Good Dreamcast games?

[RJ]

Sega Marine Fishing WITH the reel controller.

I'm not kidding.

 

[john_q_atari]

On 2/17/2021 at 3:51 AM, youxia said:

If MSR was "unplayable" it probably wouldn't get 9/10 from Edge and a bunch of others.

MSR is the reason I have a dreamcast. I played the game on a friend's dreamcast and then went out and bought my own dreamcast, VGA box, and MSR. (All racing games seem to numb the nerves in my thumb though).

[Greg2600]

1 hour ago, john_q_atari said:

MSR is the reason I have a dreamcast. I played the game on a friend's dreamcast and then went out and bought my own dreamcast, VGA box, and MSR. (All racing games seem to numb the nerves in my thumb though).

When you've played PGR as much as me, simply cannot go back to MSR, far far inferior.

[john_q_atari]

3 hours ago, Greg2600 said:

When you've played PGR as much as me, simply cannot go back to MSR, far far inferior.

I haven't player PGR so perhaps I can't comment, but to my recollection PGR was just MSR with another name and I guess some updates. Perhaps even the same software team worked on it?

[juansolo]

On 2/14/2021 at 6:39 AM, Curious Sofa said:

I will not argue with this... but just to say that owning the originals started to feel less like the best for me when I saw Cannon Spike going for $300, and some other crazy prices going up.  I sold most of my collection and now have a few original genuine games, a few repro burns, an emulation PC set up, and I got a modded DC with GDEMU for everything else, hooked up with a LevelHike HDMI.  It is awfully sweet.  And cost me a very small percentage of what I brought in selling what I had.  The decision to with all originals was easier when DCs weren't as "in fashion" as they seem to be nowadays, and you could grab most games for $10-$25.  Now the financial part of it (depending on what games you are after of course) can really make a difference over which route you go.

And if someone is new to the DC world, well.  Let me just say my gross sales for my collection (which was less than 30 games) were closer to $2k than $1k all told. 

Picking up a GDEMU modded DC to try all the games would be a much easier and reasonable way to start than having to drop the retail on a decent collection.

I was lucky in that I never sold my DC so I had a load of games that had become really quite expensive to get now, and I swapped the BIOS so I could play imports as most of the fighting games were way, way cheaper from Japan. That said, I recently bit the bullet and pulled the optical drive and put a Chinese knock-off GD-EMU in there. Mainly just for convenience as there were few games left that I wanted that were silly money.

 

Personally I wouldn't go back, it's just so damned easy and the amount of shelfspace I'm reclaiming by doing this (or something similar) to all my old systems is lovely. I was already at the stage whereby all my movies I've had to put into CaseLogic folders and bin the boxes, all my CDs are now on a server and are in multiple boxes in a cupboard. My games were becoming an issue also until I purged all my Nintendo games. Looking to do the same with my PS2 collection next which is by far the biggest. As you say the costs of the conversion becomes a little irrelevant if you've got a decent collection and are prepared to part with it.

[Greg2600]

9 hours ago, juansolo said:

I was lucky in that I never sold my DC so I had a load of games that had become really quite expensive to get now, and I swapped the BIOS so I could play imports as most of the fighting games were way, way cheaper from Japan. That said, I recently bit the bullet and pulled the optical drive and put a Chinese knock-off GD-EMU in there. Mainly just for convenience as there were few games left that I wanted that were silly money.

 

Personally I wouldn't go back, it's just so damned easy and the amount of shelfspace I'm reclaiming by doing this (or something similar) to all my old systems is lovely. I was already at the stage whereby all my movies I've had to put into CaseLogic folders and bin the boxes, all my CDs are now on a server and are in multiple boxes in a cupboard. My games were becoming an issue also until I purged all my Nintendo games. Looking to do the same with my PS2 collection next which is by far the biggest. As you say the costs of the conversion becomes a little irrelevant if you've got a decent collection and are prepared to part with it.

That's the way to go on all systems for me.  I got rid of the older ODE's though and opted for the MODE.  Expensive, but runs everything.  I think the GDEMU (even clone) will run the latest Atomiswave arcade conversions.

