Remembering the Sega Dreamcast

Resident Evil: Code Veronica

Publisher: Capcom
Year: 2000

Code Veronica was developed in tandem with Nemesis, making 2000 a bumper year for Resident Evil fans. While Veronica didn’t get quite as much promotion as Nemesis, it remained the fan favourite of the pair. It was so popular in fact, that it eventually got a GameCube re-release.

The GameCube version is pretty damn good, and very much worth a look for those of you who haven’t played Veronica before – especially since the GameCube discs will work in a Wii.

Code Veronica casts players as the ever-popular pair, Chris and Claire, who continue with their hobby of picking at the scabs of Umbrella Corp and fighting zombies. Claire’s story picks up right after Resident Evil 2 and this time sees her infiltrating Umbrella Facilities in search of her brother. After trawling through the usual evil labs she ends up at the Ashford mansion, where huge advances in the plot are eventually revealed and Wesker does a lot of the usual glaring.


The game is surprisingly long, but it remains a thoroughly addictive mix of Resident Evil’s tense action and puzzle solving, with the usual brainbeaters and awful dialogue thrown in too. Remember – this was long before Resident Evil 4 came along and revitalised those ideas with a new camera perspective and a much stronger focus on gunplay.

This is very much what most people expect when you mention the Resident Evil name, though that isn't a totally bad thing. In fact, in some ways, it's actually quite good. This is what gaming used to be like, before we went over-the-shoulder and started getting coddled.

Code Veronica suffered when it hit the market though, eventually being a forgotten step in one of gaming’s most stalwart series. It shipped less than half a million copies and struggled to get much critical attention. This is a shame since the game remains a very playable and nostalgic experience today, provided you don’t mind the old-school Resi feel.

Sega Rally 2

Publisher: Sega Rally 2
Year: 1999

Sega Rally 2 was a brutally unforgiving, 'unrealistic' car driving game that was, and still is, a ton of fun. Sega Rally 2 is an incredibly simple game, with only four basic tracks that could be raced on in a few variations, but it does the job since the focus is on the handling, not the tracks.

You were never likely to get very far either, because of the genuine arcade-tight timing that meant once your time was up you had to start over. You couldn’t even restart the race you were on again – it was a case of do it perfectly or restart the whole championship. It’s the type of mechanic that would start a riot in these days of regenerating health, but it does give Sega Rally 2 a unique nostalgic charm.


Unfortunately, the graphics were considered a little shoddy even back then, and the draw distance is especially pitiful – you can barely see beyond the next bend and are forced to rely almost solely on the text instructions that appear on the screen. The frame rate is flaky too, getting noticeably twitchy when weather effects or tunnels come into play.

What really damages Sega Rally 2 is the insane difficulty curve and constant fight against the clock – every lap gets harder and harder until the course is pretty much impossible. The combination of poor graphics and little track variation compounds the problem, making the game quickly become a tedious, twitch-based racer that’s also a only half-optimised port. The average playtime until a rage-quit measures only in minutes and, while it’s easy to think about things with rose-tinted glasses, playing the game now is an exercise in frustration.

Happy Birthday Dreamcast!

Have you got a Dreamcast memory you want to share, or do you just want to discuss retro hardware and how gaming ain't what it used to be? Either way, let us know your thoughts in the forums!