The greatest and most ridiculous Dreamcast peripherals! Hey, it's ya boi Derek, and this is Stop Skeletons From Fighting! The Dreamcast: In many ways, it was dead on arrival when it launched in North America on 9.9.99, over 20 years ago. What were you doin' 20 years ago? I don't even think about it. It's best remembered as the system that killed Sega - Well, it's best remembered for a lot of reasons, but that's kinda the big one! But to be honest, they were well known for years for confusing add-ons and weird peripherals, like, way before the Dreamcast, the cracks were beginning to show for Sega. Stiff competition from Sony, combined with the declining popularity of arcades, meant the Dreamcast needed to be a huge hit! Which it actually was in North America, thanks to maybe the greatest launch lineup of all time, but it actually flopped pretty hard in Japan, sealing Sega's fate. Still, it remains one of the most cherished and greatest gaming machines ever made, I mean, Sega went out, but they went out with a bang! The Dreamcast's short-lived success was multi-faceted: Much can be said about its marketing, the games, I mean, it gave the world THE greatest game that has ever or will ever be made, Illbleed! But one of the Dreamcast's more impressive feats was its arsenal of peripheral devices. The Dreamcast was an impressive last gasp of peripherals from the peripheral king! This is Punching Weight, a celebration of the weird, ambitious and unnecessary, and we are back with another deep dive into video game peripherals, and you know what, if you love video game peripherals too, why don't you hit that subscribe button if you haven't already, and if you wanna add on some peripherals into your life, we've got a brand new line of T-shirts at Pixel Empire, check out the description below and hey, go to pixelempire.com/ssff and get a 10% discount when you use the offer code SSFF10, and the code works with the whole website, the entire store, so go save yourself a couple o' bucks and get official Stop Skeletons From Fighting peripherals. And now, on to the video! Let's start the show with a showstopper: This is the Sega Dreamcast fishing rod. Well, actually... this is actually a third-party one... ... uh, but it works just as well as the official one. And yeah, I meant that: Official one! Here is a bizarre fact that will surprise no-one: Sega is the only console manufacturer to bother making an official, first-party fishing rod controller for a console. And they went totally bonkers overboard with it! This baby has basic motion-sensing controls, left, right, up, down, which... ... holy crap, wait! Pause, stop! Lemme break that down for you, that means... not only did Sega decide to make their own fishing rod for the Dreamcast, but they also made one of the first-ever mass-produced first-party motion controllers for consoles... ... since, I guess, the Power Glove? You're beautiful! I love you. And it's pretty decent to use with fishing games, like Sega Bass Fishing or Sega Marine Fishing. Now, I'm no expert on actual fishing, or even fishing games, but I'd say it works pretty well! Once you have a fish on, you start reeling and you're given prompts to pull the rod in a certain direction. There's not a lot of feedback for if you're doing it correctly, I'm not settin' any records at Sega Lake or anything, but I got a couple o' fish. "This one's huge!" Yes, there is a fishing rod, and yes, there's actually a TON of fishing games for the Dreamcast, but that's not what I wanna talk about! Technically, this is a normal, working controller with an analog stick and the four face buttons, so you can one-hand it with any Dreamcast game that doesn't require the D-pad and/or the shoulder buttons. And I know that sounds like the type of challenge I'd be up for, but no, it gets even dumber than that! Because these fishing motion controls, which are revolutionary in their own right, work for more than just the fishing games! The first one is one of my personal favorite games on the system, Soulcalibur! So I guess the mad lads at Namco knew about the fishing rod, and decided to implement the motion into the game like you're using the actual weapon! But they didn't really tell anyone? How do you not include this in the instruction book?! ... maybe the reason they didn't put it in the booklet is because it doesn't work all that well. I mean it functions, but it's not like you're gonna be bringin' this to EVO and winning tournaments any time soon. Or maybe you can, I dunno. With the fishing rod, you can do up-down vertical or left-right horizontal strikes with the motion controls, and it's... not very precise. A word of caution: Be careful! I accidentally snapped off the reel part of the controller kendo-flailing as Mitsurugi, and that's actually a bummer, because spinning the reel pushes all three of the attack