Best console I own? Damn right! (Dreamcast in general)

Member Name: Crazy Gooner

Product:	Dreamcast in general
Date:	05/09/01 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Price, Games

Disadvantages: Will stop being supported in the near future

The Dreamcast is the latest (and probably last) console made by SEGA and I can say that this is the best console I’ve spent my hard earned cash on. Okay so it’s not as powerful as the PS2 or the soon to be released Xbox and GameCube, but does it matter? I don’t think so, what matters to me is the quality of the games, and the Dreamcast delivers them by the bucket load! Which leads me into my next section the games…

You want racers? Metropolis Street Racer,Ferrari 355 Challenge and Daytona USA are just a few of the class racers on the Dreamcast. How about some beat ‘em ups? Check out Soul Calibur, Dead or Alive 2, Power Stone and Ready 2 Rumble. Want some fragging action? Quake III Arena will provided. Or is shooting zombies more your thing? How about Resident Evil Code : Veronica and House of the Dead 2? RPG’s? The Dreamcast has got you covered! Phantasy Star Online, Grandia 2 and Stars of Arcadia are just a few of the RPG’s in the Dreamcast’s catalogue. Maybe you prefer platformers and action? Well then Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, Fur Fighters, Rayman 2 are for you! So what about sports? The 2K1 series are all fantastic, Virtua Tennis and Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 are all class. Last but defiently not least puzzlers! Chu Chu Rocket, Ecco and Mr Driller will have you tearing your hair out! Then there are the games that don’t fit into any genre. Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Space Channel 5 and Samba de Amigo are all highly entertaining and highly original! But even with all these games the Dreamcast has one weakness in its game catalogue and that’s football (Soccer) games. No ISS not even FIFA! But still one impressive catalogue of games.

But what about the console its self?
**Note lots of technical jargon coming up**
CPU: Hitachi SH4 RISC CPU with an operating frequency of 200MHz at 360 MIPS/1.4FLOPS.
Graphics Sub-system: NEC PowerVR Second Generation (rendering capacity of more than 3
million polygons per second).
Sound Processor: Yamaha Super Intelligent Sound Processor (simultaneously articulates 64 voices) with 3D environmental audio effects.
Operating Systems: Customized Sega OS. Dreamcast is also designed to run a custom flavor of Microsoft Windows CE, and will display the official WinCE logo at startup if the game that's running utilizes it.
Memory: 16MB main memory, 8MB video memory, 2MB sound memory. Total system memory: 26MB.
CD-ROM Drive: 12x (Maximum) proprietary Yamaham GD-ROM (Gigabyte Disc) capable of holding up to 1GB of data.
On-board Modem: 33.6 Kbps
Console Dimensions: 7 7/16" X 7 11/16" X 3"
Weight: 4.4lbs
**End technical jargon**
If that means nothing to you then join the club!

So what about accessories? Well due to the Dreamcast’s 4 controller ports, and some excellent multi player games you’ll want 4 controllers. The controller has an analog stick, a digital d-pad, four face buttons and two analog triggers. So what’s it feel like? Well I’d be lying if I said it was the most comfortable controller I’d ever held, but its not bad, but it may take a bit of getting used to. The controller also has two slots to slot things into. The memory cards are known as VMU’s (Visual Memory Unit), they slot in the controllers. The VMU’s also have a liquid-crystal display, which will often display messages during games. The screen also enables you to play mini-games on them, which are included in some games. One of the very annoying things about these is that they eat batteries like nobody’s business and I soon got bored of feeding them to it. But they still work as a memory card without batteries, you just won’t be able to play any mini-games. The rumble pack is very effective and also slots into the controller.

Best of all the Dreamcast is currently only £99.99 and there are some real bargains to be had on the
high street! Bare in mind the Dreamcast is a next-gen console and compared to the price of the PS2/Xbox/GameCube it really is a steal!

But after saying all this you should bear in mind the Dreamcast won’t be supported for much longer and production of Dreamcast’s has already finished. But due to the huge back catalogue you won’t have trouble finding games to spend your money on!

So in conclusion if you want a cheap, next-gen console, for the short term till the PS2/Xbox/GameCube start showing us what they can do, get a Dreamcast you won’t regret it!

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