Introduction

Raise your fisticuffs

Two months ago, FiringSquad brought you one of the first objective reviews of the Sega Dreamcast to the internet. In September, we gave the Dreamcast an Editor's Choice award, but at that time we could only speculate how the Dreamcast would stand against the latest equivalent technologies on the PC front, namely the NVIDIA GeForce 256 and S3 Savage 2000 graphics chips. Now, the deck has been dealt and all the cards have been brought to the table. Now, we can bring you a battle between the Dreamcast and a high-end gaming PC. We'll start today by covering the hardware first and then follow up with genre-specific software comparisons in a future update.

A console? Isn't FiringSquad a PC gaming site?

Some may ask why we're even covering the Dreamcast at FiringSquad.com if we're primarily a PC gaming site. To start, there are some very impressive games on a console. Final Fantasy VIII for the Playstation, for example, earned FiringSquad Editor's Choice and the FOB Squad's Top 10 Hardcore games of 1999 includes 4 console titles. FiringSquad's goal is to provide the best coverage of gaming technologies and to ignore a console is to ignore hundreds of games on the market.

Don't worry though, this article won't bore you with pointless comparisons such as "A console is cheaper than a PC" or "You can write term papers on a PC." The Dreamcast has already had record sales as the general public will find it hard to resist a great machine for games that also offers internet access. For the general public, AOL is a great ISP and that's why AOL continues to make millions of dollars each quarter. However, Chinese-finger-handcuffs are cheaper than any console or PC and it has hundreds of uses - but in the end it doesn't mean anything to a gamer. This two-part feature just wants to answer a simple question: If I consider myself a hardcore gamer and I already have a high-end PC, should I even consider a Dreamcast?

If you enjoy playing a variety of games, then the short answer is yes, and don't worry, we're ready for the flames. In fact, why don't you open the message board in a new browser window… but before you send out any emails, read on and see what the DC has to offer!