Yesterday was my Dreamcast party, and I had a blast. I started the day by playing Sonic Adventure by myself. I love how beautiful the game looks even today. When I first saw it, I was amazed. It was Sega’s blue skies at their best! I played up to the point where Sonic finds Tails. I just love that first love, complete with loops and a whale that chases Sonic.
Soon after the guests began to arrive. There were eleven people at the party counting myself – Gemma, William, Edward, Pat, Tony, James, Antonio, Linh-Nam, Collin, Duncan, and myself. We had chili dogs in honor of Sonic and cupcakes with Dreamcast swirls on them. We also had a variety of soda, juice, chips, and dip.

 
We started the multiplayer with Power Stone 2. It’s definitely my favorite 3D fighter, and one my favorite fighters in fact. Then we played some Samba de Amigo, which Pat brought. That game’s fantastic! I played the Wii sequel, but the maracas work so much better on the Dreamcast. There’s mat that you put down with a sensor bar that attaches via velcro. It plugs into the Dreamcast, and the two maracas attach to the bar. It senses the height of the two maracas, and the maracas have one button each. It was fun, and now I’m borrowing it from Pat. Thanks!
We also played Chu Chu Rocket, one of my all-time favorite games. It was great to bring that game back out of my closet. Some guests played Crazy Taxi 2 while I took care of food. Then we played San Francisco Rush 2049. That game’s crazy. It was hysterical, but I think it’d be pretty boring in single player. What got crazy was the wings that the cars have. When you’re airborne after driving off a ramp, pressing a particular button causes wings to extend. I’m sure they do something useful, but for me, they just seemed to cause me to spiral out of control before exploding. Every time you run into anything, your car explodes. Crazy, but fun.
Ooga Booga, a game designed to be a party game, was strange and not that fun. After only a few minutes we moved to the next game. Bust-A-Move 4 was fun, but I’m sure no one was surprised. I think we’re all familiar with Bust-A-Move. The guests played Looney Tunes Space Race and Armada while I did other things, neither of which seemed very interesting. They also played King of Fighters for a bit.
Then it was time for KISS Psycho Circus! This game was ridiculous! You play as a member of a KISS tribute band. Apparently the members of the tribute back one day have super powers for some reason. It seemed like a bad Hexen or Heretic clone. The coolest thing about this game was the enemy known as the Arachnoclown, part spider, part clown. Picture a centaur. Now replace the horse part with spider. Now picture the human part very overweight, wearing a stupid shirt and clown make-up. Ta da! Arachnoclown!
Then we played 4×4 Evolution, which to our surprise featured a variety of real cars. I played against William in a pitch black match with rain, although for some reason we couldn’t really see any rain. It was a bit buggy, and for a while William was dragged slowly around the track after driving too far out and getting stuck. After something similar happened to me and he was teleported back on the track, he was able to win.
We tried some Alien Front Online, which allowed us to blow up the Capitol. That game wasn’t that great, but I remember enjoying it when it came out. Then in Ready 2 Rumble Round 2 we tried beating on each other for a while. The character models were pretty strange, and I never really figured out any strategy. It seemed like whichever character had the greater reach would win.
Finally we played Sonic Shuffle. I bought it three years ago and never had the chance to play it until now. It definitely feels very similar to Mario Party, but was still different and fun. By this time the only people left at the party were Collin, Duncan, and William. We played for a while before William had to leave, and then we switched his character to computer controlled. The map was a train level, and different cars of the train would disconnect or reconnect. At one point, the car with Knuckles, the computer player, disconnected and stupid Knuckles was trapped for a while. There’s a helicopter space that can be landed on which causes a helicopter to pick you up and take you somewhere else. Unfortunately for Knuckles, it dropped him back on the same car the first time he tried to use it. Eventually I won, but I was pretty surprised that actually. I hope we get a chance to play it again. Unlike Mario Party’s dice system, Sonic Shuffle uses cards. Each player is dealt a hand of cards, and you pick a card and move the number of spaces corresponding to which card you pick. You can see your own cards and now your opponents, and you can pick anyone’s card. This means you might want to try to remember what cards they have, although they can shuffle their hands so you don’t know which card is where. I’m going to try and unlock some new characters, but I don’t know how much fun single player will be.
The party was a lot of fun, and it was great to honor the Dreamcast. Hopefully everyone who came had a good time. Thanks for coming!