buttons for your charge move. Can't expect these old plastic toys to last forever! Here's hoping a little bit of superglue will get us back to good. Block and Kick still require button presses, as does movement-based attacks and general movement. Really, this is just a cool proof-of-concept, but it's amazing it exists at all! Leveling the playing field and having two people use the fishing rod would be... the reel fun! HA! Reel fun! Jokes! And would you believe it, that is not the only Namco game that uses it! After your kendo tournament with Soulcalibur, why don't you switch things up with the delightful continuation of Dig Dug, Mr Driller, you heard me right, grab your fishing rod and go do some drilling! It's not quite as great as you'd hope, swinging the reel only simulates a button press, not a direction, so you still need to aim and move with the analog stick. It's not great. In fact, it's super dumb, which gets a thumbs up for me! Well done, Namco! And we're still not finished yet with the fishing rod: Its motion controls also work with Virtua Tennis! Yes, this beat Wii Tennis by about six years! Virtual Tennis is already a pretty simple game: Press a button to swing the racket, and the analog stick determines which direction you'll hit the ball. But with the fishing rod, swinging side-to-side or up and down counts as a hit or lob respectively, and it works amazingly well, to be honest! But unfortunately, you still have to use the analog stick for movement and ball direction, it takes a bit of practice to nail down, but I thought it was great! More than just a goof like the other last two, this is a legitimate way to play Virtua Tennis! I'm sure you're wondering what else this fishing rod can do, and unfortunately, I can confirm it is not compatible with one game you're probably thinking it should be compatible with: Sonic Adventure. Or more specifically, the Big the Cat section in Sonic Adventure. Which is just baffling to me, it's like, c'mon Sega, you made the fishing reel! You gon' let Namco out-reel you? You're the fishing reel kings! So one of the Dreamcast's main innovations was its online capabilities. It wasn't the first, that's for sure, of course, the Saturn did as well, and even the Genesis had some online, if you can believe it! But the Dreamcast was the first console with a built-in modem! Dreamcast had SegaNet, which allowed users to play games online with friends, chat, send e-mail, and surf whatever web was available in the days before YTMND and eBaum's World. It even got the seal of approval from Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit! [to the tune of Rollin']
♫ Now I know y'all be lovin' this surf right here! ♫ Oh my god, Dreamcast was so dumb, I love it! It's a legacy that lives on... ... not Limp Bizkit, the Dreamcast, with many Dreamcast games still online today, and y'know what? With all that web surfin', you're gonna need a keyboard... and a mouse. Now, of course, there's the flagship game for the keyboard, Typing of the Dead, which, if you're not familiar, is basically "What if Mavis Beacon, but House of the Dead 2?" Essentially, one of the greatest games ever made. Look! They've got keyboards instead of guns, and Dreamcasts on their back! Sometimes I can't belive this game is real. It's also pretty intense! I am not the greatest typerist, so this game is still legit horror for me. There are other Japanese typing games, but I needed to know what other games can be played like I'm on a PC. So I pulled out all the shooting games that I own, because you know I can't resist PC-to-console ports. If Typing of the Dead is the Dreamcast's flagship keyboard game, then the flagship keyboard-and-mouse game is Quake III Arena. Quake III on Dreamcast was a pretty big deal for the time. It was a solid port, had four-player splitscreen, and was not only online, but also had cross-play with the PC! And the cherry on top? I mean, of course, besides the Limp Bizkit endorsement at the time. Keyboard and mouse support, baby! And it gave you complete freedom with button customization! However, there are no presets for anything that's not on a controller, so you'll have to assign controls every time. The mouse is really the star of the show here: The scroll wheel, which I think was a first for console mice, is great for weapon select, and there's a third button on the side, which is great for Zoom In or Use Item. This was a great PC port, and so was Unreal Tournament, which came out a few months later and followed in Quake's footsteps with similar customization options for keyboard and mouse. Both of these are really solid ports, and at the time, I remember feeling like the chasm between PC and consoles was finally closing, in part because of the Dreamcast's keyboard and mouse! Quake and Unreal were two big gets for the system, but they weren't alone: