Dreamcast

According to ESRB, this game contains: Animated Blood and Gore, Animated Violence

Yes, Samba de Amigo requires $80 maraca peripherals that come in a big yellow box with cartoon characters on it. And yes, it's one of those silly music games that are so huge in Japan. But what do they know? They bought more copies of Seaman than Soul Calibur. And you read online that there are some Ricky Martin songs in the game, and there's no way you're ever buying a game featuring the Latin sensation from Menudo.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Comic Mischief

Game Description: Even those of us who have tin ears can make music with Latin America's musical rattle, the maraca. The idea in Samba de Amigo is to use visual cues to shake your maracas in time with the music's rhythm. Although that might sound easy, it's not. The visual cues prompt you more than just to shake them, but where to shake them, and in three levels between your head and your knees. In other words, think of Samba de Amigo as a cross between Dance Dance Revolution and semaphore. The game requires quick reflexes, great timing, and powerful concentration.

The appeal of Sega GT extends beyond any sort of admiration I may have for Gran Turismo, because it is quite the opposite. It would seem that I am one of the two percent of gamers who actually dislike Gran Turismo. I have never been a fan of the silly tests and other hoops that Polyphony Digital forced me to jump through just to gain access to certain cars—especially ones that perform only marginally better than the last one I owned.

In that case, developer Tose Software did a superb job of recreating the Gran Turismo effect on Dreamcast. Sega GT plays the same, looks the same and sounds the same as its PlayStation counterpart. Of course, Sega GT is able to take advantage of Dreamcast's superior processing power, so the cars and environments look more realistic and less grainy than they would on PlayStation. Aside from that however, it's hard to believe this game wasn't developed by Polyphony Digital.

Game Description: The car workshop in Sega GT lets you build your dream car from the ground up. You'll choose between thousands of options and hundreds of styles to make the car that best suits your driving habits and personality. But there are 130 prebuilt classic and current sports cars if you'd rather just jump in and drive. Each car is modeled for precise look, handling, and performance. Once your car is set, take it into competition through five racing seasons on more than 20 courses. Go against the smart-driving computer opponents or take it head-to-head with a friend via the game's split-screen mode. Be sure to plug in your Dreamcast-compatible racing wheel for the ultimate in driving simulation.

So does the final release of Shenmue live up to all the hype of being the most expensive game ever made and deliver Dreamcast owners onto the promised land of gaming bliss? The answer is yes and no. Shenmue is the Bill Clinton of videogames; extremely ambitious, arguably successful, and yet undoubtedly flawed.

Sega seems to have a theme going lately consisting of games which are extremely original and challenging on many levels, yet strangely, they aren't very much fun to play. Seaman was the first game in the recent trend, and Shenmue is definitely another.