Happy Birthday Dreamcast! (Europe)

Posted on October 14, 2021 by MICFilms LTD

As we all know, the Dreamcast launch was staged over three dates. 09/09/99 sticks in the memories of many gamers as the definitive launch for the console, rightly so since the Dreamcast sold the most amount of it’s 10 million run in North America. It’s almost easy to forget the November 27th 1998 Japanese date or even this very day back in 1999 where the Dreamcast rushed into the homes of those wanting the 6th generation of consoles in Europe.

This day often passes with little fanfare certainly mostly down to it’s less than iconic number placement but the Dreamcast as a product really is something that should be celebrated in all territories it launched in and I’m sure treading on the same ground of how Sega got a launch so right (or so wrong depending on where in the world you are) isn’t something you’ve come here to read. For example, I believe that the console should have launched in the West in 1998 and the 09/09/99 date perhaps would have been better for Japan since the Saturn was still doing well enough in that region.

Instead, I would like to share my own experience of the Dreamcast at the launch. I would have been 12 when the console launched in the UK, I had a Megadrive through my childhood and my Dad had bought us a PlayStation the year before, this really was because ‘chipped’ games were so easy to obtain at car-boot sales here and was almost throwaway entertainment for myself and my sister as kids. Believe it or not, as much as I liked the PlayStation since all my mates had them, I didn’t really click with it and ventured to the other 5th generation machines in an almost backwards move, I had the N64 first which I loved for the selection of Wrestling games and of course, Goldeneye and Mario 64 but the Sega Saturn which I got after the ’64 was for me the best experience I had out of the 5th generation, the games at this point were dirt cheap since production had ended over 12 months before by this point, I had Road Rash very early on as well as Sega Rally and Virtua Cop with the gun, I was impressed with how fun this machine was as well as how well built it felt too. I yearned for games like Sonic Jam, Sonic 3D and anything else I recognised as a franchise on the Megadrive but these games always seemed to command a premium over many other games in my local Gamestation and at the time, stores like this were the only place to buy Saturn games outside an expensive Dial Up Internet ideal for an eBay in it’s infancy.

I’d strongly set myself up as a Sega gamer from what I remember. I wanted to experience more of what the company had to offer, venturing to the Master System and Game Gear since hardware and software for those was very obtainable in the UK where they both had a decent amount of success. I was also buying up Saturn games, even stuff I hadn’t ever heard of purely to have a good amount of games, being a kid, this took a clever mix of saving money from birthdays and Christmas and trading in my PlayStation and N64 which held more currency than the Sega stuff. I would say that here was when I became a collector over being a gamer, sacrificing what I would truly play and instead buying something obscure that had a good shot of being worth more one day; it did pay off, but that’s a story for another time!

Anyway, from this brief history of my game buying trends, it was clear that I would buy whatever Sega would be pumping out next. With the company out of the market here for a year, it became very easy to forget them as a current day competitor. The PlayStation had dominated, the N64 was hanging on and doing ‘okayish’ but Sega threw the Saturn out without the Megadrive to fall back on or the Game Gear , both of which could have made 1998 or beyond in my opinion, but Sega had this reputation here, they killed off hardware quickly, far quicker than their competitors. This was perhaps the cycle of things that wasn’t going to help the Dreamcast’s initial chances.

To say I was a gaming expert as an early teen would be a lie, yes I was a huge nerd for various things, WWF, action figures, cult TV and many other socially inept things, so I didn’t really know that Sega had a new machine coming. No real advertising had taken place, what was there was really unclear and naturally, the Internet gaming sites of today were not around then and £3.50 for a gaming magazine was more than I could commit to. Toys ‘R’ Us was perhaps the biggest factor into my Dreamcast desire, I saw the grey and blue stand up pod sat at the end of isle of my local store and watched Sonic Adventure being played by some older teens, it looked incredible! Far superior to anything I had ever seen before and THE Sonic game that my heart desired owning a Saturn. I simply had to have one.

