Who remembers the July 2000 difficulty of Official UK Dreamcast Magazine (Issue 09)? The cowl was adorned with its common demo disc, sporting demos for Resident Evil CODE: Veronica, Tony Hawk’s Skateboarding and Silver (plus an interactive tour of the Dreamarena web site), however slightly than a single recreation gracing the entrance as common, brown paper was torn away to disclose the headline ‘100+ New Games: Exclusive shots and insider information the the games you’ll be taking part in for the following 12 months… and past!’

This was a daring, easy cowl, aiming to reassure readers that issues had been all good on the planet of Dreamcast, that many new video games had been on the horizon. Of course everyone knows how this story ends, however on the time we had been nonetheless over 6 months away from the announcement of the DC’s discontinuation and the PlayStation 2 was already out in Japan. With increasingly individuals selecting to attend for the launch of Sony’s sophomore system in Europe, gross sales had been slowing and confidence was beginning to wane.

I recall on the time that the problem did its job. I picked it up ostensibly for the CODE: Veronica demo disc, having solely simply gotten a Dreamcast myself, however the promise of so many new video games on the horizon definitely shored up my perception that the Dreamcast was going to be round for a while to return. Hindsight is 20/20 although, proper? Sigh…

Looking on the difficulty whereas doing my continued analysis for ‘Dreamcast: Year Two,’ virtually 22 years after it was first printed, I discovered probably the most fascinating factor concerning the ‘100+ New Games’ function to be the stats. You see, readers, I took it upon myself to start out a spreadsheet and listing each single recreation talked about within the 22 pages of this function (written by Ed Lomas, Warren Chrismas and Steve Owen – Ed even mentions it in my interview with him for ‘Dreamcast: Year One’). I then labored out which of the talked about video games truly launched on Dreamcast, which ones launched in PAL territories, if any of them had been launched elsewhere and whether or not any that didn’t launch on Dreamcast had any kind of playable model in existence right this moment.

I’ll finish this piece with a hyperlink to the spreadsheet for you, however first these attractive stats. Check out this bullet-pointed listing of factoids that stand out all these years later:

• In actuality the function mentions 153 video games, though solely 99 are given their very own sections (of varied sizes). The different 54 are listed on one web page beneath the title ‘And There’s More…’. These had been video games identified of, however not seen by the ODM crew.
• Of these 153 video games, 104 noticed a Dreamcast launch.
• 17 of the launched video games had been house platform exclusives, that means they by no means noticed launch on any platform in addition to Dreamcast or in arcades. These are: NBA 2K1, POD: Speedzone, Illbleed, Sonic Shuffle, Super Runabout, Outtrigger, WWF: Royal Rumble, Alien Front Online, Tokyo Highway Challenge 2, Magic: The Gathering, Cannon Spike, Max Steel: Covert Missions, NFL 2K1, Super Magnetic Neo, D2, Floigan Brothers and Draconus: Cult Of The Wyrm. Who says the Dreamcast has no exclusives?!
• 17 of the launched video games by no means ended up being launched in PAL territories. These had been: NBA 2K1, Illbleed, Sega Marine Fishing, World Series Baseball 2K1, Prince Of Persia: Arabian Nights, Alien Front Online, Magic: The Gathering, Seaman, Bang! – Gunship Elite, NFL Blitz 2001, Max Steel: Covert Missions, NFL 2K1, D2, Namco Museum, Demolition Racer: No Exit, Frogger 2, and Ms Pac-Man: Maze Madness.
• Evolution 2 was very almost a Dreamcast unique, other than a PC port launched solely in Taiwan.
• Of the 49 video games from the function that by no means noticed launch on the DC, 10 by no means noticed the sunshine of day on a house system in any respect (although Jambo! Safari and Brave Firefighters had been launched to arcades).
• A good few of people who by no means noticed launch had been due on each DC and PC, however a heist recreation titled Picassio began improvement on Dreamcast earlier than shifting to PS2 and eventually GameCube earlier than being shelved. The just one we all know was solely ever destined for Dreamcast on this listing was Take The Bullet.
• The different 39 video games originated on different programs or had been ultimately launched on different platforms.
• Of the unreleased video games within the ‘100+ New Games’ function, 4 have some form of model playable on Dreamcast right this moment. You can obtain a completely working model of Half-Life because of assessment copies that had been despatched out earlier than the finished recreation was in the end pulled. Versions of Take The Bullet and Heroes of Might & Magic III have been discovered over time, in numerous guises, although neither recreation is full or absolutely playable. Colin McRae Rally 2.0 is understood to have a model that’s round 30% full, although this isn’t accessible to the general public (our personal Tom Charnock was capable of give it a go although).
• There are some video games with both restricted or no data identified, akin to Legend Of The Blade Masters, M.O.U.T.: Urban Warfare 2025 and Gorkamorka. It’d be nice to seek out out extra about titles like these.

These are simply video games listed in a single article too. We know there are lots of extra video games that had been resulting from arrive on the Dreamcast however by no means did, nonetheless it’s very fascinating to have a look again in time and see what may need been had the console’s lifespan not come to such an abrupt finish.

See the complete listing of video games talked about in ‘100+ New Games’ by way of this hyperlink, or seize the PDF of the journal (which we used to recreate a number of the function pages) right here, and tell us which ones you wish to have seen come to fruition within the feedback. If you’ve got any details about any of those ‘lost’ video games too, please hit us up!