Summer of Dreamcast

[randombs]

Don't you just have to stand there for about three months to get that?

Also that photo ctn posted is glorious.

[Neon Ignition]

The main thing for me gong back over these games has been the reminder of just how great system it was to own during that brief 2 year run it had. It's easy to overlook now as the games are mostly short and available in many other formats, back in the day though when they came out in a torrent and were only available on Sega's machine exclusively it was awesome.

[Neon Ignition]

...which got me thinking. I just prepared my final post for Summer of Dreamcast ready for 30 September. Had to make sure it was fitting

[randombs]

back in the day though when they came out in a torrent and were only available on Sega's machine exclusively it was awesome.

lol that took me a few reads to understand

[JSR]

The main thing for me gong back over these games has been the reminder of just how great system it was to own during that brief 2 year run it had. It's easy to overlook now as the games are mostly short and available in many other formats, back in the day though when they came out in a torrent and were only available on Sega's machine exclusively it was awesome.

That's your conclusion? Reading your thoughts (which has been fun, don't get me wrong) I got the impression that you found most of the games shallow and unengaging. Many of which - to me at least - are very representative of the machines identity.

[Neon Ignition]

I'd say they mostly are by modern standards, looking back though its prime was during the late PS1 era to just before the PS2 started gaining substantial software. The DC's games would last me weeks or months through the sheer fun. All these years later though its merit has been chipped away by time and gaming evolution. There's a real nostalgia for the machine which was once brilliant to own but it's mostly all that's left and why this will be my farewell to it.

[nakamura]

Apart from things like the brilliant Naomi games and fighters and shooters, it just felt hugely like a stopgap between the 32bit era and the launch of the PS2/GC and Xbox. The machine has so little substance outside of arcade game. Having a controller with just one stick is also something of a design disaster which nobody seems to mention but go nuts over the lack of the 3DS right stick.

[Kit]

Regarding the controller, although it's great for fighters it's pretty poor for everything else. The D-pad is also the worst I've ever used.

[nakamura]

How is the controller great for fighters but has a crap d-pad?

[Kit]

You can use the analog stick in most fighters, and I find that works great. When you're forced to use the d-pad (looking at you Shenmue) things become a bit of a mare to control.

[nakamura]

I cannot understand why Shenmue uses the D-pad. The whole game is 3 steps forward 5 steps back.

In seriousness though, I found the d-pad to be ok for fighters strangely but the triggers were rubbish for 6 button games.

[averybluemonkey]

If someone said to me I could have only one game system for the rest of my life I'd go Dreamcast without a second's thought and that's absolutely nothing to do with nostalgia. I don't think the games lack depth at all - take Crazy Taxi for example. Sure it's an arcade game but it has huge amounts of depth and is a constant exercise in improving your skills. Sure some of the exclusives were ported to a mish-mash of other consoles, but some of those ports were sub-standard and they weren't all ported to the same system. Nor should that somehow knock the quality of the original outputs on the machine.

I don't really see how the games have dated any more than the PS2 really or that they indicate a stop gap. What did the PS2 offer in terms of progression that the DC didn't because I can't see it? I never saw the single stick as a problem myself and I played a lot of first person shooters on my system. You don't need analogue control for movement - case in point the PC which doesn't have it. You just use the face buttons for movement and then have full analogue control for looking. Just because we're now used to movement being on the left hand for modern systems doesn't make it superior in any way. I think the DC topped or joint-topped the following genres for that generation:

Platformers (Rayman 2, MDK 2, Sonic Adventure), FPS (Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Outtrigger), Shooters (Zero Gunner 2, Border Down, Under Defeat), Fighters (Street Fighter Third Strike, Spawn, Capcom Vs Snk, Last Blade 2), TPS (Fur Fighters), RPG (Shenmue, Grandia 2, Skies of Arcadia), Lightgun (Virtua Cop 2, HotD2)

Sure some of these were ported to other systems, but that doesn't stop them existing on the platform and the DC is the only platform where I can experience them all in one place and without little things stripped out or bug issues.

[nakamura]

Rayman, MDK, Sonic Adventure, Outtrigger, Fur Fighters, Grandia 2 and Shenmue (yes) are about as middle of the road gaming as they come.

For the record I never said that games like Crazy Taxi don't have depth, but ultimately it is a repetitive score chasing experience which is the main area that the DC excels.

[dazza_cole]

It's the only machine where you can play Magical Sound Shower with a pair of maracas whilst looking at a gurning monkey. If that doesn't qualify it as the best system ever, I don't know what can?!

[sj33]

Shenmue used the D-Pad because they wanted to use the analogue stick to control the camera, I believe. You can blame the lack of a second analogue stick for that.

The controller was terrible. It was based on the Saturn analogue controller, but they actually made it worse. The Saturn analogue controller maintained the Saturn's excellent D-Pad and 6 face buttons. The Dreamcast controller dropped the number of face buttons down to 4, and replaced the D-Pad with a monstrosity. The main thing the controller had going for it (bar the VMU display) were the analogue triggers, but the Saturn analogue controller also had these.

I really love the Dreamcast, but most of it's software lineup has been cannibalised and the better games ported to other formats. There's still a handful of exclusives though - the original Shenmue, Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter 3tb, Jet Set Radio, Metropolis Street Racer etc.