10. Headhunter
If you’ve never played Headhunter, it was the Dreamcast’s answer to Metal Gear Solid, although admittedly it wasn’t as accomplished as MGS. With a focus on stealth as well as action, and great graphics when it arrived this should have been a much bigger deal then it was. Unfortunately it arrived on the Dreamcast only in Europe in late 2001, and is an example of a batch of games Sega promoted as still coming to the Dreamcast when they broke everyone’s hearts at the beginning of that year by saying they were going third party. I genuinely look at this game and think if only this could have come out early in the Dreamcast’s life it could have been a difference maker.
In the game you play as Jack Wade (one of the most action dude names possible) an action dude with no memory, but as you hunt for the truth you have to do all kinds of missions and kick ass, ride motorcycles and watch live action newsreaders which felt slightly out of place in a game in 2001.
Something of a rarity on the Dreamcast, the game was also released on PS2 a few months later, so isn’t hard to track down there if you want to play the game. It also received a sequel a couple of years later for the original Xbox and PS2, which whilst better and evolved the series in many ways, didn’t make a big enough splash for the franchise to go any further.
9. Soul Calibur
One of the early killer apps for the Dreamcast, Soul Calibur had incredible graphics and weapon based combat that helped it stand above Namco’s own Tekken 3 on the PlayStation, and it even outshone Sega’s Virtual Fighter 3tb on the Dreamcast to be the king of the fighters.
Soul Calibur has continued to be one of the bigger fighting game franchises in the years since with it’s memorable sequels that have featured console exclusive guest fighters such as Spawn, Darth Vader and The Legend of Zelda’s Link.
8. Shenmue
For some Shenmue is the crown jewel in the Dreamcast portfolio. An open world game before we had the term open world, Shenmue is a stunning adventure and at the time of its release was completely unrivalled in the graphics and level of detail to its world. You could pick up and examine random objects like never before, and whilst for the most part this was a pointless andevour at the time this came out it was just incredible to be able to look at things in a virtual world like never before.
In Shenmue you play as Ryo Hazuki, who must do what he can to track down the villainous Lan Di, a criminal who murders Ryo’s father in the game’s opening. Set during the 1980’s the game is dropping with detail including the fun to collect capsule toys, 1980s Sega Arcade games you can play, and the Forklift mini game which so many people seem to detest…but I always really enjoyed! The huge level of interaction with the world, the mystery plot that unravels and the Virtua Fighter style combat all add up to make this the game which should have propelled the Dreamcast to glory.
7. Quake 3 Arena
Quake 3 Arena went in a different direction from the previous games in the Quake series. Where as the first two games were first person shooters they were also adventure games with maps based around navigating your way through a level to find keys and exit points much as Doom had lead the way with before it.
But with the explosion of online gaming in the mid to late 90s players didn’t care so much about the adventure side of things and were more interested in the death match modes where the maps were designed from the ground up for competitive play.
Quake 3 Arena went all out on the competive online play and along with Unreal Tournament were two of the heavy hitters on the Dreamcast in 2000 to deliver experiences that simply could not be found on the rival Nintendo 64 and Playstation One.
The gameplay was frantic and addictive, but it has to be said that Quake 3 Arena was an almost impossible game to play on the standard Dreamcast controller. Featuring just one analogue stick, trying to play this game on the Dreamcast controller was headache and motion sickness inducing to wrap your head around the unusal layout of buttons required to play with the pad. But if this is the case, how can this game posisble be listed in the number 5 position in the list? Simple – the Dreamcast had the option of a keyboard and mouse to control certain games, and none were more suited to them than Quake 3 (well hold that thought on the keyboard, but more on this in a minute). With full mouse and keyboard controls this allowed full PC style gameplay on a console FPS unlike ever before.
6. The Typing of the Dead
This is a game that shouldn’t work, but it works so well. For this player I actually prefer the Typing of the Dead to the light gun based House of the Dead the game is based on. This game never got a UK release, and I can say for me this is the best Dreamcast game I got on import, and the best justification for buying the Dreamcast keyboard (even better than the previously mentioned Quake 3 Arena).
If you haven’t got around to this game yet, the visuals and story of the game are all almost identical to The House of the Dead 2, but as the zombies walk towards you they each have a word or phrase written in front of them which you must quickly type before you get bitten and attacked.
The gameplay is addictive and it genuinely helped me become a better typist. A PC port of this game did come out, but if you can’t get either version of the original Typing of the Dead game you can still easily get the sequel in the form of The Typing of the Dead Overkill which was a typing based update of the Wii’s The House of the Dead Overkill.
