12/27/00

Dreamcast:  The Only Game in Town?

Well, the PS2 launch has come and gone, and the usual fourth quarter deluge of titles is finally beginning to subside.  There has definitely been a huge number of great games released over the past few months, but has anyone noticed that they've almost all been Dreamcast games?  For a system that's supposed to be dead by now (according to the mainstream press, anyway), my little DC sure has kept me busy (and bankrupt) since the summer.  Of course, there are a few other consoles out there, but what games have been worth buying for them?  Not many, it turns out.

Nintendo 64 - Deader Than The Michael Richards Show.  I know plenty of peeps just adore that new Zelda game (still a tad kiddified for me), but one game does not a console make.  The N64 has never been the recipient of a large number of titles, but these days, you can go weeks and weeks without seeing a single new game for the system.  Nintendo knows they're in some trouble, too, as they've now spread their last few N64 games out over the course of 2001.  Conker is now set for March, and Eternal Darkness is way back to June.  And, after that...um, well it doesn't look there is anything after that.  And, considering that the odds of GameCube hitting the States in 2001 are pretty darn low, it looks like it's gonna be a pretty sad year for Nintendo fans.  Don't worry, though, 'cause I'm sure that they have plenty of Pokemon crap to carry them through next year...

Playstation - The New Kid's System on the Block.  Unless Arc the Lad Collection or Dragon Warrior VII actually make it out over here, it looks like Lunar 2 will be the last great Playstation game.  The current release list for PSX games reads like a Nickelodeon licensing bonanza.  There's nothing but Barney, Sesame Street, and Rugrats crap on the horizon - a sad way for a once-proud market leader to go out.  Then again, my THIRD Playstation just entered the "upside-down" phase, so perhaps it's for the best.  If I had to buy another, that would make four Playstations in a five year period.  Just a testament to Sony's engineering ineptitude, I guess.

Playstation2 - Baggin' on This One Isn't Even Sporting Anymore.  After reading through the articles here over the past few weeks, I think it's pretty obvious that pretty much none of us is impressed by this thing.  We're all multi-console people, too - we just happen to prefer good games over crappy ones.  SSX is the only PS2 game that I would own at this point in time (after being pretty let down by Dynasty Warriors 2 and Armored Core 2), and there have barely been any titles at all released since launch.  There have been a couple substandard racing games from EA, and some amazingly awful 989 sports titles, and that's about it.  In fact, let me take this opportunity to declare 989 Studios as the worst sports developer in the biz - congrats, you finally put out worse stuff than Acclaim.  That magical "future" that PS2 fanboys are so quick to point to is looking pretty dry, as well.  There are a few high-profile titles coming, such as The Bouncer, Onimusha, Star Wars, and Gran Turismo 3, but none are due until March, at the earliest.  Of course, The Bouncer has been receiving some lukewarm scores (one-player only, and the environmental interaction was removed at the last minute), and I guarantee that SW:  Starfighter will get bumped back into the summer.  And, has anyone noticed that The World is not Enough has quietly dropped from PS2 release lists everywhere?  Even worse, there have been reports of disturbingly large numbers of defective PS2 consoles throughout the country (they'll play PS2 games themselves, but not PSX games or DVD movies), as well as the increasingly infamous "click of death".  Man, I sure wouldn't want the PS2 to be my only console in 2001.

Dreamcast - At Least for Now, The Only Game in Town.  For the last three or four months, I have been purchasing at least two Dreamcast games per week.  That's a lot of games, and Sega and its third-parties have released so many AAA titles this quarter that it's almost criminal.  Just off the top of my head, there's NFL and NBA 2K1, Quake III, Starlancer, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2, Jet Grind Radio, Capcom Vs. SNK, Test Drive:  Le Mans, Shenmue, Samba de Amigo, Cannon Spike, and the budget-priced Resident Evil 2 and 3 and Dino Crisis.  And I'm sure there are a few others I'm forgetting.  As if that weren't enough, within the next couple of months DC owners will see Phantasy Star Online, Metropolis Street Racer, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Bangaioh, Record of Lodoss War, Daytona USA, and OutTrigger.  What's scary is that the rest of 2001 also looks pretty crowded on the Dreamcast, and we haven't even seen the E3 stuff yet!  Now, I always make it a point to buy any system that has games I like, but I can totally see how someone could survive on Dreamcast games alone.  In fact, if it weren't for FF9 and Lunar 2 on the Playstation, and Unreal Tournament on my PC, I wouldn't have touched any console but my Dreamcast for the last four or five months.

Now, 2001 will see the launch of the X-Box and (maybe) the GameCube (the first Nintendo product to excite me in years), but those won't show up until September/October at the earliest, and in the gaming world, nine months is a damn long time.  So, with the Playstation and Nintendo 64 practically dead, and most of the high-profile Playstation2 games showing sometime in the "future", it looks like Dreamcast really is the only game in town.

Brad Jensen

Note: The inflammatory comments spewed forth in Brad's Soapbox are his own editorial steps on the brink of madness, and are not necessarily the opinions of Gamehits, or anyone else on Earth, for that matter.

Cast and Crew   News, Articles and Reviews