The Dreamcast had such a strong launch line up, and a huge selection of awesome games so I picked one up in a bundle - ironically from the place I'd just quit working at (so managed to sweet talk the boss into an incredible deal) along with the aforementioned desired game.
The Dreamcast was my first console after the PS1 so I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but in terms of graphics and games it was a stellar leap in the right direction. Games ran smoothly, loading speedily from the proprietary disk format that Sega insisted on releasing games on (no grubby CD roms here).
The controller was bizarre, chunky and came with a weird little visual storage device that went largely ignored in most games. However, it didn't put me off spending a fortune on games for this thing, and despite its far-too-short lifespan (largely thanks to the PS2 arriving hot on its heels) I remember playing some truly awesome games on the thing.
One title ate up hours and hours of my time. I'd just moved out of home into a rented house, and had the place to myself for a lot of the time. My new (then) girlfriend who later became my wife liked a bit of Crazy Taxi as well, but on days when she wasn't staying over I played Metropolis Street Racer obsessively, trying to nail as much kudos as possible through the game's perfect balance of risk and reward.
Rather than listening to the in-game soundtrack I'd whack on Coldplay's "Parachutes" album (I liked them back then, now - not so much). It felt like the perfect accompaniment to the game, and seemed to help me nail some of the gnarlier kudos skills as the handing on the cars was gloriously perfect (something that the late lamented game studio Bizarre Creations became famous for over the course of their games).
One track in particular has never been bettered in racers that followed, the San Francisco track in MSR was brilliant, a thrill ride of crazy corners and huge hills perfect for getting air (and even more kudos).
Later on I also picked up jet Set Radio, a game so achingly cool it's still talked about in hushed revered tones...
Jet Set Radio was open world even before open world games were cool, kitting out the player in a pair of stylish gravity-defying skates, urging you to trick off and graffiti-cover the game areas at high speed while avoiding being caught by the fuzz. Even seeing it now elicits a thrill of recognition as I remember how tough the game was to get to grips with, but how rewarding it was when you started to rack up a huge score. This one's soundtrack was too cool to muffle with my own music.
The Dreamcast was cruelly killed way before its time was due, as I already mentioned the PS2 was coming along - and later on the Xbox (which at least had its own versions of MSR - renamed Project Gotham - as well as a slew of other amazing games) so developers and publishers just stopped developing for the Dreamcast almost overnight, and Sega admitted defeat. Even the first forays into a console online gaming service fell by the wayside, imitated, copied and developed by Sega's competitors. The hardware and gaming giant began to fall apart and vowed to continue on, developing games only for other people's consoles. A real shame.
The Dreamcast was fantastic, and virtually every single game I still own for it gets an outing and a replay now and again. Emulation for the DC is still a bit ropey but amazingly for a 25 year old console, mine still works and so do the games, hooray!
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