Other PC ports like Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear and Soldier of Fortune work about as well with the mouse and keyboard as you'd expect. Kiss: Psycho Circus, which doesn't contain any members of Kiss, but actually stars a fake Kiss cover band- what? - also came to the Dreamcast! I only have the demo, but near as I can tell, this game only has keyboard but no mouse support. Speaking of PC ports, here's one for ya: Half-Life! Yes, the unreleased port of Half-Life! I happen to have a pirated copy here, and I can confirm that it does NOT support keyboard or mouse. However, the PS2 port of Half-Life has mouse support! Er, but anyway, I don't have much to say about these games, though I have a feeling I will be returning to Half-Life again at some point, because I really want to talk instead about a Dreamcast exclusive: Ou... Trigger? Out Trigger? Oh, two T's, two G's, no space, okay. Outtrigger. This is an interesting game: It's a fast-paced, arcadey shooter that feels like Quake III, but through the lens of Japanese developers who spent most of their careers in the arcade. And you can kinda tell this, because the keyboard presets to ESDF instead of WASD. Phew, that didn't age well! It has a TON of controller options, way more than it needs, frankly. In fact, it's possible to play this game with just the keyboard! You know, for the gamer with a Dreamcast keyboard, but no Dreamcast controller! So yeah, after you're done with your Soulcalibur fishing rod tournaments, save the world with just a keyboard! By the way, there's yet another game that just uses the keyboard: My friend and yours, Mr Driller again! Ah... Dreamcast does what no-one else was dumb enough to do! Outtrigger is not an amazing game, but it's a neat curio for Dreamcast fans, definitely recommend. Ah, but what about the mouse? Well, there's at least one game that can be played with only the mouse: Silent Scope, a.k.a. Konami's sniping simulator. And it plays... really well, in fact I might prefer it to playing with the controller! Overall, I'm kind of disappointed with the mouse because, near as I can tell, Silent Scope is the only light gun game that supports it! And it's not even really a light gun game at all, actually! There are a few light gun games on the PlayStation 1 that can be played with the PlayStation mouse, and I was hoping the same would be true for the Dreamcast. There certainly is not a shortage of great light gun games on the system, like House of the Dead 2, Virtua Cop 2, and Death Crimson OX. ... okay, maybe not that last one, but y'know what I'm tryin' to say. Now, you'd think these games would work with the mouse for obvious reasons, but also because of the issues Sega had with their official light gun peripheral: Sega actually never released the Dreamcast's official light gun in North America after the Columbine shooting stirred up anti game violence sentiment in the US. Light guns for the Dreamcast still came out in North America, I have the InterAct one personally, but they were all third-party. So not including mouse compatibility for these games was a missed opportunity. Right now, light guns are still not compatible with HDTVs, but there are a couple of controllers that got announced this year that I hope are great, but I've no idea what's going on with any of those, I just missed using this thing, BUT even though I don't have a CRT TV, I can still use my light gun with at least one game: That's right, it's Mr Driller again! Where the D-pad on the side lets me move, and pulling the trigger lets me dig! What a hero, is there anything he can't do? Actually maybe yes, the Dreamcast mouse is like the only thing that is NOT compatible with Mr Driller. Hm. But back to the mouse and keyboard: You know what else you needed for online? A microphone, so you can do all that online multiplayer chattin' with your friends and leave audio messages! And Sega delivered! The microphone was initially made for one of the Dreamcast's most memorable games: Seaman, which, if you're not familiar with, is a bonkers game that is basically the Tamagotchi obsession of the late nineties gone berserk! And it was all narrated by Leonard Nimoy! NIMOY: "This is your fourth visit today. You visit often." "If one didn't know better, one might assume you're quite obsessed." Seaman was considered the Dreamcast's first major hit in Japan, which says a lot about how the system did in Japan, and is incredibly charming. The word recognition works remarkably well, and still feels like some weird voodoo magic, even today! It's also basically a phishing scheme... heh, in more ways than one! Heyo! But seriously, Seaman does ask a lot of personal questions! SEAMAN: "So... what day is your birthday on?" Was Sega tryin' to figure out my password or something like that? Oh wait, in the instruction book it actually