I got my ass kicked by my dreamcast today:

[termis]

Played some good old F355 today.  God damn this game is hard!  1 mistake and back to last place.  And unlike Gran Turismo or whatnot where you can just use a superior car to blow by your opponent bouncing off wall to wall, you actually need to drive well for some time before taking over the car in front of you.  But so damn satisfying when you place in the rankings (not even winning!)  The DC continually whipped me for a good 45 minutes or so.

Then I dusted off the twinstick, and decided to go to unlock the secret ending to Virtual On, where you need to beat the game with every single character without continuing.  God damn this game is hard!  It took me a good hour and a half to accomplish this feat with just 1 character, and that was on the easiest setting.

Any VOOT players in here?  I mean, you guys are pretty hardcore, so I figure there might be a few...

[GUTS]

Yeah I loved Virtual On on the Saturn, not so much on the DC since they didn't have a control setup that I liked.  I don't know why they removed the setup that let you turn left and right with the shoulder buttons and strafe left/right with the d-pad, but that was the way I learned to play on the Saturn.  I could never get ahold of the Twinsticks so I was stuck with just a regular pad.

Great games though, I wish Sega would release a perfect port of the original for PS2 to make up for how awful Marz was.

[termis]

Yeah, there's no way you can play VOOT with the piece of crap that is the DC controller.  Saturn scheme was actually really good.  But, the lack of buttons on the DC controllers compared to the saturn's doesn't allow the same controller scheme as the original Saturn layout.  And on top of that, now L & R turbo buttons do different things for the sequel.

Oh, and Sega is actually releasing the original Virtual On (VOOM) for PS2.   (But as good as the original version is, the sequel is such a better game)

http://ages.sega.jp/lineup.html

Never played Marz - Heard it was a heap of shite from VO players, and I never had too much interest in the PS2 - had one for about a year while I was living in Korea a few years back, and promptly sold it off when I left, and never bothered replacing it.  But now the system's cheap, and they're releasing some good old stuff on the PS2, I might take a look at getting another one - Especially if they include the redone versions of Phantasy Star 1 and 2 in that Phantasy Star collection, and release it in English...  (also shown in the same link above)

[GUTS]

Yeah don't bother with Marz, it will just piss you off. 

I didn't know Sega was planning Virtual On in the ages line, that's awesome.  It'd be great if they did both the original and VOOT together since the PS2 controller would be perfect for them.

[guyjin]

Marz is indeed lame. Never got a chance to play VO:OT though; got a bum disc off of some ebay scam artist. (it worked fine up until the level actually had to load, when it froze.)

However, the Saturn controls were bliss. you could have them set up for noobs, so they could try it, or you could set it up to act like the twin sticks. I never actually got a pair of twinsticks, though.

[Hobo Xiphas]

I had VO:OT at one point, but the disc was frickin' broke so I returned it to the (surprise) GameStop I got it from.

I make it a point to play Virtual On whenever I go to Nickel City, I can't play it without the twin sticks.  The PS2 controller might actually be a good fit for a game for once, considering it has two sticks and all!

[termis]

Yeah, PS2 controller sounds a-ok for the game, with two sticks, and two trigger (shoulder) buttons, so it should work okay - I'm assuming that's the configuration that Marz used?

Though I must say that nothing beats a set of twinsticks for these games - it's just the proper way to play this game...  I actually thought of the old tank game Assault for a short moment while playing the game...

[Michael Helgeson]

Virtual On is a classic. Oddly enough back in 98 or 99 I had some copy cat knock off of it for PS1 also. I don't remember what it was called anymore,but the game completely ripped off the female mech and one of the other ones.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, F355 is massive. One mistake most of the time does take you to last place...just like every real world motorsport I can think of. Its way way too hard for most people, and completely lacks just about any feature you'd normally associate with a driving sim but really its the best driving sim I can think of. Well, the arcade version is better because of the clutch pedal, feedback, tripple monitor, etc, but the DC versions is amazingly great. It even has that awesome telemetry mode (sans the printer of the arcade ver.) which is so great for improving your times. No game since Super Mario Kart has had me spend that much time in Time Trial mode. This game pretty much requires a wheel to be any good though. I recommend the Ferrari one from Thrustmaster. Linking up two DCs and two Thrustmaster wheels is a total joy that I've sadly only been able to arrange once before.

One thing I really love about F355 is the fact that the AI drivers can actually drive. They try to avoid you, instead of just crashing into you for no reason like Turismo, Sega GT, Fortza, etc. The AI in these other games is so f*cking terribly inexcusably bad. You go to outbrake some dude in a corner with plenty of room to spare and the f*cker just rear ends you at full speed like an idiot. Because of this the only way to really get ahead in these games is to build a car so fast that it just blows everyone away on the straightaways so utterly that they aren't any where near you when you get to the corner. This is sad as I'd like to actually, you know, race, but they make it virtually impossible.

Now as for VOOT, yeah, I'm off-and-on pretty huge into that series. I use the Saturn Twinstick with an adaptor. Last year I managed to get enough people's collections together to link that one two, which is even better than Ferrari. VOOT for DC is in so many ways so frustrating. The US version lacked Netplay, officially localized Twinstick and link cables. These leads to tens of thousands of people owning a game that is virtually unplayable. I managed to figure out useful work-arounds with Cyber Troopers on the SS, but VOOT is *much* more deep, and complex, and the DC pad is a total POS so basically...the game is just outright unplayable. People are left just staring at a really really good port of a really really great game...and looking at it is about all that can be done.

At my friends place though we had two sets of SS Twinsticks (the better one, IMO) with adaptors, two DCs, two copies of the game, a link cable, two 19" VGA displays, and two VGA boxes. It was...wonderful...

Suddenly all of those frustrations are gone. All of the controller issues are GONE. All of the frustrations of a split screen GONE. You can see everything clear as a bell and the control is f*ckING PERFECT. It lets you really get into the game and enjoy it for what it is, one of the best arcade games ever made. There is a reason VOOT is still a huge revenue generator in Japanese arcades dominating an entire floor of Sega Gigo Akihabara. The only real puzzler is why all the games since VOOT suck.

[SignOfZeta]

Virtual On is a classic. Oddly enough back in 98 or 99 I had some copy cat knock off of it for PS1 also. I don't remember what it was called anymore,but the game completely ripped off the female mech and one of the other ones.

Are you thinking of Reverthion? I thought that game was OK, but I don't remember much. I remember a nun that apologized every time she shot you.

I think they even went and made a SS version later.

[GUTS]

The only Virtual On rip-off I liked was the arcade version of Cyber Sled, for some reason that was a blast 2 player.  The PSX port was lame though because of no split screen, only system link.

[termis]

For once, I believe Sega [VO] followed Namco's example [Cyber Sled] in the above case, instead of the other way around.

Though I can barely recall playing Cyber Sled a few times in the arcades, and nor is it a cult-classic like VO, so I guess it wasn't that good (though it was a time when I really wasn't into games...)