Support NeoGAF

[Ganondorfo]

Do you think that gamers today would appreciate the arcade style of Sega if they made their kind of games for this gen. Or is Sega something from the past days, for example Nintendo always adapted to the current audience, but Sega always stayed the same, and the moment gamers didnt care anymore for arcade games was also the moment Sega didnt feel to contribute anymore to this videogame industry.

 

[Lernaean]

^^ I personaly would give my right ball for an arcade renaissance.

 

[DidntKnowJack]

How about the sequel to a game that was featured in the Dreamcast's launch lineup?

Hydro Thunder Hurricane

 

[Thrakier]

How is it crazy that you like games with good art and high frame rates?

Because the human eye can't see more than 24fps.

 

[QisTopTier]

Because the human eye can't see more than 24fps.

LOL guess I'm an alien.

 

[Dicer]

Absolutely not. There is a lost beauty in the PSX's limited use of polygons. A well art directed game with smart use of the in game visuals produced aesthetically pleasing results that have aged extremely well, if not retained a vibrant appeal that we've all but lost today.

Very few examples...most of it when you go back, it's just ugh meanwhile I can go back and play Atari and on up to 8/16bit no issues....most of 32 bit is a mess, save for a handful and the 3D stuff.

Low Poly/Framerate=ugh

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Because the human eye can't see more than 24fps.

That's a good point. Life is so much more cinematic.

 

[pants]

Thanks to this thread I have some games to buy

 

[Miguel81]

This thread is fantastic as I'm not even hungry anymore. My eyes had a feast.

 

[To Far Away Times]

60 fps, blue skies, clean visuals, and bright colors. It's bliss.

 

[jwhit28]

Has anyone brought up 90's Arcade Racer? I believe it should be out on Wii U and PC in the next few months.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

Very few examples...most of it when you go back, it's just ugh meanwhile I can go back and play Atari and on up to 8/16bit no issues....most of 32 bit is a mess, save for a handful and the 3D stuff.

Low Poly/Framerate=ugh

Have you tried playing the artistically expressive games, or just ones that try to be "realistic" on the hardware? Because those ones will never age well.

 

[Hawk269]

Dreamcast outputted some incredibly beautiful visuals, I preferred the look of its games over the PS2 for the most part. The games might have been poly starved a bit, but the textures and overall clean look was really nice.

Especially when using the VGA adapter and hooking up the Dreamcast to a compute rmonitor.

 

[Shaneus]

Just thinking about this, the colour saturation and "in your face"-ness of the majority of games are why they're so memorable and why it's easy to completely gloss over the technical aspects of the games. There's definitely a correlation between colour usage and arcades... how many arcade games are there that use muted colours and have subdued, realistic effects? Even the newer games released by Raw Thrills (there's a motorcross one, several other racers IIRC) have bombastic colour schemes and usage to draw the player in. The "DC aesthetic" adheres to that fairly solidly across almost all it's titles (particularly first-party), and the games are all the more memorable for it.

Have you tried playing the artistically expressive games, or just ones that try to be "realistic" on the hardware? Because those ones will never age well.

I found Le Mans 24hr aged quite well considering it went for the more realistic route. You'd be nuts to think this isn't a good example of something that has held up.

 

[LCGeek]

Dreamcast is when the 3D era of gaming should have started, everything prior is chunky and messy.

We would have been better off with one more gen of 2D it would have been glorious....

and the 2d era was no better. People may bitch about resolution now but 2d era we didn't have full color palettes, 256colors, 16-32bit till the 90's. You gotta start somewhere.

 

[LCGeek]

Sega were the vanguard of video gaming cool in the Dreamcast era, everything had so much pop and fizz to it visually.

I remember using a crappy RF adapter for years with my Dreamcast and it still looked amazing. Upgraded to RGB then later VGA - MIND BLOWN.

I don't know what they used for the video encoder but it must have been something special.

I don't agree with the Gamecube comparison however, something about the hardware always produced very banded washed out colours even in RGB, likewise the Wii in component looked pretty shit. I think a lot of games were still coded with CRT's in mind and had the flicker filter on. The PS2 often used worse textures with lower colour counts to save memory space but the colours still resolved better due to the way the Gamecubes framebuffer was set up.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere the DC PowerVR did some tricks with its colour output so even in 16-bit colour mode it looked more vivid, kinda like the original Voodoo 2 which looked worse in direct screen captures before final output to screen.

