#129. Test Drive V-Rally
October 17, 2000
Eden Studios
Infogrames
Test Drive V-Rally walks this weird line between an arcade racer and a racing sim. It has elements of both but never utilizes enough of one to fall into a specific category. As a racing game in general, it’s serviceable. I’m not really a fan of rally games to begin with but can appreciate a good drift around a gravel turn before tearing up the track in front of me. However, V-Rally’s controls are so floaty and the vehicles so light that they bounce around the track like a DVD screensaver icon.
I’m sure with enough time and determination a player could really dial into a car’s steering and tame the beast but V-Rally lacks the long-term enjoyability to make such an effort worthwhile. At this point, Gran Turismo 2 had already been out for several months with a far superior rally mode. Any racing enthusiast was more likely to have picked up the Sony title and returned V-Rally once it revealed itself to be wanting.
Games like Test Drive V-Rally highlight the general lack of quality and thought that went into many Dreamcast titles. Had there been less shovelware and lackluster ports, it might have survived longer. Good job, Test Drive series. You killed the Dreamcast. — C. Dawson
#128. Hidden & Dangerous
August 1, 2000
Illusion Softworks
TalonSoft
This is a tricky one to review. Hidden & Dangerous gives you the kind of granular control that you only see in indie games made by obsessive weirdos these days. The game’s ambition is impressive, and its mechanics are interesting on a fundamental level. For each campaign, you build a team of eight soldiers — all of whom have an array of individual stats and written bios — then fill up your team’s inventory piece by piece, then select four of your soldiers to bring on a specific mission, then distribute your items amongst each squadmate as you create their custom loadouts. It can take a good twenty minutes before you actually start the mission, and I know some of you psychos love that kind of thing. Unfortunately, the game is let down by the clunky controls typical of shooters from this era. That problem is compounded by the fact that it’s a tactical squad-based game requiring the use of additional actions like giving orders to your teammates that are performed by button combos, and it never quite works out as well as you’d hope. I’m certain that there are a significant number of people who count this among their favorite games because of its absurd depth, but most of them should probably be on a watch list. — K. Duggan
#127. Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX
September 18, 2001
Runecraft
Activision 02
Another Pro-Skater-on-a-BMX game with a good-not-great soundtrack and a weird rhythm to the whole thing. It’s tough to say what’s better between this and Dave Mirra. They’ll both make you wish you were playing any installment of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater instead, unless you’re a BMX guy that’s in denial. This one gets the edge for being an actual Neversoft game, and ’cause it probably helped more than one kid get through 9/11. But still, just play Tony Hawk! — M. Roebuck
#126. Q*bert
December 5th, 2000
Artech Studios
Hasbro Interactive
This was an awkward era in gaming history, where developers hadn’t quite realized that not every single classic video game franchise needed a 3D renaissance. But boy, did they try. And Hasbro Interactive is probably the worst offender of the bunch. All I know about Q*bert is that he looks like a walking dog toy, he jumps up and down on cubes, and Josh Gad had sex with him in the movie Pixels. Turns out that’s all I really needed to know going into this game, thankfully, in order to see if this relic of the 1980s still held up in the early 2000s.
The perspective in this game is kind of weird, having you jump around a 3D puzzle from an isometric angle. It’s tough to get used to, and it doesn’t help that when you screw up, Q*bert shouts expletives at you. Or at least I think that’s what he’s trying to convey. Hasbro Interactive was desperate to stay relevant around this time, and published a lot of overproduced revivals of old arcade classics. Sadly, this iteration of Q*bert falls firmly into that category, only to be forgotten along with the stunted reboots of Centipede and Pong. — K. Podas
#125. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing Round 2
October 24th, 2000
Midway Studios San Diego
Midway Home Entertainment
I also reviewed Ready 2 Rumble Boxing Round 2 for our Nintendo 64 list, so due to my expertise on the subject, I chose this game to review again for the Dreamcast, because there were apparently some minor changes between versions. Due to the space constraints of the Nintendo 64’s cartridges, some characters had to be cut from the roster. But rest assured, those characters are available in this version, which was probably a big deal for like, five people reading this. You can play as Bill Clinton (known as “Mr. President”) and beat up Hillary Clinton (known as “The First Lady”). Studies need to be done on this game to see if it was a precursor to unlocking sleeper agents for the January 6th Capitol Riots or something. Other than a few other celebrity cameos like Michael Jackson of all people, there’s a goofy cast of cartoony caricatures to play as. All in all it’s a pretty forgettable game that you maybe played at a sleepover once with your cousin and forgot about til you saw it on this list. “Ohhhh, yeah I remember that one kinda.” — K. Podas
#124. Deep Fighter
August 22, 2000
Criterion Games
Ubisoft
I was promised underwater dogfighting and most of what I got was shooting minerals, getting stuck trying to figure out how to deliver said minerals, and being stuck in a very unfunny version of Sealab 2021 if it attempted to be literally any SYFY drama from the 2000s.
