sounds a bit like a case of tempting fate, akin to wandering around a cruise ship with a megaphone, shouting that you hope it doesn't sink... while simultaneously firing a shotgun into the deck.

And thus it was so. 

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MILD PERIL
Following the disastrous Saturn, Sega was already in a precarious financial situation.

In a last-ditch bid to buy its way out of the sinkhole, the company blew hundreds of millions of dollars developing its successor, and hundreds of millions - maybe zillions - more releasing and marketing it.

​Even a rumoured $50 million was blown on Shenmue alone, in the belief that it would become the system's killer app, which drove sales.

It didn't; though loved by its hardcore fans, Shenmue is just too off-kilter, esoteric, and difficult to describe, to truly appeal to ordinary plebs - and people like me... 

When Sega was forced into cutting the price of the already-cheap Dreamcast even further - pushing it into unprofitable waters in a bid to keep momentum - the writing was on the wall. Also the windows, the doors, curtains, carpets, and "pelmet".

And so, just a whisper after it had arrived, the Dreamcast had gone. And Sega, too, was gone from hardware production; from that point onwards, Sega would become a software publisher only. 

SHAME ON YOU
It's a shame. The Dreamcast genuinely was a great console, and a humbled Sega had learned honestly from its mistakes.

It might be a strange thing to suggest, but potentially the Dreamcast was too much too soon - maybe people weren't ready for online gaming (broadband was far from ubiquitous in 1999), or voice chat, or a controller featuring a second screen.

Or maybe the games the Dreamcast offered, as good as they were, still owed too much of a debt to the past, and lacked the sort of safe, predictable, gung-ho, paramilitary gameplay that was fast becoming the norm. Furthermore, a lack of confidence in Sega ensured the Dreamcast couldn't provide the third-party support which would've brought those games.

Or maybe the Dreamcast just had a stupid slogan: "It's thinking."

More likely, the damage had already been done. Sega was too far behind to ever catch up to Sony and Nintendo. Its reputation had already been flushed out to sea. Furthermore, the imminent PlayStation 2 would offer something that - beyond games, beyond online functions, beyond slogans - would set it apart from its rivals; it would be able to play DVDs.

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NOW
The depressing truth is that Sega has never really recovered from the Dreamcast.

The system would prove to be the company's last big hurrah - and it has seemingly struggled with its identity since becoming a software publisher.

It's still rolling out Sonic games, to a general lack of mainstream interest, and is propped up by its annual Football Manager series. Its Yakuza games are well-received by their fans, but in the West they're just that little bit too Shenmue-y to gel with everyone. Myself included. Sorry. Total War is another key series for this new and bewildering Sega, yet it somehow failed to turn Alien Isolation into a hit franchise.

Far from developing Sega-style games for other systems, the overall sense is one of a company that's flailing, searching around for exactly what it is for these days - like a laid-off big city executive, who now lives in a bin.

And that's a shame. The mid-90s tussle between Sega and Nintendo is rightly regarded as a golden age for gamers of a certain vintage, and the games industry is poorer for the decimated version of Sega we have today.

This is the company which not only gave us Sonic The Hedgehog, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Fighter, and Jet Set Radio, but also Golden Axe, Zaxxon, Wonder Boy, Bonanza Bros., Space Harrier, Hang On, OutRun, After Burner, Thunder Blade, Power Drift, and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.

Sega has a heritage of great games and great brands, which it somehow seems reluctant to capitalise on. Maybe it senses that what it once did best has fallen foul of prevailing trends, but - like somebody who has been unlucky in love a few times too many - it feels more like Sega never regained confidence following the failure of the Saturn and the Saturn.

I mean - DREAMCAST and Saturn!!!

Whatever.

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
A TRIBUTE TO THE SEGA SATURN - BY MR BIFFO
​
A TRIBUTE TO THE MEGA DRIVE - BY MR BIFFO
​
A "TRIBUTE" TO THE WII U - BY MR BIFFO
​
A TRIBUTE TO THE SUPER NINTENDO - BY MR BIFFO
54 Comments
patters
22/2/2017 10:25:53 am

Erm, can I be the first of 450 people to point out that I think you meant Saturn and Dreamcast in that last bit, not the other way around.

