The Dreamcast Xbox 360 comparison

I read that before, and it was a great article. Of course, the biggest difference is that Microsoft does not have a history of producing and abandoning consoles, but other than that the similarities are striking.

Everybody I know who bought the dreamcast absolutely raves about it.

I said it before, and it bears saying again: No Dreamcast owner will ever regret owning that system.

DC owner right here, and I absolutely second that. I play it about 10x more than the xbox that I kind of regret buying. And I quite like the xbox, more than the ps2 or gamecube when I've had the chance to play them, but really the dreamcast has so many damn fun games.

Since a DC system is basically free, and phantasy star is apparently still functioning (some demented soul created his own server), I'm curious about the DC even though I don't have time for the little gaming I do now. What are the big games? Soulcaliber? Something else?

Tell me more.

If 360 were like Dreamcast, I'd be getting one.

I bought a Dreamcast, and enjoyed it, but I don't have this religious-like reverence for it you guys have.

Good article. But they are crazy if they think that something was wrong with the Dreamcast controller. Cra-zee.

Dreamcast was a nice system. I always found it funny how ridiculously easy it was to pirate games for that thing. Which I think is a large part of why it is still so popular. Literally, if you know how to burn a CD, you know how to pirate a DC game. It was insane. I knew people who went about downloading the system's entire catalog in the span of a week.

Really? That was by a wide margin the part of the DC I liked the least. I hated that controller with the ever annoying animated memory card(I forget the actual name they used for it) and the cord coming out of the bottom to get in the way no matter how many times you reattach it to the underside not to mention the fact that it was just plain unwieldly like the first gen Xbox controller.

Power Stone
Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves
Chu Chu Rocket
Samba De Amigo
Project Justice
Jet Grind Radio (It's better than JSRF. Burn those who say different.)
Typing of the Dead
Seaman
Virtual On
Maken X
Gunbird 2

And that's just the stuff that didn't get ported.

The Genesis was a failure?

The Dreamcast is easily the best system I've ever owned. Even better than Super Nintendo. I have to say, XBOX360 is poised to take over that title based on my impressions from playing it so far. It's hard to describe, but there is a good feel I had for the system, much like the Dreamcast.

If not purchased on another platform, I'd also recommend Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 for 2D fightin' insanity (with awful, awful music).

Plus, I like to bust out Crazy Taxi every so often (not a fan of that one's tunes either, now that I think of it).

"Would you like to know more?"

They're referring to the Sega Saturn. The Genesis was a success.

How the fuck do you qualify that statement?!

Best console ever? Based on what?

Yes...about both the giant space bugs we're slaughtering, and the DC.

You guys have given some interesting titles, but I have no idea what these games are. If I'm going to plop down twenty bucks for a system, I need more info!

You won't be sorry. Seriously.

Throw Trickstyle and Toy Commander in there and you'll be good for a while.

San Francisco Rush 2049! Fun arcade racing game but it's really the multi-player that's great. Stunt and Battle occupied many evening with friends.

Indeed.

While we're on the subject... I remember Power Stone being awesome, to anyone who still owns it, has it held up pretty well? I recall they made a sequel too, but I never played it. Capcom(?) needs to bring back that franchise.

I had two friends with a Dreamcast, and I enjoyed the system quite a bit. Tony Hawk(1 or 2, can't remember) and SoulCalibur ended up being the two games that were in the machine constantly though.

Woah, totally forgot about Seaman, what a weird fucking game. I never played it, but I watched it being played, and it creeped me out...

as i was leaving Wal-Mart with War of the Worlds tonight, there was a guy buying a new 360 off a kid for $900....and I was just pissed becasue Wal-Mart did not carry the release of the 1933 version of King Kong...

Fair enough. Let me run through my list again:

Power Stone--Kinda like a true 3D Super Smash Brothers, and just as fun when you've got 4 people playing.

Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves--Probably the last GREAT fighting game SNK put out before they went under. It was also one of the last games that came out for the system, so very few actually got to play it.

Chu Chu Rocket--One of the best puzzle games ever made. Seriously doubt it works online anymore, but it's still addictive as hell.

Samba De Amigo--Rhythm game....with maracas. You cannot imagine the fun to be had here.

Project Justice--Rival Schools sequel. If that doesn't set every gamer cell in your brain tingling, I pity you.

Jet Grind Radio--I repeat: It's better than JSRF. Burn those who say different.

Typing of the Dead--House of the Dead II, with one major change: You kill zombies with your TYPING SKILLS. Seriously, you use the keyboard, type out words, and zombies die from it. You think it's a bad April Fools Joke until you play it then wonder where 3 hours went so quick.

Seaman--Weird. Disturbing. Creative. Leonard Nimoy. Awesome twist on the whole Pokemon/Digimon/Neopet/Nintendog electronic animal raising craze

Virtual On--Until the two Mechwarrior games, this was the best robot fighting game out there.

Maken X--Not the best FPS you'll play, but it is different...I liked it.

Gunbird 2--Just all around insane Gradius-style shooter.

Also, yes, if you don't own Marvel vs Capcom 2 on one system or another, get it. Now.

