How is your Dreamcast gaming going on?

[Reprise]

Yeah, and some of those ports (THPS2 for example) were superior on the Dreamcast, rather than just being straight ports.

[myth]

I would also like to hear any experiences from when the service was in full swing, there were a lot of games that supported online play, and it would be cool to know how they were.

The following are my recollections and memories from the heyday of Dreamcast online gaming. I was fortunate enough to play quite a few of the now terminated online games and thought I'd share my experiences here. Seeing as how it's been over 10 years since I last played some of these games online, some details may be a bit fuzzy.

I'll start with what I thought was the most technically proficient online game on the DC: Alien Front Online. Alien Front Online's main calling card online was its voice chat capabilities. AFO not only handled latency deftly, but the voice chat was also clear enough to where you could understand people. There was only one voice channel that everyone shared, and you were limited to five seconds, but it was extremely impressive nonetheless. Sadly enough, AFO's lifespan was cut tragically short. From what I remember, the servers were shut down about a year after its release.

As far as FPS games go, the only defunct FPS game I played was Outtrigger. This was an incredible game online, even though it suffered from the dreaded shot delay over 56k, similar to Quake III's shot delay. The best weapon to use over 56k was the flamethrower, as you could easily compensate for the delay by wildly flailing about. Outtrigger also supported up to six players online, but full six player games usually caused even more delay for the 56k users. The maps also started feeling really constrained, unless you were playing on one of the designated large maps. If you owned a BBA, six player games weren't as much of a mess, not to mention the shot delay was nullified.

My favorite memory of Outtrigger was when OnlineConsoles was hosting an Outtrigger tournament. All the matches were 1v1 over a set of 3 pre-determined maps. All the players were paired off for the first match to determine who continues on. I had been playing for about several weeks at this point, and felt pretty confident I could take 2nd place. However, once everyone's first match had been completed, the server started acting wonky. People were randomly disconnecting, even those on broadband. Attempts to log back in would be greeted with an error message, or with a tantalizing glimpse of the chat before the connection was severed once more. Needless to say, we were never able to continue our tournament, but we were able to squeeze in a few more games over the next month or so until the servers shuttered.

However, the online game I miss the most to this day is Ooga Booga. It was such a colorful and lively game online, not to mention it worked great over 56k. The main deathmatch modes were fun, but boar polo was where it was at. Between two skilled polo players, or two evenly matched teams, matches could take upwards of 30 minutes. The longest game of boar polo I can remember lasted for nearly an hour! Even if you were losing, it was hysterical seeing a fat Polynesian witch doctor flailing around the back of a boar. The special characters you got for beating the game in single player also carried over online, which was a nice touch. If I had to pick one multiplayer game I'd love to see make a resurgence, it'd be Ooga Booga.

As far as racing games go, I got to play two of the four games that are currently defunct. The game I was the most impressed with, as far as an online experience goes, was Speed Devils Online. Upon starting out in SDO, you would make an account and receive a set amount of cash, which was enough to purchase an E (or was it D?) class vehicle. From there, you could bounce around between lobbies, chat it up with players, trade vehicles, or even race for pink slips. It was pretty surprising just how robust SDO's online mode was.

However, the actual racing wasn't exactly fair to new players. By the time I played the game, only the diehard fans of SDO were still racing around. Everyone played in unrestricted matches, meaning that all cars were fair game. If you had anything less than a B class car, say good bye to ever making it in the top three. You'd be battling it out amongst the bottom feeders until you slowly built up enough bank to afford a better car and move up in rank. This really annoyed me, but I enjoyed the game enough to continue taking my lumps.

The best race I ever had was when I finally scrounged up enough coin to afford a Rank C car. I had gotten friendly with a guy who was usually a rank ahead of me. Just for the fun of it, he challenged me to a race on the Louisiana level. It took every ounce of racing skill I had to hit all the shortcuts consistently, but I was able to beat a Rank B racer while in a Rank C jalopy. It was all for naught though, as the servers were shut down shortly after I had purchased the game. Speed Devils Online was definitely a forward thinking online game, one that I wish I had the luxury to spend more time with.

The other racing game I was able to play online was F355 Challenge. F355's online mode was unconventional, to say the least. In lieu of racing with other players in real time, everybody would race by themselves on the same track, then compare times once everyone had finished. While it didn't quite deliver the thrill of racing with other players in real time, it allowed everyone a fair shot at competing without dealing with griefers blocking the track. I was a bit late to the F355 party as well, so everyone still playing could have given even the real pros a run for their money. I'm not a big sim racing fan, so understandably, I didn't put much time into F355 other than playing a few not quite online races just to see how the system worked.

Finally, the last defunct game of note that I played online was Chu Chu Rocket. I actually played Chu Chu Rocket back during the release period, and also later on in 2003. One of the more interesting features of CCR online was the ability to upload your own custom levels to Sega's server. Even at release, there were a fair amount of puzzles already uploaded, no doubt attributed to the fact that Japan had the game several months prior to the rest of the world. As such, the community was pretty lively during the release period. There were a fair amount of Japanese players still herding mice when the US received the game. In 2003, the servers were a ghost town. Unless you got lucky and ran into a group of friends playing, it was impossible to find any random players.

As for the actual online gameplay, it worked well, but with some caveats. The most striking difference online was the delay in tile placement. On average. there was about a second or two of delay when placing a tile, depending on latency and how many players were in the game. If you were playing with Japanese players, the delay was upwards of 3-4 seconds. It was a major bummer, but, given time, the delay was manageable. Other than the delay, CCR online was identical to the offline game.

As for other experiences, I briefly dabbled with Worms World Party and PBA Bowling 2001. Other than briefly testing the online components, I never seriously played either game online. I was also there during the launch of PSO Version 2, and came back during the lead up to the shutdown in 2003, but I've already said enough as it is. Hopefully this has given you, and other likeminded folks here, some insight into Dreamcast online gaming.

[CD AGES]

@myth

Outrigger supported the BBA?

[myth]

@myth

Outrigger supported the BBA?

Yup! I personally didn't own a BBA back then, but I knew of several players who used one to play Outtrigger.

[Mad_Hatter]

Got sick of trying to find a good rip of Skies of Arcadia with VGA. Was going to go for an SD version, but really didn't feel like going through that crap. So I just bought the original.

Can't wait to get it. Looking forward to it.

[ExedExes]

One online game I wish I had the capability to play was Daytona USA. I bet that would have ran great. It's the best home port of the game too.

[jay_red]

Myth, Thanks so much for the information, and sharing your experiences! I really enjoyed reading how the various games were. Hopefully some of the other games will be brought back online like we have had in the past, considering one was just brought back on recently, there is always hope!

[RCBH928]

I wonder if there is video footage of someone using the Dreamcast to play online. I think I found one on youtube about one guy walking in a puzzle and the other is talking him through...

[alienjesus]

Is there any way to download DLC from the DC's internet days onto your memory card, or is the opportunity long gone? Was thinking about stuff like Chu Chu Rockets extra puzzle stages, Jet Set Radio's graffiti tags or (most importantly) Samba de Amigo's downloadable tracks.

[BoringSupreez]

I wonder if there is video footage of someone using the Dreamcast to play online. I think I found one on youtube about one guy walking in a puzzle and the other is talking him through...

Video capture devices and digital cameras were far more expensive in '99/2000 than they are now, not to mention that there was nowhere free to host videos back then. There's probably some footage but not much.