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Rory link
22/2/2017 10:49:50 am

Whenever I try to pinpoint which was my favourite console ever, my default setting is always the Dreamcast. Despite being, or even a little bit because it was, a failure, I think its virtues (as mentioned in your tribute) need to be recognised and championed. A great selection of original games and arcade ports, though the fact they all seemed to be cult classics even at time of release suggested the lack of mainstream appeal from the get-go. I'm still going back and picking up titles I missed first time around and finding much to enjoy.

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Nick
22/2/2017 11:00:21 am

I plugged in my Dreamcast just the other day to find it would no longer power up. Various cables were tried but to no avail. I had intended to replay Skies of Arcadia, something I seem to do every two or three years. I have a GameCube copy and a Wii (somewhere) but it's not quite the same and I'd already brought a new battery for the VMU.
I loved my Dreamcast, the little white box that could (briefly at least). I loved the joypad, the excellent arcadey first party games, the beat um ups and the Japaneseness of it all. At the time the video game industry seemed to be moving towards the west (particularly in marketing and presentation terms) and losing that sense of the exotic and difference that once attracted me to it.

Yakuza 0? I'm afraid sorry doesn't cut it.

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Elvo
22/2/2017 06:56:40 pm

Probably power supply. Loads of spares and repairs online or just get a 2nd hand one

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Biscuits the lovely character
22/2/2017 11:00:29 am

I prefer to think of Sega as a satisfied old man, feet propped up on the veranda of his porch, grinning the contented grin of an aging cat. He lifts a newspaper and sees 'CONSOLE WARS HEATING UP!', 'SJWS AND GAMERGATE STILL EXIST!', VR VR VR!', and he merely shakes his head and gives a soft chuckle, before continuing work on his various oddly-shaped birdhouses (esoteric dreamers like the Yakuza series)

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Spiney O'Sullivan
22/2/2017 01:18:03 pm

I tend to think of it as that old friend who you grew apart from, but every so often you look at the photo album of better times and think it's a good idea to invite him round. And then after making great plans to have a really fun day, he shows up really hungover and smelling like he spent the night in your compost heap. And instead of going to Alton Towers, you're going to watch him drink at the local playground.

Half the day is talking about memories of school, and the other half is babbling and throwing up on the swing set and yelling rap lyrics at some youths to show them that he's still cool. You don't like rap, and the kids are into dubstep now.

At one point he sobers up for a second and remembers that he brought a gift for you, and it's a Rolex he remembered that you always wanted since you were young. You wear it for a minute, and it's an amazing minute, but then he throws up on the watch, tries to clean it, and drops it down a drain before handing you a bracelet fashioned out of barbed wire that he wrote "watch" on. Overall the day is awful and awkward to the point that you start to question how good the old times were in the first place.

(in this analogy, the Rolex is Sonic Generations, by the way)

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Sonic Boom
22/2/2017 02:58:22 pm

Doesn't this just describe Sonic? Sega are still alright aren't they?

RandomReviewer
1/3/2017 06:19:20 am

Spot on.

RichardM
22/2/2017 11:02:10 am

I really want to play a few of the games off the Saturn and Dreamcast - Panzer Dragoon, Radiant Silvergun and Shenmue come to mind - but am not inclined to buy actual hardware. Emulation? Available on PC? I could just Google it, but I'm sure there's a *best* way to do it.

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Biscuits the character
22/2/2017 11:08:53 am

Emulation is very possible, however be warned time has rendered previously mind-boggling gems like Panzer Dragoon nigh unplayable. Shenmue is still good imo

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Elvo
23/2/2017 09:39:40 pm

I find it takes a period of readjustment to play old games. Panzer dragoon is still playable

Rory link
22/2/2017 11:17:33 am

Radiant Silvergun got a Xbox 360 Live Arcade port.

