"One of the coolest consoles out there!"

I love the Dreamcast in every way possible, from the games on it to the unbeleiveable graphics. Sure the Playstation 2 is out in Japan, but there is still faithful Japanese Dreamcast owners. I bought mine recently and its amazing.

The graphics on the Dreamcast itself are some of the most amazing ever, even better than most PC game graphics and almost all games can keep a pace of 60 frames per second. With the onboard 8mb video ram, the games run at 640x480 or 512x480 and they look stunning. This is due to the NEC PowerVR Second Gen (rendering capacity of more than 3 million polygons per second).

The sound is beautiful and has cool reverb effects. This due to the 2mb Yamaha Super Intelligent Sound Processor (simultaneously articulates 64 voices) with 3D environmental audio effects. The sound hardly ever cracks up and sounds exceptional at all times.

The CPU is responsible for the smooth gameplay at all times. The CPU is a Hitachi SH4 RISC CPU running at 200Mhz. This is marvelous peice of hardware right here. The system itself has 26mb all together, which is a Unified Ram System (16mb system, 2mb SPU, 8mb GPU-SS).

The OS that is running is a flavor of Sega OS and a customized version of Windows CE, which both are mashed together. The GD-ROM is 12x, so the load times are never long, but breif and enjoyable. A like it that they included a 56kpbs modem with the package, and yes, they are rumors that there is going to be a DSL modem in the works (oh joy!), but to get that working, you have to have an account with a DSL provider (AT&T will have DSL soon).

The games available are (almost) all excellent, except for a few lumps *cough* *Carrier*. Number one game to buy is Marvel Vs. Capcom, trust me on that.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/02/00, Updated 04/02/00