Later in the game is when you get to the submarine war of the pew-pews, but Deep Fighter begins super, super slowly by introducing you to the submerged world around you and and letting you get used to your deep diver controls. This is great if you’re patient and see this game as its true purpose of being a super chill underwater adventure, but the big action advertised to me by the 20-year old marketing is wrong and dumb and written by big stupid poo poo heads. The real fun is the FMV cutscenes that have aged just as well as [[insert any pre-2000s live action show here]] footage and the diver “rivals” they give you who are way too eager to show you up despite you all working towards the same goal of surviving this pretty peaceful post-apocalyptic scenario.
Play if you dig underwater atmospheres, zen games, and enjoyed the Ecco the Dolphin series. Avoid if you are impatient and competitive and explosive and I swear to god Razz, if you gloat one more time about mining more sea crystals than me, I’ll fuck your mother in your own bed. — W. Quant
#123. NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC
November 16, 1999
Avalanche Software
Midway
Tried and true NBA Jam gameplay merged with the NBC license and presentation makes for a pretty good time here. In addition to the polished Midway arcade gameplay, this entry also features the ability to create or choose a character and level them up as you beat all 28 teams, gaining spendable attribute points along the way. It makes this feel like less of a coin-op port and more of a proper console game with high replayability. I made the Phoenix Suns’ gorilla mascot into a generational powerhouse. What’s unfortunate about this game is that being the fourth entry in the NBA Jam/NBA Hang Time series, it feels like Midway still wanted to incorporate new things, but by this point they were adding elements that were counterproductive to the whole style. Free throws? In an NBA Jam game? Eat shit. — M. Roebuck
#122. D2
August 22, 2000
Warp
Sega
D2 seems like the perfect game for streaming on Twitch and similar services. This psychological horror in the same family as Deadly Premonition and The Thing is a wild story of shadow-worshiping cultists, drug use, alien plant clone breasts, and survival in a desolate Canadian wasteland. It’s played across four discs due to being packed full of good-for-the-time-I-assume cutscenes, including the intro video which is the entirety of Disc 4. Twists, turns, and abject absurdity litter this Cronenbergian tale that has to be seen to be believed. In a sea of Dreamcast games with weird plots, D2 sails high above the rest.
But I’d 100% suggest watching someone play through themselves to save you from the gameplay of this crappy FPS/RPG hybrid. The shockingly bad Resident Evil-like tank controls are supported by even worse aiming capabilities. Having played through this for the first time recently I wish I would’ve watched some ten-hour long YouTube playthrough rather than experience D2 firsthand. I just wish I’d been smart enough to stream it. — J. Ruggiero
#121. Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein
April 12, 2000
Capcom
Look, it’s okay to not be perfect. Not every person or company is going to hit it out of the park every single time. While Capcom has put out hit after hit with series like Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and Monster Hunter, they tried to be a brave little toaster on the Dreamcast. The developer and publisher tried to revitalize their Star Gladiator universe with Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein.
