Dreamcast-Talk.com

BrianC wrote:Best fucking day ever

I queued up outside Electronics Boutique in the uk for two hours before the shop opened on the day of it's release, just to get my hands on Shenmue 2. I'd assumed, it being the sequel to one of the greatest games ever made, that the shop would be heaving and copies of the game would be limited. But by that time the DC was dying, and there was only me and two other people that had bothered to brave the cold that day !! The shop didn't even have it on display, the whole process was much more low key than I'd envisaged

That's the thing I've noticed about the DC over the years; I get really excited about the smallest Dreamcast related thing, whilst the majority of people around me are going WTF ? Pfttt......

Going back to Nomad Soul, I'd say you shouldn't really read the reviews as they tend to pick on it's flaws, which it undoubtedly has, and ultimately come down on it quite harshly. Which isn't really fair and doesn't give the whole picture. In some parts the controls are crap, yes that is true. But they aren't impossible, a little practice and you will get your head around them. The game is epic, and really atmospheric, with a great story and multi-faceted gameplay. The graphics are a bit untidy compared to the top DC titles but they are still full of great detail and the way the city is modelled is fantastic. The whole game has this really gritty sci-filook to it..........think Blade Runner for a comparison. The opening movie has the camera panning over the city whilst Bowie plays in the background - it sets the game up beautifully and It reminds me that I wouldn't have missed playing it for anything. Give it a chance and you'll end up loving it I'm sure.

It's the 'thinking man's/woman's' game of choice on the DC. Hope that doesn't put you off ! lol

Well said Neo...

A lot of things in the game are flawed. But it doesn't matter. All the flaws together make one great game and a truly unforgettable experience. I remember there was this one spot in one of the first sectors where I just loved to stand, do nothing ingame, and smoke a joint while watching the scenery. A dark city with foggy streets and huge airships passing here and there. I imagined if I would really live there that would be the place where I smoke a joint for real. So yeah, I'd say the game is quite immersive... lol

It was in the sector where Bowie did a gig in a club. Second floor street near the end with a beatiful view on a big crossroad. If I remember correctly, the entrance to that sector was close to the police station...

Come to think of it. They should really do a HD remake of this game. That would be super awesome!...

Oh yeah, remember it well - very evocative Although I wasn't stoned at the time, I understand exactly what you're describing !

A HD remake would be great, a sequel would be even better. Over the years, and because Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain were so successful, various incartations of the game have been shelved or sidelined by Quantic Dream. I'm not sure what the state of play is now.

I'll tell my Shenmue II story now too lol

It was probably around December 2001 in the US. I hadn't given any thought to Shenmue II since I heard it was going to get only a JPN and European release, and while I was a teenager without a credit card, I couldn't easily buy/import games online or any other way.

I was walking into a local chain video game retailer at the mall (babbages I think) to check out the DC games which were already being liquidated and I do a double take - there is a single copy of PAL Shenmue II in the shrinkwrap in with the DC games. It was by far the most expensive item in the DC section at around $65 or $69. I would have never bought a game at that huge price except that as a teenager, I genuinely felt this was my one chance to buy Shenmue II in the near future, and it was so weird seeing it at my local mall in a chain store of all things, which of course never sells imported video games of any sort.

Needless to say, I plunked down the cash and got it. Even though it was brand new, one of the 2 PAL DC cases had major cracks in it and all the disc teeth fell off... Not exactly a story of getting a game for a bargain price, but at least it's held its value pretty well

I wish I had been a fan of the Dreamcast way back then! I've always been a big PC gamer but found the Dreamcast by chance in 2006 I believe at a flea market. It called to me and I answered, I will never look back haha.

I know what you guys mean regarding reviews; for some reason reviews from places like IGN seem especially shoddy around the time of the DC. The worst piece of shit writing I've ever seen came from a Sword of Berserk review. The writer says something along the lines of: well, the game would have scored better but sometimes you'd have to fight in a small area and hitting things with your sword was just so difficult, wah wah bitch bitch. I wanted to scream "SHEATHE THE FUCKING THING, ITS A MECHANIC NOW A FLAW YOU DOUCHE".

BrianC wrote:I wish I had been a fan of the Dreamcast way back then! I've always been a big PC gamer but found the Dreamcast by chance in 2006 I believe at a flea market. It called to me and I answered, I will never look back haha.

I know what you guys mean regarding reviews; for some reason reviews from places like IGN seem especially shoddy around the time of the DC. The worst piece of shit writing I've ever seen came from a Sword of Berserk review. The writer says something along the lines of: well, the game would have scored better but sometimes you'd have to fight in a small area and hitting things with your sword was just so difficult, wah wah bitch bitch. I wanted to scream "SHEATHE THE FUCKING THING, ITS A MECHANIC NOW A FLAW YOU DOUCHE".

Reviews from that time are really bad. We do what we can with the RDC reviews, but they're probably still not as in depth as some people would like.

The Nomad Soul was pretty insane as games go, it was around the time that alternate perceptions and realities were fashionable; ala Matrix etc, and I thought the game was really ground breaking, but it was pretty buggy and even for that long ago the character models were bloody fugly

i agree that the character models looked like something from PSX, but i think that had a lot to do with it being a Windows CE port. there is just so much going on and so much to do in the game that i just stopped gripping over the small annoying things. i didn't care for the shooter portions of the game and the fighting portions were clumsy sometimes too. i loved the music, theme, concept and the story. even though the game had visual flaws the graphics are not all bad. the level of detail is actually quite high. i got omikron brand new from Toys R Us for like $2.50 when they clearance all their Dreamcast games out and its still one of my favorite DC games, as you could probably tell from my forum rank.

Well it finally came today and I plugged about 7 straight hours into it . I'm enjoying it a lot, it reminds me of Shenmue and the Witcher series since you spend a lot of your time investigating or solving puzzles. The shooting sequences are alright at best and they sort of remind me of a far less polished Maken X. The fighting is very broken IMO and at times even unresponsive. The story is GREAT the music is amazing and the game has a very cool style all around. I would certainly recommend it but it is a weird game that I could see people not enjoying. The weirdest thing I've run in to is during swimming you can (like in most adventure games) swim on top of the water or under the water. The strange part is when you surface or submerge there is a pause because it is actually 2 different engines handling each sequence! Very jarring and kind of unnecessary but aside from some quirks the game is truly epic.

lol, I love Maken X, top quality game! I've just uploaded 2 videos about it as it goes.

Yeah the combat was pretty poor from what I remember, shame really as it had the right ingredients for a really amazing game

Regarding the underwater sections, I'm amazed that it handled that so badly, I have a game called Battle Morph for the 16 year old Atari Jaguar and it has no loading times in between levels and in most levels you can drop under water and pop back out, the graphics are different in each AND so is the music, the Transition is INSTANT and it was only a less than 64bit system... the Jaguar never ceases to surprise me!

I think I might go back to Shenmue 1 soon and try to finish it, the furthest I ever got was the fight in the arcade with the bald freak but I couldn't finish it and didn't want to continue if I lost lol