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It has been 10 years to the day since Sega launched what ended up being their final console, the Dreamcast.

The Sega Master System

I and my brothers grew up on Sega, as opposed to Nintendo like so many others. My first console was the Sega Master System. This incredible 8-bit system came with a light gun and what are still the coolest 3D glasses ever. Those glasses actually had screens built inside of them, so rather than just using cheap red/blue 3D glasses that change the color of the game and only work moderately well, these would give a true 3D effect. I used them to play many, many hours of Missle Command on the SMS. Unlike the original Missle Command, in this game the rockets flew out “at” the player, who had to use the light gun to take them down.

The SMS also had Phantasy Star. I firmly believe this was the best 8-bit game ever created. The music was excellent for its time and the graphics far ahead of its peers. When exploring dungeons in the game, it even moved to a first-person point of view, the first such game I had ever played.

Then came the Sega Genesis. I saved up to buy this wonderful machine so I could play NBA

Try and match this Nintendo!

Jams. My brothers and I played a LOT of this game and many others. The Genesis also took Sonic to a whole other plane. Sonic was cool on the SMS, but on the Genesis he showed why he, and not Mario, was the best video game icon. Mario was slow, plodding and just like to jump sometimes. Sonic was all about moving at high speeds and rocketing from place to place. Heck, as time went on Sonic games even used rock and metal as its musical backdrop, as opposed to the dinky Mario music that, while iconic, does not exactly scream “excitement”. To me, the console-war winner was clear, even if the Nintendo people didn’t get it. This Penny Arcade comic does a great job summing this up. Later, the Genesis grew in complexity and added a CD reader and a 32-bit add-on. As you can see from this picture, it could get a little … crazy.

The Sega Saturn came next. I never owned one of these. When it came out it certainly had amazing capabilities, but programing for it was proving too complex for game makers. This console just never had the games to compete with the Sony Playstation. I worried that this would be the end of Sega.

Then, one fateful day in the summer of 1999 I was walking through a local mall when I passed by a Babbages. There, on display, was the Dreamcast. It was love at first sight. The graphical capabilities of this system far surpassed anything I had ever seen before. Unlike the Saturn, the Dreamcast was also going to have games and a lot of them at that. I knew I had to make it mine.

So, once again I saved up and bought a Sega console. Like all of my previous Sega consoles, it was a sleek black (I stayed away from the beige model and bought the Sports Edition, which was black). It even had innovative controllers. The memory cards that held game data went right into the controllers. Those memory cards even had tiny screens on them that gave the player information as they played. Even crazier the memory cards had little controls on them, so that mini-games could be played on them.

That awesome memory card for the Dreamcast

I, of course, got the new Sonic game for it, which just about caused my head to explode. It used rock and metal to pump the player up and moved at speeds I didn’t even think were possible. This, I thought, would make believers out of the Mario-people and get them to understand why Sonic was so much better.

Then came what remains to this day the best overall videogame I have ever played: Shenmue. It played like an old Kung-Fu movie. The story had an amazing complexity to it, and was intended to be a 3-game story-arc. Sadly, only one game was ever released in the US. The second did get released overseas, but the third and final game never came out. I have the second game along with an adapter, but sadly we will never learn how the story comes out. Despite this, I certainly don’t regret playing the game - it had an open world in which Ryo was free to explore and go wherever he wanted. I loved this.

In 2001 Sega stopped producing the Dreamcast and has yet to return to the world of manufactoring consoles. It is very unlikely they ever will enter that market again. They do, of course, make plenty of video games for the remaining consoles. Sonic is certainly still alive and kicking. Still, it hasn’t been the same without Sega making its own consoles.

I think tonight, to celebrate this occasion, I will pull down Shenmue and explore Ryo’s world again. You know, just for old time’s sake.

Matthew Random Thoughts dreamcast, genesis, master system, sega