Jet Grind Radio

Dreamcast Mania! – Great games you can’t get anywhere else

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Videolamer noticed that in our attempts to keep Dreamcast Mania! alive, so very many of our articles were about the things we missed out on, rather than a celebration of what we had. That changes now. Today we will be going over some of the absolute best games the DC (and only the DC) has to offer. These are not only the reasons why we loved it, but while we still do. These are the games that make it a system still worth owning and playing (meaning you won’t find games like Third Strike, which has a superior PS2 port).

Oh, and I only have a paragraph to describe each game. Prepare for distilled glory.

Soul Calibur – As far as I am concerned, the only game in the Soul series that you can argue was better than this one (and have me actually listen to you) is Soul Blade. →  Read the rest

Requiem for a Dreamcast

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I used to think I was pretty clever when I told folks that “Nintendo made me a gamer. Ocarina of Time made me hardcore”. I kept thinking this for quite some time, but eventually realized that pre-OOT, I wasn’t really a “gamer”, just a kid whose game experience consisted of little more than a string of Nintendo consoles, a few hours on the Genesis, and a dusty old 486 PC. This was a time when fresh games came to my house twice a year if I was lucky.

After Zelda I truly became a “gamer”, though now I think it had less to with that game in particular and more to do with the fact that around that time I was introduced to a modern day computer, Next Generation Magazine, and a Sony Playstation. →  Read the rest

Laying this generation to rest: Dreamcast

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To celebrate the new generation of consoles, we will be honoring the last generation by listing our favorite games on each system. These aren’t Best of lists, or games you will die without, rather they are simply the titles we think made these systems special.

The first console of the past generation was the Sega Dreamcast. This proved to be Sega’s final console so while we remember it fondly, keep in mind that emotion partially clouds our view. Teary eyes aside, there is no denying the console had a number of excellent exclusives, most of which were made by Sega themselves. Anyone new to gaming and confused about why Sega exists at all only needs to look to the games they developed for the Dreamcast (and Saturn, and Genesis).

To quote Planet Dreamcast’s comically inaccurate, unbridled optimism:
At the end of the day it isn’t up to us to tell you whether or not you should buy a Dreamcast. →  Read the rest

What is a hardcore gamer?

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Holy crap the Serious Games Summit looks like fun!

So E3 has come and gone. I missed out on most of the news and hoopla, in favor of catching up after the dust settled. I did, however, read more than a few articles that popped up in the month prior to E3, specifically those that dealt with the marketing aspect of the games industry. I’ve seen articles discussing mobile games, non-roleplaying MMO’s, and a mysterious new thing called “Serious games.”

Most of this meant very little to me in the long run, but one debate that has been brought up as of late has piqued my interest: “Who is a hardcore gamer, how do and why should we cater to them?” This has to be one of the worst questions they could possibly ask, and even worse, they can’t even get the answer right. →  Read the rest