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Refurb Weekend: The Sega Dreamcast
- KingOfCoders 4y agoI loved my Dreamcast, so much PSO. We had two Dreamcasts stands that are usually in department stores in our startup, playing Samba de Amigo alot. We also wrote a demo with scroller and star field on the VMU and called us VirtuaMunstaz.
- hnlmorg 4y agoI still play PSO. I play it weekly online with a small group of friends. It’s amazing that most of the old Dreamcast online services are still available by hacks and enthusiasts
- KingOfCoders 4y ago<3
- namkt 4y agoHow exactly do you make the Dreamcast/PSO connect to one of these servers?
- causality0 4y agoTypically a raspberry pi running DreamPi
- nanna 4y agoSo it's possible to connect to Phantasy Star Online's servers? Presumably they're no longer run by Sega.
- hnlmorg 4y agoThere’s a couple of different servers ran by hobbyists. All free of charge (though I’d happily pay). There’s also servers for the GameCube and Xbox versions of PSO too.
- AdmiralAsshat 4y agoPSO unfortunately didn't have much of an endgame (all you can really do is glorified boss-rush mode), but I still got a couple extra years out of it circa 2007/2008 via the Blue Burst PC port with unofficial English translation. Nostalgia aside for using a genuine Dreamcast controller, Blue Burst brought some nice expansions and QoL additions. To boot, the guys who hosted the servers also brought back some of the "holiday" events and Japan-exclusive stuff that Sega used to host. Being able to run around with some of the staff-only skins (like Sonic/Tails/Knuckles) and a Sega Saturn MAG floating on my shoulder was fun, indeed!
- hnlmorg 4y agoPSO is an MMORPG (in fact first of its kind, at least on a console) so it’s not really about having an end goal but more about guilds going on quests together.
- AdmiralAsshat 4y agoEh...I think the term "MMORPG" is incorrect. It was clearly in the vein of the original Diablo (and they're not at all shy about admitting this).[0] Even though the lobbies may have been "massive", each local game-room was still capped to 4 players. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasy_Star_Online#Concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasy_Star_Online#Concept
- schnable 4y agoThe Dreamcast had much better graphics and controller than the PS2. I was very disappointed PS2 was so much more popular - all the games would have been better on Dreamcast!
- causi 4y agoThere are so many unanswerable questions about the Dreamcast. Would launching with dual-stick controllers have saved it and jumpstarted the era of the console FPS early? Would the increased sales from using DVD have made up for the increased manufacturing cost? How much did waiting a year to launch it outside Japan hurt it?
- cenal 4y agoAs a retro gaming enthusiast myself, I think the issue of the system not having a DVD drive is only potentially surpassed by the ease of which piracy was possible on the system. What seems craziest to me of that era is that Microsoft didn't just buy Sega to enter the market and instead made a huge bet on Halo. Seamus Blackley should be better known for what they pulled off in Redmond.
- jimbob45 4y agoHalo wasn’t a “huge bet”. Bungie had made three criminally underrated games in the Marathon series prior to Halo. In fact, Halo is largely supposed to take place in the same universe, although the final product was only vaguely linked.
- brendank310 4y agoMS was knee deep in anti-trust negotiations with the DoJ around that time so I imagine acquisitions of that size and scope were off the table. Sega probably was small potatoes financially for MS at the time, but buying one of the three companies in that market wouldn't have helped their anti-competitive reputation.
- thevagrant 4y agoDreamcast was amazing. Unfortunately most gamers didn't give it a look as they were too hyped for PS2 due to specs. Funny that for quite a while the dreamcast games were performing and looking better.
- Grazester 4y agoThis right here. Gamers were burnt by SEGA's past consoles and SONY's hype machine was running on all cylinders. SONY was promising Toy Story level graphic and all sorts of nonsense with their "emotion engine".
- keepquestioning 4y agoWhat was the emotion engine actually
- bagels 4y agoMarketing nonsense. Sony was trying to sell the idea that the PS2 cpu had... magic in them.
- fxtentacle 4y agoThe PS2 had two CPUs inside, one of which had GPU-like features. To differentiate them, one was called the IOP = Input Output Processor and the other the EE = Emotion Engine. It was a surprisingly powerful system at the time and it took developers years to understand it well enough to take full advantage of the hardware. But the ability to have 2 CPUs run simultaneously and interact with each other allowed for A LOT of crazy optimizations that I haven't seen since.
- pbar 4y agoInteresting, what were some of those unique optimizations?
- bitwize 4y agoIt was a MIPS CPU with special proprietary vector units.
- ackatz 4y agoIt was all about Jet Grind Radio and Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast. Super underrated system. Super underrated games.
