Custom Dreamcast games

[swlovinist]

I am curious on who on the fourm has played or owns DC versions of Quake, Half Life, as well as other PC conversions. What others are available(or were available?) I am always looking to expand the life of one of my favorite systems. Long live the Dreamcast!

[Roth]

I haven't played any, but you may be interested in this site:

http://www.dchomebrew.org/

[SamuraiSmurfette]

quake 3 arena was released on dreamcast.
It was fun enough. *shrugs*

Half Life 2 never saw an official release. It was good, though. Just wouldn't have seen the sales needed to warrant a publishing.

PC ports work well with DC, due mostly to native keyboard/mouse support.
Worms also rocks.

[Ze_ro]

I am curious on who on the fourm has played or owns DC versions of Quake, Half Life, as well as other PC conversions. What others are available(or were available?) I am always looking to expand the life of one of my favorite systems. Long live the Dreamcast!
Well, it kinda depends on what you're talking about here... There was no commercial release of Quake 1, but there are several homebrew ports of it if that's what you're interested in. Anyways, lets just dive in here I guess:
Quake 3 Arena - I never played the PC version all that much, but this one seems like an excellent port to me. I believe this is one of the few games that is still playable online in case that interests you.
Unreal Tournament - This one is an excellent port. My only real complaints about this one are that Assault mode was removed (this was a favorite of mine), and the game often limits the number of players you can have on maps due to memory constraints. I like to stick a lot of bots in my games, so this kinda got in my way.
Half-Life - This one was never officially released, but a complete prototype version can be found around the net if you look around (Don't ask me for it, do your own dirty work). This is another excellent port, and plays pretty much exactly the same. The Dreamcast doesn't have enough power to do it quite as good as it's done on PC's, so the framerate kinda stutters at times. Also, the load times seem kinda crappy to me, but it's been a while since I've played the PC version, so maybe it's comparable. Haven't tried multiplayer mode in this one.
Doom - Look for a homebrew called "nxDoom", as it seems to be the best of many ports of this game. You can even load a pretty good chunk of mods if you're into that kinda thing.
Quake 1 - I haven't actually tried any of the Quake ports out there, but I hear RadQuake is pretty good.
Quake 2 - There are a few ports of this one too, but I haven't played any of them either. I don't think any of them run very well, so unless you're really curious, it's probably not even worth bothering with this one.

All of the games I mentioned seem to support both the keyboard and mouse (which is the only decent way of playing FPS games in my opinion), and the first three also support the Panther DC in case you have one of those.

Keep in mind that you're stuck with some limitations on the Dreamcast no matter how good the ports are. You're limited to Dreamcast resolutions, which are nowhere near as good as your computer can probably handle. The Dreamcast is also relatively slow, so even the best framerates will still not be anywhere close to what a modern computer could handle (although they're still respectable and fully playable). Honestly, if you want to actually enjoy these games to their full potential, you're probably better off playing them on a PC.

--Zero

[swlovinist]

Thank you for the info, I am not the most savy computer person, but I am always amazed on what they can "squeeze" out of a system. I also heard that there is a version of Ultima they even ported!

[gepeto]

I think the ports are really well done it took me years to get half life for dreamcast. Below is the link to the ebay user I got half life from. He sells them with a 14.99 BIN. Worth every penny.


http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZgamegeniQ5fus

Ebaty id gamegeni_us

[allsport11]

I think the ports are really well done it took me years to get half life for dreamcast. Below is the link to the ebay user I got half life from. He sells them with a 14.99 BIN. Worth every penny.


http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZgamegeniQ5fus

Ebaty id gamegeni_us

Oh No!! ;)

[kainemaxwell]

Half-Life - This one was never officially released, but a complete prototype version can be found around the net if you look around (Don't ask me for it, do your own dirty work). This is another excellent port, and plays pretty much exactly the same. The Dreamcast doesn't have enough power to do it quite as good as it's done on PC's, so the framerate kinda stutters at times. Also, the load times seem kinda crappy to me, but it's been a while since I've played the PC version, so maybe it's comparable. Haven't tried multiplayer mode in this one.
Half-Life's loading times are about the same from the PC version, the main problem with the DC proto was that VMU save file compressionw asn't implimented at the time, so the save game files build upon one another and can get quite large on a single VMU.

[sharp]

I think the ports are really well done it took me years to get half life for dreamcast. Below is the link to the ebay user I got half life from. He sells them with a 14.99 BIN. Worth every penny.


http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZgamegeniQ5fus

Ebaty id gamegeni_us

I think this is an illegal auction as the game is just a burned disc downloaded from the net. There aren't anyrights paid, so it's illegal.

And if someone wants it that bad, just search the net and you will find it.

[gepeto]

I recalled a recent gaming magazine had a picture of a guys videogame collection and he had a copy of half life for dreamcast in it front and center so I assumed versions were out there. I wonder how he got that ? When I purchased it I figured someone had a copy because someone was selling the official dreamcast strategy guide for it as well.

[njiska]

Ah i love my copy of Half-Life. If only Valve had let it be released. THe game plays suprisingly well considering it's on a single stick system and as stated earlier the load times aren't much.

Anyone with new group access ougt to find it drifting around alt.binaries.cd.image.dreamcast every couple of days. Or just get the torrent off of isohunt.

[allsport11]

The load times for Half Life on the Dreamcast are comparable to a PC with the same specs - 200mhzish/16MB but almost non-existent on the PS2 version and faster PC's. Although it is still faster than Soldier of Fortune on the DC, man was that a pain in the ass. :)

[SegaAges]

HL for DC is awesome. Like it was stated before, none of us can actually give it to you, but we can recommend search engines where it might come up

[Jumpman Jr.]

I actually had a copy of Half Life for my Dreamcast a while ago. I think somebody gave it to me for free and then, I gave it away for free to somebody else.
Now I'm kicking myself.