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Dreamcast turns 20 on 9/9/2019


Blarneo

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Happy birthday to Sega’s swan song console! I remember drooling over the Dreamcast games at a local department store when it was first released. I was finally able to afford one once they went on clearance. I was so excited to finally play Resident Evil Code Veronica. It was a brief but wonderful era in gaming... until the 800 pound gorilla that was the PS2 showed up to crash the party! Sega may never return to making hardware, but they really gave us a fantastic gaming machine with their final effort. I can’t wait to get my new Retro Fighters controller so I can delve back into its library with a controller that doesn’t cramp up my hands. The Dreamcast is dead, long live the Dreamcast!

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20 years ago tonight I was in line, preorder ticket in hand, to get my Dreamcast, NFL 2K, Crazy Taxi, and Sonic Adventure. I had worked my ass off all summer, waiting tables and cooking in the kitchen for a total of 50+ hours a week to save up enough money for both college books and that purchase. A couple weeks later I'd return for Soulcalibur. The launch lineup was amazing. The Dreamcast was King. Long live the King. 

Edited by derFunkenstein
tonight, not today. Midnight launch.
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6 hours ago, derFunkenstein said:

20 years ago tonight I was in line, preorder ticket in hand, to get my Dreamcast, NFL 2K, Crazy Taxi, and Sonic Adventure. 

 

Did you have a time machine or something? Crazy Taxi didn't come out until 2000. :lolblue:

 

3 hours ago, Cafeman said:

Classic Gaming Quarterly recently posted a long feature about the DC launch on YT. Check it out! 

 

Yeah, it's a great episode!

 

 

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It's 9/9/99!  And I have already fired up the ol' DC, and got in some Virtua Fighter 3 Team Battle.  Not sure why, but VF3 always has held a special place in my heart.  Partially that I have always liked the DC controller.  VF3 has MUCH better AI opponents than VF2 did, and it's much brighter and colorful than I thought VF4 to be.  The bright colors make me think of Sega from the 90's, with Virtua Cop, Virtua Racing, Daytona, Sega Rally, Crazy Taxi.  All sunny, bright, fun games. 

 

What are people planning to play on DC to celebrate??

 

On my schedule tomorrow, having already taken the day off work mostly to celebrate the Dreamcast's 20th:

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on Xbox (originally scheduled for Dreamcast, some listings / ads can be found on this) (and simply one of my favorites)

Capcom Vs SNK2 (in my case on Xbox since I don't have a Japanese DC, but it's still a DC game originally)

Soul Calibur

Space Channel 5

Ready 2 Rumble

Marvel vs Capcom 2

Typing of the Dead

Jet Grind Radio

Armada

Silent Scope

Sword of the Berzerk

Demolition Racer

Power Stone

 

Just to name a few.  Egad I love the DC.

Also I am the worst selfie taker in the universe, so feel free to shield your eyes from the Dreamcast shirt pics. :P

9 9 99 DC  Shirt.jpg

9 9 99 SC5 shirt with sleeve.jpg

9 9 99 SC5 shirt.jpg

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Happy Birthday Dreamcast! Man, I'm feeling the years... I worked at Sega.com in SF for a brief period of time while it was king. They were also trying to create SEGANET which was also way ahead of it's time & not quite ready for prime time in that most people (including myself) still had slow ass dial up. Love the t-shirt post! 

I got drunk out of my mind along with a bunch of other people the day they laid us off shortly after they stopped making the system. 

It was a beautiful system/piece of hardware and we all got free ones when we worked there. I actually had two and I gave them both to relatives. In retrospect I wish I had held onto them. It seems like the prices/value has climbed up quite a bit after all these years. 

It did have some gorgeous looking titles. The water/beach always looked so pretty in Sonic Adventure. Jet Grind Radio was pretty super awesome and my niece/nephews couldn't stop playing Powerstone & Rush 2049 on that system. Shenmue was gorgeous & cool... Plus, Crazy Taxi was a hoot to play too. 

It would be super cool if they did a Sega Dreamcast Mini in honor of the system. Happy 20th Anniversary Dreamcast!!!! 

Edited by retrorandy
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Just discovered a guy who makes very nice looking Wireless DC controllers, and pre-modded consoles:

http://www.dreammods.net/dreamconn.html

 

They are both expensive as hell (esp the wireless controllers), but I will add them to my want list.  

Retro-Bit is supposedly working on wireless controllers too, but I am pretty thumbs down on their quality from having gotten one of their Saturn remake controllers.  D-pad is terrible, and one of the buttons sticks badly.  Booooo.

 

Also...some random love for Typing of the Dead.  Death Sentence!  Get it?  Oh, so funny.  What a weird, awesome game.