I begged my Mum to get me one for one of my birthdays to which she bought mine from Electronic Boutique who had a deal with a load of 3rd party games which I didn’t care too much about, but Sonic Adventure was one of them.

To understand the importance of Sonic Adventure does require a degree of looking back and indeed forward. The game launched in all regions for the console and was the first solely 3D game in the series, it was also the first Sonic game to be technically miles ahead of anything at the time, play Sonic Jam’s 3D world and then Mario 64, play Sonic R and then something Mario Kart 64 and the difference in quality and technical prowess and it is almost night and day, but the Dreamcast was different, Sonic Adventure blow everything out of the water in 1999, it ran fast, looked great and was tailor-made for the Dreamcast. My first play through of the game was mixed, however. I didn’t like the wandering around to try and find the next action stage, but I did enjoy the sheer amount of characters and levels contained when you did find the right path but the camera was a pain more often than not leading to cheap deaths. There was enough about this game to love though so all was forgiven, I guess when we fast forward to Sonic Adventure 2, which would also be built with the Dreamcast hardware in mind it would be ironic to say that perhaps this was the last time we got a truly good 3D Sonic game which also seems to go hand in hand with my interest in Sonic almost disappearing after this game. I do strongly believe that games tailor made around one system benefit the most and that can’t be truer for Sonic. Both SA and SA2 really sum up how strongly the console left the gate and how strongly the impression it left on all that stuck with it until the very end. A machine far ahead of the pack and yet lived a fraction of the time it should have.

I guess this is mostly a retrospective look more at Sonic than the Dreamcast but I strongly believe most people experienced this game before the slew of high quality games that relentlessly launched for well over a year, I have the full PAL set of games as well as plenty of USA and Japan exclusives so I am quite well versed on the console library but SA is one game I can’t get out of my head, it’s a flawed diamond, that’s for sure but I happily play it whenever I power the Dreamcast on and something that even in 2021 gets attention from my three year old son, who loves Sonic Adventure over Sonic Mania, the reason? Those bloody wandering around bits! Maybe Sega did get a product that truly appeals to anyone in some form or another. Who knows.

Happy birthday Dreamcast!

Opinion : Should We Look At The PSP For What Could Have Been?

Posted on March 10, 2020 by MICFilms LTD

It’s been well documented and argued for years and years that perhaps the Dreamcast never had the chance to fully mature and show a next level to it’s software output, I find this an interesting topic in various forums with users often stating the PS2 was weaker than the DC in some aspects, and Dreamcast games look and run better than later ports to other systems, one thing is for certain here, any hardware released after the Dreamcast is naturally a more powerful system with a greater depth of handling the type of story driven games that were popular from 2001 onwards, we only have to look at Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 3 and God of War to see the PS2 was not lacking in raw power, the Gamecube was a step up again and the Xbox was miles ahead in terms of throwing around flashy graphics (look at Half Life 2..) Of course we are talking about graphical processes that may or may not have been around whilst the Sega console was on the market, again, it comes down to maturity of software development, later revision dev kits and familiarity of the hardware in question.

Nothing is an exact science with how to place the Dreamcast’s top end when it comes to visual fidelity and scope of game worlds, there was talk of GTA III for the console as we’ve learnt from Bernie Stolar, so expansive playing fields were not out of the question, games like Max Payne were planned which were story heavy – again not cancelled due to impossible tasks, just timing on the market and lacking of vital funds to continue let the Dreamcast down here.

What I am proposing, is realistically, the PSP, a console released in 2004 by Sony is perhaps the best yard stick to look at when trying to look at how the Dreamcast may have been around this time, think about this, the PSP has one analogue stick along with a D-pad and four face button and two trigger buttons, it’s media allows for 1.8GB of storage on a proprietary disc format (the GD discs are 1.2GB) and although the PSP can throw around far more polygons and has a faster clock speed, it’s maximum resolution naturally isn’t as high as the Dreamcast being a handheld. The Dreamcast’s card up it’s sleeve was always said to be it’s video ram allowing for some nicer texture work, so I firmly believe that the PSP as a product with the selection of games could have run on the Dreamcast with slight tweaks here and there, the strengths and weaknesses of each machine perhaps balances out in a strange way. This is all hypothetical in the grand scheme of things, it’s just a real shame that we will never truly know where our little white 128-bit box was taking us next.

