Summer of Dreamcast

[Neon Ignition]

A couple of months ago I moved home, buried away amongst all my belongings was my two Dreamcasts (my launch day one and the spare new one I got from HMV after its discontinue), the first given to a mate and the second now boxed under my games desk. I've ordered the required bits and bobs to get it hooked up in VGA and might also be able to upscale it into 3D too for some vertigo inducing Sonic Adventuring. Much of the systems catalogue, both old and new, is made up of bright and/or arcadey experiences which is part of why it's so fondly remembered. Once the cabling has arrived I've been toying with the notion of spending some of the summer months going back through the Dreamcast catalogue whilst it's roughly 10 years since official releases stopped coming out (Japan market aside).

Do you fancy joining in and having a Summer of Dreamcast?


It'll also be a good chance to catch up with some of the titles that are in the features shooter article, some of which came out in the years since I boxed the DC up and to see what people have been doing with the system since in addition to trying out some stuff I never got around to at the time. Anyone joining in can then write about their memories, suggest games to try out and their experiences old and new over the summer in here.

[Zaki]

I set mine up every summer for Power Stone 1 & 2

....Power Stone 3 on Live is such a missed opportunity (I can keep dreaming though)...

[briareos_kerensky]

I might start Grandia II once again. I would love Skies of Arcadia but the encounter rate in the DC version is way too high, I'll take the GC version any day though.

[charlesr]

Gunlord will be here 3 weeks and I need to play Fast Striker and Rush Rush Rally Racing (both sadly sitting there ignored). Gunlord will get rinsed though - really looking forward to that.

[Wools]

I don’t have my Dreamcast any more (One day I swear I’ll go mad when I realise I did once own a complete UK set up!) but that machine contains some fond memories.

It was the first console I put a deposit on and spent the entire summer selling what I could to make the launch and my god it was worth it. It allowed me to go online for the first time (racking up a ?40 debt when Phantasy Star Online was released) easily played imports introducing me to NTSC-UK, showed off 60hz gaming that required me to go downstairs to hook it up and produced some of my most fondly held Videogame memories.

If I had one, I’ll fire up Crazy Taxi and take turns beating a 3 minute extended run and during the winter, I would put Disc 2 of Shenmue in the tray and wonder around Doubita.

It’s a brilliant little console and I’ll look forward to reading the thread!

[sj33]

I might start Grandia II once again. I would love Skies of Arcadia but the encounter rate in the DC version is way too high, I'll take the GC version any day though.

The music sounds wrong in the GameCube version though.

[briareos_kerensky]

The music sounds wrong in the GameCube version though.

Really? it has been quite some time since I've last played the GC version, let alone on the Dreamcast. Unfortunately I'll might end in having a lot of free time after from August onward, mabe it'll be a good time to refresh memories.

[ETC]

I'll never forget paying for an import copy of shenmue the second I saw it in the defunct Charlie's in Newcastle sure it was about ?80, wandering around the town in Japanese made it feel even more special for me

[Lyris]

If I have any time, I'll join you - a very kind guy in the States (when I was visiting last week for the HDTV calibration and shootout event) donated the US version of Skies of Arcadia to me. It's one DC game I never got into back in the day...

[Yakumo]

I was here on day one of it's release in Japan. I still remember waiting in line clutching my numbered ticket. I still have the same Dreamcast today and it still works perfectly. I don't use it as much as I did (in fact the Saturn is used much more) but it still gets powered up a few times a month.

[Neon Ignition]

There's loads of other ways of playing most of the games these days but I'm looking forward to dabbling with some of these again:

-Crazy Taxi
-Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Grand Master Challenge
-Vampire Chronicles
-Power Stone
-Plasma Sword
-Shenmue
-Shenmue II
-Sonic Adventure 2
-Fighting Vipers 2
-Headhunter
-Cannon Spike
-Ikaruga



Mostly not great games but I'd like to play these which I've never gotten around to:

-Pen Pen Tricelon
-Godzilla Generations: Maximum Impact
-Blue Stinger
-D2
-Border Down


Hopefully Sturmwind will be out at some point too.

[sj33]

I actually rather liked Blue Stinger. It had a real B-movie quality to it, and some bits just leave you with a smile on your face (Christmas moving playing while you're killing monsters in a sci-fi setting, for example). Under-appreciated title.

[speedlolita]

Sold mine for peanuts on eBay recently. If I still had it though I'd whip it out for some Crazy Taxi for sure.

[Zaki]

EDIT: Wrong Thread!

[mmmonkey]

Corrr, I loved Head Hunter. One of the first games I picked up again when I bought a DC last year. Was it PAL exclusive?