Since I love game collections and enjoy writing blogs about them, here’s one about the Sega Dreamcast Collection for Xbox 360. It’s not the best collection in the world, and I certainly would not pay full price for it. But I found it recently on Amazon for 15 bucks, so I decided to snag it then. So here are all the games on it!

Sonic Adventure

People who read my blogs regularly know that I’m not a big Sonic fan. I’ve never been too fond of the “run so fast you really can’t control and see what you’re doing” gameplay, and Sonic’s “too cool for school” attitude has always annoyed me. But believe it or not, there ARE a few Sonic games I do like. And Sonic Adventure is one of them!

I think this is just a port of the Dreamcast version, not the souped-up GameCube DX update. It certainly doesn’t look as good as I remember it being, but then, Sonic Adventure is over ten years old. One of the achievements does mention something about the DX version, so I don’t know if it’s on here or not. It just doesn’t seem like a very good port, but like I said, my memory is a bit fuzzy. Widescreen support would’ve at least been nice, though.

Even though Sonic Adventure is one of the few Sonic games I like, I still don’t think the game as a whole has aged very well. It’s not a bad game, though. I will say that the voice acting is a lot worse than what I remember it. It’s amazing how far we’ve come in the past 12 years in that regard. The game is a bit buggy and the camera angles can be bad, but not enough yet to where it makes the first game unplayable. That happened in later 3-D Sonic titles.

Many Sonic fans claim that one of Adventure’s faults is the focus on other characters. But I actually LIKED being able to play as other critters, since I don’t really like Sonic all that much. My favorite character is Tails, so I was really glad to be able to play as him. Sonic Adventure also introduced another favorite character of mine: Big the Cat. I liked him because he was a big, stupid purple cat. Plus, most Sonic fans hate him, so that gives me more reason to like Big! I also thought it was ironic, and funny, that a game about running fast has a character whose story revolved around slow-paced fishing! Hilarious. Plus, Big the Cat has one of the easiest final boss fights in video game history.

So, in the comments section, let me know who YOUR favorite Sonic characters are! Also, let me know what your favorite Sonic games are, too. Mine are Sonic 3, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Spinball, Sonic 3-D Blast, and Tails’ Adventure.

Crazy Taxi

I think that Crazy Taxi is one of Sega’s last truly creative arcade games. I played it in the arcade and on the Dreamcast a LOT! There are two problems with this port, though. One, it doesn’t have the familiar Offspring tunes. Now, I’m not a big fan of Offspring at all, I don’t even know who they are outside the Crazy Taxi game songs. But “What I Want” almost seems synonymous with Crazy Taxi. It’s like playing Super Mario Bros. without the Mario theme.

The other problem is they took out the familiar licensed locations for you to drop and pick up passengers from, like KFC, Pizza Hut, etc. Now, some may not like that kind of commercialism in games, but I thought it was neat and it made it easier to spot those familiar locations in the game. What’s funny is that even though they took out the names, the buildings still look like those places. The KFC building still has the red and white stripes; Pizza Hut still has the recognizable red roof, etc. So it kind of cheapens the effect. But other than that, it’s still a decent port of Crazy Taxi I suppose. I always pick B.D. Joe, he’s my favorite driver. I’m glad they put him in Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing. Who is your favorite in Crazy Taxi?

By the way, anyone remember Simpsons Road Rage? Didn’t Sega sue the makers of that since it was such a Crazy Taxi blatant rip-off? Believe it or not, I actually liked Road Rage just as much as Crazy Taxi. It had more gameplay modes, characters, and humor.

Space Channel 5: Part 2

Not sure why they went with part 2 instead of part 1. The sequel didn’t even appear on US Dreamcasts. It did come later on the PS2 Space Channel 5 collection, though. I’ve always liked the setting, premise, and characters of Space Channel 5, even though I’m not very good at the game itself. That brightly colored quirky future is the kind of future I want to live in! There’s another reason why I like Space Channel 5, but I’ll let you try and guess what that reason is. 🙂 Ha ha!

Sega Bass Fishing

Now this is an odd one to put on this collection. I imagine most hardcore gamers would scoff at this addition, but let me tell you: Fishing games are popular. I’ve reviewed tons of them. And some fishing games can actually be fun, if you give them a chance. Most of my favorite fishing games are just mini-games in other titles like Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Animal Crossing. Heck, even the AR Games fishing on 3DS is somewhat interesting. Let me know what YOUR favorite fishing games are in the comments section!

When I was reviewing games for The Dallas Morning News, I reviewed a fishing game for Dreamcast, but I’m not sure this one is it. The one I reviewed came with a fishing controller, anyway. One thing I do like about Sega Bass Fishing, and most other Dreamcast titles in general, is the Sega late 90’s arcade ‘feel’ these games had. Even the console only games like Sonic Adventure have that arcade ‘sheen’ to them. It’s kind of hard to describe. So yeah, Sega Bass Fishing does have that pick-up-and-play arcade feel to it, which I like. Not a bad game at all, but it may have been a poor choice to add it to the collection over other, more deserving titles.

Dreamcast Conclusions

And that’s all what’s on this collection. Don’t pay full price for it, if you must have it, do what I did and try to find it cheap. I didn’t mind paying 15 bucks for it.

Anyway, there have been tons of blogs and tribute articles on how great the Dreamcast was. And I agree with that, as it was Sega’s first console to really earn my respect. Shame it was Sega’s last console. I had a lot of other favorite Dreamcast games and I thought I’d quickly share them here.

I played a lot of Dreamcast games from Capcom. They had a lot of fun shooters. I really liked Cannon Spike, mainly because you could play as Mega Man AND Cammy, two of my favorites. Another Capcom published 2-D shooter I played a lot of was Gunbird 2. It sticks out in my mind because of the silly characters. I think the Dreamcast game I played the most from Capcom, though, was Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Luckily you can also play it on Xbox LIVE now.

From Sega I also enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2 until the camera angles got so bad near the end that I stopped playing. Also had fun with the first Space Channel 5. But I think one of my favorite Dreamcast games was Samba de Amigo. Too bad the Wii version wasn’t near as good. One thing I did like about the Wii version of Samba was they added other Sega characters like Sonic and Ulala (well, only one of those characters I liked).

Anyway, that’s all I feel like talking about the Dreamcast today. In the comments section, let me know what your favorite Dreamcast games are, and which ones you’d like to see on a future collection. As for me, I’m off to play more Portal 2. Poor, poor Wheatley. –Cary

Tags: Game Reviews