"Eight years later, the Dreamcast truly is still thinking!"

November 28th, 1998 saw the Japanese launch of Sega's Dreamcast. Later, it would make its American debut on 9/9/99. With the Dreamcast, Sega tried to avoid making the same mistakes it did with the Saturn. This time it was designed with 3 Dimensional graphics in mind, it was easier to program for, and it went for a relatively affordable price for consumers. Initially, all the hard work that Sega put into making the Dreamcast really paid off as their sales were fantastic. Things were looking bright for them until the following year when sales went down the drain. This was largely due to the launch of Sony's hyped up Playstation 2 and further announcements of new consoles from Nintendo and Microsoft. Both consumers and developers alike began abandoning the Dreamcast in favor of these newer systems. In 2001, the Dreamcast was finally given the axe in America. Believe it or not though, a trickle of games were still coming out of Japan up until recently in 2006. Now that I've given you a brief back-story I would now like to give you reasons why the Dreamcast is a fantastic console, still very much worth buying:

Innovation (10/10):
The Dreamcast truly was a system with the future in mind. Unlike the X-Box and Playstation 2, the Dreamcast was capable of going online on its launch day, right out of the box, and there were quite a number of games that utilized this feature (Phantasy Star Online, Starlancer, Quake III Arena, Bomberman Online, Unreal Tournament, etc.). Even though the big companies have long since shut down many of their servers, there are plenty of fan made ones to help keep these games alive, even for Phantasy Star Online. The internet capabilities didn't just end at multiplayer gaming. There was a web browser disc you could use to surf the net. You can't even do that with the X-Box 360!!

The VMU (Visual Memory Unit) was like no other memory card. It had a little black and white LCD screen on it, a d-pad and 2 additional buttons. That's right, you could play games on your memory card! Some Dreamcast games, such as Skies of Arcadia and Sonic Adventure, could actually utilize the VMU so that you could play games on the system and minigames on the VMU and transfer items back and forth. Nintendo would later due something similar with their Gamecube and Gameboy Advance, but the Dreamcast did it first! Some people even program games for the VMU, including ports of Tetris and Pac-Man. Another great feature of the VMU was that you could actually hook two together to transfer game saves without using the console.

Graphics (9/10):
The graphical capabilities of the Dreamcast were top notch for its time and still hold up great, even today. Shenmue and Soul Calibur still look fantastic. It's also important to note that this was probably the first console to have games that featured cell shading, such as Wacky Races and Jet Grind Radio.

Controller (8/10):
The controller for the Dreamcast is obviously descended from the Saturn's 3D control pad. It has been greatly improved and fits comfortably in your hands. My only gripe however is the D-Pad. It just seems to stiff for fighting games. The Saturn's D-Pad is superior in that respect. If you're a huge fighter fan it would probably be wise to invest in a couple Dream Connection II 4-Way Multicoverters. That way you can use your Saturn controller for them.

Game Library (10/10):
Now this is really where the Dreamcast shines. There are so many great games for it, and definitely way more than the N64. There's something here for everyone and some of the best games from each genre (RPG, Puzzle, Adventure, Fighting, SHMUPS, FPS) are on the Dreamcast. The one genre that is represented the best are fighting games, both 2D and 3D alike. Capcom released games like crazy for the Dreamcast and some of them, such as Project Justice: Rival Schools 2, can only be found on this system. There are also many quirky yet fun titles out there like the rhythm/dance game, Samba de Amigo and Typing of the Dead.

Also, I don't think it's entirely correct to declare the Dreamcast a dead system. In fact, games have been trickling out of Japan for years, even now in 2006. And because the DC is developer friendly there are several homebrew games out there, some of which are being commercially released through stores such as www.goatstore.com. There are also several emulators that have been ported to the system such as Nester, a fantastic NES emulator. That's right, if you really wanted to you could play Nintendo games on your Dreamcast. ;) You wouldn't even need to modify your console for any of these, except for playing imports of course.

The Final Verdict (10/10):
The Dreamcast is still a fantastic system with plenty of great games to keep you busy for a long time. By all means, the Dreamcast should've done extremely well. It was ahead of its time and didn't deserve to die out the way that it did. But thanks to the dedicated Dreamcast community out there, the system is indeed still thinking. Pick one up now. Believe me, you'll be glad you did.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/06