Crazy Taxi, man. That game got the most play in the gravedigger household. Basically, you go around town taking fares to their destinations as fast and dangerously as possible. The more crazy stunts you do, the bigger your tip. It's completely awesome.

Hydro Thunder is a fun boat racing game. The boat physics are rather good, the boats never feel excessively floaty while making tight turns. Fun course designs, too.

Space Channel 5 is a fun rhythm game where you play a TV reporter battling invading aliens and SPOILER Michael Jackson with the power of DANCE.

Yes... Crazy Taxi is another great title that gets a lot of playing time on my machine.

two more Dreamcast mentions:

D2 was a far more atmospheric video game version of John Carpenter's The Thing than the later official licensed game.

and the Dreamcast version of Shadowman was a seriously great horror title. like The Suffering's harder core grandaddy.

Thanks for the info guys, but I've actually been sold on the dreamcast for a different reason: I can burn MAME, NES, Super NES, and ROMS and play them on the DreamCast.

Sweet! Any games the DreamCast has will be a bonus. I'll definitely check out soulcalibur and shenmue.

I haven't been able to get the SNES to run at full speed on my DC, and I haven't tried burning MAME yet, but Nester DC works great.

I don't get the Dreamcast love, pretty much every good game on the system played better on the PS2.

Funny, I don't remember Shenmue, Soul Calibur, Skies of Arcadia, Power Stone 2, or Seaman ever being released on the PS2.

Those are all good games, but not great. Nothing like KotOR or Halo to make me need a new system. The best is probably Skies of Arcadia, which I had for my Cube.

I can buy one of the two systems for twenty dollars.

I was big Dreamcast fan back in the day; the key to it was all the little gems that weren't on store shelves. The big games were easy enough to find, but it was the smaller releases that made it more than the sum of it parts. It was an 'arcade-ish' console, most of its games coming from smaller, more obscure Japanese companies. If you like Fighters, then its heaven. Bear with me, as this thread as inspired me to go through my collection, these are what I think are some of the more overlooked gems on Dreamcast:

Cannon Spike
Mars Matrix
Marvel VS Capcom 1 and 2
Last Blade 2
Dead or Alive 2
King of Fighters '98 (98 is one of the most playable fighters, ever), '99, '00, '01
Ecco The Dolphin (hard, but beautiful)
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Capcom VS SNK 1 and 2
Shenmue 1 and 2
Ikaruga
Guilty Gear X
Project Justice
Street Fighter 2 X
Street Fighter 3 Third Strike
Super Puzzle Fighter 2X
Vampire Chronicles
Garou (Fatal Fury): Mark of the Wolves
Bangai-O
Super Magnetic Neo

Wow. What a geek-out moment...

What the fuck is your problem?

I was qualifying it by the fact I had the same reaction I had to the Dreamcast when I first played around with it, and the Dreamcast is my favourite console of all time thus far. How is that so unreasonable? Is it because it involves some indescribable feel for the system I can't really explain? So fucking sorry to disappoint you by not including a whole god damn scientific report detailing what specific nerve centers were stimulated.

I determine the best console I've ever played by the experience I've had with it, and so far the 360's doing as well as the Dreamcast did when I first played it.

It's the titles that aren't on the PS2 that really make it stand out. Fucking Jet Grind Radio is one of the best games I've ever played. It killed me when, after all the hype leading up to it, the sequel came out on xbox only to be a completely watered-down re-telling of the original.

Dittoed. JSRF was the game that convinced me to get an Xbox, so you can imagine my disappointment. Not a bad game at all, but I've still not even bothered to finish it. Luckily, I also picked up a little game called Halo (though it took a couple playthroughs to totally warm up to that one, and multiplayer wasn't really in the cards all that often for me).

Can't say I share the love for Shenmue and D2. I still own them both, but other than one horrifying boss battle toward the end of D2 I have no stand-out memories of either game.

As for Seaman, I think it is bizarre brilliance. Not everyone's cup of tea, but when I realized my little pet was gathering information on me for some ultimate purpose (not as epic as I'm making it sound, though), I was enthralled. "Time for Seaman to become a sea-stud!"

If anyone out there is wanting to get rid of some titles for their DC, let me know.

I have lost two auctions already on ebay, but will own a DC soon...

The more I look at this, the more convinced I am that the PS2 is very inferior technically to the XBOX and the DC (although the DC was not DVD enabled).

Besides some of the stuff other folks mentioned, the PS2 got a version of Grandia II that, from what I remember hearing, is inferior to the version that came out on the Dreamcast. Chalk it up to a sloppy port, but the Dreamcast version is supposed to be better. The PS2 also got an enhanced, but somewhat jaggy version of DOA2. The Dreamcast version sure looks good though.

I love my dreamcast. I'm going to have to hook it up again after all this talk. Maybe I'll look at my collection of games and I'll also bring up some lesser played/mentioned games that I may think are gems. (like Mars Matrix mentioned a few posts up. That games ROCKS! Even my fiance got kinda hooked on it with me a ways back.)

I agree, which makes it even more sad that Sega gave up the ghost so quickly.

At least they're sticking with making games!