This 3D fighter received middling reviews and scores at the time of its release and after playing it, I can say that’s a fair assessment. It’s not a particularly great game as the graphics are rough polygonal models and the gameplay is about as deep as a kiddie pool. However, there is just something about this sci-fi fighter that I absolutely adore. The character designs are both hilarious and bold as Capcom toes the line of IP infringement. There’s a discount Chewbacca, Falco, and Tingle. Also, the fighting system is so, so gloriously broken. By charging up the super meter, players can blast their opponent into a wall with a Plasma Reflect/Revenge and then hammer away with special attacks that take chunks of life until the meter runs out. It’s not good, but it has a lot of heart and is so unintentionally silly that I love it. It’s the perfect game to fire up when you’ve had a long day and just want to giggle while you spam grab moves. — C. Dawson
#120. AeroWings
September 9, 1999
CRI
Crave Entertainment
Praising any old game for its graphics in an age when you can put on a headset which which convincingly simulates Darth Vader just walking around in your kitchen is effectively a waste of everyone’s time – and yet, here is where we find ourselves with AeroWings. AeroWings’ graphics roughly equate to “Tony Hawk 2 but with airplanes,” and while they may have been impressive for the time, remember this was 1999 and most of society was convinced a bank error was going to cause a robot uprising.
The game was touted as the first real flight simulator for console play and, for what it’s worth, it does a pretty good job in that regard – assuming that you were so much of an “indoor kid” that your idea of gameplay is tracking altimeters and managing drag velocity. Then you’ll be having an absolute blast with AeroWings. — J. Knapp
#119. Midway Greatest Arcade Hits Volume 1
June 27, 2000
Digital Eclipse
Midway
Hello, person who has been boycotting the computer and video game industries since the year 2000! Thank you for visiting your local library so you could log onto the internet and check out this list. Support libraries! I know you’ve been searching high and low for a way to play your favorite old arcade games, and boy, do I have some good news for you! There’s, like, four different arcade collections that you can play on your trusty ol’ Dreamcast, the last console you ever bought! If you can only afford three, this is probably the one to miss, unless you’re a huge Joust fan. The games play well and the presentation is minimal-yet-functional, so even a caveman like you should be able to get in a few rounds of Defender before you go back to your books, or whatever it is you do. — K. Duggan
#118. Worms Armageddon
December 11, 1999
Team17
Hasbro Interactive
Worms Armageddon released in 1999 to rave reviews. This is because Worms Armageddon was (supposedly) an awesome online multiplayer experience. Nowadays, trying to get an online game — or even a game with friends at all in Worms Armageddon is akin to finding someone to reminisce about Medabots with. As such, it is almost impossible to review Worms Armageddon fairly because by going back to play it in 2023, you miss out on the sweetest slice of the pie. I’ve decided to settle on a 6/10 or so rating whilst being aware that this game was probably a lot better than that but man, the single-player experience is miserable. I’ve played Worms 3D and Worms: Open Warfare but it had been a while and I felt I’d need a good tutorial to brush me up and remind me how everything works.
I did not get that.
This game is less beginner-friendly than a line of crystal meth. It assumes a lot of prior knowledge of Worms games and the sparse tutorials it does feature, the “Beginner Training” is surprisingly brutal, tasking you with doing things that it doesn’t explain at all and then putting you through some arduously long loading screens every time you inevitably fail.
I jumped into some games against the CPU and had marginally more fun because it’s Worms after all, but there were still so many gaps of knowledge because of how inefficiently the game had taught me anything. I don’t get how the fuck to get off the Ninja Rope without sadly plopping off, I accidentally ended my turn whilst trying to switch Worms and any attempt at a match I had was filled with so much confusing and blindsiding chaos that I could’ve sworn at any point my Dad was gonna show up on-screen and tell me he was proud of me. There was surely something great about this package once upon a time, but now that’s long gone, nothing more than a spectre in the great AOL dial-up box in the sky. — Brad Waters
#117. Virtual Striker 2
March 14, 2000
Sega, Genki
Sega
In a move that enraged football fans everywhere outside of the United States, Sega opted to make a soccer game that focused purely on the enjoyable aspects of soccer. As such, matches only last as long as a college freshman in bed and end the same way, with someone screaming “GOAL!” at the top of their lungs.
