Top Five Dreamcast Games

10th September 2009 • 0 Comments

This week marked 10 years since the Dreamcast was released in America, whilst this is a British site, the date of 9/9/99 is sunomous with the Dreamcast. My full praise of the Dreamcast will come later in the week, but for now I will tell you the best five games that were on a superb system.

5. Sonic Adventure

Probably the last great Sonic game and the first 3D Sonic game. Having strangely missed the Saturn, the Sonic series returned on the Dreamcast as a launch title. It was the first 3D game in series and took inspiration from Mario 64 by providing a hub world between levels. Gameplay differed on which character you played as, the Sonic levels were linear runs through the levels and were probably the best, whilst playing as Knuckles involved more treasure hunting. Whilst this signaled the start of new characters in the Sonic series such as Big The Cat, the Sonic levels were good enough you could ignore it.

There is also a Chao garden mini game which took advantage of the Dreamcast's VMU and allowed you to raise a virtual pet. This game showed the power of the Dreamcast and was a great launch title and showed that Sonic could work in 3D, somehow they can't seem to do that anymore. A classic Sonic game and a classic Dreamcast game.

4.Crazy Taxi

Part of the greatness of the Dreamcast was that Naomi based arcade games could be easily ported to the platform. One of these games was Crazy Taxi which started off as an arcade game. The premise is simple you play a taxi driver and have to pick up as many passengers as you can and get them to their destination within a time limit.

The Dreamcast port came with a new city and the ability to set different time limits, if you didn't fancy a race against time. It also came with some training missions in order to improve your skills. Being an arcade game the handling of the car was greatly exaggerated allowing for some truly Crazy taxi adventures (sorry bad pun). The game also had a great soundtrack which fitted the game perfectly and you do miss the soundtrack as shown in the port to the PSP.

A great game you could play in short bursts.

3.Virtua Tennis

Another game ported from the arcades and arguably one of the finest tennis games ever made. Before this game was released some tennis games were fairly complex, Virtua Tennis managed to simplify the gameplay whilst providing an in depth tennis game. A career mode was added on top of the arcade game which contained a lot of depth and introduced you to some fantastic training mini games and allowed you to do things like bowl with a tennis ball. The arcade mode was also a great mode to play if you fancied a quick blast.

At the time the graphics were fantastic and the licensed players looked very much like their counterparts. The sequels may have improved on the game and the simulation but this to me will always be my favourite game in the series and the best sports game on Dreamcast.

2. Jet Set Radio

What was great about the Dreamcast's catalogue of games is the amount of original game ideas in it. One of these is Jet Set Radio which was one of the first games to use the cel shaded style of graphics to make the 3D models appear cartoon like. The idea of the game is that you are a rollerblader whom is part of a gang, affiliated with Jet Set Radio a pirate radio station and you go around the environment spraying your tag over rivals graffiti.

Obviously the law isn't too happy about this so part of the gameplay involves avoiding the local law enforcement and the wrath of the crazy police chief. The art style is what sets this game apart but the gameplay is also really fun and easy to get to grips with. You'll soon be skating around the environment grinding rails and doing back flips in the air. You can also create your own graffiti tags and share them online, this was user generated content years before it became all the rage.

An awesome game.

1. Shenmue

The best game on Dreamcast if not one of the finest video games ever made. Shenmue is a mismash of genre's at some points its a fighting game, others adventure and elements of being an RPG. You play as Ryo Hazuki whose father is murdered in front of him by a man named Lan Di. Ryu vows revenge on Lan Di and his adventure to find him begins.

This sounds like a typical martial arts movie, what makes this game so great is the world that has been set up. You are allowed to walk around the local environment and do whatever that entails, so if you fancy buying a drink from a vending machine you can or if you want to use the phone you can. The world also feels alive with lots of NPC's walking around and reacting to changes in the environment, for example if it rains people put umbrellas up, if the game date is near Christmas Santa Claus will appear. There is a lot of depth to the world that has been created and that is one of Shenmue's greatest strengths.

The phrase Quicktime Events was introduced by Shenmue, in some cutscenes you would be required to press buttons in time in order to do something. This kept you on your toes throughout cutscenes but also allowed you to interact with some cool action scenes during the story. The fighting is also very fun and based on the Virtua Fighter series, you learn moves as the game progresses adding some skill to the game. One of the best moments in the game is when you are involved in a 100 man brawl.

The story is also great with some brilliant moments and also some sad ones. At the time the graphics were also amazing with some great detail in the faces and the whole body in general. Some people don't get Shenmue but if you've never tried it, I urge you to find a copy it is a fantastic game.