If you used GC RGB without boosting the signal properly it would look like shit. Not every GC was the same nintendo gimped the box various times. Same can be said for xbox if you transcoded it to vga, but once you fixed output issues both systems crapped on PS2. Atarilabs or whatever it's become now went in depth on this issue and made comparison of the systems just to show.

 

[Cheddahz]

I've been playing The Wonderful 101 recently and I think it has that "Dreamcast look". It looks colorful and lively

 

[CLEEK]

Oh man, I remember playing Ridge Racer V for the first time and my Dreamcast honed eyeballs being attacked by a mass of grey jaggies. The PS2 suffered from terrible IQ for so many of its games, as well as a washed out colour palette. I think that's why I adored the Gamecube. It seemed like an enhanced Dreamcast.

So far with the PS4, all games seem to have some form of AA. Something sorely missed last gen, especially with the PS3.

 

[sixteen-bit]

you know what the best thing about "Dreamcast look" is?

60 fps.

 

[televator]

Just thinking about this, the colour saturation and "in your face"-ness of the majority of games are why they're so memorable and why it's easy to completely gloss over the technical aspects of the games. There's definitely a correlation between colour usage and arcades... how many arcade games are there that use muted colours and have subdued, realistic effects? Even the newer games released by Raw Thrills (there's a motorcross one, several other racers IIRC) have bombastic colour schemes and usage to draw the player in. The "DC aesthetic" adheres to that fairly solidly across almost all it's titles (particularly first-party), and the games are all the more memorable for it.


I found Le Mans 24hr aged quite well considering it went for the more realistic route. You'd be nuts to think this isn't a good example of something that has held up.

I REALLY need to play this game. Are you fucking kidding me? Dynamic weather and night driving a whole gerneration ahead of the big names on other consoles. Based Dreamcast.

 

[Miguel81]

Oh man, I remember playing Ridge Racer V for the first time and my Dreamcast honed eyeballs being attacked by a mass of grey jaggies. The PS2 suffered from terrible IQ for so many of its games, as well as a washed out colour palette. I think that's why I adored the Gamecube. It seemed like an enhanced Dreamcast.

So far with the PS4, all games seem to have some form of AA. Something sorely missed last gen, especially with the PS3.

There is something seriously strange with the way the PS2 dealt with interlacing. PCSX2 has a bunch of options to alleviate it, but they are nowhere near perfect.

 

[Stet]

Roundabout?

Either I'm drunk as fuck or this is one of the funniest gifs I've seen in a long time.

 

[rezn0r]

Either I'm drunk as fuck or this is one of the funniest gifs I've seen in a long time.

perhaps both

 

[Log4Girlz]

That Batman arcade game with all the batmobiles has a similar "look". Goddamn its clean.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Just thinking about this, the colour saturation and "in your face"-ness of the majority of games are why they're so memorable and why it's easy to completely gloss over the technical aspects of the games. There's definitely a correlation between colour usage and arcades... how many arcade games are there that use muted colours and have subdued, realistic effects? Even the newer games released by Raw Thrills (there's a motorcross one, several other racers IIRC) have bombastic colour schemes and usage to draw the player in. The "DC aesthetic" adheres to that fairly solidly across almost all it's titles (particularly first-party), and the games are all the more memorable for it.


I found Le Mans 24hr aged quite well considering it went for the more realistic route. You'd be nuts to think this isn't a good example of something that has held up.

Driveclub, eat your heart out

 

[Shaneus]

I REALLY need to play this game. Are you fucking kidding me? Dynamic weather and night driving a whole gerneration ahead of the big names on other consoles. Based Dreamcast.

Yeah man, it was boss when it came out. On top of dynamic weather and night driving, it also had glowing disc brakes, an insane replay mode, a realtime 24hr Le Mans option (or time-lapsed if you so wanted) and tyre tracks left on the grass if you ran off.