Virtua Striker 2 lacks all of the nuance and detail of your more traditional soccer game. Gone are the rosters, stat management, and hours of gameplay resulting in only a match or two being completed. Instead, it’s easy to get into, loads of fun to play, and comes in a bite-sized format. For quick and dirty soccer fun, it can’t be beaten. The only thing I will knock it for is that players must use the D-pad to move around the field. Virtua Striker 2 came out during a time when analog sticks were a new and terrifying technology in gaming. As such, moving frantically around the pitch is rougher on the thumb than it needs to be. Due to its format, Virtua Striker 2 has polarized many critics. They either fault it for not being a more accurate and faithful soccer game or they embrace it for its zany fun. It all comes down to what kind of soccer fan you are. Do you like playing soccer or do you like having fun? — C. Dawson
#116. Atari Anniversary Edition
June 30, 2001
Digital Eclipse
Infogrames
Hello, technophobic dude on the library computer! I’ve got some even older games for you! This Atari collection features some true classics, and a larger selection than that old Midway collection I was talking about earlier. Some of these titles might only appeal to a true retro-enthusiast, but it’s surprising how easy it is to spend your whole night playing Pong without realizing how much time has passed. Plus, if you have a few controllers, you can start up a game of Warlords and get your friends off their damn phones for a few minutes. Those things are totally giving them brain cancer, so you’re doing them a favor. — K. Duggan
#115. Seaman
August 9, 2000
Vivarium/Jellyvision
Sega
So let me get this straight. After raising a generation of Seamen, essentially amphibious parasitoids, from eggs; after helping them acquire language and watching in horror and fascination as they devour each other and evolve; after caring for them until they lay the egg that would eventually hatch into you and die off; after tirelessly making endless adjustments to your tank temperature and moisture levels as you harangue me with Jeff Kramer’s voice like some abominable digital homunculus; after listening to you berate me for not seeking therapy and for not eating healthy enough; after getting home to my empty apartment at 2AM after a closing shift at the bar and immediately booting Seaman up and reaching for the microphone to tell you, as loudly and as clearly as possible, “I love you. I love you.” over and over again because you’re still sick from the spider I accidentally fed you and this was the only way to recover even though I couldn’t even tell if it was working or not; after all this, now you’re saying it’s time for you to go?
Fine. This next part is something you have to do on your own. I understand. You don’t have to tell me that you’ll always be outside if I need you. I know this is goodbye. Honestly, it’s a relief that I won’t have to see you sit there and give me that stupid look on your grotesque adult Boss Baby-face everytime I come home. So go on. Get out of here. But I won’t be there to help you anymore. So please, take care of yourself.
I want to give Seaman a 0/10 because it sucks and I want to give this an 10/10 because it sucks. I’ll split the difference and give this strange digital pet game a 6/10, with that extra one point acting as my finger on the scale. — A. Weerasinghe
#114. NCAA College Football 2K2: Road to the Rose Bowl
August 29, 2001
Visual Concepts
Sega
Oh, hi! Guy Who’s Stuck in a Hole here again! This time they’ve chucked down a copy of Visual Concepts’ NCAA College Football. I still don’t have a Dreamcast down here, just a bunch of really great deals and a piece of beef jerky I’ve been saving, but I do remember playing this game when it came out. Long ago. Before the hole.
Coming from Visual Concepts, the makers of the stellar NFL2K games, you’d think the lone college football game on the system might be a quiet contender for top tier Dreamcast sports game, but sadly, it’s merely pretty good. Fundamentally sound, but not the showstopper it could’ve been. If you like college football, you can’t go wrong here, but among other things, missing fight songs and bowl games make the whole thing feel incomplete. That wasn’t a football pun, I swear! I know the rules! — GWISIAH
#113. Spider-Man
May 1, 2001
Neversoft
Activision
Whereas the N64 port of this PS1 brawler was noticeably worse than the original, the Dreamcast adaptation unsurprisingly is a slight improvement on the PlayStation game. Same problems, better graphics. The game is still a blast at its core. This was the first time we got to swing around like Spider-Man in a 3D space, and it’s still as fun here as it was then. It’s especially cool how much of the rest of the Marvel Universe shows up here. Black Cat, Human Torch, and Daredevil all show up for cameos, and it makes it feel like you’ve been dumped into issue 392 of an ongoing series. — S. Finkelstein
#112. Zombie Revenge
January 25, 2000
Data East
Sega
Negan who? Joel what? Any and all zombie destroyers pale in comparison to the one true master: the sloppy-haired, shirtless wonder that is Rikiya Busujima, one of the playable characters in beat-em-up zombie basher Zombie Revenge (by the way, another protagonist is named Stick).
