Dreamcast not that good after all?

I bought a $50 Dreamcast console about four months ago, and I\'ve been slowly buying up used games for it ever since.  So far I have

Jet Grind Radio
Virtua Tennis
Sega Rally 2
Vanishing Point
Demolition Racer
Soul Calibur

And soon I will be getting Ecco the Dolphin and Test Drive: V-Rally when they arrive from the Ebay sellers.  I\'m somewhat disappointed in the games I have so far.  I know I may be a bit spoiled by the superior graphics of the PS2, but even in the gameplay department, none of these games comes close to my favorite PS2 games.  Jet Grind Radio and Soul Calibur are about the best from this list, but even those are not very inspiring to me.

This post is not meant to be a slam against the DC.  I just want to ask everyone, are these the best games available for the Dreamcast?  Are there other great ones that I have overlooked?  I\'m not interested in online gaming with the DC, because I will never go back to slow dialup connections again.  I\'m not that much into RPGs, but I might be persuaded to try one if necessary.  I want to get the most out of this Dreamcast, so let me know which games I should buy!

Shenmue 1 and 2.. Skies of Arcadia, Grandia II, Marvel VS Capcom II.. Resident Evil: Code Veronica.

Try those!

Alien Front Online is BEAUTIFUL, and fairly tough. For the 3 days I\'ve spent playin it online with a 56k modem, I haven\'t had so much as one instance of lag. The only time it may become apperant is when you have 8 people in a game, all trying to send voice chat messages at once.

Shenmue 1 & 2 are goregeous, but not really everyone\'s kinda game. It\'s more like an interactive movie (cough Adventure cough) than an mission or goal oriented title. For 10 to 20 bucks for Shenmue 1... I\'d say it\'s definately worth the purchase price. Actually, if you decreased the pop-up.. tossed in a very few extra polygons, and implimented bump mapping.. Shenmue would graphically keep pace with even some of the finest Xbox games IMO.

Quake III is excellent, and compatable with the Broadband Adaptor (if you can find it)... though you\'ll also want to get a mouse and a keyboard. The keyboards nice for chattin in online games anyhow.

Metropolis Street Racer is a good game, but not really my taste since it relys on the Kudos system instead of just flat out racing. Try to find a demo of Project Gotham on the Xbox. It\'s just a prettier version of MSR with a few nice options.

If you like unique and genuinely odd games, then Seaman is probably going to be worth your while. It\'s not really a game, but more of a grand experiment with voice recognision and limited AI. Think of it like a virtual pet who gets to psycoanalyze and cuss you out.

Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 are great platformers, but they has a few problems holding them back. Mostly it\'s just the world map between stages which slow down the action and poor voice acting. Still, IMO they\'re better than all the Crash Bandicoot games put together.

Phantasy Star Online is the most addictive console game I\'ve ever played. Think of it as a fully 3D Diablo with a PS theme. There\'s the obligatory leveling up and item hunting, but the main bulk of the game is it\'s online chat features. The word bubble and user symbols are the best chat system I\'ve seen in an RPG to date... even if the dialog boxes are bit small. If you get the EU import of v.2, then you won\'t have to pay to go online like the rest of us. If you ever need a gaming group, I\'m always ready to play.. as I\'m sure Ashford and Altered are also. There is very.. very little lag over 56k as well.

You\'ve only tasted a small portion of the DC\'s games.. and I\'m sure there\'s a ton of other titles out there which will pique your interest more. Even so, you might just not be satisfied with what the DC can offer. That\'s fine, since you can\'t please everybody all the time. Try not to compair it to the PS2 though, since it did have a short life and reletively few developers throughout it. The PS2 is still going strong with lots of high profile titles already released for it. Even most of the staunchest Dreamcast zelots are now conceding that the PS2 is a better system.

Also, if you only have a broadband connection at your house, then you can network up your Dreamcast to your computer for faster speeds. You\'ll still only reach speeds of 56k tops, but it will be much faster than using a narrowband ISP since there won\'t be near as much interferance or line noise to slow the connection down. Also remember that games for the DC were built with 56k in mind, and are optimised to take full advantage of the bandwith available.

Well guess u just have a different taste games and graphics wise.

I on the otherhand love my DC. Ok, ok..so maybe I have it stored away and havent played it in almost a year but I had some of my best gaming days on that thing

Thanks for the ideas, Sonyfan and everyone else.  I think Quake III is a very real possibility for me, since I do like FPS\'s, and I don\'t already have that for any other platform.  I really like driving games, so Metropolis Street Racer is definitely on my list.  I can\'t stand platformers, so might as well forget about those.

