Retro|Spective X03: Dreamcast

[Leon Retro]

and you got to see those lovely cel-shaded graphics you knew you were witnessing something really special.

Yeah, felt hi-res and looked really shiny clean. A world away from 3D games on 32-bit machines.
Such a beautiful sight to behold.

[Hirst]

I'm packing everything away at the moment to redecorate and it's been a few years since I've done anything on the DC. Fired it up to test it, make sure it was all still working fine.



Now I don't want to put it away! So many great games on that system, the library is fairly small but so much of it is really good. I felt let down when it was discontinued, yet except maybe the Mega Drive I can't think of a system I've had as much overall enjoyment from. Will have to get some more games for it next year I think!

[Neon Ignition]

Another oddity for the DC, I don't think many systems have had as much cancelled game content leak out afterwards. Stuff like Propeller Arena and Half Life being finished and eventually sneaking out is bizarre.

[Asura]

Another oddity for the DC, I don't think many systems have had as much cancelled game content leak out afterwards. Stuff like Propeller Arena and Half Life being finished and eventually sneaking out is bizarre.

Not that it makes any difference, but games getting to a reasonably-finished state before they get cancelled is still something which happens with some regularity; though obviously companies try to keep it to a minimum. It's in part due to the spiralling cost of advertising. Usually though they just vanish, maybe you get a YouTube leak.

[Dogg Thang]

While I don't doubt it, I imagine it must be less common these days simply due to digital distribution being cheaper. You're right about the ad costs of course but, back when there was only physical, manufacturing costs in advance were very daunting with no guarantee of enough sales so some of it would even have been about being able to cash-flow it to get a game on to shelves. These days, we often see games even from seemingly large companies skipping physical in favour of digital for what I imagine must be the same reason.

[Asura]

While I don't doubt it, I imagine it must be less common these days simply due to digital distribution being cheaper. You're right about the ad costs of course but, back when there was only physical, manufacturing costs in advance were very daunting with no guarantee of enough sales so some of it would even have been about being able to cash-flow it to get a game on to shelves. These days, we often see games even from seemingly large companies skipping physical in favour of digital for what I imagine must be the same reason.

Admittedly, usually the games don't get "finished"-finished, like they reach advanced alpha stage, perhaps early beta - so if you were to see them, they're fully playable, pretty much everything is there in some form... They're just buggy and things like the difficulty will be all over the place. It's usually around this point that the project coalesces to the point where anyone who plays it, even those not so good at making those kinds of leaps of logic, can see how the end result will be. Dangerous time for any project.

[Anpanman]

Another oddity for the DC, I don't think many systems have had as much cancelled game content leak out afterwards. Stuff like Propeller Arena and Half Life being finished and eventually sneaking out is bizarre.

Am sure PA was cancelled due to the 11/9 attacks in America.

[Leon Retro]

Am sure PA was cancelled due to the 11/9 attacks in America.

Yeah, rumour has it that it was cancelled because of 9/11. Turned out to be a really good game when I managed to grab a copy years later. Plays really well -- and the graphics and design are very nice.

[Sketcz]

Another oddity for the DC, I don't think many systems have had as much cancelled game content leak out afterwards. Stuff like Propeller Arena and Half Life being finished and eventually sneaking out is bizarre.

Was TAKE THE BULLET ever leaked? I always loved the look of that.

http://www.thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk/2015/11/take-bullet-revealed_13.html

[Leon Retro]

The futuristic racer Millennium Racer was put on the net a few years ago.

[Neon Ignition]

From what I can gather whoever has that Take the Bullet GD-ROM has so far kept its data for themselves so as yet there's no way to play it

[randombs]

From what I can gather whoever has that Take the Bullet GD-ROM has so far kept its data for themselves so as yet there's no way to play it

While I would never condone such senseless violence, it'd be funny if someone took drastic action and tried to remove it by armed force. Would they take the bullet or just hand it over?

[samanosuke]

A couple of canned games that I thought looked interesting were Picasso which had the player stealing priceless works of art, and Stampede which was a crazy sheep-herding game.

[dvdx2]

Vermillion desert, carrier and panzer front are all rather nice too

[S3M]

Yeah, rumour has it that it was cancelled because of 9/11. Turned out to be a really good game when I managed to grab a copy years later. Plays really well -- and the graphics and design are very nice.

Peter Moore, pulled the plug on the USA release of PA, Europe and Japan I think both wanted to release it at a late date, as there was only one stage that was a problem and it could have been changed or edit.ed The delay would have pushed the game into late 2002 or 2003, but by then Sega would have been finished with the DC, so it got cancelled world wide. I do have a build of it and should produce a video on it at some point.

We covered Millennium Racer awhile back decent game, but a bit run of the mill. Mind you far better than quite a few titles that did get released on the system. When you look at the utter tripe like Roadsters and Exhibition of Speeds that got released on the system.