Be Excellent To Each Other

Hi all. Thanks to my recent relocation to fucking roasting all the bastard time climes and the discovery of a nifty little retrogames store down the street, I've finally come into possession of a Dreamcast.

Obvious first impressions: by gum, it's aged well. Even on the standard input the games look gorgeous on my HDTV, a world away from the slack-jawed terror induced by a recent N64 retrial. I'd been meaning to get a proper system for ages, but I was still surprised how much I got straight into it.
I've been dabbling around here and there, but could use some advice on stuff to pick up, especially any of the more unusual stuff.

Stuff I've liked so far:

Dynamite Cop: Got this with the system. It's not quite up to Die Hard Arcade's lofty standards, but it's still a solid, fun little follow-up.

On the way via Amazon: Space Channel 5 and Resi: Code Veronica - because they were dirt-cheap and I'm quite fond of them.

Other decent stuff 'tested' so far:

Outtrigger: This one surprised me, in that I like it an awful lot. Exactly what you'd imagine an FPS designed by AM2 would play like. Although for God's sake, avoid the default controls. The D-1 setup's quite nice in a spack-handed back-to-front way.

Mr. Driller: It's Meesta Durilla! Great, obv.

Operation Espionage: It's a bit of a fucking mess, but an intriguing one. I've yet to figure out whether the whole thing's just a shambles, or if there's a decent game in there somewhere. I suspect the former, but it's still something I'd like to see a lot more of.

SF Rush 2049: This is a lovely little thing. Slick arcade racing, and quite bloody hard to do well in. Needs more playtime methinks.

Virtua Athlete 2k: It's Athlete Kings, minus the charm! Still quite fun, but something's missing.

Cannon Spike: I'm not generally someone who likes shooters that much, but I was quite partial to this. Fun on a Cammy-flavoured bun.

Sword Of The Berserk: HAROOM! Excellently visceral action, shallow as a Californian puddle but good for a quick bash.

Jet Grind(argh!) Radio: Another classic, happily living up to its reputation, and fucking beautiful to this day.

SF3: Third Strike: Plays like a dream. Not yet warmed to the new roster though.

Power Stone: Another classic, blah blah loveliness. Though once again, the entire internet seems to be STUNNINGLY WRONG in championing the sequel as some kind of perfect evolution of the game. It's just bloody NOT, the internet.

Anyway, feel free to fire away, all suggestions welcome.

Jesus. Erm. I'll be back later with a list, most goodly sir/ma'am.

Shenmue - you'll love it or you'll hate it.

Edit - I really regret not spending more time with my dreamcast. There's so much stuff on it that I never played much or should really play again anyway.

Anyway:

Ikaruga - Treasure Shooty thing also available on XBLAH and Gamecube

Metropolis Street Racer - Project Gotham Racing before Batman got involved

Rival Schools 2 - Project Justice - School based beat 'em up (this is why I'm not a salesman)

Skies of Arcadia - RPG thing

Tech Romancer - Beat 'em up with giant robots

Tokyo Bus Guide - What it says on the tin

Yu Suzuki's Gameworks vol 1 - No idea if there was a volume 2. Some old Sega arcade games that hilariously I can't remember what they are. I think it's Out Run, Afterburner, Space Harrier, (Super?) Hang-On and Power Drift.

And Shenmue 2 of course, if you like the first one. Don't worry the third one will be out soon.

I enjoyed Outtrigger but it's a bugger to play with just the pad.

Other stuff to try would be Crazy Taxi and Soul Calibur - my favourite versions of the games. Seaman is certainly a different kind of game if you can get hold of it cheaply. Samba de Amigo is very good but very expensive with it.

Damn, I forgot about Soul Calibur.

You can get hold of some ps2 (as in the mouse/keyboard connectors, not playstation2) adaptors, so you can plug in a mouse and keyboard to play OutTrigger. Can't remember how well it worked. I assume you could use the mouse to play stuff like Virtua Cop 2 and Confidential Mission (oh, and Death Crimson OX).

I liked the first Sonic Adventure as well, but some of the searching levels on the second one seemed to drag a bit.

Densha De Go 2 as a comedy option.

Shenmue I and II - The sequel is so, so much better in Japanese, the Xbox version pales in comparison.

If you can get hold of Space Channel 5 Part Two's UK release, do so.

Both Gigawing games are great examples of bullet hell madness; the first one is easier to find and doesn't yell 'REFREKKKTU FOOOORCEEE-UH' every time you use your shield thing.

Cyber Troopers Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram, if you can get the special joystick for it.

Metropolis Street Racer, in two-player with fishing rods. No, really.

Ikaruga. Obviously.

