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Happy Sega Day!


reelmojo
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In about an hour from the time I'm posting this the date will be September 9th, 2008... nine years removed from the US launch of the Sega Dreamcast. So hook up your Dreamcasts (if they're not still hooked up already) and celebrate by playing some Sonic Adventure or something. Me, I'm going to relive one of my favorite gaming memories in Shenmue.

So what are some of your favorite Dreamcast memories?

Happy birthday, Dreamcast!

(Oh yeah, it's also the 13th anniversary of the Playstation and the 9th birthday of some guy named Squall. Feeling old yet? I am.)

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Ah, the Dreamcast. The first and only system I actually got the day of its launch. I remember going to local mall where I lived at the time, and standing in the short line for those who wanted to take part in that particular store's early opening for its launch (though the line did get damn long by the time I left with my stuff). I remember I reserved Sonic Adventure, House of the Dead 2, Soul Calibur and a VMU. When I finally got my turn to enter the store (they only let in like five people at a time to keep things moving along), I also grabbed AirForce Delta. I got home, played for a while, then headed off to work.

A lot of good games came out for that system. It's still a shame that it got such a rough treatment from the gaming public. I understand why people were wary, given the Saturn's poor launch and sordid history, the 32X's short lifespan and poorly thought out application (and usage), and the Sega CD's drowning in FMV drivel. But the Dreamcast did everything right, from having loads of third party support, to much easier programmability, a good online setup, good dev kits, and hardware that still managed to give the PS2 a run for it's money visually at times. Too bad Sega's own actions (internally and externally) basically doomed it.

But, it's dead. With GD-Rom's no longer made, even Japan won't see any official releases anymore. However, it's nice to see some quality homebrew stuff still being made... and that a few "canceled at the 11th hour" games still got to see the light of day in one form or another.

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Maybe I'll break out Ikaruga, even though it hasn't been just a Dreamcast game for a LONG time. It was just such good times playing it. I remember trying so hard to advance without dying, striving my very best to get in the groove of all the switching madness. Then I unlocked infinite continues, and I finally beat the game. It took some retarded thing like that just to pass lol.

Then there was that racing game... Revolt Racing I think it was. That game turned into such freaking hard crap so fast in the end.

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I never understood why people feel the need to celebrate a failure. It's like "hey that flying machine that came out just before the Wright Brothers', the one that crashed and broke the pilot's leg, it's turning 106 years old today, let's celebrate it!"

/troll on!

Failure or not, it was still a revolution. I mean, if it weren't for the Dreamcast, we might still be dreaming about a consistent online system or Xbox Live wouldn't have been realized sooner. The online really broke things wide open as far as consoles go.

And I really liked Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. IMO they're still the only decent 3D Sonic games (if you take out the extracurricular activities like fishing.. but I actually liked fishing in Adventure..)

Really, I think Sega thought too broadly and gamers just weren't accepting of Sega thanks to Sony basically taking all the edgy, hardcore gamer types. Also, it's like their development teams for the most part were beaten down by the excess in competition. And their main attraction in arcades obviously is a non-factor now. It's just a huge shame. I think it'd be interesting if Sega was the dominator instead of Nintendo. I keep wondering what craziness Sega would dish out, because in their heyday, Sega was innovating left and right to various degrees of success. Unfortunately mostly in commercial failure.

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Sega partnered with Microsoft for the Dreamcast, utilizing a Windows OS (I still find it funny how people bitched about Xbox being too much of a PC, yet had no problems with the DC which was more or less the same). If Sega had kept going they would in all likelyhood have entered a deeper relationship with them for their next console.

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Oh Sega, where did it all go so wrong? Even after the Dreamcast, they still made some truely great games-I still love Jet Set Radio Future, for example. And I was always a total Phantasy Star Online addict. Their name attatched to any new game used to be such an exciting prospect, but in the past year or two at the very least, that has very much not been the case.

But now... I'm ashamed of most of their efforts with Sonic, hopefully BioWare's Dark Brotherhood will ressucitate the waning mascot. Other than that it tends to be a slur of generically average games or abysmally poor film licenses, etc.

I'm hoping a few titles on the horizon will be good again, like I don't see how Samba de Amigo Wii can go wrong, and everyone's pretty psyched for Mad World.

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I still have (and play) my Sega Saturn. I got that one the same week of its release, at the $400 launch price... which is the reason I never buy new stuff as soon as it comes out anymore (with the exception of certain games).

Sega did a lot of things right with the Dreamcast and Saturn. There was just a lot more things they did wrong with respect to their competition. I'm glad they still survived as a developer, though, since I really agree with I-n-j-i-n comments about their innovation. KF

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What part of "/troll on!" did you not understand? :<

It was another system that had poor timing and marketing against its competition. I've played Dreamcast games, they were nothing special.

It's just a video game system, get over it people!

It had lots of shmups. Shmups are special. therefore dreamcast special.

I didnt know about it being the consoles birthday. erm...happy birthday dreamcast i suppose?

For a birthday treat im gonna play the shit out of Zero Gunner2, followed by some MVC2 yay :<

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"It's thinking."

Rayman 2, the DC version, is the best version, and Rayman 2 is one of the first great 3D platformers. (And it's still great comparatively.) The Dreamcast is like a Wii without motion control but with games that "gamers" would actually be interested in and play. It out-Wii'd the Wii before Nintendo ever thought up the Wii!

Speaking of birthdays I registered at OCR 5 years ago this month. Guess September is a good month!

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