Dreamcast 10th anniversary spectacular!

I know this is a bit late, but it's still the 9th, so happy 10th anniversary, Dreamcast! This list is just a list of ten things that I feel made the Dreamcast special. It's not the ONLY things, but these were the first ten that popped into my mind. If you have anything to add, feel free to leave a comment!

1. The 128 bit Graphics.



I still have that scene of Sonic racing down a dock as a killer whale crashes through behind you against the blue sky and crashing waves in Sonic Adventure 1. While the N64 had been a 64 bit system, most of the games didn't feel like nearly as big of a leap as what happened with the launch of the Dreamcast. While Sonic Adventure 1's dolphin scene and maybe the commercial for Ready 2 Rumble are two of the most memorable launch experiences, who can possibly forget the first time you saw Soul Calibur? Say what you will about the franchise, SC1 on DC had some amazing effects. Then you've got Jet Grind Radio, the amazing 2d art in Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike, completely trippy visuals like Rez, and countless other games that showed you that, at least for a while, Sega did what Sony and Nintendon't.

2. Peripherals



While there weren't actually too many peripherals for DC, the ones that were actually helped out people a lot. You've got the infamous Rez vibration controller, but there's also great things like the light guns, and arcade stick for creating an authentic arcade experience at home. If you were a fan of pc games, specifically Quake 3, you could grab the keyboard and mouse for the dreamcast, allowing you to play a console FPS exactly how you always wanted to, which was great for online matches against other PC players (cross platform play ftw!). The keyboard attachment was also later used to help players all over the world talk to each other in PSO and was infinitely more useful than the on screen keyboard or quick commands, along with later being used in Typing of the Dead. A microphone had been released later to use with Seaman, which was useful, but never really managed to make it beyond gimmick status. Either way, you've still got stuff like the Samba De Amigo maracas and that definitely gave plenty of people a lot of enjoyment.

3. Cel Shading and Jet Grind Radio.



What probably would have been overlooked as just another extreme sports game, the art style really made this game stand out amongst the Tony Hawks and Dave Mirras, which allowed people to realize that this was actually about graffiti, helping to spread word of your crew while surviving against the oppressive military and other gangs. If I ever see anyone take down a helicopter in real life with a can of spray paint...I think I'll have finally seen everything.

4. PSO/Online Play



Managing to waste entire weekends playing Phantasy Star Online for free through Sega's 56k modem is simply unforgetable. I'm STILL not completely sure how they managed to keep everything running so smooth while everyone was using telephone lines to dial in, but WOW, what an amazing experience! I'm not certain that Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst is still online for the pc, but if you haven't played this game yet and are a fan of Diablo style hack and slash adventures, do yourself a favor and grab it on pc, xbox, dc, or whatever else you can.

5. All of the amazing arcade ports.



From Shmups to Light Gun games, whatever your favorite games were in the arcade in the late 90's, if you wanted to see a 100% faithful port, Dreamcast was the way to go. While this tradition was sort of started with the Saturn, the faster loading times, great dpad, and hardware specs made this an arcade fans dream. When it was finally announced that the Dreamcast was no longer going to be produced, it left everyone a bit uncertain since this also happened during the decline of arcades. Luckily, the torch was passed on to the PS2, but if you're trying to find that perfect port of Marvel Vs Capcom 2 or want to go back and experience the way Ikaruga was meant to be, look no further than the DC.

6. VMUs.



While card based storage would later be phased out with the dawn of the Xbox, both Sony and Sega tried their hand at creating portable memory cards with screens. Unfortunately for Sony, their attempt never caught on and (if I remember correctly) was never officially released in the US. Dreamcast, on the other hand, was launched with their Virtual Memory Unit, a memory card that had a dpad, 2 buttons, ran on one of those...LR3 batteries or whatever, and had a (terrible) speaker built into it. While many games just used the feature to show the name of their game on the screen as you played, there were plenty that actually took advantage of it and several sites that had downloadable games specifically designed for the VMU. To think, it took Logitech until 2005/2006 to produce their G15 keyboard that had a screen with more or less the same functionality!

7. The controller.



I'm not going to lie. The Dreamcast controller, aesthetically speaking, looks pretty frickin' unwieldy. First, you have the 4 candy colored buttons on the right side, two triggers, a big wide space in the middle with a start button at the bottom center and a gap in the face to view the VMU, then a dpad and analog stick. It even sounds awkward describing it. Amazingly, when you put that thing in your hands, it feels perfect, largely thanks to the grips the triggers provided so you could comfortably rest your extra fingers behind it. While issues arose with first person shooters (dual analogs hadn't really been around yet), those hadn't really caught on too well with the console market, so this controller is still perfectly suited for the games available on the console.

8. Sega Sports.



While I'm not a big sports gamer, I really do admire how much the 2k sports games forced EA to actually get better, to this day. Before NFL 2K had come out, it was already accepted that football fans were going to get the new Madden whenever it came out, and maybe give a game like NFL Blitz or NFL Xtreme a shot, but nothing had come close if you were looking for a realistic sports game. Then here comes Sega's first real sports game in ages, NFL 2k, which blew Madden out of the water, while the NBA 2K games slowly gained dominance of EAs NBA Live. With its 128 bit graphics, completely unique play selection screen, and the sheer amount of detail that went into every aspect, it was evident a new and formidable competitor had finally stepped into the ring.

9. That Ready 2 Rumble ad.



THIS LONE AD was what made SO MANY people think games had finally started to really look realistic. While biting fro's was not an actual attack in-game, it was still managed to be a lot of fun to play. Now that I think about it, R2R was the first time I'd had a great time with a boxing game since Super Punch Out. While the gameplay itself was great, the graphics, characters, and commentary by Michael Buffer really helped keep this in the heart of countless Dreamcast fans.

10. The arrival of Shenmue.



Talk about ambitious! Shenmue was originally planned to be a 16 part game that followed Ryo's quest to avenge his father. The first game in the series was one of the most hyped Dreamcast games I can remember. Putting the game in for the first time, you were treated with an epic (for the time) intro that lasted at least 10 minutes. The game took place in Yokosuka, Japan and one of the cool features of the game was that as you hunted down clues to the man that killed your father, there was a day-night cycle with randomly generated weather that was respective of the season in addition to using some of the real weather patterns from that area in real life during that time. While looking back at it now, many people scoff at how "hunting down" a killer boiled down to asking sailors what they knew about "THE THREE BLAAAAADES?!?!", and then repeating the question to the person only to find out they know nothing, there's an actual feel of tension of trying to finish all of these tasks within the hours you have awake. For those that just wanted to enjoy the world, you were free to roam the streets and talk to the many npc's, or maybe hop in the local arcade to play a few games of Space Harrier or Hang On while wasting the rest of your money on the countless toy dispensing machines in your attempt to collect every action figure known to mankind. The only downside to this game was that this is the game most people directly blame for QTE's catching on. Finally, the series was cut short, and even though it had been critically praised, terrible sales prevented Shenmue II from ever making it overseas on the Dreamcast, doomed to stay forever in Europe and Asia, yet somehow managing to get a US Xbox port many years later. It seems like every year, people hold out hope for a Shenmue 3 or something to continue the adventures, but until that day comes, keep crossing your fingers.