the Dreamcast (and its relevance in 2019)

[Greg2600]

S-Video is fine on a CRT. The controller remains one of the poorest designed I've ever used. It's really terrible for racing games and FPS.

[gbpxl]

S-Video is fine on a CRT. The controller remains one of the poorest designed I've ever used. It's really terrible for racing games and FPS.

I find FPS to be hard to play in general without a second analog stick

I shove an S up into my Framemeister and it looks greats

[fluid_matrix]

Haven't played my DC in years, but it used to be the go-to for multi-player gaming. Played the crap outta VirtuaTennis VirtuaAthlete, South Park Chef's Luv Shack.

[Aussie2B]

I can't remember the last time I played my Dreamcast. I know between 2006 and the present, I haven't beaten any Dreamcast games, so it's been very long since I've put in any serious time into any Dreamcast game. Not really since around when I first got it in the early '00s. My Dreamcast was mostly used as a means to play Genesis games prior to owning a Genesis. (Yes, the Smack Pack emulation was lousy, but it was better than nothing.) The Dreamcast's offerings otherwise never excited me much. I've always regarded it as overrated by the retro gaming community and have never understood its cult status. But I'm sure some would say the same about the Vita and other systems I like, so it's all relative.

I probably should bust out my Dreamcast sometime, though. I have a fair number of games I've never even tried. I'd go hunting while visiting family and would leave what I bought with my mom, but I only have one Dreamcast and it's always been with me. Now that my collection is reunited, I should give those games a spin. I even had found a dirt cheap copy of Mars Matrix.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

I haven't played my DC in a while, but I tend to agree with many retrogamers that the DC got dealt a bad lot in life... Sega did everything right but there was no competing with the PS2. I remember playing a lot of Crazy Taxi on mine, that game's just as fun almost 20 years after release as it was in 2000. Shenmue, there's an ahead of its time concept.

I feel like many of the Dreamcast games look better than the first-gen PS2 games, it wasn't till '02 or so that the PS2 games started looking better. Of course, had the Dreamcast not been discontinued and competed head on with the PS2, the PS2 graphics would have caught up anyway. PS2 was a slightly more powerful system but it took a few years for developers to milk its maximum potential out.

[gbpxl]

I think Sony built a rabid fanbase with the PS1. Lets face it, at that time, if you werent a Nintendo fanboy or a PC gamer, you were hooked on Sony. Sega was niche at that point. And it didnt help that the Dreamcast couldnt play DVDs which were becoming popular

[gbpxl]

The Dreamcast basically stopped getting releases once the Xbox and GameCube came out and Sega was releasing games on the GameBoy Advance 6 months leading up to it. Very short lived console. Sega's last hurrah

[Greg2600]

Haven't played my DC in years, but it used to be the go-to for multi-player gaming. Played the crap outta VirtuaTennis VirtuaAthlete, South Park Chef's Luv Shack.

Ironically the multi-player has gotten some life back lately, check out www.dreamcastlive.net

SEGA made some big missteps too with the console. They had poor 3rd party support, and frankly the release suffered from a lack of promotion as SEGA's budget was dwarfed by Nintendo, Sony, or eventually Microsoft could spend. Many of the non-SEGA arcade hits would be ported, albeit inferior, on N64 and PS1. It gave those systems extended life, for most gamers, who couldn't afford another new system. With PS2 and Dolphin on the way, most people simple skipped the DC. However, it still sold like gangbusters initially. They ran out of consoles at launch in Japan, and for the US launch, infamously shipped blank game discs. The system had no protection against burning CD's, which for sure ate into what they were selling.

[Wraith Storm]

I find FPS to be hard to play in general without a mouse and keyboard

I took the liberty of correcting that for you.

In all seriousness though, I love how almost all of the Dreamcast FPS utilize the mouse and keyboard. I never had a big issue using the controller, but once I sourced a keyboard and mouse it was a revelation. Its how I played all the DC FPS from that point to now.