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Geebs
22/2/2017 11:30:53 am

It's actually pretty easy to argue with Shenmue. Firstly, it was awful; secondly, it introduced the Quick Time Event and consequently was responsible for ruining thousands of other games.

Every time I hit a QTE in the final boss fight of a game that otherwise didn't have any, I silently curse Yu Suzuki's name.

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Geebs
22/2/2017 11:34:38 am

Oh, and thirdly one of the characters was a Magical Evil Cripple. Thanks, Japan!

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Quentin Terrance Everage
22/2/2017 11:47:55 am

Yeah, Einstein sucked because the atomic bomb exists now

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Marc
22/2/2017 12:22:44 pm

I don't mind them, but Shenmue wasn't patient 0. QTEs were used by sega in Die Hard Arcade on the Saturn, and in Road Avenger on the mega Cd before that. Anyone play Road Avenger? The entire game was one long QTE - it had incredible music for the opening titles though.

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Geebs
22/2/2017 01:34:15 pm

There's really no excuse for QTEs after 1984. Everybody thought Dragon's Lair was rubbish years before other games copied it.

DEAN
22/2/2017 11:51:28 am

The worst thing about funerals is all the lies... Jimmy was a saint!

Sega were always shit. They made some of the best arcade games, absolutely, but never really cut it in the home. Games like Afterburner and Outrun are what they did best and games like that relied on having the best graphics of the time coupled with thillmulation articulated cabinets with flight sticks and snap-back steering to add to the sense of faux immersion. Sega in the arcade was a seal of quality - SCUD Race, Sega Rally, G-LOC.... if it was Sega, it was gonna be fucking great.

Sega was street and could not be domesticated.

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DEAN
22/2/2017 11:51:34 am

The worst thing about funerals is all the lies... Jimmy was a saint!

Sega were always shit. They made some of the best arcade games, absolutely, but never really cut it in the home. Games like Afterburner and Outrun are what they did best and games like that relied on having the best graphics of the time coupled with thillmulation articulated cabinets with flight sticks and snap-back steering to add to the sense of faux immersion. Sega in the arcade was a seal of quality - SCUD Race, Sega Rally, G-LOC.... if it was Sega, it was gonna be fucking great.

Sega was street and could not be domesticated.

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Darth Tinder
22/2/2017 02:49:28 pm

I can see where you're coming from. Sega's big draw with their earlier consoles was 'bring the arcade to the home', but I think one of the things that stiffed the Saturn and Dreamcast (besides piss-poor management and Sony's marketing billions) was a shift in the market which meant that the competition offered the sort of home games that the arcade could never hope to match (yer Mario 64s, yer FF7, yer Metal Gear, yer Tomb Raider, yer Zelda, yer GTA... hey, look what all the big franchises still are today!). In the end it didn't matter how good their version of Crazy Taxi was, people had moved on.

Again, shame because the DC was a nice little console - ahead of its time. And my mate didn't throw his against a tree or try to impale it on a pitchfork so he must have liked it.

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DEAN
22/2/2017 05:12:55 pm

It's the pitchfork that does it, Darth, and the tree fling is just the icing on a hilariously violent cake. Sweet Jesus every time I picture that I make a noise like a goose trampling on gravel.

Fancy Pants
22/2/2017 11:52:33 am

I thought Shenmue was rubbish. Just left me cold.

LOVE (note: capital letters) Powerstone. As does my ten year old son. Although he prefers four player Powerstone 2 with his mates, the bloody philistine.

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kohhna link
23/2/2017 04:27:49 pm

Powerstone is was and always shall be the king of beat-em-ups. So satisfying on every level.

The DC was amazing, and for the first couple of years it had its time in the sun decimating the PS2 for the first year after it came out (just up until the point when the third party developers started learning to get the best out of it), and yes, for the reasons given, well ahead of its time. I remember the Digitiser chart that it kept of the best games of the year was dominated by Dreamcast titles, and I endeavoured to own all the ones that troubled that top ten, hence I had all the good ones, except Shen Mue and Skies of Arcadia. Good times were had.

