Why the Dreamcast? Part 2

October 7th, 2010, 22:51 Posted By: wraggster

News via http://www.goatstorepublishing.com/n...amcast-Part-2/

On Monday, I started explaining why GSP focused on the Dreamcast, but I actually focused very little on our own personal reasons for liking the console, and instead focused a lot about what I feel sets the Dreamcast apart. And that was the fact that the Dreamcast was a console made by an arcade manufacturer, and a lot of the properties that Sega pushed to sell the console were arcade properties.

As you may have already guessed, that arcade focus played a large part in why I really loved the console, but we'll get to that in a bit. The thing is, when I first was getting into the console, it wasn't something that actively played into my decision.

Before I get into the full story, it's worth noting that I'm a notoriously late console adapter. When I was young and the NES had just come out, I begged my dad to get one, but he said that we already had an Atari 2600, they were the same thing, and the games for the 2600 were cheaper anyway. He would take me around to rummage sales, where I would often find games for a quarter that I would take home and play. And I really grew in an appreciation for those titles, as well as learned to try to take advantage of how games are made to find exploits to score higher.

I did get a NES, but I got it in late 1989, about the same time that I remember seeing stuff for the Genesis. but now what attracted me to the NES was part of what I found from owning the 2600 -- there were a ton of cheap, older games. I could pick up 10 used games for the same cost as one new one. I was similarly late to the party with the SNES, Jaguar and N64. And, even later for the Genesis, Saturn, Playstation, PS2 and GameCube. But, there was one console that basically bucked the trend... the Dreamcast.

It wasn't like I got a Dreamcast immediately on 9/9/99, but I was fascinated by it like no console that I could remember. In some ways, I was equally fascinated by the Jaguar, but I couldn't actually find one, so I don't count it. Regardless, I talked with all my friends who had picked one up, and the more that I heard about it, the more fascinated by it that I was. The more I heard, the more that I wanted to get one as soon as I could.

And I did. Thanks to some money for my birthday, I picked one up in the middle of February 2000, just five months after it was released, and years earlier than any other console that I had ever owned.

What made the Dreamcast such an attraction to me that I, for the only time in my life, decided to pick up the console when it was practically new?

The Dreamcast's graphics were mind blowing. Although the PS1, Saturn and N64 had all come before it and been out for a while, these systems often disguised the fact they weren't able to handle overly intense graphical experiences by adding tons of fog or ending up with characters or objects that were either not very detailed or moved poorly (and sometimes, both). The Dreamcast changed all of that - the graphics were crisp, clear and moved fluidly at all times. For the first time, you might catch a glimpse of NFL2K on a screen and actually think it was a real football game on TV. It was a huge jump in clarity, and I thought that it would (and thnk that it did) lead to 3D games that weren't unfairly shackled by technology.

Much more here --> http://www.goatstorepublishing.com/n...amcast-Part-2/

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