Save a SEGA - Love a Dreamcast

It's been quite some time since I've got my brand new, but also (and that's quite an oxymoron) second hand, SEGA Dreamcast, and let me tell you, I am as happy a punter as one can be. I'm a 100% converted and a newborn SEGA fanboy (well, not a boy in the full sense, but you get the idea... at least I'm not in my thirties just yet). I'm also rather thankful to the Dreamcast Junkyard for fuelling my DC obsession.

All things considered I'm thankful to dear Mr. Elderly too, for providing this blog's comments space with a healthy dose of Irish surrealism, but that's definitely none of your business. All you should focus on is buying a Dreamcast (unless of course you already got one, in which case you should consider buying a second). Why? Well, because...

1) It's a matter of price.

The Dreamcast is dead cheap. You should be able to buy a brand new one for less than 80$ (that's 60 euros) over at Lik-Sang (try clicking on the banner at the end of the article to see for yourself), or follow my example and buy a second hand one, either at e-bay or at your local second-hand-store-bazaar-whatever for quite a bit less than 50$. And this is paying for a 100% current-gen console.

the Dreamcast (via)

2) It's the bleeding hardware

It doesn't only look smart, it is smart. SEGA's Dreamcast is miles ahead from both the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation, even though it's not as powerful as the PS2 or the GameCube. It sports a RISC 128bit CPU capable of 360 MIPS (N64 ~120 MIPS, PS1 ~30 MIPS), a special edition PowerVR2 graphics processor, that can cope with 10 times PS1's polygons, 16MB of RAM, a 1 Giga "GD-ROM" (aka fancy, fast and easily pirated CD-ROM) drive, brilliant 64 channel audio and a modem. Yes. The first console modem ever. Oh, and European players will apparently enjoy full 60Hz PAL support.

the insides of the beast (via)

3) It's the brilliant (and admittedly very cheap) games

With more than 300 games, the Dreamcast has something for everyone, except perhaps for us poor football minded maniacs. Most used (and abused) games should be picked up at ridiculous prices of 5-10$ (less in euros, even less in pounds), while published titles include such brilliant gems as Soul Calibur, Rez, Sonic Adventure 2, Rayman 2, Phantasy Star Online, Quake 3 (you might even be able to track down Half-Life), Metropolis Street Racer, Shenmue, Ikaruga, Crazy Taxi 2, Jet Grind Radio and the quite legendary Samba de Amigo.

Soul Calibur

I could actually go on and mention at least a dozen more distinctive and defining games, but I'd rather mention something else. Dreamcast games are still being produced! Have a look at the 2006 released Under Defeat or the forthcoming Last Hope shooter.

Under Defeat

4) It's the innovation and the quirkyness

And I'm talking innovation, beside the Internet connection or the PAL ting. The Dreamcast controller featured a brilliant analog stick, the now-standard shaped triggers and interestingly the Virtual Memory Unit, or VMU. This VMU thingy was far more than a memory stick. It plugged into the controller and used its little LCD screen to display relevant game information or graphics and even was a wee version of Gameboy, as it also functioned as a completely separate portable handheld gaming device (from hell). VMU games can be found right here, but searching and googling around will lead you to quite a few more cyber-stashes.

the VMU (exposed)

As for quirkyness, one could mention the DC Keyboard, the Fishing Rod, the quite new-at-the-time Vibration Pack and above all Dreamcast's Wii capabilities as demonstrated in the following video (a Yard production):

5) It's the scene

By saying the scene I'm talking of the vibrant DC emulation, demo, homebrew and even amateur journalism community. On the Dreamcast you see, one can play anything from old arcade, to MegaDrive, Amiga, Atari, Gameboy, Playstation or NES games. There's even a ScummVM port that makes those old Lucasarts adventures of yore DC compatible. Then again one can listen to MP3s, watch DivX videos, see the Dreamcast get pushed to its limits and play zillions of Tetris versions. All of these courtesy of the scene.

To start tasting sweet freeware offerings (you will need DiscJuggler to burn things on CD) try the following links: DCEvolution.net, Dreamcast Homebrew, IGN Dreamcast, Dreamcast @ pout.net.

6) There is no 6

Go on. Buy one! It's cheap and powerful, but also quite the retro machine. Oh, and the Wii isn't out yet.

If on the other hand, DC is not your thing and you fancy something else, have a look around Gnome's Lair. See the sights. Smell the smells. Read something on a Dreamcast 2 rumor, delve into text adventures or just meet the girls.

Related Tags: Dreamcast, SEGA, DC, Retro, Video games, Review, Reviews, Guide, Links, soul calibur, Sonic, Genesis, MegaDrive, Half-Life, Demo, Scene, Homebrew, Pictures, video, Wii, nintendo