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A kid called Dave
22/2/2017 11:58:16 am

When I hear people say the don't get Yakuza, I'm like that, you what mate? Japanese John Travolta is reluctantly brought back into the fray when rival gang does some nefarious shit in Japanese John Travolta's back yard. He then proceeds to roam the streets while stomping and smashing every dickhead who somehow do not know who this disco throwback is while simultaneously being the FAMOUS DRAGON OF DOJIMA! Set to music what can only be described as arcade jazz.
800 knocked out idiots later and you find yourself shirtless on top of an almighty tower brawling over honour or who's turn it is to pay for the karaoke session.
Some intense whispering followed by a animalistic "KIRRRRRRRYYYUUUUUU" which kicks off the big scrap at the end. Some tears are shed and lessons are learned and it fades to black with our hero laughing with the kids back at the orphanage with nary a scratch on his well used knuckles.

How can ya not get that?!

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Biscuits
22/2/2017 02:35:06 pm

0 is my first but I'm loving it. It's a lot like Bully

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Beeth_54
22/2/2017 12:25:03 pm

Honestly, I thought the whole "refer to the Saturn as the Dreamcast" thing was a deliberate attempt to wind up the pedantically challenged.

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Adam Pedant
22/2/2017 01:43:35 pm

Not really, that was a mildly confusing mistake: being a pedant is pointing out an error when it's very slightly off, or has no bearing on the conversation. For example, I would be a pedant if I pointed out that being 'pedantically challenged' would mean you are actually not pedantic enough, and not that you are particularly prone to pedantic observations

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Rawce
22/2/2017 12:36:19 pm

Forget the DreamDrive/MegaCast mix up - you're further fueling Jeff Minter's Digi bile pit with all this deliberate camelid racism http://modernfarmer.com/2015/09/difference-between-llama-and-alpaca/

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Beefkr10z
22/2/2017 01:10:58 pm

I remember working in retail when the Deamcast was released. We has a DC demo pod that was always busy, but Sony's hype machine for the PS2 was in full flow. People would play the Dreamcast games, and you could clearly see they were having a blast, but my overriding memory was seeing a group of lads playing Crazy Taxi for around an hour, then as they walked away, one said "it's good, but the PS2 is out soon- have you seen that game 'The Bouncer'? It's got Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 in it". Poor S.A.P.S.
I maintain that the best way Sega could have helped DC sales was in better advertising. They spent all those millions securing Robbie Williams music in a barber shop and a nondescript swirl on the Arsenal shirt, when all they needed to do was show Mitsurugi's exhibition mode from Soul Calibur, and flash "only on Dreamcast" on the screen.

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Tachikoma
22/2/2017 11:56:04 pm

Up until a few years ago I had a dreamcast demo pod in my conservatory. Damn divorces. Anyway... I remember working at Tiny Computers and spending my first big commission pay cheque on a dreamcast, shenmue, and god knows how many other random games. I ranked in the top 80 in Europe for shenmue, o don't know how it scored people but I remember I was better than top 100. I remember sending off the slip for a free copy of chu chu rocket and ringing up a huge phone bill playing online and waiting for my mum to go to bed so I could look at nude photos of Jo Guest on its basic web browser. I totally beat that smug twonk .cloud a few times on chu chu rocket as well even though he won the big tournament's.

What else? Oh my dear ulala, I still have your lunchbox and palisades statue that I imported at great expense, how your rhythmic gyrations and upskirt flashes teased my hormonal teenage loins in space channel 5.

Crazy Taxi? What hours I wasted.

Samba de amigo, how you ruined my life by making me obsessed with rhythm action games even now in my late 30's when my thumbs don't quite have the dexterity anymore.

Phantasy Star Online, thanks forgetting me hooked by proxy on world of Warcraft and causing said divorce.