Record of Lodoss War, Angel Present, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Ayanami Raising Project, Shikigami no Shiro II, Karous, Sonic Adventure II(YES.), Virtua Tennis II, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child*.

*not Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child

is sonic adventure 2 the one where it ends with that level thats pretty dark but you grind loads of bright coloured rails for the most part?

Soul Calibre is the best fighter since Yie Ar Kung Fu on the CPC. I took it to my mates house and he had the latest version on his PS2. He was left slack jawed as the ageing Dreamcast pissed all over his PS2 graphically.

Jet Set RADIOOOOOOOOOO

Under Defeat, Border Down and Street Fighter 2 (matching service, or something).

Tech Romancer is pants. Shoulda been a set of animes, but it ain't.

ah, DC love... well the district of colmbia has some nice sights, and a baseball club from montreal..

but anyway,
Crazy Taxi! (if you don't have another version)
Samba de Amigo (but there will be more affordable less setuppie wii version soon)
shmups (the ones mentioned (please klatymydron, etc., + gigawing, pioneering the send the bullents back system)
Densha de Go 2 (Arcade train sim)
Virtua Tennis (or on xbox nr 3)

Giga Wing, Gunbird 2, Mars Matrix.

the DC must-haves are fairly well-known these days cos of its smallish catalogue but my fave DC game ever is a bit obscure. It's called Bomber Hehhe and is completely ace.

it's import-friendly but does have jap text and menus. there is a good FAQ to help you through though.

essentially, you are given a limited supply of bombs with which to take down a building. try to work out the weak spots and bring it down with as few bombs as possible (they carry over to the next level).

some of the structures are really huge and interesting and there are some reasonably fun mini-games.

i won't lie, it does take a little patience to get into but I love it the most ever.

No-one has mentioned Daytona 2001! Although you do need a wheel as it's almost totally unplayable on pad.

Hydro Thunder is a goodie - much better than the arcade version if Midway Arcade Treasures 3 on the Xbox is anything to go on.

The DC version of Half-Life is superb if you can locate it from the internets (it was never officially released for some absurd reason).

If you can read Japanese, you could also give Segagaga a go, and tell me if it's as good as I've always imagined it probably is.

Gaywood, you are my oldest and dearest friend and yet have earned my contempt once again.

TOKYO XTREME (yes, I know) RACER 2.

I am? Or are you playing fast and loose with the truth to make the Futurama quote fit?

ARGH MY GOD I CANNOT BELIEVE I DID THIS EVEN CAPS CANNOT EXPRESS MY IDIOCY

He's right. TXR2 remains my all-time favourite driving game. I can't believe I forgot it.

Don't get Vanishing Point though. Oh god no. MetalAngel, tell them the story, I have no strength for it.

Heh, we've been watching a lot of it this week so it seemed like a good opener.



Indeed. The DAYS (not just hours) that we lost to it. The Dreamcasts your mates bought on the strength of it. You with your super-Evo, me with the Uber-ru Wagon of blueness. There is a 360 version, you know. But it's OLD.



Ah yes. Vanishing Point caught my eye with the magazine shots of Outrun-style racing through traffic and crazy stunts and such. So, I mentioned to TEH WOOD that it looked rather interesting, and he picked it up. The actual racing wasn't up to much, but there was a STUNT MODE!

Stunt mode! involved jumping off ramps to pop balloons and other such acts - at the end of which you got a trophy of some sort. Gaywood and his mate Higgins struggled for untold hours against these ludicrously hard challenges, trying to get a gold trophy in each. They reasoned that such a difficult challenge must surely have an excellent reward unlocked for getting all gold trophies, right?

But no. Hours of swearing later, all they had was a screen with a lot of gold trophies on it and bugger all else. To this day, the crushing disappointment weighs heavily.

Vanishing Point: The Movie is much better, as it features a naked chick riding a motorcycle around the desert (NSFW!)

OF COURSE!

I forgot all about it.

What was the 360 version like?

Haven't played it, but from the look of things from the IGN review:



it looks exactly like the DC and PS2 versions. Newer cars, slightly nicer graphics, but still the same stuff. The review slags it off for this (the same tricks still work against the AI as well, such as running them into walls).

I don't see much point in getting it now, to be honest, I think Test Drive Unlimited more or less killed it.

if you've got a buddy to play it with, Sports Jam is a rather excellent multi-event sports game.

it's actually got the makings of a fantastic golf game in there.

Good god, yes. TXR2 was one of my most thorough completings; I got the final uber-car (some manner of Datsun |-car that looked like a cross between an E-type Jag and, umm, something else -- I bet you know MA), then did the rest of the gang races anyway, then used to just load the game to go cruising.

