.KEYWORD dreamcast
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Sega Dreamcast: Windows CE’s newest family member
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT figalt dreamcast-cover.gif
.SUMMARY The holiday season is quickly coming upon us. If you have children (of any age) living in your household, you’ve likely heard the name "Sega Dreamcast" mentioned to you a few times as a strong suggestion for a Christmas or Hanukkah present. Read this fun article by senior technical editor Jason Perlow to get the scoop on the latest and greatest in games for the Windows CE-based Sega Dreamcast.
.AUTHOR Jason Perlow
The holiday season is quickly coming upon us. If you have children (of any age) living in your household, you’ve likely heard the name "Sega Dreamcast" mentioned to you a few times as a strong suggestion for a Christmas or Hanukkah present. We’ve all seen the ads with the mind-blowing video game graphics and sound effects — but we’ve seen this stuff before, right? Nintendo 64? Playstation, anyone? Not to be outdone by the Joneses and to satisfy my inner child’s never-ending quest for the ultimate video game system, I bought a Dreamcast last month just after its North American launch.
.H1 It’s not just a toy
The Sega Dreamcast, shown in Figure A, is not just an expensive toy or the latest $200 video game system. (Special thanks to IGN.com for allowing us to use their Dreamcast screenshots. For more information on the Dreamcast, check out http://dreamcast.ign.com.)
The Sega Dreamcast is an information appliance that represents the first generation of advanced Windows CE set-top information appliances that we’ll be seeing in the years to come. These appliances will allow us to interact with the Internet, interactive media, and have programming on demand in millions of households.
.FIGPAIR A This is what the Dreamcast console looks like.
Wait — is this the same Windows CE we’re used to hearing about? Surely, the Palm OS (Operating System), the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) crowd, and the mass media would lead us to believe that Windows CE has been a miserable failure. If you look at the raw numbers of Windows CE PDAs sold vs. the number of Palm devices sold, it doesn’t seem too far from the truth.
We might be forgetting, though, that Windows CE is a general purpose OS that can do so much more than a PDA OS. In the low-cost information appliance market, it may very well come to dominate the industry. Microsoft spent five billion dollars investing in AT&T last year so they could ensure that Windows CE interactive digital cable boxes would be available in up to ten million households. And let’s not forget that the next generation WebTV is also slated to run Windows CE. Combine that with the Sega Dreamcast and the future of Windows CE starts to sound very interesting!
.H1 Speeds and feeds
The Dreamcast is one hell of a serious piece of technology. It’s powered by a Hitachi SH7750 SH4 32-bit RISC processor, operating at a frequency of 200Mhz rated at 360 MIPS or 1.4 billion floating point operations per second (this is key to its ability perform fast 3D graphics). This is on par, in terms of raw calculating performance, with a Pentium II PC. The Dreamcast has 16MB of main memory and uses a specially designed 12x CD-ROM drive that uses a special compression routine to store up to 1GB of data on a regular CD. You can see the guts of the Dreamcast in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B The Dreamcast is one serious piece of technology.
But wait — there’s more. For offloading 3D graphics from the main processor, the unit uses the 128-bit NEC PowerVR2 graphics accelerator chip with 8MB of video memory. The PowerVR2 can render over three million polygons per second using Gouraud-shaded, Z-buffered graphics with full-scene anti-aliasing, shadow and light volumes, bump mapping, hardware-based texture compression and fog effects in 16.7 million colors. Whew! While there are newer graphics chips for PCs like the RIVA TNT2 and the 3Dfx Voodoo3 that can draw over five million polygons a second, the PowerVR2 outperforms today’s most advanced arcade machines and delivers crisp and very fast 3D graphics on today’s home TV sets.
For sound, the Dreamcast uses a specially designed processor built by Yamaha that can render 16-bit CD quality digitized sounds and music in 64 distinct voices, with 2MB of RAM for wave table synthesis, and is fully surround-sound capable.
The Dreamcast’s built-in 33.6K modem makes the device completely Web-enabled and allows you to browse the Internet using your dial-up ISP right out of the box. It’s detachable from the main unit, so you can upgrade to higher-speed Internet access options via DSL or Cable Modem.
And finally, the Dreamcast runs on a heavily modified version of Windows CE that has been optimized for use as a game console OS, and includes the Direct3D APIs ported from Windows 98 to support 3D games. When using the Dreamcast, you won’t find any Start Menus or Windows dialog boxes displayed on your TV set – Windows CE’s entire APIs and native interface have been hidden from the user. Thank goodness. If there’s one place where I don’t want to use the Windows interface, it’s on my TV.
.CALLOUT Finally, somebody engineered a game controller that adults can actually use.
.H1 The Fun Stuff
The unit allows you to connect up to four standard Dreamcast controllers, as well as specialized controllers like the Dreamcast Arcade Stick, Fishing Controller, and Light Gun. These standard controllers employ both analog and digital directional controls, and have four action buttons and two triggers. The controllers are ergonomically designed and fit comfortably in even my ogre-like hands. Finally, somebody engineered a game controller that adults can actually use.
Each controller can have a VMU (Visual Memory Unit) attached to it. A VMU is a matchbox-sized device with an LCD panel that doubles as a game save unit and Tamagotchi-like toy (those little electronic games that aren’t full-blown video games).