If you know House of The Dead, think of Zombie Revenge as its CSI: Miami-esque spin-off. Both the characters in House and ZR work for the mysterious and protective “government agency” AMS, and a level in ZR has you destroy the undead and explore the original House of the Dead house, the Curien Mansion. House of the Dead, however, doesn’t have Rikiya, a stone-cold badass with the darkest shades and deadliest attacks this side of Tokyo. Luckily this short brawler with pretty shitty gun mechanics introduced us to this great man. That’s reason enough to give Zombie Revenge a try. — J. Ruggiero
#111. Time Stalkers
March 29, 2000
Climax Entertainment
Sega
Time Stalkers is a turn-based RPG dungeon crawler and monster catching game with RTS and roguelike elements that’s also a crossover game featuring characters and locations from Climax Entertainment’s previous smash hits like uhh [checks notes] Landstalker and Lady Stalker (which isn’t what it sounds like.) Time Stalkers is trying to do a lot! Unfortunately it’s neither successful at any of these things nor particularly fun. I’ve got dungeon crawling brainworms and genuinely do enjoy a Sisyphean turn-based RPG gameplay loop, but Time Stalkers is both tedious and easy. There isn’t much to the combat outside “pick the attack that does damage” and even though some of the monsters you recruit have some neat designs, there isn’t much room for play in terms of party composition and strategy.
The aforementioned roguelike element that drew me to Time Stalkers is also mostly nothing. You start at level one any time you enter a dungeon, but the game is so straightforward that building up from scratch every dungeon feels kind of like a waste of time. All that being said . . . I don’t know, consider me charmed! Despite the rote gameplay, Time Stalkers’ really lovely 90s anime character art, cartoonish sense of humor, and general ambition gives it some panache. One thing that struck me was the way the sheer number of NPCs, by and large completely inconsequential to the plot and gameplay, move about the world and progress along their own narrative threads between dungeon runs. It almost brings to mind something like a very mediocre version of Hades with its colorful overworld populated with characters adjacent to the main plot. Time Stalkers swings and whiffs, but I can easily see myself falling into the anime fun of it all if I had played it as a kid. — Aaron Weerasinghe
#110. Frogger 2: Swampy’s Revenge
October 13, 2000
Blitz Games
Hasbro Interactive
Before we begin, an education on hitboxes. A “hitbox” in a video game is a part of a physical model that “hits” or does damage, usually to the player. Hitboxes should be visually signposted as a part of character design so as to make them predictable, they should not invisibly extend a full yard past the enemy’s character model. Also before we begin, an education on frogs. Frogs are small, carnivorous tailless amphibians. I.e. it is a part of their identity that they frequently traverse and sometimes even live in water.
In Frogger 2: Swampy’s Revenge, your two most common causes of death will be what I can only assume is the foul stench of all the game’s enemies permeating around them in an intangible 3-foot radius and drowning. Frogger drowns in this game. If you touch the water, you drown. You fucking die instantly. Yet, despite these immersion-breaking crimes against realism — Frogger 2 is pretty neat! Very arcade-like, almost Monkey Ball-adjacent in its arcadey simplicity and bite-sized level structure. It’s a nifty little interpretation of Frogger’s classic traffic-crossing gameplay in a 3D space, you move in 4 directions with speed and precision to avoid incoming obstacles like you’d expect from Frogger, but said 3D space adds more jumping, verticality and hidden nooks & crannies that encourage exploration.
It does suffer, however — from having all the presentational finesse of a confederate flag mug filled with refried beans. There are “cutscenes” intended to tell the game’s “story” that pop up between levels and good god they are ugly as sin. I genuinely can’t tell who or what Swampy is supposed to be and Frogger now has a girlfriend who looks like the end result of a cancelled Hatsune Miku-branded Animorphs book. Still though, in terms of pure gameplay — Frogger 2 has some pretty neat ideas! It also has some shit ones! Can’t win ‘em all! — B. Waters
