The Dreamcast was the first console launch I ever covered as a novice "games journalist" at the long-forgotten (but pioneering!) games-and-culture website UGO.com. Other than the graphics, not much else was changed. Rez Infinite is a modernized version of the Dreamcast classic. May it rest in peace in my mom's basement. The Dreamcast was small and beautifully designed, had arcade-perfect games, and was my first real online gaming system. It was a great system of gaming oddities. Space Channel 5, the insanely real-feeling Shenmue, and yes, I owned Typing of the Dead. Along with the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, it was part of my cabinet of curiosities that made me dream of how strange art could be. In my dusty little Sherman Oaks apartment, Seaman was my mystic surrealist aquarium. It was like if Alexa were a depressed cannibal fish. Seaman was so ahead of its time: It had a microphone I could speak to Seaman with. My first E3 I ever attended had the Dreamcast, and I saw the Leonard Nimoy-voiced fish-man in all its Lynchian horror. And even more, I was obsessed with Seaman. it was the first TV-real sports game I'd ever seen. I was living in LA, working as a script reader and story editor, and playing amazing NFL 2K games to connect with my dormant feelings about the New York Jets. While the Genesis was my favorite, the Dreamcast is a place of special memories. I was a Sega kid - the Master System with Superscope 3D glasses was my gift after getting appendicitis. I had every Sega system that was ever made. Plus, its giant controllers were still better than the awful DualShock 2 on the PlayStation 2. #TRASH IT SEGA PRO#Capcom 2, Power Stone, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and that terrible Chao Garden feature from Sonic Adventure 2 was more than enough to keep us playing that Dreamcast until long after it had died and everyone else moved on. Though I never bought one myself, a good friend did, and it became the go-to console for sleepovers and wasted Saturdays. At that point I still just had a Genesis, so even a brief glimpse of Sonic looking halfway-decent in 3D was a revelation. I wouldn't spend any quality time with the Dreamcast until at least a year later, but seeing that showcase was astounding for the time. That Sonic Adventure demo with the whale chase - amazing to watch and awful to play. I was in fifth grade, visiting a DisneyQuest while doing the whole Disney World thing, seeing the last gasps of 1990s interactive arcades, and there it was.
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