Thanks for joining me in part two of the Top 15 Things You May Have Forgotten About the Dreamcast countdown. Just a reminder, this list is made up of things that may have been glanced over and not paid all that much attention to why the Dreamcast was as awesome as it is remembered. Additionally, some of these items are just some of my own personal favorite memories of the Dreamcast that I presume will be greeted with a few raised eyebrows. If you got a favorite oddball Dreamcast game and feel it needs a shoutout, don’t be shy and comment away at the bottom of this article!

9) Bleem!

Remember Bleem? The company that was advertising that through emulation they were going to be making every PSone game playable on the Dreamcast, with improved graphics and loading times? Bleem boasted they were going to do this by inserting a boot disc into the Dreamcast followed by your desired PSone game of choice. Seemed like an interesting proposition, considering the soon to launch PS2 was going to feature backwards compatibility with the PSone catalog. Unfortunately everything was not meant to be. Besides the obvious legal issues of a third party bringing PSone emulation to the Dreamcast, Bleem ran into many development problems (just how would they get dual shock games to work on the Dreamcast’s one-thumbstick controller?). The end result of what Bleem released was a fraction of what they promised. Three separate Bleem packs were released, with each one operating as a boot disc for one of three PSone games: Tekken 3, Metal Gear Solid, and Gran Turismo 2.

8: Tim Kitzrow Goes Crazy

Ever try to throw your Dreamcast games into a CD player? Sometimes pieces of a game’s soundtrack would play, but usually there was only some form of “Please insert this disc in a Dreamcast” message that would greet your CD player. Midway got a little creative with NFL Blitz 2000, where the track features a two to three minute clip of random commentary from in game announcer Tim Kitzrow. Nothing out of the ordinary until the final moments of the track where Kitzrow starts cursing like a sailor for no apparent reason; the expletives are bleeped out, but one could only imagine the harassment Midway would get from the NFL if the sudden foul-mouthed Kitzrow managed to work these mysterious play calls into the in-game commentary.  

7) VMU Beep

You cannot call yourself a Dreamcast fan if you have no idea what I mean by the VMU beep. It is almost like a right of passage to any Dreamcast owner. The VMUs Sega introduced were unique contraptions, which were a hybrid of a memory card and a mini GameBoy of sorts so you could play mini-games on the go. Too bad not that many games took advantage of the VMU, mostly in part because of the VMUs horrible battery life. Within a couple of months of purchasing a new VMU, the battery would die. Not that it would matter (drained batteries did not delete save files thank goodness!) because I have no recollection of playing any of the few VMU games that came out. Unfortunately, this had a unique side effect when booting up the Dreamcast every time with a drained out VMU battery resulted in a short, excruciating loud beep. After awhile, just like crazy noisy Dreamcast processor, I got use to it, and if I did not hear that ear popping beep, it would be cause for concern to search all over my room to see where I misplaced the damn thing.
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I’m not sure if the name Sea Wolf rings a bell for any of you but this was one of those games I remember playing in the arcades in the 1980′s and loving. Midway put out the original Sea Wolf in 1976 for arcades and it stood out for a couple of reasons. The biggest reason was that the game required that you look into an actual periscope to play it. When you looked into it, you saw an expanse of “ocean” in front of you and enemy ships would move in the background. Your goal, as you can imagine, was to line up the ships and push the red “torpedo” button on your periscope handle and try and sink the enemy fleet.

What was even cooler about the 1976 version was what it was related to. That would be it’s older brother, a 1970′s machine called Sea Devil. It played about the same but rather than being a true “videogame”, as was Sea Wolf, it was one of those old school mechanical games. In Sea Devil, there were actual ship cut outs that traveled on a track inside the cabinet. When you fired your torpedoes, a strip of flashing lights would show the missiles path and when you hit the ship it flipped over. My uncle had one of these games, which I believe was actually another Midway mechanical periscope game called Sea Raider, in his basement and I thought it was one of the coolest games around. It’s really a cool thing, being all mechanical in nature and as such has a very unique quality to the sounds and feel of the game. If you can track one down to play, I highly recommend it.

Well, looks like all things old are new again. Gleefully, on my trip to a local arcade, I stumbled upon the next generation of Sea Wolf. Brought out by a company named Coastal Amusements, this is basically the same game, only a little more “digital.” It has more of a 3D look to it and sadly, the periscope is gone. The idea remains the same, however, in that you line up your torpedoes and try to sink ships. This next gen Sea Wolf also qualifies as one of those “redemption” arcade games. Meaning that, depending on how well you score, you get a number of tickets as a reward. You know, so you can go get that plastic spider ring you’ve been so fond of.

While not being the greatest videogame in the world, I’m actually pretty happy that we’re seeing Sea Wolf in the arcades again. Maybe the next version will bring back the periscope.