I still don\'t know about RPGs and adventure games, etc, I just don\'t think I have that kind of time to throw around.  Everyone says Shenmue is great though, so I might have to try it.  Thanks again.

Just buy a Gameshark or Xploder with PSO to lvl up quick. Everybody else does... :rolleyes:

Oh, and I should tell you that AFO is a shooter also. You can choose which side you fight for, the Army or Aliens. Each side has 3 armored vehicles with the routine strenths and weaknesses. (Strong/Armored but slow, Medium, Weak/Low Armor but fast.. ect) The levels you play in are pretty small, but nicely detailed with varrying terrain. Some are maze like (Siberia & Tokyo) and others are pretty flat and open (Area 51 & Alien Hive). Games consist of 4 players per team up to 8 players total, shooting it out in a massively destructable level. All the buildings take some form of damage.. usually being gutted... while rocks and barricades usually just get burned and damaged slightly.

I just can\'t see myself playing online games on the DC.  If I want to play online, why should I play some game I know nothing about over a 56k modem, when I could be playing Counter-Strike over my cablemodem?  There\'s a big learning curve with multiplayer games, and I get frustrated with constant humiliation.  

Well if the learning curve gets to you, then I\'m surprised you buy any online games at all. Really, on the DC a 56k modem isn\'t all that bad because of the way the machine\'s been optimised. Like I said also, when networked to your PC to take advantage of your computer\'s broadband capabilities.. a 56k modem on the DC is more than sufficent for just about anygame.

Also, most games have offline modes to practice in.. so that you won\'t get "humiliated" so often when you do go online. Quite a few online gamers are nowhere near even the level of intelligence a poorly written bot has. On my second day of playing AFO, I made a 4 Star General rank resort to his Gameshark to get some frags in. An I ain\'t even good by any means, seein as how I got slammed hardcore in the next game I played.

Sides, the struggle from newbie to veteran is half the fun.

Most DC games are also programmed with VGA compatability in mind. Though the resolution is still around 600x400 or so (not sure exactly), the extra crispness and color depth over normal TV is a real blessing.

Errr...yeah, what SonyFan said.

Coredweller are you buying crappy games to prove a point?

The two on the way won\'t change your opinion.

Go look at the "good DC games" thread a little ways down and get those games.


Eric Jacob

IMO Dc was overated by its hardcore fans but underated by the casuals, I played the following DC games

Crazi taxi - Fun for the first 2 hours but arcade games get old fast, and part 2 wasn\'t as good IMO, part 1 was highly overrated
Soul Caliber - Ok fighting game, shallow in parts but still awesome, not the best fighter ever like every DC fan thinks
Sega GT - Total crap
MSR - Ugly graphics, flat with amazing textures a and lot of jaggies, it was a fun game, hoever the kudus syetn didn\'t appeal to me
CvS1 - Awesome game!
MvC - Great, but somewhat shallow
SF3 series - all were beatifull!
Resident Evil: Code Veronica - Great but not as good as resi 1 and it was not scary at all!
Doa2 - totall crap
VF3 - good, but the aracde version looked better and somehow had that \'feel\' to it
Grandia II - Didn\'t like it
Shenmue II - Graphically amazing and ugly at times, somewhat boring but still good
Headhunter - MGS2 killer??? NO WAY!
Ecco - rubbis
Sega rally 2 - Rubbish
Ferrari 355 - Great game
Sonic Aventure 1 -2 - okay platformers, speedy but not my type
Rez - Fantasic!
Samba de Amigo - **Yawn
House of the Dead 2 - see Crazi taxi
Sega trucker - Rubbish
Sega Tennis - Best tennis game ever!
NFL games - sorry but im european and i think NFL is gaay!
Jet Set radio - great!

Hey AlteredBeast why are you saying my selections are crappy?  You listed Soul Calibur and Virtua Tennis in the other thread, so I guess you like them...

Also, why does everyone say that Sega Rally 2 is so great, and NO ONE mentions Test Drive V-Rally?  I just received TDVR today, and it totally blows away Sega Rally 2.  It\'s the best Rally game I\'ve seen yet.  Now, the WRC game for the PS2 might be better, but it\'s not available for sale in the US yet so I can\'t say for sure.

I am going to go through the lists in that other thread and identify which games would appeal to me.  I thank you all for posting.