 

9 9 99 Typing of the Dead Art.JPG

9 9 99 Typing of the Dead Death Sentence.jpg

9 9 99 Typing OTD Enormous Hair.jpg

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The Dreamcast is always hooked up in my Game room, VGA HDMI into my flat screen, so last night I revisited a lesser title, Sega rally 2 for a few hours. I find the graphics to be a bit on the grainy side and it 10 Year Championship is Incredibly hard and frustrating to me.  But it still feels like a Sega rally game so I keep coming back to it. I never beat TYC,  I need to locate the save file on one of my VMU's and finally finish it!

 

Lately other DC games I've been playing are Daytona 2001, Soul Calibur, and Marvel vs Capcom 2.  Early in 2019 I replayed all of Sonic Adventures 1 and 2. Until a scratch on SA2 prevented me from finishing it, oh well. I also pretty much mastered the map on Crazy Taxi 2 earlier this year. I like to revisit older games and thoroughly explore them. 

 

So yeah back on 9/9/99, I took that Thursday 9/9 and Friday 9/10 as vacation, went to EB at 6AM and picked up my DC, Nfl2k and Sonic Adventure. Caf Jr was only 4 years old, we both played the system a lot on that 4 day weekend.  During that 1999 autumn and winter,  I was amazed at the games ... Soul Calibur, Hydro Thunder also were heavily played early on.  What a Sega renaissance it was!

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Dreamcast Launch List.  Maybe you can jog your memory, @derFunkenstein  :)

One of the best launches ever IMO, for total quality.  I mean, compare those games (and the DC's bright, colorful graphics with solid polys to what was out at the time!).

 

And by comparison, though I love it... I have to wonder how they ever sold any Sega CD systems with that launch... I mean.  You launch a product with a Marky Mark item, you gotta know it's going to be a disaster! :)

Dreamcast Launch List.JPG

Sega CD Launch Games.JPG

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Guessing it was Hydro Thunder, another loosey-goosey arcade driving game where the original cabinet had a steering wheel. They're not very similar at all, though. :?

 

Those modded bluetooth controllers look amazing, but not for that price. Holy smokes. I get that they're hand-made and all, and a modder's time has value, but my goodness. :lol: 

 

RetroBit's Dreamcast controllers can't come soon enough. 

Edited by derFunkenstein
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On 9/9/2019 at 8:41 AM, Cafeman said:

The Dreamcast is always hooked up in my Game room, VGA HDMI into my flat screen, so last night I revisited a lesser title, Sega rally 2 for a few hours. I find the graphics to be a bit on the grainy side and it 10 Year Championship is Incredibly hard and frustrating to me.  But it still feels like a Sega rally game so I keep coming back to it. I never beat TYC,  I need to locate the save file on one of my VMU's and finally finish it!

 

I'm not sure why my opinion was low, because I'm finding Sega Rally 2 to be quite good! Very challenging but a wealth of challenging racing gameplay. I wish I had some idea of when and how best to change the suspension and gear settings to improve my performance...

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I am loving all the retrospective content being posted on the DC for the 20th birthday.  I thought I knew the history on the DC inside and out, but have learned a lot, especially from that long hour & fifteen video, very well researched!  I got to meet Bernie Stolar at E3 when I was a sort of journalist, on a side note :)

 

I didn't know that it was (at the time) the fastest selling console in history, nor had I ever realized how short its US life was (9 9 99 to 1 something 01, yikes!).  So no wonder it seemed like tons of amazing games were coming out every month...they WERE, basically constantly!  It had like 200 titles, not bad for 16 months of life!  DC will always be a favorite console of mine, if not quite my absolute #1.  I have more games for it than nearly any other system, and treasure it.  

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31 minutes ago, Curious Sofa said:

nor had I ever realized how short its US life was (9 9 99 to 1 something 01, yikes!). 

If you look at it from US launch to the day it was announced Sega was exiting the hardware business, yeah, it's only about a year and a half. Sega supported it past that point though as did a few other companies. The last US game was released in early 2002 (NHL 2K2 by Sega), so it was technically supported in official capacity for 2.5 years in the US. Consoles were still available at major retailers all the way through to the end.

 

9 hours ago, Cafeman said:

I'm not sure why my opinion was low, because I'm finding Sega Rally 2 to be quite good! Very challenging but a wealth of challenging racing gameplay. I wish I had some idea of when and how best to change the suspension and gear settings to improve my performance...

Sega Rally 2 is pretty good, no doubt! It's just very difficult and requires a LOT of practice. Its framerate is also inconsistent, jumping all over the place randomly, so it can be a little jarring at first. I recently picked up the Windows '98 version and have been playing it on old hardware. It's basically the same game but at a solid 60FPS.. it's so nice, haha. The Dreamcast version is still a great time though when you get the hang of it.

Edited by Austin
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