Made in Australia, too

In the following year (2000) the same software house released Le Mans 24 Hours on the Dreamcast. This version of the game was originally planned to be a port from the PlayStation, but was eventually developed from scratch by Australian company Melbourne House which had recently been purchased by Infogrames. As with the previous PlayStation version, the Dreamcast game was released in the US under their Test Drive brand as Test Drive: Le Mans. This was one of the most critically acclaimed racing games on the Dreamcast, often hailed as the single best driving game available for the Dreamcast system. Following the release of the Dreamcast version of Le Mans 24 Hours, Infogrames and Melbourne House developed and released a port of the Dreamcast game on the PlayStation 2 in 2001.

In 2002, a PC port of the Le Mans 24 Hours game was created by another Australian video game developer, Torus.

FWIW, the PS2 port was apparently far worse than the DC one, particularly with it's lower-res textures. I guess the difference b/w hardware that's easy to get the most out of vs. hardware that isn't.

 

[CLEEK]

FWIW, the PS2 port was apparently far worse than the DC one, particularly with it's lower-res textures. I guess the difference b/w hardware that's easy to get the most out of vs. hardware that isn't.

PS2 is probably the console I understand the least from a hardware perspective. But from memory, one of the limitations of the PS2 was it had limited hardware texture compression, where as the DC was great at it. Which explains the lo-res, washed out textures on many PS2 games.

 

[Toxa]

PS2 is probably the console I understand the least from a hardware perspective. But from memory, one of the limitations of the PS2 was it had limited hardware texture compression, where as the DC was great at it. Which explains the lo-res, washed out textures on many PS2 games.

but the memory bandwidth was insane

 

[dark10x]

PS2 is probably the console I understand the least from a hardware perspective. But from memory, one of the limitations of the PS2 was it had limited hardware texture compression, where as the DC was great at it. Which explains the lo-res, washed out textures on many PS2 games.

On the flip-side, if you look closely at textures in most Dreamcast games you'll find a lot of ugly compression artifacts. Using VGA this become extremely obvious.

It was certainly possible to translate textures from Dreamcast to PS2...

We had played a lot of PS2 games without issue on an old 30" SCART CRT TV, they looked good.
But playing PS3 games on the same TV I felt they looked worse than their PS2 counterparts. Dead Space had such a tiny text that it was unreadable.

It seems the developers hadnt those old TVs in mind when they developed the game.....

You're correct about the text, but I was referring to using a 480p capable CRT not a standard definition interlaced model. Even ignoring the text issue, the image quality is still clean.

 

[Minister of the Dog]

I would like to add Child of Eden by Q Entertainment. Great game, 60 fps, crisp visuals, even some nice FMV thrown in for good measure. Also, the music has that Dreamcast feel; japanese dance music with lyrics about BELIEVING WHAT IS IN YOUR HEART:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL2od1AF_Cs

I would've never thought that Child of Eden shared an OST with No More Heroes. Is it good without Kinect? I think they pushed it quite a bit for this game, didn't they?

 

[dark10x]

I would've never thought that Child of Eden shared an OST with No More Heroes. Is it good without Kinect? I think they pushed it quite a bit for this game, didn't they?

I think it's better without Kinect, actually.

If you want a Kinect like experience with more accuracy the PS3 version supports Move as well as 3D.

I preferred playing with a pad myself, though.

 

[Miguel81]

As a horror game, this one had a lot of color. I miss the Dreamcast!

 

[Miracle Chosuke]

I would've never thought that Child of Eden shared an OST with No More Heroes. Is it good without Kinect? I think they pushed it quite a bit for this game, didn't they?

Ah, I didn't know that song was in No More Heroes. I've only played Child of Eden with PS Move and Dualshock 3. I think I prefer Move controls. They're not as precise as the DS3, but the freedom, speed and intuitiveness make it up.

 

[Shaneus]

I think it's better without Kinect, actually.

If you want a Kinect like experience with more accuracy the PS3 version supports Move as well as 3D.

I preferred playing with a pad myself, though.

Pad, 2 feet away from TV and 3D. I wish the Kinect version would have 3D as well, but the Move one isn't bad either.

And yeah, I have it for both platforms

I would've never thought that Child of Eden shared an OST with No More Heroes. Is it good without Kinect? I think they pushed it quite a bit for this game, didn't they?

