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 know I am nearly a month late on this one, but with good reason! It was awesome to see so much love and reminiscing of the Dreamcast’s short, yet mighty run on its 10 year anniversary last month. I too am a mammoth Dreamcast fan when it first launched; I had my first job for a few months when the Dreamcast came out and rushed to the stores to blow my expendable income to make the Dreamcast the first of many platforms I bought on launch.

However, I have seen a lot of identical praise recycled across the many nostalgic Dreamcast anniversary articles I have consumed across the Internet, so let’s try something a little different. Let’s make a list about the Dreamcast, not just any top games or reasons to own a Dreamcast list, this baby’s going to stick out so without further ado I present….

Top 15 Things You May Have Forgotten About the Dreamcast (Part 1)

Why 15 and not the customary 10? That is because I am too damn picky and would clobber myself with a Dreamcast Mouse if I left the extra five off the list. Most of these may not be the immediate reasons that came to mind why you cherished your Dreamcast as much as me, but they were the icing on an already delicious cake that made the Dreamcast the best little system that couldn’t. 

15) The Fishing Controller

When the Dreamcast launched the only game I bought was The House of the Dead 2. I ravaged across all the stores in town disappointed not to find a light gun for sale on launch (and none would be for another two to three months), but you know what accessory was for sale right off the bat? The Sega Fishing Controller! That’s right, this is the only console to come out with a controller designed for the ultimate gamesmen sport, fishing! It does not matter there were only four fishing games on the Dreamcast, Sega had you covered! Or if you had a lot of times on your had, you could come up with other fascinating ways of using the Fishing Controller, such as Wii-esque motion controlled fighting for Soul Calibur like this fellow demonstrates.
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It’s 1999 and the gaming world is looking at the Dreamcast as the harbinger of the next generation of console gaming. In the waning days of the arcade, quarters are being thrown into a game called Crazy Taxi with wild abandon. Soon, Crazy Taxi is ported to the home consoles and the job of getting passengers to their destinations as fast as possible is happening in living rooms all across the nation. Sega is ascendant and all, for the moment, looks well.

On a hot summer day, a young college graduate seeks digital amusement while on a family vacation in Florida. The young man, enjoying his last days of unemployment before being slaved to the Man, walks into an arcade that has always delivered the goods and holds the potential of what the future may hold. The young man walks toward the row of Crazy Taxi machines which spew out a terrible cacophony of terrible late-nineties pop.

Before the young man can drop a quarter into the machine, however, his eyes spot a curious cabinet over in the corner. Looking visually similar to the cabinet which is in front of him, the game is strikingly different. Clothed in a zebra skin and broadcasting the MIDI-created sounds of the African Safari, he looks at the title and smiles. Thus begins a two year love affair with the game called Jambo Safari. A game where capturing animals replaces passenger delivery and the wild abandon of swerving around the Savannah takes over from downtown Pseudo-San Fran. All was not perfect, however, as the young man searched his home city in vain for a Jambo Safari machine of his own to play. It was not to be. He pined for the ability to play Jambo Safari in his living room, as he had done with the very similar Crazy Taxi.

“The graphics seem to be similar.” he thought curiously.

“It has to be using the same engine!”, he uttered in frustrated hope.

Time passed and the young man grew older. He waited and waited for the news of a release date for his cherished Savannah simulator, but no news came.

The days grew long, as did the years. The Dreamcast sank into a too early oblivion and the next generation of consoles swallowed what was left of the arcade scene in it’s HD jaws. The young man was married, had a child and thought of his lost love only in silent and wistful passing.

On a normal day, a day like any other, the not-so-young man witnesses a news post. His heart leaps with joy.

Jambo Safari, at last, is coming home.

It’s time for another one of those “Anybody Remember?” posts. This time we’re talking about Time Traveler, a psuedo-hologram arcade game by Sega.

A lot of my video game memories involve my Dad. He wasn’t a gamer at all, but he lived in Minneapolis while I lived in Central Wisconsin. Somehow, every time I would come over to visit him I would have an awesome video game experience. Whether it was the incredible Sega Master System exhibit at the Rosedale Mall, the giant convention center hall filled with arcade games that we just happened to stumble upon, or the time he bought me my TurboGrafx-16, my trips to Minnesota seemed to always include something video game related.

I can’t remember exactly where we saw Time Traveler, but I seem to recall that it was at some sort of museum where they were showing off new technology. We saw a special effects exhibit from the movie Aliens, some models used in the Star Wars trilogy, and a room full of “cutting edge” video game tech. The unit that grabbed everybody’s attention was Sega’s Time Traveler. The game projected images on mirrors creating a hologram-like effect. You played as a cowboy named Marshall Gram who must travel through time and, of course, save a princess from a mad scientist, or some such ridiculous bullshit. The game ran on Laserdisc technology and as such played a lot like Dragon’s Lair. In other words: Quick Time Events; press the correct button at the right time and proceed.

So while the gameplay was certainly nothing to write home about, the game was an instant draw due to the stunning visual effects. Your character walked around on a desolate black landscape, but strewn throughout were bushes, signposts, and other bits of scenery. The screen lay flat and the “holograms” walked on top of it, making the player feel like s/he could reach out and grab anything they saw. And for 1991, that shit was amazing!

Again, while the gameplay was lackluster, and the game cost a dollar to play, it makes me wonder why this technology wasn’t implemented in other games. Nearly twenty years later, I’m guessing game developers could come up with some bad ass ideas. Of course, they would need an arcade to house these games, and those aren’t exactly plentiful these days.

If you’d like to learn more about Time Traveler, check it out at Klov where these images came from.

We ring in the new year with a look back at a forgotten game of 2008, Sonic Unleashed. I know, I know. The pain. We’ve also got our Retro Review, hit the news and John brings the show down when games and reality get a little too close! Thanks for joining us!

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SHOWNOTES

360 Review: Sonic Unleashed
Retro Review: NFL Quarterback Club (N64)
News: Capcom Downloadables in 09
People Are Fucking Stupid
Left 4 Dead DLC Coming Soon
Release List
The Last Shot
DGR Mailbag

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DGR: 01.03.2009

While in the midst of a family day at the Mall of America, I took a break from the Farris Wheel and the Kiddie Cars to check out the arcade. Usually I despise this arcade, which is found in the midst of the mall’s amusement park, as it shares more in common with the roller coasters than with Pac-Man and there isn’t a pinball machine in sight.

As I walked in, to my surprise, I discovered that a sequel to one of my favorite late 80′s arcade games had been made. After Burner Climax is a sequel to the 1987 SEGA classic, After Burner. Popular for it’s Top Gun style F-14 Tomcat and simple “shoot down everything from the sky” gameplay, it sucked a lot of quarters out of my pocket as a kid. Climax takes the formula and adds niftier graphics and a new “Climax Mode” to the game.

Sounds dirty.
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