says there's no risk of this information being leaked. Okay, that's reassuring, and you know what, that face? That's a face I can trust! It's incredibly ambitious, and Seaman himself is absolutely repulsive. I love it. And so does everyone else! Turns out that getting a complete Seaman and a microphone is very difficult and expensive! So I decided to buy an incomplete copy, and get the other North American bundled with the microphone: Alien Front Online! Alien Front Online is a dumb, loud, bombastic tank game. Like the name implies, it is the arcade game Alien Front, except online! And that's where the microphone piece comes in, for voice chat. I'm sure it's fun when you get all your buddies online and talk with them and all that, but just single-player, it's not that great. It's very simple, controls kinda weird, aiming feels harder than it should be... I'll say this: It ain't no BattleTanx. Side note: Another game, Propeller Arena, was planned to have a microphone bundled with it, and was set to release on September 19th, 2001, but went unreleased after a certain flying-a-plane-in-New-York-City related tragedy happened about a week earlier. Tch. Sega could not catch a break with the Dreamcast. Wooh. Anyways, so, lots of Dreamcast games have microphone support through online, but I found two other games, outside of Seaman, that have in-game microphone support, one of them being the Japanese-only Death Crimson 2. Now, if you didn't know, the Death Crimson series is infamous for being absolutely terrible, and a hero of the Kusoge genre. Only one game in the Death Crimson trilogy has ever been released in North America: Death Crimson OX, which certainly lives up to its reputation. However, Death Crimson 2 allowed you to record your own sound for your character to scream when they die, which I think you will be doing a lot. [distorted screaming] JEFF: "This is way more effective and terrifying." This option was not added to Death Crimson OX, and it is a shame! But Uncle Derek, what about using a microphone actually to play a game?! Well, you can in... and I bet you can guess at this point, Mr Driller. This time Namco lets you use the microphone, basically swapping out button presses for yelling like a maniac. There's even a volume register up in the corner so you can keep track of how loud you need to be in order to register a button press, which means it's best to just scream like a demon to dig your way down to the center of the Earth. Like all the alternative methods to Mr drill, this is not the optimal way to play, but this just might be the dumbest! And really, that is a great place to end on. So what did we learn today? Well... There are lots of great peripherals for the Dreamcast, but also, the Dreamcast might be your one-stop shop for the dumbest ways to play video games, in no small part thanks to Mr Driller, which might officially be the greatest and dumbest game ever featured on Punching Weight! And this still isn't even all that's out there! There was the twin sticks for Virtual On, the maracas for Samba De Amigo, there was a Zip Disc drive, a camera... but of course, we've not talked about the biggest little Dreamcast peripheral of them all... ... the VMU, and that is because there is so much to talk about, we had to give it its own video, so next time, look out for that! Until then, I wanna give a huge shout-out to our Patreon supporters, this video was part of a Patreon goal we reached earlier this year, which gave us a bigger budget for buying vid- games for videos! And update, when we shot this video, we hadn't put the- our YouTube Horror Story video up yet, and since putting that video up, we've seen an enormous swell of support... ... uh, thank you to a- everybody who watched that video and helped us out, uh, we talk more about it... uh, in the link below, on our Patreon, so go check that out if you wanna learn, like, kinda what's been goin' on. If ya don't know what's goin' on, check out that original video... uh, it's been kinda crazy, or hey, just keep watching... uh, thank you so much for the support for all the years, more Dreamcast peripherals... uh, more horror stuff's comin', uh, that's gonna be it for now. So, support us and help us cover even dumber stuff, like every single one of these fine people here, and also, reminder: pixelempire.com, we have brand new Stop Skeletons From Fighting shirts and other merch! I think that's gonna do it for now, we gotta get back to work, 'cuz we got more Dreamcast stuff comin' very soon, thanks so much for watching, stay powerful!
Ah, one of my favorite YouTubers strange peripherals for one of my favorite consoles ever. Most excellent.
Nick Wiger touched on this on the Typing of the Dead episode of the podcast How Did This Get Played.
It's a couple of comedians and a guest talking about bad games. It's great, check it out.