Also shared with Lumines Live!.

PS. Mizuguchi is some kind of game developing genius. If you have the opportunity to see him do a live talk, I VERY highly encourage going.

 

[bronzodiriace]

Am I wrong or The house of the dead 2 suffers of bad texture like psone? ( I'am referring about the trilinear)

 

[HerpDerpstreit]

This reminded me of how much I want a Project Justice/ Rival Schools sequel. DC was the only Sega system I ever bought and I still have it.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Daytona USA and Soul Calibur were sooooooo smooth and good looking.

You know, funny to read this thread with the exact same thoughts I had other day playing Midnight Club on PS3: "Man this piece of garbage graphics look so horrendous, low res, low framerate, am I missing my Dreamcast or getting used to higher res games on PS4?".

Soul Caliber still looks impressive.

A lot of the other examples posted here are nice, but don't quite match screens like this one. They may be vibrant or clean, but some are missing something. 3D arcade games around the DC's release had this elusive quality to them. That 90s Arcade Racer game absolutely nails it though, as it should.

 

[Shion]

Shinen's Fast Racing League had that classic SEGA look.

A clean, colorful, fast paced, arcade-style game, with bright blue skies and 60fps.

As a horror game, this one had a lot of color. I miss the Dreamcast!

Blue Stinger:

 

[PaRappa]

Ever so slightly off topic but for those of you who remember Bleemcast even the PSone Gran Turismo 2 got the nice filtered texture anti-aliased Dreamcast look treatment

PSone version

Dreamcast version

 

[ResidentDante]

Shinen's Fast Racing League had that classic SEGA look.

A clean, colorful, fast paced, arcade-style game, with bright blue skies and 60fps.

Was this game good? It looks really nice, and I love the wipEout series.

 

[Shaneus]

Ever so slightly off topic but for those of you who remember Bleemcast even the PSone Gran Turismo 2 got the nice filtered texture anti-aliased Dreamcast look treatment

PSone version

Dreamcast version

I can't remember how I got it, but I have a retail copy of it. Remember when it was going to do 50 games a disc or something, before it got cut down to one? lols

 

[Futaba]

Dead or alive for 360 gave me that dreamcast feeling, as did ONI for PC.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I know what you mean, OP. Those games looked clean and colorful, while todays games strive for uncanny valley and are mostly dark and gritty.

House of the Dead 4, Daytona, Afterburner and Outrun Online captured that DC feeling for me on the Ps3. I also rank Outrun as one of the best looking games of last-gen. It doesn't have realistic visuals, but its high framerate, sense of speed and use of color makes the game look very inviting.

 

[cacildo]

Has anyone brought up 90's Arcade Racer? I believe it should be out on Wii U and PC in the next few months.

One guy mentioned it before. But whats really wrong with this game is that... the release date never gets here

I love these kickstarter games. I want to play all of em. But they take forever to finish.

(i know that it sure takes time to make a game. But i want to play it now!)

 

[kinggroin]

One guy mentioned it before. But whats really wrong with this game is that... the release date never gets here

I love these kickstarter games. I want to play all of em. But they take forever to finish.

(i know that it sure takes time to make a game. But i want to play it now!)

Chill Veruca.

 

[Revolutionary]

So... low polygon counts?

 

[Chibits12]

Playing Dreamcast games certainly had a different feel compared to many other consoles. I remember playing Soul Calibur two days after the console was released and the eye-candy was just mesmerizing.

 

[EBreda]

Oh man, I miss F355 Challenge. That was really amazing. Blue skies, colors, 60 fps in a true sim racing game. Best racing game ever IMO.

I fell the Wii U is something akin to the Dreamcast, with its colorful 60fps clean looking line up. But we need sports and racing games for it to fit the bill, something Nintendo is not giving us.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

I know how you feel, OP.

I love how AM2's post-Dreamcast output retained the classic SEGA-look.

Also, the graphics in Border Break give me some strong Dreamcast vibes.

Absolutely love this SEGA look.

 

[taku]

Here's an old gem for all of you Dreamcast (

Spoiler

Jeff Gerstmann

) fans out there..