9.9.99, never forget...
It's almost upon us, dear friends, that hallowed date that marks the 10th anniversary of our favourite console, and 1UP's decided to join the party with this neat article appropriately entitled "9.9.99, A Dreamcast Memorial". It's nothing new, just a retelling of the system's birth, death and live after death. Still, worth a read by any DC fan.
7 comments:
I'd like to share with you an excellent article marking the Dreamcast's 9th anniversary. I especially think you guys will like it because Sword of Beserk is one of the featured games! ;)
Dreamcast: Sega's Last Scream
http://diehardgamefan.com/2008/09/19/dreamcast-segas-last-scream
Enjoy!
Thank you for the link, dc4ever, that's a very interesting read. And indeed they remembered Sword of the Berserk :D
Nice one Nuno!
The best Dreamcast 10th anniversary retrospective is at Ars.
'The Swirl That Shook Gaming'
Here are some extracts:
In the minds of gamers, the Dreamcast was an unqualified success. The system had much better 2D capabilities than the PlayStation 2, making fighting games and shooters on the system a joy to play. It included a modem, and later an optional—if hard-to-find—broadband accessory; the system came with a Web browser and a telephone cable in the box so users could go online the second they opened the system. The system included four, count 'em, four controller ports. You could buy a VGA adaptor to play games on screens that supported 480p long before high definition televisions were common.
Think of how many Dreamcast games that launched on that day that are still considered classics, and then take a look at the PlayStation 2 launch library. Sony launched with mediocre games, two controller ports, no online features, and games that didn't look as good as what we were used to from the less-expensive Dreamcast.
Dreamcast developers and publishers gave us offbeat titles, began working in genres that are only now maturing, and fed our love for the quirky, the quality, and the unexpected.
It remains the largest leap between generations gaming has seen; after 3D arrived it was all a matter of making the games look better. The Dreamcast was a revelation, and it's certainly worth remembering.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/09/the-swirl-that-shook-gaming-the-sega-dreamcast-turns-10.ars
Here's another DC retrospective (from Eurogamer):
www.eurogamer.net/articles/dreamcast-a-forensic-retrospective-article
Comment #58 (worth reading):
I'll admit I witnessed the dreamcast launch with apathy and disinterest. I thought it was a another doomed to failure sega console and thought best ignored. I remember watching a few instore game demos like the boxing game with the boxer with the big afro haircut and a skateboard type game. Both visually nice but not the genres that would suck me into buying a console. I was happy at the time with a n64 playing mario 64 and pilotwings 64 etc and thought no more of it. I also had a playstation too at the time.
Time passed and with the dreamcast already in decline I bought one at near enough the time I bought a ps2 from the so called slammer half price ps2 deal. I couldn't believe it not only were dreamcast games more playable and more interesting but they blew the ps2 games away technically (remember this was early ps2 titles). The ps2 was cack central. Just to put the final nail in the coffin of the ps2 I got a AE100 projector and connected the dc via VGA and the ps2 via component. The difference was staggering the projector mapped 1:1 pixels on the dreamcast to give a truly amazing dc image on the wall. The weakness of the ps2 regarding aliasing and its low interpolated resolution looked truly awful. The dc took pride of place with my projector playing classics like shenmue over a whole wall, it was gaming greatness. The ps2 was demoted and connected to a 21" philips combi where its graphic problems were unnoticable mostly.
I think the wisest decision sega made was giving the dc 8meg of video memory. The ps2 only has 4meg, the gc and wii only have 3meg and combined with the dc's clever tile based rendering gpu meant huge amount of textures were available on screen you could just about fully texture everything to make it look realistic. The ps2 could kick out a lot more polygons but had to repeat textures because it only had 4meg and no hardware texture compression. Also the ps2 only actually rendered at about 640x200 and interpolated to 640x400 which softened the image and created more aliasing. The dc rendered at 640x480 progressively no problem. Thats about 5x the resolution!!! I've yet to see a ps2 game even today that looks as good as shenmue or shenmue II. Even the games seemed to load faster yet I realise writing that, they shouldn't do as the dc has a 12xcdrom and the ps2 24x for cds but that was the reality for me. Admittedly the dc only has 26meg memory compared to about 36meg of the ps2 so that might help.
In my living room today a dc is under the main tv permantly and my ps3 provides upscaled and improved ps2 visuals that still don't look as good as dc.
The dc had a british designed gpu and even the hitachi risc chip is derived from the british arm risc processor I believe. It punched well above its weight and still provides visuals equal to the current generation wii. Totally awesome console that should never have failed. The ps2 went on to sell about 140 million plus providing huge profits to sony even to this day where the ps2 is the only truly profitable console in their range.
www.eurogamer.net/articles/dreamcast-a-forensic-retrospective-article/comments?comment_start=50
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