Back in the real world

Back in the real world on a real keyboard… I got a Dreamcast finally yesterday, and a bunch of goodies with it. It’s nice to say that I got it from the local independent game shop, and that they had the best price too. It came with ChuChu Rocket, Sega Bass Fishing, and Sonic Adventure - I got Ecco and Jet Set Radio (still prefer “grind”) at the same time.

My current slight complaints are:

• It doesn’t come with a SCART lead or an S-Video lead, even though it does come with a phone cable.
• Everything requires the Visual Memory to be useful - it ought to be in the package.
• The controller’s shape isn’t quite right - my hands are aching right now.

On the plus side:

• I didn’t really get into the ‘real’ ChuChu Rocket, but Penguin & I got through the first 75 levels of the puzzle version last night before needing sleep - it’s very cool in a Sokoban/Boulder Dash sort of way. It’s cute too, and has pretty funky music for 1-minute loops.
• Jet Set Radio is really pretty, sounds great, and plays well - I’m not much good at it yet though (only completed the first ‘real’ level). The cartoon shader thing is very nicely done - even the “loading” screen is nice.

There’s a couple of games I’m still looking out for - buying a games console 2 days before christmas limits your choices a little - when I get back in a few weeks, which are Crazy Taxi, Soul Calibur and whatever the Ridge Racer equivalent for Dreamcast is - there seem to be a few Gran Turismo-alikes (Tokyo Highway Challenge, MSR, F355) but I haven’t found a proper arcade racer. Still, Daytona is on the cards sometime soon.

The other reason I had trouble getting games is that at least a few chains of dumped their Dreamcast stuff in favour of the PS2. This would make sense if they had any stock, but they don’t! So they sell games and memory cards for a machine no-one has, relatively speaking. Nice one!