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Sega Dreamcast Collection is four Xbox Live Arcade titles brought together in one package.
The fun begins with Crazy Taxi. Just those two words tell you all you need to know: You know the game, you know if you like it and if you don’t like it then you clearly have no soul as it’s one of the most wonderful arcade games every created.
This home version features both Arcade and Original ways to play. However, both say “Play by arcade rules” and offer 3, 5 and 10-minute options, which makes it confusing. There’s certainly no discernable difference between the two, other than that the Original mode seems to be a bit more generous with the time remaining.
In addition, there’s the Crazy Box mode, a series of challenges, starting with “Jump past the K Point”, for which you’ll need to achieve with a Crazy Dash along the way. This involves pressing the ‘drive’ (ie. forward gear) button just before accelerating. Practice and you’ll get there. To get further, try a Limit Cut (reverse, drive and accelerate) – time it right and you’ll get the burst of speed.
What are the downsides to this release? Well, some will bemoan the fact that the graphics haven’t been updated and are just a port of the original game. That may be so, but they still look bloody good and haven’t dated at all. There’s something to be said about not tinkering with a classic and so I’m glad they’re unchanged.
What *has* changed, and what really does irritate is that there’s none of the original music from the game which is rather a big disappointment as you couldn’t beat a bit of The Offspring’s All I Want. That was an iconic tune for the game. It wouldn’t have hurt to include a custom soundtrack option…
Crazy Taxi is worth 8/10. It would’ve been 9 or 10 with the original soundtrack. Why couldn’t Sega have licenced that? Either way, click here to watch a large selection of videos in HD from this game. There are three from the main game plus every one of the Crazy Box mini-games.
When it comes to Sonic Adventure, this one is more of a curious oddity for me. It was the first Sega Dreamcast game to be released, yet is also the one that is much more a case of style over substance than the others. There is a plot to it that revolves around seven Chaos Emeralds, but after a mostly enjoyable opening level came a bit of running about to bump off Dr Robotnik, which involves a lot of “jump about, bash the baddy, run around and do it again” rather like the opening fight with the blue “Chaos 0” creature.
After a lot of faffing about to put a Wind Stone onto a special pedestal by a waterfall, you then get access to the next action scene, at Windy Valley. However, while the 3D is all well and good and looks very nice and that I’m generally one for the old school of Sonic and preferred the 2D originals, I have to say that the camera angles are all over the place and, thus, the playability drops like a stone.
The fact that something that’s quite irritating to play after a while just gets more repetitive is not something that endears you to it, and thus only scores 4/10 from me.
You can also view a second Sonic video here: Sonic Adventure – Windy Valley – Action Scene 2 – Dreamcast Collection (720p HD)
Go to page 2 for the other games in this package.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.