J.M. Vargas wrote:
Steve, you can't separate the fighting games (and/or arcade ports) from the Dreamcast library any more than pollsters can separate Obama's support among African-Americans from his overall approval rating (technically they can but it's not the point). Those brawlers/arcade games, along with the many dogs released for the system ("EGG," "Seventh Cross Evolution," "The Ring: Terror's Realm," "Soldier of Fortune," "ESPN NBA 2Night," "Soul Fighter," etc.) are part of the fabric of Dreamcast's consistency. A lot of the better Dreamcast games look good (especially with the VGA box on compatible flat screen HDTV's with VGA inputs), play like a dream and are still FUN . You can't say that about the paltry library from the Wonderswan, Virtual Boy or 3DO titles that have stood the test of time and remain enjoyable to a great deal of hardcore gamers. Gamers that, despite moving on to PC's and 360's and PS3's have kept their Dreamcasts around for a little taste of the good stuff.
The way I see it a videogame console is worth owning if it has a minimum of ten games that are enjoyable-enough for you to feel like reaching out and playing them on a rainy Sunday afternoon when there's nothing else to do. You seriously mean to tell me you don't see at least ten good games (including titles and brawlers that weren't released on other consoles, like "Tech Romancer" or "Record of Lodoss War") of the one's listed (and the many not mentioned: "Vanishing Point," "Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2," "Virtua Fighter 3tb," "House of the Dead II," "Silver," etc.) that would make the Dreamcast a successful system at creating long-lasting gameplay desirability? Being a sales failure doesn't automatically equal 'BOMB' for Dreamcast any more than it does for Gamecube.
And let the record indicate that "Daytona" and the "Crazy Taxi" on Dreamcast are hella fun, even if superior/better versions of these and almost all the better DC games ("Crazy Taxi 3" for XBox comes to mind) eventually made it to other consoles.
First things first, this is the kind of response I like to see, kudos.
I will say however, outside of Record of Lodoss War, which i loved, and would kill to obtain again, the vast majority of what you've listed falls into the valley of mediocrity for me my friend. Outtrigger? UGH. Vanishing Point, VF3tb (the bane of the Vf series with it's sloped arenas - see Tekken 4 - an equal failure.) and even the fighters. So many of them were just average to poor games in my mind (and in many critics minds according to gamerankings) that i just can't get behind the system as a serious competitor.
That said, when you factor in fighters, i'll freely admit that i could definitely gather over 10 games that i loved on the DC, however the majority of those games (see soulcalibur) haven't aged particularly well. Though the same could be said of a lot of the PS2's first two years of software, there's still a lot more gold in there (the dreamcast never saw anything that came close to Ico on a technical or artistic level for example, and none of the system's shooters had the merit of even early FPS's on PS2 like Red Faction or Medal of Honor: Frontline).
And the controller really really really really sucked.
I'm not saying it's wrong to love the Dreamcast, i love the Dreamcast, but i am saying the system has been built up in the last decade (10 years old this September! Holy crap!) to be some kind of uber console, when in truth it was more of a competitor with the fifth generation consoles than with the sixth, which all left it in the dust in terms of power and software.
Just to throw it out there, DC games i loved (and owned for the most part):
- Shenmue
- Soulcalibur
- Garou: Mark of the Wolf
- Street Fighter III: Double Impact/Third Strike
- Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
- Metropolis Street Racer
- Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage (don't ask)
- Headhunter
- D2
- Dead or Alive 2
- Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare
- Jet Grind Radio
- NFL 2K/NFL 2K1
- Omikron: The Nomad Soul
- Phantasy Star Online (probably my most played DC game)
- Power Stone
- Sega GT
- Skies of Arcadia
- Starlancer
- Sonic Adventure
- Timestalkers
So really, i guess i answered my own challenge there - there are definitely more than 10 non-fighters there. Their awesomeness is probably debatable though.
Kevin Smith did give us Clerks/Clerks II, and Joss Whedon did give us Firefly/Serenity. *wink, wink*
For the record though, I would have kept Gamecube and Dreamcast off the list. The former didn't sell as well as Nintendo systems usually do but it had (a) a ton of excellent games ("RE4" anyone?) and (b) sold reasonably well, much better than any other 'disappointing' system. Dunnyman: Gamecube titles are available all over the place; Gamestop still carries tons of them (most of them used). Their backwards compatibility with Wii systems makes them desirable, unlike XBox software whose compatibility with the 360 is questionable. As for Dreamcast it didn't sell well (PS2 killed it) but man, it has too many awesome games to be considered a bomb (at least with those that know quality gaming).
