Ah, the Dreamcast, easily my favourite console of all time and one of my most treasured possessions now. My current one, the 10th or so I’ve owned, is in mint condition, still has the inner battery working and runs like new. Alas, I’m well aware how quickly it can change so I treat it with great care. I have most of the peripherals released for it too, like the really rather good arcade stick, fishing rod for Sega Bass Fishing, two lightguns for The House Of The Dead 2, maracas for Samba De Amigo, the Starfire gun, a few keyboards, mice, etc., etc.
I remember buying my first Dreamcast with Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, Zombie Revenge, and Wacky Races (strange trio I know – Gamestation didn’t have a big selection of new games and I didn’t even realise at the time they had a row of pre-owned ones) and bought it purely as I’m a big Resi fan and Code: Veronica was touted as being an exclusive and a very good one at that.
I loved it right from the start, the graphics were astounding compared to my old PlayStation 1, the VMU seemed such a clever little addition, and I’m one of few that actually liked the pad, and still do despite them being very fragile.
Some of my best gaming memories are from the Dreamcast, whether it’s spending hour upon hour on Phantasy Star Online, marvelling at how great online gaming was, or speaking to gamers all over the planet on Dreamarena, long, long, long before social media was a thing. Playing co-op on Zombie Revenge or The House Of The dead 2 with my best mate, or nearly fighting with him over results in Power Stone.
Even now my all-time top 20 games is made up of a large proportion of Dreamcast games, Shenmue being my number one (with Final Fantasy VII, I can’t pick one over the other) and joined by Power Stone, Skies Of Arcadia, Jet Set Radio, Grandia 2, and Phantasy Star Online – as well as other favourites that don’t get quite as many mentions now like Headhunter, F355 Challenge, Metropolis Street Racer, Hurdy Gurdy, Soulcalibur, etc., etc.
I know a lot made it to other platforms but, I only played them on the Dreamcast itself.
I was absolutely devastated when I read that Sega had pulled the plug (it might have actually been on Digitiser on Teletext, or whatever it was called in 2001/2) and even now I wish they’d have given it a bit more time or done things differently so it sold more to begin with, rather than sponsoring Arsenal. I don’t remember ever seeing much in the way of advertising and some of my gaming mates weren’t even that aware of it and were all waiting for the PlayStation 2. More recently I’d compare the general apathy for the Dreamcast at the time with the Wii U, a console that to this day I’ve never seen in someone’s home, nor do I know anyone that owned one. That’s how I remember the Dreamcast being, with me being the only person in my social circle that had one.
I was 21 when I bought my Dreamcast, so my adoration of it isn’t even based purely on nostalgia as I’d owned at least four to five consoles and three home computers prior and had great times with all of them. I just remember the games rather than the console itself, whereas I think the Dreamcast had a sprinkling of magic, and a lot of gamers that were on board with it within its lifetime often have a real, slightly irrational love of the console. It seemed so ahead of its time, it’s crazy to me that after the Dreamcast I didn’t play games online again for another eight or so years when I got an Xbox 360 late on and I’ve never held a piece of plastic with circuit boards in such high esteem since. And even then, people were still amazed by online console gaming like it was a new thing.
I could live till I’m 100 and I don’t think I’ll ever be wowed as much with a game as I was when I first started playing Shenmue – I have a really vivid memory of telling my then girlfriend to come and have a look at the cutlery in a kitchen draw as it seemed so real. And she then ended up coming in often afterwards to watch me feed the kitten. Until that point she was a gaming naysayer, within a few months she was playing it herself and developed a real addiction to Chu Chu Rocket and Space Channel 5.
To me at least it was like the Dreamcast had been brought back from the future, and was so superior to anything I’d ever played or seen – the closest anything has gotten to it since was playing Astro Bot on the PlayStation VR and hitting the water level.
To this day, the boot up noise of the Dreamcast makes me smile (partly down to the fact I know mine hasn’t given up the ghost yet) and I miss the sound it’d make while using dial-up to connect to the Internet, I’d hate to think how long I spent watching and listening to that screen before connection – I definitely don’t miss the 5p a minute costs though!
I recall the day a new Dreamkey got released (was version 3.0 I think, I got mine on the cover of an Official Dreamcast mag if my memory is correct) where gamers could finally log in using a proper ISP with included data amounts. Sadly, by that time the Dreamcast was already a dead duck. It’s such a shame it wasn’t that way from the start as more people may have gotten on board if they could play online for £15 or so per month rather than £15 a day (if you had a long session on Phantasy Star Online or something), at one point I got a £560 phone bill, for a month, and it was 99% Dreamcast dial-up. I worked and studied 55 hour weeks at the time so I can’t imagine how big that bill would have been if I had more spare time.
I won’t be surprised at all to see a lot of letters similar to mine, the Dreamcast does seem to have an army of fans that love the console above all else gaming related, which isn’t something I see very often for others. Maybe the SNSES has a comparably fervent fanbase but they don’t seem quite as fanatical as lovers of Sega’s white square.
The Dreamcast might not have been my first gaming love, or my longest but, without doubt it’s the one I look most fondly back on and despite it being a commercial failure, I think it’ll live long in the minds of most people lucky enough to witness it at its short peak. Before the Dreamcast I’d have considered myself very much a casual gamer, after the Dreamcast I really got the gaming bug which has left me now and again over the years. But I’ll likely always own a working Dreamcast with a box of games, long after I’ve giving up on whatever number PlayStation is in the shops.
Lost-Sock-
