Why I love... the Sega Dreamcast

Look, it’s the hardware. No, seriously, look at it. Compact, solidly built, well designed, and for its time, powerful too. Care and thought were given as to what the Dreamcast should be, how it should achieve that and how it would do so whilst being as unobtrusive as possible. Not much bigger than the disc drive itself, four controller ports (for when multiplayer meant sitting in the same room as the other players – I know, how quaint!), and a quiet, yet reassuring, fan. The whole package just works, even after more than twenty years since its release. You don’t see the neat cooling system for the processor, nor the power supply that is built into the console itself, or the modem that promised (but didn’t quite deliver) online play. Nope, the Dreamcast is surely the ultimate in 1990’s console design. It is a half way house between the toy-like Nintendo’s, Sega’s Megadrive and the original PlayStation that preceded it, and the growing bulk that epitomised the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s original X-Box. In the following console generations, only Nintendo continued the playful console design with the Gamecube, Wii and Wii U. For me though, the Dreamcast is style and power in a perfect design.

Of course, it’s more than just the box. There is the controller too. After the rather small PlayStation pad and the ergonomic challenge that was the N64’s pad (honestly, going back to that after twenty years revealed great muscle memory and tremendous hand cramp!), the Dreamcast's controller is ergonomically excellent. Big enough to fill your hand yet light enough not to become a nuisance over a long gaming session, the pad allows you to comfortably grip the outside edges whilst your index fingers fall neatly onto the left and right triggers. The analogue stick is balanced just about right, with less give than the PlayStation’s woeful effort (indeed, I have never enjoyed using the official PS controllers because of the feel of the sticks) and the D-pad is clicky without feeling stiff. It’s not perfect (nothing is), and without any Visual Memory Units/Memory Cards in place, it can feel too light and insubstantial. That also betrays the slightly too-cheap plastic used in the construction, with the nagging fear that the analogue stick and triggers might not stand up to too much use but I can honestly say I’ve not had a DC pad fail on me yet. The connecting cable is also a bit of a nuisance, stick out of the bottom of the pad rather that the top which would be facing the console. Finally, the era of the Dreamcast betrays the early days of 3D gaming, equipped with only one stick: first-person shooters in particularly fare poorly against the twin stick pads of the PlayStation and X-Box.

Enough about the hardware. What about the games? After all, software sells hardware, and it’s here that the Dreamcast proved itself. From the jaunty playfulness of the menu screens – so different from Sony’s and Microsoft’s more sombre experiences, to the half decent (for its time) web browser, the initial user experience is one of fun. I have fond memories of using the Dreamcast’s internet browser long before I could afford a decent PC but having said that, harking back to a 56.6k modem and a 14 inch CRT television is probably not a good thing in this day and age.

On to games then, and I’d like to focus on just three titles. Yeah, I know, there were dozens of decent, and more than a few great, titles for the Dreamcast but these three stick with me now and have the added benefit of being system exclusives, at least until the Dreamcast was retired, when two were ported to the PlayStation 2 and the third was improved in a spiritual sequel on the X-Box. They show what the Dreamcast was capable of and why it was such a generational leap ahead of the PlayStation and N64, even giving the PS2 a great run for its money.

First up, Metropolis Street Racer. “It’s not about how fast you drive. It’s about how you drive fast.” Never has a tag line described a game this perfectly. That it appears at the end of a ballsy intro sequence that mixes real world driving and in game clips shows straight away that the developers were aiming for something special. A real world racing game with some nice arcade flourishes, MSR lived and died by its Kudos system. Set in, for the time, stellar recreations of London, Tokyo and San Francisco, MSR puts you behind the wheel of dozens of real-life vehicles and inventive tracks, and dares you to have fun. Using the Dreamcast’s clock to provide real-time day/night cycles adds a touch more realism and, whilst the handling of each vehicle is mostly realistic, the game never forgets that you’re supposed to show how well you can drive. It can seem a little unforgiving to modern day gamers but then challenge was always part of the fun. True, the cityscapes are a little flat, but the sheer amount of texture work that was put into MSR is astounding and, compared to previous gen titles, looks amazing. Hell, even the PS2 struggled to offer something as visually exact. But what really does it for me is the soundtrack. Written by Richard Jacques, each track nicely takes the piss out of its respective genre and to this day, I still think of MSR whenever I hear Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince – the mock song in MSR is that good. If ever a single soundtrack demonstrated a composer’s talent, MSR’s does it for Jacques, and there is more from him later on. MSR’s developer, Bizarre Creations got the template so right that once the Dreamcast was discontinued, they created Project Gotham Racing for the X-Box. Pretty much an updated MSR, it did well enough to spawn three increasingly good sequels, this time with licensed music (I discovered Spanish industrial metal band Freak XXI purely through their contribution to PGR3). Naturally, the PGR series expanded the number of cities, with Edinburgh, New York, Sydney, Las Vegas, the Nurburgring, Moscow and Quebec City being featured in later titles. One of the cool things in PGR2 was the real-world shop fronts in Edinburgh, to the point where I could stop outside the in-game Edinburgh store of my then employer and see what mobile phone deal was being advertised (in a very pixelated way, a Nokia 8310). The thing is, without MSR, that would never have happened and it’s MSR that is the star here. Demonstrating the true graphical capabilities of the Dreamcast and proving to all and sundry that the generation of the PlayStation and N64 had truly ended, MSR may have been matched but never bettered.

