atari2600land's Blog

Tetris, Wetrix, and Sega Swirl are some puzzle games to look for. You can also get Columns on the Smash Pack collection. Sega Swirl can also be found on the Smash Pack, or a variety of Official Dreamcast Magazine demo discs. Frogger and Q-Bert are both puzzle-esque in how they were remade. There are other iterations of Tetris from Japan, as well as Puyo Puyo games, and another puzzler called "Get Colonies". Burn a boot disc, or buy a Cheats 'n Codes disc (they can be bought brand new for under ten bucks) which will allow you to play imports on your system.

 

Both Sonic Adventures, Donald Duck: Going Quackers, Super Magnetic Neo, Kao the Kangaroo, Rayman 2, are all platformers. There may be more that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. Although you might want to avoid Super Magnetic Neo. Wildly creative game, but if you think the Marios are tough, you will stand no chance at this game. Kao the Kangaroo is also rough and may be worth passing on (watch some videos of it to see for yourself).

 

The Dreamcast is hardly all fighting and racing games. You have to remember it had 250+ releases in the United States alone. Many people did buy it for fighters and racing games though, because at the time it was the absolute best system for them.

 

Just about every genre is covered on the system with quite a few entries in each. Strangely though, one of the only genres it's missing in the US is pinball. You have to import to get your pinball fix on the Dreamcast.

 

Since you have a VMU, you may want to look into games that allow you to download games to be played on the VMU. Namco Museum for instance has a Pac-Man themed game. You move Pac-Man up and down on the VMU screen and attempt to grab pellets as they fly at you. Miss three times (or something) and it's Game Over. Although, you will need to put a new battery in your VMU for it to work (most likely anyway, VMU batteries are usually dead). VMU games are a bit like the Microvision in a way.

 

Might also want to invest in another VMU as well. Good to have at least two. You will run out of space quickly if you build up a decent little library. Some games also take up more space than others. A lot only use a handful of blocks, but there's the occasional game you will run into that needs 20 - 80 blocks, which will eat up space quickly.

Thanks for the info. A good majority of Dreamcast games available at the stores I go to are sports titles, which I don't want, and apparently neither does anyone else. I bought a Floigan Bros. copy even though I have one coming my way. I hope the one I bought online is more complete. This one I got has a missing back. I would really like a copy of Namco Museum to try that VMU game out. I think I had it back the first time I had a Dreamcast, but I got rid of it because I rarely played it. Now that I have it again, I'm really liking it the second time around, except for the beep it makes when I turn it on sounding like a smoke alarm going off.

I recently got back into DC. Wow.. Sega Bass Fishing one and two are so damn fun. I found a cheap factory sealed copy of SBF 2, a new in box Sega Fishing pole controller, and a few new in box blue VMUs. Many fish were caught that week. The batteries seem fine in the sealed VMUs, but maybe that's because they still had that plastic tab in them to keep the contacts apart.

Time to start making VMU games, dawg

http://www.vmuscript.8m.com/

Aaaaand, my copy of Floigan Bros. doesn't work. Luckily I bought another one off the 'net.

I am glad to see you are enjoying the system more now. It's got a hefty library (especially when you factor in Japanese games and the occasional UK release that wasn't brought over to the 'States) so there is pretty much something for everyone. A lot of times someone may not enjoy it simply because they haven't found the right games, or maybe their mind just wasn't in the right place (this is usually my problem, trying something new but not really being in the mood to, and that rubs off on my impression of things). I also find that many of its games hold up better compared to other platforms from the same time, like the PS1 and N64. Particularly Sega's own releases.

 

As far as VMU mini games, check out Wikipedia's VMU page. There is a listing of what titles have actual VMU mini games. That can give you an idea of what games to look out for when it comes to trying games on the mini screen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMU

 

I also second Wisp's recommendation on the fishing controller. Estarland.com sells bundles for $30 that include a NIB official fishing controller, along with NIB copies of Sega Bass Fishing and Sega Marine Fishing (basically the spiritual successor before Bass Fishing 2 was actually released, haha). The fun thing about the fishing rod is that you can also experiment with it on other games, as the analog stick and basic buttons are all there so it will work with a bunch of titles (even though it's obviously not meant to).

 

If you see one, I may recommend picking up a keyboard as well. Not a ton of games support it (mostly first person shooters), but Typing of the Dead utilizes it and it's a blast. A mouse is also nice, but again, mostly first person shooters utilize it, so that might not come in as handy. Some of the more adventure-esque games might use it, but I'm not sure about that. Will want to research it before jumping on anything.