When detached from the game controller, the VMU can be used to swap game files and game data with friends by connecting it to another VMU, and some Dreamcast games (like Sonic Adventure) download small games to the VMU that can be played independently, like the aforementioned Tamagotchis. Bet you thought you heard the last of feeding those annoying virtual pets, didn’t you? The Dreamcast controller also accommodates the Sega Jump Pack force-feedback module, including other third-party modules made by Performance and Mad Catz.
In addition to game controllers, the Dreamcast can also be attached to the Dreamcast Keyboard, which allows you to surf the Internet on your television like a WebTV when the included Dreamcast Web Browser disc is running. Tres cool.
.H1 Great games
Over 19 games were announced for Dreamcast’s North American launch last month, and we managed to get a hold of eight of them. I’ll describe them here for you.
.H2 Sonic Adventure
The furry little blue dude with the bad haircut, Sonic The Hedgehog, is back. Dr. Robotnik has threatened to take over the world by collecting all of the seven power crystals, and it’s up to you to find them. OK, so the plot is corny (and believe me, so is the anime-style dialogue), but the graphics and the game action is pure bliss. Check out Figure C for a look at Sonic in action. This one’s definitely a keeper.
.FIG C Sonic the Hedgehog is back to take on Dr. Robotink.
.H2 Trick Style
Welcome to the far future. The world has gone completely to hell, but at least you’ve got your hover board, shown in Figure D. You can race anywhere in fluid 3D through futuristic Manhattan, London, or Tokyo and perform all kinds of skateboard tricks with a variety of tripped-out hover-boarders, including an Elvis impersonator. Conceptually, this is really cool and is a lot of fun play.
.FIGPAIR D Take a ride on your hover board into the distant future.
.H2 Soul Calibur
Clearly, this is the best kung-fu/martial arts game that I’ve ever seen. If you look at Figure E, you can see that this one’s similar to Virtua Fighter and Tekken. You’ve got your choice of a myriad of different characters to choose from, and while you really kick butt in this game, it’s not bloody. I like it, and it’s especially good in two-player mode for releasing marital tension.
.FIGPAIR E This is the best martial arts game!
.H2 Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
This is a larger-than life boxing game where you get to fight in the ring with your choice of caricatured boxers, including a guy that looks and talks a lot like Chris Rock and has a huge afro. Best of all, the game includes in-game announcements by Michael Buffer, the "LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!" dude. This is way better than Rock-em Sock-em’ Robots for sure!
.H2 Marvel vs. Capcom
In this classic-style 2D fighter game, you can pit Spider-Man, Captain America, and the Incredible Hulk against the cast of Street Fighter. It’s fun, but my reflexes aren’t fast enough to play it.
.H2 Airforce Delta
This game lets you choose from over 30 different aircraft (including the F-4 Phantom, the MiG-21, the Israeli Kfir, and the F-14 Tomcat) and pilot your way through over 20 missions with detailed briefings and strategic objectives. The graphics, illustrated in Figure F, are incredibly realistic, especially the level of detail used when drawing the planes, which have working ailerons and movable rudders. The music is straight out of "Top Gun" and you get a real sense of speed when zooming over the ground. Awesome.
.FIGPAIR F The realistic graphics in Airforce Delta are impressive.
.H2 Hydro Thunder
In this game, you get to choose from up to 13 high-powered racing boats and race on 14 vividly rendered tracks. The action is intense, the graphics are awesome, and it’s a perfect port of the coin-operated arcade game. The game uses Newtonian physics, so it emulates the actual feel of driving a real racing boat. No cars on water here!
.H2 Mortal Kombat Gold
I was really looking forward to this one a lot because I played the original to death on the Super Nintendo and in the arcades. It’s definitely true to the original (there’s plenty of blood and meaningless death), but when compared with Tekken 3 on the less-than-capable Playstation, let alone Soul Calibur, it’s not even in the same league. It’s much better when you play it against a friend or your spouse, though. You can’t LEGALLY behead or impale someone you love in real life, so I guess the game has definite value.
.H1 Conclusion
All in all, I’d have to say that the Dreamcast is definitely the best video game system to date and has a lot of potential to showcase Windows CE as the definitive OS used in interactive information appliances. The first crop of games, for the most part, does not disappoint. There are still a lot more of them to come during this holiday season. I can definitely picture myself putting a few hundred dollars worth of dents in my credit cards to acquire them. All I have to do is figure out a way to keep my wife Rachel from finding the receipts!
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
You can find more information on Sega Dreamcast at http://www.dreamcast.com.
Special thanks to IGN.com for allowing us to use their Dreamcast screenshots. For more information on the Dreamcast, check out http://dreamcast.ign.com.
For more on Sonic Adventure, visit http://www.sega.com/games/games_sonic.shtml.
Trick Style can be found at http://www.acclaim.net/games/trickstyle/index.html.
If you want to find out more about Soul Calibur, check out Namco’s Web site at http://www.namco.com/athome/titles/soulcalibur/index.html.
You can find more on Ready 2 Rumble Boxing at http://www.midway.com.
Marvel vs. Capcom can be found at http://www.capcom.com/games/e3/1999/marvel_v_capcom/.
More information on Airforce Delta can be found at http://www.sega.com/games/games_airforce.shtml.
Hydro Thunder can be found at http://www.midway.com.
Check out Midway’s Web site for more on Mortal Kombat Gold at http://www.midway.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