What would be nice on a footnote, is seeing a few more lesser known PSP games jump over to the Dreamcast, Josh Prod have managed it once with 4X4 Jam, perhaps one day we may see other games locked away on Sony’s portable wonder make the jump, one can hope.

Dreamcast Look Back : Expendable

Posted on November 15, 2019 by MICFilms LTD

Ah Millennium Soldier, a game that was in the vast selection of launch window games for the Dreamcast back in 1999, this run and gun shooter was ignored quite a bit more than it should have been back then, and even to this day, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who’d rave about the 128 bit version of the game.

Playing very much like Loaded, you control your character from a top down perspective taking on various enemies across post-apocalyptic levels either in one player or 2 player co-op. Expendable was also released on the PlayStation and also the PC, the Dreamcast version isn’t powered by Windows CE so it’s safe to assume it’s based on the 32 bit port.

Graphically Expendable is actually not that bad, sure it’s a product of its time, but I found having a selection of cheats on the go really helped me have a good deal of fun with this one right to the very end, sure it’s trying to be Contra at times but actually based on it’s own merits, Expendable gets by better than the reviews suggested back in ’99. The game controls pretty well, no better or worse than other versions with the buttons being mapped out well for weapon selection, secondary fire and such like.

There’s plenty of explosions and good graphical touches here, enemies are pretty dumb and serve mostly as cannon fodder, as to be expected, everything is pretty brainless which is where this game really is angled, arcade-like and a good fit on a console which has mostly arcade conversions.

There’s plenty of upgrade able weapons and end of level bosses to test your reflexes before moving on the the next stage, the story is somewhat light on the ground with no real intervals during gameplay like you’d expect from later games in this sort of genre, it’s all very point North with radio silence. Only really fogging and samey looking levels dampen the experience really.

This is a game that received average scores upon release and I’ll admit, I didn’t actually play it properly until 2017, but what may have been lacking in 1999, certainly helps it’s cause all these years later, with retro gaming, often we want these short and sweet experiences that aren’t going to distract too long from everyday life, Expendable filled a couple of hour gap I had in my day and I enjoyed firing up the Dreamcast again, does it use the hardware in a meaningful way? No… Is it worth seeking the DC port out over the PlayStation? Probably not, but get a friend around with whatever system is easiest for you (it is cheap and common on both) and give this one a try, I promise that it’ll be good whilst it lasts and holds up pretty well.

Dreamcast Look Back : Sonic Adventure

Posted on September 14, 2019 by MICFilms LTD

When I was young, probably about 12 years old back in 1999, I walked into the local Toys ‘R’ Us in my part of the UK, there was a dedicated video game section that was littered with PlayStation products propped up by a small Gameboy and Nintendo 64 section – I wasn’t massively into games yet, sure I had a PlayStation and N64 but I was still very much into practical uses of my time; collecting action figures and being outside with my friends. The former of which led me down the isles that housed the latest figures, I stopped dead for a second though, noticing this white and blue floor standing display unit which housed a small box with two controllers hanging either side, playing inside was what I instantly recognised as Sonic, I had been used to the Sega Megadrive 2D versions in the past before moving on to the PlayStation, I loved the first two entries and Sonic & Knuckles (I skipped Sonic 3 and 3D as they were already more unusual than the others) but never had I seen the blue hedgehog in full 3D and moving so fast, I was in awe.

