Life's A Beach

Erm...I hate to start a post in this fashion, but what the fuck is this:
Right there, under TrickStyle. The audacity...
I've just noticed that out of every single game I have, only one has the name printed right to left instead of left to right. F1 Racing Championship, why must you be different? It's not big, and it's not clever. You'll forever be in the shadow of F1 World Grand Prix 2 and pulling an attention-grabbing stunt like this will never change that. Sigh.

Anyway. The sun's still out and my garden is still dying in the unexpected summer heat. I'm not complaining, but my significant other spent quite a while planting all sorts of green, leafy stuff out in the mud and I'll be damned if I'm going to fill a jug with water and start messing about expending calories by pouring the aforementioned wet stuff onto it. In the immortal words of Ivan Drago, if he (the foliage) dies, he (the foliage) dies. Of course, I'm just joking...I'll go and throw a mug of vodka on them in a bit: there'll be Hell to pay if she gets back from her travels and the yard resembles the surface of Planet Crematoria. Gulp.

And while we're on the subject of arid, sunny locales I thought it might be fun to profile some of the Dreamcast's best beaches!


Sonic Adventure
Yes, the first stage of Sonic Adventure features some lovely set pieces, from the loop-de-loops to the epic killer whale bit. However, for the purposes of this post you can forget all that guff. What we're interested in is the beach. And what a lovely beach it is too. Apart from the robotic death machines roaming around, this particular beach has everything you could want: sun loungers, palm trees, crystal-clear water and even an impressive hotel complex. Who wouldn't want to spend an afternoon here sipping cocktails and jumping on badnicks' heads?




Buggy Heat
I love Buggy Heat. Why? because it features a vehicle called Drank Schenker. Aside from that, it has a ridiculous picture-in-picture camera view that almost makes the game unplayable...and it features another great beach. Just look at it. It goes on for as far as the eye can see and there isn't an empty beer can, takeaway carton or fat, shirtless bloke in sight. Come to think of it, there's no-one in sight, but that just makes it all the better for doing do-nuts on.



Crazy Taxi
Now we're talking. Who hasn't dreamt of smashing a cadillac painted like a taxi across a beach full of semi-naked sunbathers?! I know I have, and Crazy Taxi makes this a reality (sort of) by allowing you to do just that! Sadly, it's impossible to actually hit any of these savvy holiday makers...but the question remains: why is that dude stood on the beach in a tweed suit holding a bunch of flowers? Rumours that his inside pocket contains a scrap of paper with the words 'Taman Shud' scrawled on it are unconfirmed.

That dude.



Alien Front Online
When the aliens finally do invade Earth (it's coming, people), the first place they're likely to hit is an unpopulated archipelago in the middle of the ocean. We know this, because Alien Front Online predicted it. Back in 2001. Shudder. This particular beach is, like Buggy Heat's example, completely void of any holiday makers...although it does feature a column of tanks and a couple of thousand soldiers battling an alien invasion force. So plenty of evening entertainment, then.




I'm certain there are more glorious beaches out there in Dreamcast land, but my Dreamcast kept resetting as I was trying to grab more images...so I stopped at four before I launched the thing through the window. Let me know your additions to this list in the comments box people!

5 comments:

Marcone Antelius said...

FUEL and Street Fighter Alpha on PS1 are both guilty of the upside-down name crime.
But the second half... would anything in Ecco the Dolphin be declared a beach?

Animated AF said...

I remember there being a NFL Midway game on Dreamcast that doesn't have a title on the side at all! Every copy of it I've seen has been like it, mad.

You've been on fire with these articles recently Tom!

Tom Charnock said...

Cheers mate. Oh yeah, I remember us discussing that infamous NFL Blitz cock up recently GM. Where has my reply to BIGMercenary gone?!

CD ageS said...

Virtua Fighter 3tb and King Of Fighters 2000 have beach levels.

As a matter of fact, I believe so does Suzuki Alstare Racing ;)

SirTea said...

Anything on the packaging to jump off the retail store floor if F1 Racing packaging is that different from the rest!