Ferrari F355 Challenge: Dreamcast vs PlayStation 2

 

I've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with Ferrari F355 Challenge. It still looks amazing to this day, but the handling of the vehicles in the game is a bit of an acquired taste. The arcade machine garnered a lot of attention back in the day because the cabinet used a fairly inventive three screen display that made you feel as if you really were sat inside a £200,000 super car, with an unparalleled view of the track and dashboard of the Italian pimp wagon you were virtually sitting in. 

I did actually play the arcade incarnation of F355 Challenge back during the reign of the Dreamcast when I visited the fabled Namco Station at Manchester's sprawling Trafford Centre shopping mall, but when I played the Dreamcast version a few months later I was left cold by the ridiculous learning curve. In more recent times, I've actually learned to love this outlying entry in the Dreamcast's library of NAOMI ports, and as such have found myself playing it a fair bit.

For this reason, when I spotted a copy of the PlayStation 2 port on eBay for £1, I pulled the trigger more out of curiosity than anything else. There are quite a few ports of Dreamcast games to other systems - 18 Wheeler, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure et al; but Ferrari is the only one that only received a PlayStation 2 port, never making it to either the Gamecube or the Xbox. I'd heard about the added external view - something sorely lacking from the Dreamcast version - but that was all I knew.

Now though, I've had a while to explore the PlayStation 2 port of Ferarri F355 Challenge and at the foot of this post you'll find a gameplay comparison video. But before we get to that, here are a few things I noted while playing both versions of this often overlooked title.

Half-Life: Dreamcast Vs PS2

The story surrounding the Dreamcast port of Valve's seminal shooter Half-Life is one that is full of mystery. The game was pretty much complete and ready to go, but then it was suddenly cancelled for reasons no-one really understands. Actually, thinking about it, it was probably to do with Sega pulling support for the system but that isn't as exotic as the report I read that involved Sony paying the publisher a large sum of cash to drop the title. Before anyone jumps down my throat, that's just a rumour I read somewhere and there's (probably) no truth in it. At all. Regardless, the DC port leaked quite some time ago now - I mentioned that I'd got hold of a copy way back in 2006 - and I've played through the main game and the Blue Shift side story multiple times now. I'd never played the PS2 port though, so when I saw it for £1 in a pawn shop I snapped it up. What else could that pound coin have gotten me? Half a lottery ticket? A sloppy custard tart in a greasy bag from Greggs? Maybe even a Pot Noodle...although I haven't had one of those delicacies for a while so I'm not sure how much they cost these days.

So Half-Life on the PS2, then. How does it compare to the Dreamcast port? I was expecting it to be vastly superior if I'm honest, seeing as the PS2 is supposedly much more technically capable and the game benefitted from having a larger team and a longer development/polishing term. But upon playing it, I was surprised to see that the DC version is every bit as good. There are minor differences, such as slightly longer loading times on the DC one, but the other differences aren't detrimental to Sega's machine. For a start, in DC Half-Life, you can move around in the monorail car in the intro - you can't move in the PS2 port. There's also more music in DC Half-Life, but the PS2 game adds helpful 'hint' boxes around switches and things that you can interact with while DC gamers are left to press everything they can see in the hope it'll open a door/call a lift. Character models' faces in the PS2 game benefit from having slightly more creepy eyes, too. Anyway, I've created a short(ish) video demonstrating the intro section of the game on both systems. I may do another one showing some actual gunplay at a later date but for now, sit back and check out Half-Life: Dreamcast Vs PS2: