I loved the Dreamcast. It had some great games, the controller felt nice in my hands, and the thing didn't die easily. Fortunately for me, I'm somewhat alone in that sentiment among most of my friends and have inherited a console, 2 controllers, 2 VMUs, and 2 software libraries. So a couple controller extensions later and I'm good to comb through and write about what survived. Note that many of these are first impressions and not actual reviews where I feel some obligation to sit down and get past an awful interface or unappealing presentation. Nor am I going out of my way to explore every nook and cranny of the system's software library. Based on my (admittedly rudimentary) Dreamcast knowledge, it looks like sports, RPG, and FPS coverage will be almost non-existent. Plus the broadband adapter was sold off by the system's original owner and I'm not terribly keen on putting my laptop next to the box that makes the neat-o noises that OMG OMG OMG NEED POUNCING! for purposes of modem simulation.
My goal to post these once a week sometime Friday or Saturday. We'll see how that goes as past attempts with The Doctor watching would go 2-3 weeks sans updates. It's just tough for me to invest that much effort in something whose audience largely consists of people brought in by Google hits on the semi-relevant tags. The hope is I've been discussing Dreamcast with a friend or two of late and they will look thus giving me a kick in the pants. However, the appeal of purely text-based blogs is minimal and I'm not keen on cameraphone derived screenshots to liven things up or the ever popular "borrowing" of someone else's pro-shots.
Well, that's all for the rambling. I should technically have said that concisely enough to have a standard header/disclaimer week to week. However, I decided not to proofread or edit these entries at all to prevent myself from getting caught in a revision trap. So I may as well not make things even messier
Aerowings 2
I get that it's easier to pull optical media out of its original case then swap them to a book or spindle or pretty much anything else that will fit conveniently near your viewing area. However, if I weren't insanely lazy, pictures of the first Aerowing would illustrate why one really shouldn't do that. The disc got warped, came out of its sleeve a bit, received more scratches than Freddy's victims, and apparently took the brunt of an attempt to stomp out rage over Sega exiting the market. Fortunately for me, Aerowings is a flight sim franchise. I suck so bad at that sort of thing I waited for GTA: San Andreas to hit PC so I could easily download saves and bypass any and all flight missions. This one wasn't terrible and at least featured a detailed tutorial. Instruction and controls were so good it took me three minutes to fly my fighter jet into the ocean and fail my training mission. Can't even comment if the game is good for its genre as I never play such things. Still, gave me 5 minutes of fun.
Army Men 2: Sarge's Heroes
Toy Story made profound statements about the human experience through toys. Army Men made a statement about how people would let deplorable violence pass if it was presented in an adorable manner. Sure, everyone's plastic but they honestly look a whole hell of a lot like human character models from that period of gaming sans a few textures. This isn't a bad little 3rd person shooter. It's got humor, decent level design, a manageable control scheme, and some nice voice acting. Even if I could find the case, I'd hold onto the game.
Bangai-O
On paper, a directional shooter featuring mechas would repulse me. In practice, this is very much a Treasure game and subsequently a blast to play. I may suck at it but it's so great getting oranges from buildings I just destroyed with my giant robot that frustration is eaten whole! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Bomberman Online
This franchise may hold a personal record. Can't think of any other where I've managed to suck so bad on so many different platforms. It plays like Bomberman but has online access. The local equivalent is solid and enjoyable. However, someone needs to send me a broadband adapter so I can comment on the online aspect.
Border Down
Neat take on the side scrolling shooter. If you choose the green path (or "border"), you get the longest track through a level but the A. I. is more manageable. Should you fail at that, then you move on to yellow which is shorter and harder. Then comes red which is chock full of enemies and explosions and insanity and BOOM to stress the fact you're almost out of the game. Nicely made game with lots of thought behind it.
Bust A Move 4
You shoot bubbles at bubbles of a similar color until there are none of the latter left! Things disappear! The dinosaur dudes from Bubble Bobble get happy! This series is somewhat hard to screw up, Difference between this and some of the other versions I've got is it includes a puzzle edit mode. Not too shabby.
Cannon Spike
Not entirely sure how I missed this one. It's a directional shooter featuring a cast chock full of Capcom icons. Saying much about this beyond words like "fun," "over-the-top," and "WHEEEEEEEEE" seems a bit silly. Not a very deep game. Fantastic for multiplayer. Easily picked up/put back down for single.
next week I will discuss the plague of poorly coded nostalgia, a bit of homebrew action, how much I suck at driving games, and then probably what I'll be covering the week after that.
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