So so many memories, so so many regrets, I love and hate you at the same time, you sit there under my t.v. to this day mocking and teasing me that things will never be that fresh or innocent again.

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Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
22/2/2017 01:48:24 pm

I dare say it's not surprising the Dreamcast failed. The PlayStation had people's imagination, and by people, I mean idiots. I recall the official PS mags of the time, still riddled with the "lad culture" tribal smugness of the 90s, talking in reverential tones about the PS2 and what it meant for our society and species and other bumpf. Then the thing came out and most of the launch titles were fucking awful, but whatever. Look, you can stand the thing on its side!

Anyway, the Dreamcast. Quite possibly my favourite console ever. Such a depth and variety of titles, from arcade-perfect gems (more than ever before, the arcade was in your home, possibly for the last time before every arcade game became Fast And Furious or a parade of fruit machines) amazing RPGs, awesome driving games and weird Japaneseness. The famously Welsh Wizard and I would be excitedly trying the latest games, swapping saves and cackling with glee like we were ten year olds again.

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Mee Krob
22/2/2017 02:33:46 pm

What actually happened is Sony sent Playstations to adult publications (not porn) for consideration. This is honestly more or less the sum of why they are so popular today. It was really that simple: videogames were the domain of kids for decades, but now suddenly the Sunday Times Magazine supplement has been sent a Playstation, and by gum, they'll have to respond

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Elvo
22/2/2017 03:02:27 pm

I'm sure I've heard that seaman analogy before, on the Saturn Tribute (Megadrive)

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superfog
22/2/2017 03:50:07 pm

I totally enjoyed this article about the Mega Drive!!!

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Raybies
22/2/2017 04:11:34 pm

Biffo, surely you mean Alex Kidd was Sega's "proto" mascot? Ho ho, surely that's more embarrassing than saying Dreamcast instead of Saturn several times.

I was working retail when the Dreamcast was on it's last legs. After a Christmas season in a Dublin toyshop's game section, where my employee discount amounted to only a GBA and Metroid 2, I was offered a job in Electronics Boutique.

Ireland's emergency tax rules meant that an absurd amount of money was taken from me. I then got it all back in a lump sum, I lived at home, Ireland's tiger economy had started up: I was rich!

Over the course of a month, I bought a PS2, a GameCube and an 80 euro Dreamcast with a (pardon my french) FUCKING SHITLOAD OF GAMES! Oh, to be young and incumbered by responsibilities!

Shenmue 1& 2 were 20-25 each, but everything else was 5 euro! Soul calibur, Rainbow six (impossible without a keyboard), Confidential Mission, House of the Dead 2 and loads more. I think the Dreamcast was the last console to be sold off super cheap when it got phased out and I took full advantage.

Loved it to unending bits, what a time to be alive!

Everybody is wrong about Shenmue, that shit was amazing at the time.

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Biscuits
22/2/2017 04:35:49 pm

I played Shenmue 1&2 for the first time about 3 years ago and enjoyed them both. Good games, but they seem to have been made redundant with Yakuza

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Raybies
22/2/2017 06:10:55 pm

My life with Sony ended with PS2, so I've never played any Yakuza games. I'd like to , but not "spend a couple of hundred of bucks first" like to.

Raybies
22/2/2017 06:28:30 pm

Wikipedia tells me Yakuza was on PS2, in Europe? It's so long ago I can't remember, maybe it had a bad reputation or I didn't know about it's Shenmue-ness but now I feel like a giant dum dum.

Biscuits
23/2/2017 09:34:12 am

Yeah 1&2 were on PS2, though they recently remade 1 for PS4 and it's meant to be vastly improved

MrDrinks
22/2/2017 05:42:56 pm

Changing the settings so it would dial Freeserve then playing Phantasy Star Online (until it cut you off after 2 hours) was the best. The VGA output also meant I could play it without taking over the TV in our student flat. Along with dodgy "backup" discs, four players and the fact that the console was dirt cheap towards the end meant it was the ultimate student gaming machine.