Headhunter received some, unwarranted in my view, comparisons to the seminal Metal Gear Solid, upon its release. With great stealth mechanics and some neat VR training missions, you may be forgiven for comparing the two titles. However, Headhunter was tonally a different beast, yet when it failed to match these preconceptions, the reception from gamers turned a little sour which is grossly unfair on Headhunter, in a similar vein to In Cold Blood on the PlayStation (a lesser known classic from Revolution Software), which was also given an MGS comparison, but that’s for another post. What you got with Headhunter was an accomplished third-person stealth action title that offered solid gun play, great game design and a polished presentation that recalls the best of Paul Verhoeven. You play Jack Wade, the titular headhunter tasked with solving the murder of his boss and unraveling a conspiracy regarding organ harvesting and betrayal. The game switches between on-foot sections and a marvelous motorbike traversal system that really warrants a game all on its own. What really lifts it though is the live action newsroom sequences delivered in a superbly mocking and cynical style, tongue firmly in cheek and knowingly winking at the audience like a signal lamp with a stutter. Topping all of that is the score, another tour-de-force by Richard Jacques. Sweeping and majestic where needed, intense and heart pounding in action sequences, Jacques gives Headhunter the cinematic polish it so richly deserves. Challenging and thoughtful in equal measure, Headhunter could not have been accomplished on any earlier hardware and only the lack of a second analogue stick makes the controls a little unwieldy. Ported to the PS2, which also received a less that stellar sequel (which in itself saw an X-Box release), I still think Headhunter stands up to this day and if you want to play it, try the Dreamcast original if you can.

Finally, we have Fur Fighters. Cartoon animals, all out gun play and violence. A lovely mix, I am sure you’ll agree. Fur Fighters was developed by Bizarre Creations and offers a third-person shooter with a dose of on the nose humour as you take turns as one of the Fur Fighter team out to rescue your children who have been kidnapped by the evil General Viggo. Bizarre Creations were on a roll during this period of their existence and FF confirms that they were more than just a racing game studio (their later X-Box 360 title, The Club is also a forgotten gem). The cartoon nature of the game is handled well and the environments hark to the best of 3D platformers with added weapons. That impression is added to by the nonsensical nature of the character voices, a trait that Rare cornered the market with in titles such as Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie. Whether you like that style is down to personal choice and I must admit that I find it more than a little tiresome after a short while. The worst I can say about the game is that the controls are a smidge clunky, once again due to the lack of a second analogue stick on the controller. Fur Fighters filled a niche on the Dreamcast and received a PS2 port which added cel-shading to the graphics and proper voice acting. These weren’t entirely successful and the title just seemed to disappear among the crowd on that platform, which is a shame. It does take a decent amount of effort to complete but once you do, you’ll have accomplished a great deal of puzzle solving and seen every animal related joke under the sun, but the main thing is you’ll have had fun doing it. This stood out on the DC and remains a great game to this day.

So there are just three of the numerous titles that show the Dreamcast for what it was, a great games console. Of course, there were many more: Shenmue 1 and 2, Wild Metal, Confidential Mission, Typing of the Dead, Quake 3, Hidden and Dangerous, Shadow Man, MDK2, and Toy Commander are just some that I owned back in the day, and each was a joy to play. I’ll be honest and admit I never used the online play facility, nor were the other three controller ports used – I was, and am to this day, a primarily solo games player, Mario Kart with my good lady being the exception.

I still have a Dreamcast. Not the original system from 1999, but a second-hand one from an excellent local games store, Games Galaxy. For a very decent price, I picked up the machine, Headhunter and Crazy Taxi and, let’s be clear, could have spent a whole lot more, especially when I saw the Neo Geo, Super Famicom and PC Engine range they offered. Having such a shop just a couple of miles away that also offers a great variety of current gen titles is a wonderful thing and if you’re ever in the north-east of England, I heartily recommend detouring to Consett and perusing their stock. Their Facebook page is here so you can see what I am talking about and if you do go, the owner will be more than happy to oblige if he can.

I’ll slowly increase my DC software collection as time and funds permit and I can certainly see quite a little collection forming as time goes by. I just need to add a VGA or HDMI adapter to improve the video quality and truly see what 640x480 should look like. Although twenty years old, there is plenty of life left in the Dreamcast and it remains one of my favourite systems to this day and that would be purely down to the games mentioned above. They were genuinely a generation ahead of previous systems and it took later rivals a while to match what Sega had achieved. Now if only Sega would get round to releasing a Dreamcast Mini...