Next Gen? Bring It On...

Firstly - let me wish you all a rather late Happy New Year. I know we're 10 days into 2009, but I trust your Crimbo was good and your New Year piss-up was as much of a drunken, hedonistic blur as mine was. Anyway, back to the task at hand: Dream-fuckin-cast awesomeness, U-RAH!

Father K and マーティン's recent posts regarding the relevance of the DC in today's gaming environment really interested me, and so I thought I'd jump in with my own take on the subject. How so? Well, I recently purchased the sublime Race Driver GRID for a mere 20 quid from Game Station. Yes, I know they tattoo, starve and then gas Dreamcast games in their thousands, but I'll be fucked sideways if I ever spend a single groat in that corporate shit-hole GAME. Anyhow, upon sampling said 360 uber-racer, it became apparent that it features the world-famous Le Mans 24hr race.

There's also a Dreamcast game that features the world-famous Le Mans 24hr race.

After several hours sat in complete silence and dribbling into a cold Pot Noodle, a cog in my head switched position and an idea was borne: How does the 360 representation of the Le Mans course compare with the Dreamcast incarnation?

Wonder no more peeps:



Of course, I'm not a complete bell-end (only 76% at last audit) so I won't even contemplate suggesting that the visuals in Le Mans 24hrs are even half as good as those in GRID, but when you see them side by side it's hard not to notice that the DC's attempt still looks fairly decent. And it's TEN YEARS OLD!!!

So, to reiterate FK and マーティン's point - if Sega had had the resources and the PS2 buying zombies hadn't come and shat/vomited on the party, I'm pretty certain that the DC technology could have been en-vogue for a lot, lot longer than it was. Sigh. Just think of the games we could have had if the DC had survived for a few years longer...

Hopefully, Sam Beckett will one day quantum leap into the body of a high ranking Sony exec, circa 1999, and get Al to shoot him in the neck with a shotgun therefore setting into motion a series of events that leads to the cancellation of the PS2 project and ensuring the creation of an alternative reality where the Dreamcast conquers the world.

In other news, I recently visited Gloucester - a deeply historic medieval city now overrun by Corsa-driving tracksuit-clad 17-year-olds. With shit accents. But I digress . I was there to see a Feeder gig primarily, but took a walk around the main shopping district just to kill some time...and found TWO game stores within 40 FEET of each other...that both stocked DREAMCAST GAMES!!!



The City of Gloucester: an official ally of The Dreamcast Junkyard.

14 comments:

Animated AF said...

The Grid version of the Le mans track lacks a Fairwheel, therefore it fails.

Tom Charnock said...

Yeah - I noticed that omission too. Unless the Le Mans Council have ripped it down in the intervening years between Le Mans and GRID.

Unknown said...

I can't believe so many shops in the UK still sell Dreamcast games.
Lucky bastards.

The last second hand or brand new games I'd seen for sale here in Australia were lame titles like WWF Attitude and Shadowman at Cash Converters or the local trading post.

*nostalgic sigh*

I'd give anything to walk in to a Big W or Harvey Norman and see their shelves lined with Dreamcast hardware that 'nobody' wants. Good times...

Badbrains said...

So true. Le Mans has some nice looking graphics specially for its time.

Anonymous said...

In illinois all the pawn shops have a few games and at least one dreamcast itself. I got powerstone at one for three bucks recently!

Benjamin Murbach said...

Le manns I bought back in 99 and you know what that game had....way before anyone????
Do a time trial and brake reaaaalllly hard after gunning the gas! then pan the camera and your disc breaks glow red for about 5 seconds. I did this prob 100 times back in 1999. It was sooo cool...such detail and 10 years ago.

Tom Charnock said...

Yeah - i noticed that cool effect too but to be honest, It was included in F1 World Grand Prix on the N64 in about 1998

NebachadnezzaR said...

Joshua, I have the same dream... :'(

fatherkrishna said...

A very excellent comparison! I'd be interested to see how the graphics in Sonic Adventure compare to Sonic on the 360. Surely one of the best looking games on the Dreamcast, other notable comparisons might be Soul Calibur vs. Soul Calibur 4,
Or perhaps Virtua Tennis 2 vs. Virtua Tennis on the PS3, Dead or Alive 2 vs. Dead Or Alive 4... Samba De Amigo DC vs. Samba De Amigo Wii?
Same for HOTD2, Bass Fishing etc...

The possibilities are endless!

João Gomes said...

By the way, I was just wondering (and I've been raking my brain trying to come up with an answer with no avail): Grafically speaking, is there any difference between Le Mans 24 Hours (the PAL version of the game) and Test Drive: Le Mans (the NTSC version)? Is one version of the game graphically superior, is it the same, a slight superiority in one?

Thanks in Advance

Tom Charnock said...

João - as far as I know, The PAL and NTSC versions of Le Mans differ only in name.

Anonymous said...

There's an ugly PS2 port of this game. LOL.

João Gomes said...

Yeah, Tomleecee, I only thought that (and this was due to some videos that I saw on Youtube) that the US version was slightly superior, graphically wise, when in comparison to the PAL version. My mistake. Another thing (and this is quite off-topic and probably will be unanswered since this post is kinda old as of today): would any of you guys that played/play emulators (SMS, MegaDrive/Genesis, NES, SNES) on the DC say that those emus are played better when using a DC controller or would you say that they play better with a DC ASCII Controller/Total Control 3 adapter using a Saturn controller? I hope you could help me on this.

Tom Charnock said...

Not really something I'd have a clue about to be honest! Anyone else have an answer?!