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Kendall9000
22/2/2017 06:03:49 pm

Being a smug cock of a PC gamer, the Dreamcast was the only one of those plastic shitboxes I ever actually owned.

That only happened because my local gaming store ended up with a bargain bin full of unwanted Dreamcast titles. I got Shenmue 1&2, Soulcalibur, Code Veronica, Bangai-O, a few other titles for £1.99 a pop, then hunted down a used console to actually be able to play the things. This was back in 2003/4, when all my console owning mates were showing off their shiny new PS2s and Xboxes.

Shenmue 1&2 didn't make much of an impression. I've pretty much completely forgotten them, apart from a vague memory of wandering around bored for ages then failing an annoying quick time event. That probably says more about my attention span than the quality of the games.

Soulcalibur and Bangai-O almost made me a console convert though. I don't remember any fighty/shooty PC games at the time that were quite as much fun. Not bad considering I was playing them a few years after release, with the Dreamcast already well and truly dead.

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Raybies
22/2/2017 06:07:33 pm

You smug cock!

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johncross85
22/2/2017 06:36:23 pm

One of my favourite things from the Dreamcast was the budget PC ports - so cheap that I bought them purely off the write-ups on the back. Sure it was hit and miss but just like £1.99 Firebird games on the Speccy, that was half the fun.

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Thrills
22/2/2017 08:21:11 pm

Dreamcast got me back into games after a couple of years away, and subsequently RUINED MY LIFE.

The Dreamcast was also the first time I had access to the internet, and subsequently RUINED MY LIFE.

God I love that flimsy-but-charming machine. Arcade-perfect 2D fighters! Crazy Taxi! And so forth.

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Scotsguard
23/2/2017 07:22:27 am

I had Panzer Dragoon Saga when I were a lad. Played it, completed it, got rid of it.
Now wishing I had kept it for all the monies it's worth now.

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Oliver Wright
23/2/2017 08:08:30 am

Every Dreamcast controller I owned ended up having annoyingly squeaky trigger buttons. Re its demise, I can't help thinking the fact it could play copied games without being 'chipped' probably sped it up a little.

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Roland's Gravy Browing link
23/2/2017 11:23:13 am

I found a Dreamcast in a skip a few weeks ago. It powers up but I have no video cable or controller. Is it worth me investing in these bits n bobs?

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Crustacean
23/2/2017 02:46:23 pm

That's cool, I dunno how much those things are but it has to be worth a shout surely?

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Roland's Gravy BrowNing link
23/2/2017 02:49:50 pm

I will probably risk it for a biscuit when I'm feeling flush. Maybe start with the video cable, only a few quid on ebay...or maybe check out the boxes of tat they have in some game shops.

"Steve"
23/2/2017 01:08:39 pm

I loved the dreamcast. First console that got me into console gaming after being die-hard PC all my life. Very fond memories.

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kohhna link
23/2/2017 04:44:43 pm

The Dreamcast was, and remains, the end of the gaming road for me. After a childhood and adolescence of owning consoles (or sharing them with my sister) and gaming flat out in my spare time. It was the last and best of them, coming in that window of my life when I was adult enough to have disposable income but before I had enough responsibilities and other interests to have the time to do it in. There were other factors too, some quite personal, and the dropping of Digitiser and not having access to a good reliable and freely available source of news was definitely one of them.

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Griffin Rytland
23/2/2017 04:54:17 pm

what's this alpaca app? The wife is mad on them.

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Kelvin Green link
23/2/2017 07:47:47 pm

The release of the Dreamcast coincided with my first year of university. By the time I'd calmed down and sobered up it had disappeared from shelves and the retro gaming thing hadn't started up yet, so for years it was the sort of missing link of gaming consoles for me. I've still never played on one.

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ChorltonWheelie
23/2/2017 08:27:14 pm

Hmmmm, yes but does anybody remember the name of the girl who marched on screen and slapped you if you swore in Amiga adventure game Valhalla?

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