Dreamcast joy

[AmiNeo]

Wow I did notice the similarities but always thought MS ripped off the controller design. How were Sega involved in the Xbox's development? This is major news to me ?

Don't forget that M$ were involved with the development of the Dreamcast itself. It is running Windows CE after all (ever noticed that logo on the front?) and apparently M$ were involved with more than just providing/porting the OS, and are rumours to have also been involved with the development and deployment of the Dreamcast network.

And when Sega decided to pull out of the hardware market, the expertise they had gained running the first ever "successful" console gaming network gave them the ability to work with M$ with the development of the Xbox Live network, and also the actual consolel itself.

There were articles about this at the time. Edge magazine spoke about it in one issue too. I expect they would be deny collaboration now though.

I wouldnt expect they would.

I never knew MS were directly involved with the Dreamcast though anymore than they are with HP making machines that runs Windows 7. Aside from perhaps selling permissions to modify the OS GUI somewhat.

If you're right though, I guess we can all think of the Xbox as Segas legacy. Even if it is now run by a different company.

 

[RedDaemonFox]

I don't have the cash fro that right now, but if I get this shotgun I have restored and sold, i will expand my video game collection a bit more, Legend of Zelda can get quite boring, even with the Gold edition's glitches.

 

[Harrison]

RPGs on the Dreamcast:

The best RPG on the Dreamcast has to be Skies of Arcadia. It was later ported but a long time after the original DC release. Nice Steampunk airship universe with everything taking place on floating islands. Very nice story and game.

Phantasy Star Online v2 is also still a good Sega RPG in the long running Phantasy Star series, but it does lose a bit these days without the online element.

Grandia II is another nice one. Very predictable RPG story, but still a nice game. Also the PC RPG Silver is also available, but I preferred it on the PC.

Record of Lodoss War is also quite nice, but not amazing compared to some of the best releases on the PSX and PS2.

What else.. EGG: Elemental Gimmick Gear. This one was never released in the EU so I imported it from the US at the time. Sort of a mech RPG in a way with some very nice graphics and interesting story.

There is also Evolution 1 and 2. Pretty good RPGs but I didn't take to them that much due to the over cutesy Japanese styling and teen centric characters.

Lastly, a couple of others that are not so great are Dragon Riders: Chronicles of Pern, and Time Stalkers. Both OK RPGs but on another system you wouldn't buy them because of the number of better RPGs on offer. On the Dreamcast its limited so I played whatever RPGs were ever released for it, including these.

You could also include Shemnue 1 and 2, but I see that as more of an Action Adventure RPG than a true one because of the Beat 'em up style fighting and how you explore the world. Still the best DC game though.

 

[danhans115]

The DC doesn't run WindowsCE. There were two development kits available for it. One being Sega Katana which nearly all developers used, the other being the less used Windows CE one hence the logo being on the front. The Windows CE one was to allow quick / easy porting of the early DirectX stuff over onto the dreamcast.

Ive got a DC here with a side mounted SD card slot on it and its worth doing, Dreamshell is coming on in leaps and bounds and the author has started coding in some ethernet stuff so you can use ethernet through the serial port too (with extra hardware of course).

Another good mod if you are brave is a flashbios. I have some of the flash parts so am going to attempt this soon

More info @ http://www.dc-swat.ru/

 

[Harrison]

Microsoft worked with Sega for 2 years to develop an optimised version of Windows CE supporting Direct X. According to Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering Group, "Microsoft had initially wanted Windows CE to be Dreamcast's main operating system. It isn't."

Instead no OS actually resides in the Dreamcast itself, but is loaded from disc with each game. Sega said this was so that developers could always ship products with the version of the OS with the newest features and performance enhancements.

In a way this is just like the Amiga, and most consoles of the time (Xbox was the first one mainstream console to probably have a real firmware OS) where it boots and looks for the OS/game disc. And with games the developers could just boot the system into their own code and not worry about a specific OS.

Evidence of the initial idea from Sega themselves to use the developed Windows CE OS for DC games was shown in Sega Rally II. However all this actually highlighted was that it was better not to use it as Sega Rally II was slow compared to other releases.

 

[mjnurney]

Well today I've decided to burn a few games and try some that i never played on the DC.

First off is Halflife and half-life blue shift , i played them on release on the PC but that was a long time ago...

anyway here is Blueshift on the DC

unreleased due to the end of the Dreamcasts life but some good should has made it available to download.

it doesn't feel or look any different to the PC version as i remember it..

load times are the same - more or less.

 

[Peter]

I have seen this version of Half Life for the Dreamcast around - is it any different to the PS2 version of the game that was released do you know?

 

[mjnurney]

im afraid i couldn't say, it was a long time ago i played the ps2 version

all i can say about blue shift is is just crashed!

DATATYPE_MISALIGNMENT EXCEPTION AT 000D0cec
DATE may 23 2001
DC BUILD 1672

---------- Post added at 18:08 ---------- Previous post was at 18:02 ----------

http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/7607/deep-inside-half-life-for-ps2-and-dreamcast/

PS2 & DC halflife preview

 

[mjnurney]

currently playing head hunter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cI_zdPwyrQ

Ferrari 355

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOesyPuFbwU

I'm going to try Skies of Arcadia , thanks Harrison - i handy heard of it but it looks good