The rise and fall of the DreamCast

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TOPIC: The rise and fall of the DreamCast

stoneXsour

Release the hatred!

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Date: 20:04 Apr 11, 2007

The rise and fall of the DreamCast

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With Sega having officially ceased production of Dreamcast discs (GD-ROMs) and the repair service set to close on September 28, the Dreamcast has well and truly been laid to rest. If it breaks after September 28, you're on your own. Or stuck in the world of emulation.

Although the Dreamcast died before its time, having been discontinued in 2001 - just three years after its original 1998 release(1999 in US and UK), its many innovations, vast selection of peripherals and huge library of arcade games earned it a huge cult following. Some say that the console was launched too soon.

The Dreamcast was considered way ahead of its time when it hit Japanese stores on November 27, 1998, with high-resolution, silky smooth visuals that put N64 and PSone to shame.

Innovative genius

The biggest innovation Dreamcast introduced was the Visual Memory Unit (or VMU), with its little LCD screen that could be slotted into the controller for an in-hand display.

The possibilities for innovative gameplay using the VMU were vast, and Sega was the first to demonstrate with Sonic Adventure, which allowed you to transfer in-game virtual pets (dubbed Chaos) to the VMU where they became a virtual pet you could look after. Although, except for the odd radar in some action games the VMU was seldom used as Sega probably intended.

Dreamcast was also the first console to come internet ready out of the box, with a built-in modem tucked in its side. Awesome puzzle game, Chu Chu Rocket from Sega, kicked off the online console revolution, followed by stunning conversions of Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament, which worked with a proprietary Dreamcast mouse and keyboard giving console gamers a taste of first-person shooting that had previously been exclusive to PC junkies. More than that though, Dreamcast was the first console to offer cross-platform play. PC gamers got to show off their headshots against DC n00bs with Quake III Arena.

Peripherals played a huge role in Dreamcast's short lifespan. The now-legendary rhythm-action game, Samba de Amigo, had players shaking a set of (rare and expensive thesedays) maracas in different directions to on-screen prompts and funky tunes.

The Dreamcast light gun brought arcade shooting home, most notably compatible with the awesome House of the Dead II, on which we had burned many a quid before it came to Sega's next-gen console.

The official Dreamcast Arcade Stick is still considered to be one of the single best home arcade sticks ever made, and with games like Street Fighter 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Dreamcast had the hardcore 2D fighters to support it.

Sega Bass fishing came with a neat fishing rod controller that was actually sensitive to movements (hello Nintendo Wii). Dreamcast even has voice-controlled gaming, with a microphone that slotted into the top of your controller which allowed you to control the strange but cool virtual pet game, Seamen, with your voice. And there aren't many consoles that can claim that.

The beginning was the end

Despite the Dreamcast's undisputed awesomeness, sales took a turn for the worst after Sony crashed the party with the PS2 and its superior marketing campaigns. While Sony was wowing the kids, Sega went and spunked a hell of a lot of money sponsoring Arsenal football club. The inevitable was fast approaching.

Sega pulled the plug on Dreamcast in 2001, announcing on the 31 January that production of the console would cease in March that year and the company would dedicate recourses to software development.

"One of the best consoles ever, destroyed because of the lies and marketing hype of the PS2," said CVG reader, neilyboy1, who shares the sentiments of many hardcore Dreamcast fans that were, and still are, bitterly upset that Dreamcast was embarrassingly knocked out of the console war.

But before giving up the ghost of Dreamcast though, Sega struck a deal with TV manufacturer Pace to include the DC's PowerVR Series2 technology in set-top-boxes. But this move failed to keep the Dream(cast) alive and it died on its arse.

Although most of the games in development still made it to shelves before the Dreamcast was buried, there were a few games and hardware projects that never saw the light of day, as with any console.

Yu Suzuki, creator of the amazing Shenmue games, had promised several episodes to the series, but only two made it, with the second game being rushed out with Japanese speech. Shenmue 2 was later ported to Xbox with full English speech, the way it should have been.

Many of its planned sequels ended up on Xbox after Sega and Microsoft struck an exclusivity deal. Sega was hardly going to give Sony (the company that almost killed it) its hard worked-on games so soon after the DC's demise. These included Gunvalkyrie, Panza Dragoon Next (renamed Panza Dragoon Orta) and Toe Jam & Earl 3.

A Dreamcast port of Half Life was almost released, with review versions even being sent out to the press. The game was eventually canned because of horrendous loading times. We remember hearing stories about how you could go and make a cup of tea, come back and it still wouldn't have loaded the next level. Official Dreamcast Magazine even carried the game as a cover review, if we remember correctly. Half-Life and Propeller Arena: Aviation Battle Championship were later leaked to the internet, which delighted gamers were able to download and play.

Agartha, Castlevania Resurrection and Geist Force were canned and buried, never to return, as was the DVD-playing attachment, high-capacity MP3-playing VMUs and a Zip drive, all of which Sega showed at E3 in 2000. If Sega had the capital to see all this through, today's console battle could be a very different war.

10 DC titles you MUST own

Dreamcast had a cracking library of games but there was the striking omission of anything EA Sports related, which Sony probably paid an arm and a leg for to keep from the platform. And the fact that EA Sports didn't support the platform... well, we know what happened next.

Soul Calibur
Shenmue
Ikaruga
Samba De Amigo
Jet Set Radio
Crazi Taxi
Metropolis Street Racer
Phantasy Star Online
Quake III Arena
Virtua Tennis

Live After Death

If you still love your Dreamcast (and it still works) and you can't bear the thought of it passing on, there's still hope. If you haven't got a Dreamcast, or don't know what we're talking about, jump on eBay now and you should be able to get yourself a console and a nice bundle of games for around £30, which is literally an absolute bargain. It's also worth checking out those cash converter-type places where crackheads sell everything they get their hands on for a fix. You can usually find some old gaming gems at the bottom of the pile, or behind a glass window. Do it now, before they become rarer. Or worse, eBay runs out of them. -Credit "CVG"

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