- Ruarl 4y agoI LOVED Jet Grind Radio (Jet Set Radio here in the UK). That combo gameplay of doing cool tricks while completing the course was seriously addictive. Trickstyle did a vaguely similar thing - still doing cool tricks, but replace graffiti with racing.
- pram 4y agoThere’s an upcoming game called Bomb Rush Cyberfunk that seems to be faithfully replicating the whole JSRF gimmick.
- nanna 4y agoWow, it's practically identical! Just add skateboards and bmxs. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1353230/Bomb_Rush_Cyberfunk/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1353230/Bomb_Rush_Cyberfu...
- solidr53 4y agoMy jam was Jet Set Radio, Toy Commander, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX (What I got), and Sega GT. But lets not forget Quake III Arena, which is "considered one of the best PC-to-console ports of its time thanks to its smooth frame rate and online play".
- 83457 4y agoDreamcast keyboard and mouse helped. You could actually host your own PC Q3 server on same version as DC and play against PC players if on same Q3 version.
- oneoff786 4y agoSkies of Arcadia was solid. The sound and music design still jumps around my brain.
- moepstar 4y agoAnyone still looking to play online games (yes, there's online games resurrected, even today they're becoming more and more) on the Dreamcast and don't have a BBA (games that supported that as opposed to the modem have been less anyway) should look into setting up a DreamPi: https://dreamcast.wiki/DreamPi https://dreamcast.wiki/DreamPi
- TapamN 4y agoI replaced the batteries on my three US Dreamcasts earlier this year. Each one had a different sized battery. My VA0 revision console, with a date code of July 1999, had the largest battery with a Sanyo ML2430. My other two were VA1 revisions made in March 2000, and one had a Maxwell ML2032 and the other had a Panasonic ML2020. (With coin cells, the first two digits is the battery's diameter in millimeters, and the last two is the thickness in 10ths of a millimeter. So a 2032 is 20 millimeters wide, and 3.2 millimeters thick.) Apparently, Sega of Japan planned for a US$299 price point, but Sega of America wanted to sell it at $199, so SOJ ended up doing redesigns on the internals to bring down the manufacturing cost. I guess using cheaper batteries (whatever they could get a hold of, screw consistency) was one way they did that.
- actionfromafar 4y agoDreamcast was so overpowered, you could boot a PS1 emulator on a disc, boot the emulator up, and plop in a PS1 game. Play the game, with higher resolution graphics!
- ZoomStop 4y agoNot sure if that was the Dreamcast being overpowered, the sheer genius of Randy Linden, or a bit of both.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoMGS on Bleemcast blew my mind
- nanna 4y agoI loved my Dreamcast but the Saturn was Sega's pinnacle console. So many of the games were blindingly original. - Radiant Silvergun the best scrolling shootem up at least I ever played (far superior to its sequel Ikaruga) - Guardian Heroes a scrolling beatemup with dozens (houndreds?) of glorious characters to choose from. - Nights into Dreams. You fly like a rocket, you dance, you liberate weird little tamagochi which you take on your VMU. By Sonic Team. - Panzer Dragoon Saga. RPG on a dragon. Beautiful. - Grandia. Ok this I never played as it wasn't translated, but its reputation preceeds it. - Fighters Megamix. Graphics werent great but it brought together all of Sega's signature characters (including Sonic) into a Virtua Fighter ring. Madness. - Burning Rangers. Meca Firefighting, by Sonic Team. After the Saturn, the Dreamcast was a disappointment, even though it was great. And after the Dreamcast, I stopped playing games. Nothing like those old days.
- ac2u 4y agoYou could put together a strong argument that Dreamcast had a similar level of originality too. Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Powerstone, Samba Di Amigo, Seaman, Shenmue were all games that were risk taking because they didn't have much of a template to build from.
- ofrzeta 4y agoRez was amazing as well.
- nanna 4y agoRez was incredible, true. Shenmue and Shenmue II were also Sega at it's best. Seaman was bloody weird and very ahead of its time - too far perhaps, it was a real struggle to get that critter to understand my voice. Maybe because of my London accent? I had the impression it might have been better for Americans. Samba Di Amigo was also great - Sonic Team once again - though I remember struggling to get the maracas working. I might have had unofficial ones. Jet Set Radio was like nothing else too. I didn't have enough friends to get the most out of Powerstone. I would add Phantasy Star Online - Sonic Team! I was never crazy about Crazy Taxi, it never felt like it survived the transition to console from the arcades, where it ruled. What a shame for videogames that Sonic Team was, I assume, disbanded along with the Dreamcast? I'm not
- Elizabethtrusco 4y ago[dead]