9 Games in 60 Minutes (Dreamcast)

9 Games in 60 Minutes

Retro speed-gaming.

Jennifer Allen borrows a good idea and spends an hour with the humble Sega Dreamcast.

SO WHAT happens when you combine a writer with very limited time, a Sega Dreamcast and a pile of games yet to be played? This, basically.

Having been inspired by Lewis’s 17 Games in 60 Minutes, I thought I’d pay homage/steal a good idea and do something similar with the Dreamcast.

You see, I never had a Dreamcast the first time round. It inexplicably passed me by. I did make up for this heinous error a few years ago but then I was a fool – again – and sold it. Silly me. Fortunately, by a fluke of luck and thanks to some very kind friends, I now have a Dreamcast again. Hurrah. The only thing is I don’t have as much time as I used to and I’ve got 9 games to play through.

What better way of dealing with this than going the ‘Denby’ route and playing as much as possible in the space of 60 minutes.

After much fiddling around with the aerial cable to find that it just decided to magically work again – I began.

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
Only just under 7 minutes a game. Won’t be seeing any cutscenes here then! I remember The Last Revelation not being too bad as far as Tomb Raiders went during that time. Bet it’s not as good as the first two though. Voice acting eh? It looks terrible by today’s standards but well done Core Designs for trying. Lara as a young girl feels a little like a pervert’s wet dream especially as an old man is guiding her around these tombs. Oops jumped into some spikes. Annoyingly I can’t restart from the beginning, I have to go right back to the title menu. That’s going to take time. I’ve only got 3 minutes left. At least the unskippable cut scenes are brief so far. Yay I’ve learnt how to jump. Unfortunately it’s too late now as it’s time to move onto the next game.

Fighting Force 2
Ugh this game uses an absolutely terrible font. It’s difficult to read. It’s meant to be a bit Streets of Rage ish I think. Actually that feels like too much of a compliment. Instead it feels too much like a very dodgy 3d action adventure game – just what you’d expect from this era. Do I really have to suffer more minutes of this? I’m not really sure where to go next. The few rooms here are just full of very dull looking boxes and only a couple of enemies to beat up. This really isn’t fun and the controls feel too loose to be effective. On with the next game I think.

Chu Chu Rocket
Chu Chu Rocket was meant to be innovative at the time I think. The lack of online play might ruin this a tad though but let’s see anyhow. I like puzzle games and I’ve got no one else to play with so Puzzle Mode I think I’ll go for. Oh I think I could do with some instructions. I have no idea what I’m meant to be doing. I’ll try Stage Challenge instead. Ohhh I get it now. I have to guide the mice to the goal. Easy when you know how and what the buttons do. Except of course I’ve failed because I didn’t realise I only had so many panels available to direct them. Ahh done it now. It’s very frantic but I can see why it was so addictive once upon a time. I wish I had more time but I don’t. On with the next game.

Metropolis Street Racer
Oh that’s disappointing. The disc won’t load. There aren’t many scratches on it and it states it should work in my PAL console but it’s not being recognised. I was excited about playing Metropolis Street Racer too. I used to love it the last time I had a Dreamcast. A precursor to the Project Gotham Racing games, it really was something special.

Continues…

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