Sega Dreamcast
Originally released in North America September 9, 1999, the Sega Dreamcast had an unusually short life. Sega officially stopped production in March of 2001. In this short life the gaming scene was forever changed. I received my first Dreamcast October 11th 2010, nearly ten years out of production.
The Hardware:
Not crazy powerful by today standards, but back in the release, this was a powerhouse of polygon, triangle pushing, mind blowing 3D graphics. Driving this crazy train is a screaming 200MHz processor paired with a 128bit vector graphics engine from PowerVR. 7.0 Million Polygons per second with some pretty advanced features like anti-aliasing, bump mapping, z-buffering and per-pixel translucency. All this in 24bit color and at the high resolution of 640×480. (Keep in mind, until this the standard was 320×240) This was the high definition of console gaming. Sound was driven by a Yamaha Sound Processor with an independent 32bit ARM7 RISC CPU running at 45MHz. Capable of 64 separate channels all with 128 step DSP. Translates to fantastic audio. All together the Sega Dreamcast has 28Mb of ram. 16MB of 64bit main system memory running at 100MHz, 8MB of 4x16bit video memory also at 100MHz, and 2MB dedicated to just audio.
In comparison the Playstation 2 had 294MHz processor with a custom 128bit graphics processor. Although having a clock speed of nearly 50% faster, the Playstation 2 pumped out only 60 Million Polygons per second. What stole the crown was it being the cheapest DVD player. Sega never had a chance.
Pioneering Features:
Although the Dreamcast is thought of as the failure of the industry (excluding the horrid Atari Jaguar) one thing it did was innovate. This was the first console to sport online connectivity. It included a 56k modem! Not only that, but if you were one of the few at the time, a broadband adapter was available separately. Many games exploited this feature, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and the most famous of them Phantasy Star Online. Not only did the connectivity allow multiplayer gameplay, web browsing was possible. Sega even had a keyboard and mouse attachment to make the process less painful. No, flash was not supported here either. Sega didn’t stop there, their memory card was unique to the market. The VMU (Visual Memory Unit) itself was a portable game console. Many of the games on the Dreamcast would include mini games to bring along with you. Sonic Adventure included a tamagotchi like game, Power Stone had 5 puzzle games, and even third party games were created. They ranged from Tetris clones to Space Invaders, and racing games. One hacker even went so far as to create a VMU 3d game engine which powered first person shooters, all on a memory card! Lastly, unknown to most, the Dreamcast supported VGA output. This gave the console 480p graphics. Impressive at the time.
The Games:
Is it possible to mention Sega and not think of Sonic the Hedgehog? Didn’t think so. So naturally the first game released for the new console was a true 3D rendition of Sonic. In the same manner Nintendo made Mario 64 from Super Mario Bros, Sega created Sonic Adventure from Sonic the Hedgehog. Right from the start this game moves FAST! You open up to killing your first boss and move right on into collection chaos emeralds. You would have thought we would have gathered all those dang things up by now. Controls can be a little challenging at times. The analog stick is very sensitive, and the d-pad placement could have been rethought. Even with those shortfalls the game is pure Sega joy to play.
Next up is Soul Calibur. A visually stunning fighter from Namco. Changed the fighting game genre as we know it. Sega did not need the Tekken series, they had Soul Calibur, and it carried a sword, or an axe, or a knife, or a pole, you get it. Weapons were everywhere. Quite frankly, if you own a Dreamcast, and do not have this game, you owe it to that little white box to go out and purchase it. Now! Get up and go get it.
Haven’t had time to play the games long enough to accurately judge any more. I will be posting an update later on this topic, you better believe it.
Getting Dreamcast Stuff:
Of course with a console being out of production for nearly a decade now, there is a few caveats you need to learn before you begin. You cannot go out to a store and buy accessories, games, and don’t even think about playing multiplayer online, the servers are long gone. Don’t let this stop you, there is still a huge market on the internet for everything Dreamcast. In fact, the last game produced and sold commercially on the Dreamcast was this year! Fast Striker available directly from NG:Dev.Direct. Another “feature” of the Dreamcast is the ability to play backups un moded. You read correctly, you can play burned games on any Dreamcast. Some places will point out that it is only on version 1 consoles, but I own a version 2, and it works the same. http://www.emuparadise.org/ is a good site for game backups. Of course I recommend you purchase used before you go this route.
The Dreamcast does not have a CD-ROM, but a GD-ROM. The native disc format holds 1GB and has much better read times. In most cases games did not utilize the capacity, but instead had a closed blank session towards the center of the disc to push the data to the outside, where it read faster.
Games can be had from 1-15 dollars depending on sources, so its cheap to build a library.
Closing Thoughts:
I really like this system, but it is not without faults.
Pros:
- Crazy innovative features (the VMU is just too cool)
- Fast game play at high resolutions
- Easy to use, slap a game in and go
- Fun original games (isn’t that what its all about)
- hackable to the Nth degree without modding
Cons:
- No longer in production (bummer)
- The controller could use a redesign (never gonna happen)
- DVD media support missing
If you are a classic gamer and do not own a Sega Dreamcast, go right now and buy/order/steal one. You won’t regret it.
