Dreamcast

Gonna shill for my favorite Retro console that died too soon – SEGA’s swansong.

I honestly love this console. I was about ten when I first got mine (still works!), and I thought it was amazing. SEGA created something special, and to this date, I still look at the back catalogue for any interesting games I may have missed. For me, it was a console that couldn’t better represent the turn of the century and the transition of classic gaming to the present day. It was like a compact PC with you everything you could want from a gaming console of that era.

It boasted some really interesting games, like Jet Set Radio. And everyone knows the reputation of Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 – Most are more familiar with their GameCube ports, but I played the DC versions first and I still prefer them. Despite the GC being obviously more powerful, in some ways the original graphics were better because they were easier on the eyes: Less saturation, bloom, brightness etc. Character models blended better with the environment too.

But it’d be a crime to make a Dreamcast thread and not mention Shenmue at least once. Where as other games like Shenmue have come along and done it better since, Shenmue deserves credit for doing it first and laying the foundation. It’s still a glorious game to play, like an Asian kung-fu flick in video game form. The writing is top-notch (okay, the English dialogue is… something else, even at that time. But that’s another story). It somehow makes all it’s micro-managing fun and engaging instead of tedious. And who could forget the music? The main theme is aural heaven.

Also, picked up this gem: A Dreamcast archive book from Read-Only Memory. You can buy it from their website (they ship internationally if you live outside the UK, but you’d have to pay extra and may have to wait a while).