First is the Dreamcast Collection Review. This gets a 5.0, citing that it is lackluster and Sega fans deserve better. Okay, so it's $30 for four Dreamcast games, what more could you want? Yes, it's sad we got just four games already, I GET IT. But let's break it down.
After attempting to play the sloppy Sonic Adventure, a mess of horrible camera angles and unintuitive level design, I struggle to reconcile with my original circa-1999 admiration. This is simply not a fun game, especially when viewed through a decade-old prism. The controls are awful. Mercifully, many of Sonic's action-heavy sequences require little more than pressing up on the stick. Some boss battles are outright broken, with one Dr. Eggman battle breezily beat by using a homing attack and then allowing a glitch to loop the strike until the evil doctor's ship went kaput.
These bugaboos are small potatoes, though, compared to the decision to not only break Sonic's 128-bit comeback into disconnected stages (the city hub is garbage), but also dilute the adventure with a terrible supporting cast that includes much-maligned third-stringers like Big the Cat and Amy Rose. Time spent with several of these so-called heroes is time wasted.
Is it just me, or can Sonic never catch a break? When SA first came out, it was "awe-inspiring." Now everyone's quick to jump on the "Sonic games are buggy and the secondary cast sucks, screw you Sega," wagon. I'm pretty sure that if a Sonic Adventure 2 port came out, they would be complaining about the same issues--gameplay sucks, characters suck, story sucks, kill me now.
Seriously, check out the GameSpot SA2:B review: 6.8 and that's just ONE year after the original DC release AND it comes with loads of extra content. So what would a port of the game be rated now? Oh...about a 3.0?
Oh well, that's the SEGA quality for you. Sonic Adventure is a lost cause as far as I'm concerned. Not even UKResistance cares anymore (profanity).
Crazy Taxi also appears on the disc. This was a gonzo arcade romp and one of my favorite Dreamcast games. Sadly, though I still had a little fun blasting through the streets, egged on by a bargain-basement Wolfman Jack, Crazy Taxi has not aged well. The pinball-like driving is tough to regress to after a decade of real racing innovation.
Wait, innovation? What racing innovation? You mean slow-mo wreck replays? Millions of Cruis'n clones? Driving generic cars around bland-colored towns? Some innovation. Get better at the game, you pinhead. This site is a good start.
There is still charm in the frenzied pick up-drop off rhythm of Crazy Taxi, but any hardcore fan knows it's linked in no small part to the ridiculous soundtrack from The Offspring and Bad Religion. Neither of those bands appear in this port. It's weird to think that losing some licensed music could be so fatal, but part of Crazy Tazi's original genius was the perfect marriage between Offspring and insane cab driving. The stand-in punk bands are hardly an acceptable substitute and proceed to deflate the game.
This is something I should've brought up sooner because I sort of agree with this quote. Yes, we get it that the stand-in punk bands suck. I do like that everyone thinks that The Offspring bands are intense and make driving fun. See this GameFAQs topic. It's all about driving fast to good music and it saddens me that so many racing games have crap music nowadays. Gimme the exciting stuff, people.
Then the review goes on to say that Space Channel 5 is forced and that Sega Bass Fishing is the only game he liked. Review over. Nothing else to say, this mediocre compilation sucked and everyone knows it.
Then there's the Yakuza 4 Review: This gets a 6.5 due to being recycled and outdated. Really, the whole review pimps the game out but at the end says, "It's old and it sucks." Really. Famitsu gave it a 38/40 and now all these Western reviewers are decrying the game apparently in some attempt to gain relevance. But you know what--I never really cared about Yakuza anyway. Just cause it's Nagoshi's baby and I want him to make Daytona babies instead...okay, that was weird.
"IGN sucks and you bad reviewers can't bring me down."
"Also, I will make another Daytona game someday...just kidding, rofl."
Ok, so I'm done with this junk.
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