11 hours ago, john_q_atari said:

I haven't player PGR so perhaps I can't comment, but to my recollection PGR was just MSR with another name and I guess some updates. Perhaps even the same software team worked on it?

Bizarre Creations did both MSR and the PGR series.  PGR is very similar to MSR, same engine, Kudos system.  Graphics were smoothed and various gameplay areas were improved, and the car roster is much larger in PGR.  It's also not limited to Japanese touring cars like MSR.  I would say my biggest beef with MSR is that the game is WAY too difficult starting out.  It's incredibly difficult to progress, and you can lose Kudos, whereas PGR gets progressively harder from an easy start, and you cannot lose your Kudos.  That plus the Xbox S is lightyears better to race with than the DC's iron maiden.

[juansolo]

45 minutes ago, Greg2600 said:

I think the GDEMU (even clone) will run the latest Atomiswave arcade conversions.

It does indeed. That's what drove me to change because they wouldn't run from disk.

[Greg2600]

4 hours ago, juansolo said:

It does indeed. That's what drove me to change because they wouldn't run from disk.

Correct, and ironically some nut on Dreamcast-Talk forum declared he would never play them because of that!  Said the DC shall never run anything but discs, ha ha.

[newtmonkey]

20 hours ago, juansolo said:

Looking to do the same with my PS2 collection next which is by far the biggest. As you say the costs of the conversion becomes a little irrelevant if you've got a decent collection and are prepared to part with it.

You may already be aware of this, but there's a very good solution for the PS2 ("Open PS2 Loader" installed on a "Freemcboot" memory card).  You can store the games on (in order of increasing performance) a USB stick plugged into the PS2, a file server connected to the Ethernet port on the PS2, or an internal HD installed in the PS2.

 

I set up a solution a few months back on my slim PS2 and it runs really well, first with a spare laptop set up with a file share, then next with a Raspberry Pi set up as a dedicated file server.  It's a good weekend project.

Edited February 22, 2021 by newtmonkey

[juansolo]

4 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

You may already be aware of this, but there's a very good solution for the PS2 ("Open PS2 Loader" installed on a "Freemcboot" memory card).  You can store the games on (in order of increasing performance) a USB stick plugged into the PS2, a file server connected to the Ethernet port on the PS2, or an internal HD installed in the PS2.

 

I set up a solution a few months back on my slim PS2 and it runs really well, first with a spare laptop set up with a file share, then next with a Raspberry Pi set up as a dedicated file server.  It's a good weekend project.

Yep I currently have a PS2 slim with both a chip (to play imports) and FMB (I've got my PSX games on a USB stick). I used to run a PS2 TEST with a HDD, but sold that a while back. Been meaning to pick up a fat for a while now to drop a HDD back into to finally move my collection from disk to HDD. I think it's the amount I've got that's been putting me off until now

Edited February 22, 2021 by juansolo

[newtmonkey]

@juansolo

I hear you, it took a long time to create images of my PS2 collection.  It's something you can do in the background while doing something else, of course, but it's a massive time sink if you have dozens of games.

 

I really wanted to go the fat PS2+HDD route, but I already had a slim PS2 with non-working drive and an extra Raspberry Pi lying around, so it seemed better to just make use of what I had.

 

How is compatibility with PSX games?  I might give that a try some day.  I currently use a hacked PSP GO to play PSX games on my TV, but it's annoying to have to use a Dual Shock 3 to play games (not ideal for shmups or fighters, and it adds roughly 1 frame of lag).

[juansolo]

3 minutes ago, newtmonkey said:

How is compatibility with PSX games?  I might give that a try some day.  I currently use a hacked PSP GO to play PSX games on my TV, but it's annoying to have to use a Dual Shock 3 to play games (not ideal for shmups or fighters, and it adds roughly 1 frame of lag).

Good enough that I got rid of my Playstation (space is an issue). I think it's just multi-disc games you might have an issue with. Everything else tends to be ok.