I may have to get a Dreamcast out and have another go. I hope my save still works.

I do know. As you note elsewhere, it's hardly any different, and TDU is the closest thing we've come to a modern equivalent. I nearly bought that the other day by the way.

Hours my arse, it took weeks and weeks of trying. I can't even mention the game to Toby without sending him into fits of ComicalGnomes style muderous rage.

It's a shame really as Vanishing Point had a lot of potential and then crippled itself with locking most of it away and making the game stupidly difficult. (See also - 4 Wheel Thunder)

Another one I really liked (but remember as being really unpopular at the time) was Sega Extreme Sports. Basically racing events where you might, for instance, hang-glide from a mountain top to another cliff edge, base-jump off the cliff then leg it to a quad bike and race to the finish line. I thought it was pretty excellent myself, and it has a fantastic Ninja Tune-provided soundtrack too.

Every Dreamcast owner must complete Headhunter at least once.

Headhunter is one of many games that I bought (full price as well if I remember) and have played approximately once.

Edit - I have just dug out my copy of Headhunter which has a 'Great New Games in 2001 ' leaflet in it. Most of the games have already been mentioned, but I'm intrigued by Fighting Vipers 2, which is a one on one beat 'em up, but one of the characters is riding a bike.

Headhunter seemed pretty rough around the edges to me even when it came out, so I've never had much desire to go back to it. Maybe I should.

Possibly controversially, I also seem to remember really enjoying the Ready 2 Rumble games, Sonic Adventure and Incoming.

Also SisterCheeba, whereabouts is it that you've moved to? I'm always interested in nifty little retro games shops!

Headhunter is fun once you get used to the controls - the bike is especially twitchy. I don't think I ever got past the room of bugs on the floor though.

Ready to Rumble was a bit of a button-basher. I knew a 7 year-old who'd hit buttons pretty randomly and beat us all.

Outstanding suggestions there, all much appreciated.

Quick question for Davydd - Angel Present was a JP import, wasn't it? Some site listed it in their released PAL DC games section, which led to much frustrated wandering trying to find any other mention of it, but that seems to be just a screwup on their part. Is there much of a language barrier there? GameFAQs seems to be leaving me in the lurch here. As for playing JP games in general, I'll give almost anything a go provided that it's either fairly intuitive or there's a decent guide somewhere. I was all set to give Sakura Taisen 3 and it's countless-page .txt translation a shot before I found all the ("Wes Obama") links to be dead.

I was almost tempted into getting Vanishing Point due to my mental connection with that excellent film, but I'm increasingly glad I didn't now. Looks like TXR2 is the way to go there, with a Crazy Taxi chaser. And Bomber Hehhe sounds absolutely fantastic, that's definitely moving right up to the top of the list. And it's definitely high time I shook off my distaste for vertical SHMUPs and gave some of the DC's finest a go, along with everything else suggested. I had to sell my wii and 360 just before I moved, so the DC's going to be my primary system for quite a while. But I don't care, as I haven't had this much fun gaming for some time

@Zio: It's Los Angeles, and the store's Game Land, buried in the corner of a cheque-cashing service on Santa Monica and La Brea. He seems to have more or less the entire US DC release list (with a few still in the shrinkwrap for anal collector types), but is also more than aware of the kind of prices some of 'em fetch. I recoiled in horror at Project Justice being $70, for instance, but then I still haven't really adjusted to thinking in dollars anyway (That's about 35 quid). Still, I shudder to think what that copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga in the glass display case costs. It's generally a little pricier than Ebay/Amazon, but it is just soo lovely being able to browse a decent selection of Atari, NES, SNES, Genesis, Saturn, NEO-GEO, Jaguar, DC and misc. other stuff.

Nobody mentioned Wacky Races!

Also, Le Mans 24hrs was good

F355 Challenge for Forza like hardness

And Rayman 2 is still one of the best 3D platformers.

I like the Dreamcast.

(click for bigness)

(click for bigness)

Nice.

Those PAL discs are so much nicer than the boring old jewel-cased US ones. Ah well, at least the US Space Channel 5 has a cute lenticular cover where Ulala does a high kick in front of dancing morolians when you tilt it

Also, I seem to have become massively better at SC5 since I last played it, and the timing is barely annoying me at all. Hurrah!

Yep. It's horrendous to play without a walkthrough, to be honest. I have one saved on a disc up north, should you need one. It's a great game, though.

That'd be much appreciated when you get the chance, thanks. I'm having quite a bit of trouble finding anything useful about it online here. Pretty much everything I dig up's related to the Nippon Ichi game of a similar name. Bother.