It’s been a busy few months for the world of online gaming on the Dreamcast so I thought a summary of the major news was in order...
It seems fitting to kick things off with the news that Sega Rally 2 is now back online! Yes, that’s right, it’s possible once again to race against three other people in Sega’s smash hit arcade racer.
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| Time to dial into the Sega Rally Network! (Say it in the Sega Rally guy's voice). |
UK and USA readers may be surprised to realise that Sega Rally 2 was ever an online multiplayer title on the Dreamcast; and that’s because it was only ever present in the Japanese version of the game. In fact, Sega Rally 2 was the first ever game on the Dreamcast to support simultaneous players playing online on the console. So it’s pretty cool to have it back online.
I’ve played Sega Rally 2 a lot since the online multiplayer has been resurrected (70+ races at the time of writing) and I intend to play a lot more! It’s fantastic. You can use all of the cars you’ve unlocked in the single-player mode and there are loads of tracks.
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| Menus are in Japanese but it doesn't take long to figure it all out. |
One really nice touch with Sega Rally 2’s online mode is the “boost” mechanic. Similar to how the CPU controlled characters act in games like Mario Kart 64, with this enabled (which it is by default), it means whoever isn’t currently in first place will get a rubber-band-like boost to keep them in the race. Whilst purists who pour hundreds of hours into perfecting their drifting technique may scoff, it’s a great addition to allow players of all levels to have a good fun time racing without someone 20+ seconds in the lead.
You can check out some footage I recorded of my first few races online here:
Next up, a lesser known title -and another Japanese game- Culdcept II has been fully restored for online multiplayer - and it’s been translated to English as a bonus!
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| It's just like Monopoly... but without the hat, or dog, or race car, or... |
Culdcept II is essentially a board game which plays a lot like Monopoly. The objective is for you to control enough land so that your opponents (of which there can be up to three) have to pay you magic tax for landing on the squares of land that you own. The wrinkle is that rather than just coughing up the tax if you stumble onto a rival’s territory, you have the option to fight them for control instead. To do this, you use the monster cards you have in your deck and a short back and forth contest plays out based on health and hit points. If you have support cards in your deck -such as swords or magic scrolls- you can boost your health or hit points to swing the fight in your favour.
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| Waiting to start an online match against PC Wizard. |
The game is super addictive and really has that “one more go” feel about it. Great to see it back online and fully playable. The fact that it has been translated as well makes it so much easier to get your head around in your first few matches. I played against (and got battered by) Dreamcast Live’s very own PC Wizard in an online match which you can enjoy here:
Moving on, the online functionality in Sega Marine Fishing has also been fully restored! Whilst there is no real-time fishing alongside your friends, Sega Marine Fishing has a few interesting online features which can be enjoyed.
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| Download an entry for the tournament and fish until you can't fish any more! |
The first of these is the online competition. Running for a set period (the current tournament runs until December 31st), you must first download a valid tournament ticket from the game homepage and then you can play offline to achieve your highest score.
The competition which is currently live -the Sega Cup- sees you make your way to the Coral Reef location for you to catch the biggest Great Barracuda that you can fit onto your boat. The really nice thing here is that there is no time limit, so you’re left to take your time and try out all the different lures available in your attempt to snag the big one. Once you’re happy with your catch, you simply upload your fish via the homepage to register yourself on the leaderboard. If you think you can do better, you can keep on coming back to try to find a heavier fish.
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| Oh, a big one! But you'll need to get a bigger one to get to the top of the online leaderboard! |
The other unique online feature of Sega Marine Fishing is the cutely named “Fish Mail” mode. Here you can upload a Fish Mail to any location of your choosing by selecting which type of fish you want to include and you can write a message for the user to read when they catch your fish. When you go to play the Fish Mail mode, you get a time limit at your desired location to catch as many fish as you can, and once you’ve caught them you can read the message that the person uploaded when they sent the Fish Mail. You can even reply to them to their registered Dreamcast email address! All silly fun, but a very unique way to add online functionality to a game like this.
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| Email! With fish! 10/10, must-play game. |
I have found that a fishing session in between grinding out racing game leaderboard times has been a lovely change of pace, and you can see some footage of the Sega Cup competition mode here:
To round things off, there have also been a number of other games which have seen online modes restored in the last few months, as well as some general upgrades. Reverse engineering extraordinaire Shu has upgraded the Mobile Suit Gundam: Earth Federation Force vs. Zeon server to make online gameplay a little smoother. This fantastic game did suffer from lag quite a bit, but that has now been improved significantly with this update.
Racing game Vanishing Point’s online leaderboards and weekly challenges have also been brought back to life and are proving very popular with the online community. Each week, two new challenges are generated which gives you a car, track and mode combo to grind for that particular period. Points are awarded for your finishing positions and determines where you sit on the overall leaderboard. Along with some other regulars over on the Sega Online Discord, we’ve been grinding these out each week, exchanging tips and friendly insults with each other as we get closer to crunch time!
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| Vanishing Point online challenges are getting very sweaty! |
There have been so many updates to the online Dreamcast community this year, it’s hard to keep up with it all. I’d recommend that anyone wanted to get online to check out the Dreamcast Live website which not only has every online guide you could ever want, but is also a great place to find out what the latest news is within the online Dreamcasting world.
Hope to see you online soon!
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