I remember being stood for 20 mins or so playing around with the first level and watching the attract video, the scene in the first level with the Whale imprinted on my brain at this point – I knew I needed this Sega machine. My Sega ownership would actually take a back step before I ended up with a Dreamcast, I asked my Mum for a Saturn first as I thought there would be a 3D Sonic game there – sadly after playing Sonic 3D Flickie’s Island, I realised the Dreamcast would be the only way to go. I received my Dreamcast just before the discontinuation, EB were doing a deal where the machine was £129.99 with 5 games, all of which were pretty decent but none mattered more than Sonic Adventure.

I stayed off school since it was my birthday and set about playing the first act with Sonic himself – I was still absolutely blown away, sure by this point the PS2 was out and about and games like Jak and Daxter and the lastest Crash Bandicoot had overtaken Sonic Adventure for graphical capabilities but I didn’t care because even back then, I could see this game was made squarely with this system in mind, it was made to be a system seller, it was Sonic’s return to glory and most important of all; it was fast, really fast.

Sonic Adventure was a class act, it wasn’t without it’s flaws (artificial longevity, camera glitches, sudden deaths) but when it came down to it, it was pure Sega fun and in my eyes, one of the best Sonic games made, truly one of the last Sonic games made around Sega hardware. If there was ever one game that I feel should be in every Dreamcast owners collection – it’s this one.

Dreamcast Look Back : WWF Attitude.

Posted on May 30, 2016 by MICFilms LTD

WWF Attitude PAL DC-front.jpg

Back when the Dreamcast launched in the West in 1999, plenty of developers jumped on board to create games for the system, one such published was stalwart Sega developer, Acclaim; they brought over WWF Attitude as one of their first efforts and upon release, it was very clear that the game was rushed to market having been released on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation earlier that year to mixed reviews.

Part of the problem with the World Wrestling Federation Attitude was it was pretty outdated roster-wise when it was released the first time around let alone late in 1999 at the DC launch, also the gameplay was considered extremely complex and wooden when compared to the PlayStation exclusive, WWF Smackdown! Acclaim no doubt had to recycle the game engine from WWF Warzone due to them losing the license before 1999 was over.

So, let us take a retrospective look at the game in 2016. Attitude is actually a fascinating look back at the WWF during the 90’s it almost perfectly replicates the atmosphere of the arenas around 1997/98 with no Titantron videos and noisy crowds overpowering the entrance music of the various superstars taking their time to make their way to the squared circle, it’s everything you would spot looking back at old matches, which is curious in that it’s purely unintentional from Acclaim’s part.

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The move set Acclaim decided to use in the game leave a lot to be desired, much like the ECW and Legends of Wrestling games which launched in later years, the player is required to remember Mortal Kombat levels of button combinations to make the player do something other than a basic punch, kick or grapple, one has to question why the Dreamcast’s controller wasn’t mapped out to a degree that utilised the buttons better. That being said, once the player gets used to the various directional-based moves, it’s a quite pleasant experience and certainly one of the better wrestling games that were released on 128-bit systems.

Attitude’s graphics are actually very good, certainly on par with the early WWF Smackdown! games, sure, it doesn’t come near to the games that were purpose developed for the Xbox, Gamecube and PlayStation 2 but it’s not a bad looking game, the roster is really where WWF Attitude has an edge, there’s some real blast from the past grapplers on offer here, far more diverse than the first Smackdown! game.

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I actually found the game to have many favourites and actually a few legends hidden in there, Shawn Michaels springs instantly to mind also Sargent Slaughter and Jerry Lawler are hidden until the game is progressed via the career mode which usually just consists of winning one on one matches or worst case scenario, gauntlet tag matches. There’s plenty to unlock and keep you busy here.

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The custom character option is surprisingly in depth, it kicks the competition around the same time into a tin hat, plenty of head, hair, face and size designs on offer also the ability to add text to tops and tights really add individually to the game experience also Acclaim added plenty of custom themes, some of which are very catchy.

All in all, is WWF Attitude a fantastic game? No. It is however a very fun one and really is worth a play if you still yearn for this particular era of wrestling, if you remember WWF rather than the watered down WWE of today, you’re in for a treat if you spend enough time getting to know the game and getting over it’s little flaws.

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