THE CUTTING EDGE : Gamers' Corner : Fast, Feature-Rich Dreamcast Puts Sega Back in the Game : Console, with its 128-bit processing power and turbocharged graphics, makes competitors' current offerings look primitive.

By AARON CURTISS

Sept. 9, 1999 12 AM PT

Playing in the scissor-kicking, limb-lopping world of video games means never having to say you’re sorry. But that’s just what Sega of America did in the months leading up to today’s launch of Dreamcast, the most sophisticated home video game console ever produced.

Sega had a lot to apologize for. And it all boiled down to one word: Saturn, the 32-bit game console that led to Sega’s death spiral several years ago from the top of the video game world. Sega now has a paltry 1% share of the U.S. video game market, far behind Sony and Nintendo.

So before Sega spent too much of its $100-million Dreamcast marketing budget, executives spent months kissing up to hard-core gamers, telling them that the company understood the mistakes of Saturn and promised to do better.

Judging by Dreamcast, Sega has kept its promise.

This dreamy 128-bit rig is phenomenal, making competing machines look downright primitive and giving even tricked-out PCs with graphics hardware some solid competition. To put it bluntly, Dreamcast is what kids, their brothers--maybe a few sisters--and their dads will want under the tree this year.

Although Dreamcast’s $199 price tag is twice that of a PlayStation or Nintendo 64, Dreamcast is worth every penny. It pumps out vibrant graphics exponentially faster than its rivals. From muscly hardware to a robust library of launch software, Dreamcast delivers.

I spent the last three weeks with a Dreamcast and a smattering of early titles. It pains me to write these words only because it’s time I cannot spend with my new best friend. Sega wants players to personify the machine. Its ad campaign focuses on the notion that Dreamcast spends its off hours figuring out how its owner plays, then devising ways to beat him or her.

It seems like that’s the case. I know the machine isn’t really “thinking,” but it certainly does a good job of appearing to. In games like “NFL 2K,” designers were able to take advantage of Dreamcast’s processing power to build in artificial intelligence that’s smarter than many people I know.

Digital players respond as they would in real life. It’s impossible to call the same play time and again and expect it to work. See, these digital football teams figure out when players are likely to pass or make a run for it and they respond accordingly. Although I’ll give “NFL 2K” the full treatment in an upcoming column, right now I’ll just say that it’s not only the best football game ever made, it’s the best sports game ever made.

After all, it’s the software that matters. Even the most graceful machine is nothing more than a silicon doorstop if it doesn’t host a library of strong titles.

Dreamcast launches today with 18 games developed by Sega and other companies--a record for a new system. The games run the gamut from racers such as “CART--Flag to Flag” to bloody shooters such as “The House of the Dead 2.” In between are graphic adventures such as “Blue Stinger” and, of course, “Sonic Adventure.”

Of the 18, I played seven games pretty thoroughly and was amazed by each. But none was more dazzling and addictive than “Sonic Adventure,” a game so fast and frantic that I had to keep wiping the sweat off my palms. Rich with immersive environments and good-natured play, “Sonic Adventure” ought to be the first title bought with the system.

Dreamcast’s innards make the games hum without a glitch. Sega was able to keep the price relatively low by using a variety of chips dedicated to relatively few functions. Each by itself would be able to do some pretty neat things, but together they hurl images at blazing speeds and spew sounds with startling clarity.

The central processor is a Hitachi SH-4 running at 200 megahertz. Sega boasts that it’s four times as fast as a Pentium II at processing 3-D images. The NEC PowerVR DC graphics chip allows images comparable to those found in arcade machines. With 26 megabytes of RAM, the machine has more memory than my wife’s laptop. And because developers can write games using standard Microsoft tools, there should not be much grousing over support.

Sega has made a lot of noise about the fact that Dreamcast ships with a 56-kilobit-per-second modem. Ultimately, that will allow players to hook up over the Internet and participate in multiplayer games. It’s potentially a cool feature but one I was unable to check out since the online-gaming area doesn’t go live until today. Gamers should not expect to join any massive online games soon because the big online push won’t come until next year.

Not that that’s a problem. There’s plenty to keep players happy. And they can stay happy longer because the controller is chubby enough to prevent cramps. Its contours fit nicely into the mitts and the thumbstick offers refined control.

Stuck into the controller is a nice addition that Sega calls the visual memory unit, or VMU. Too bad this $19.95 peripheral isn’t a standard feature. More than just a memory card, the VMU sports a liquid crystal display that players can use to secretly plot moves in two-player games. Detached from the controller, the VMU features primitive but amusing games.

Whether all these bells and whistles will return Sega to dominance remains to be seen. In 1995, the company began a rapid tumble from the top of the video game world to the bottom--ultimately landing behind longtime rival Nintendo and newcomer Sony. Sega’s Saturn console served as a case study in how not to bring a product to market.

Launched with fanfare four years ago, Saturn was underwhelming from the beginning. For starters, at $400 it was expensive. Markdowns only alienated early buyers--hard-core gamers that form the nucleus of Sega’s market. No matter what price they paid, though, many players felt cheated.

It was hard to develop games for Saturn so titles never looked or played as well as those on Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Sega officially pulled the plug in 1998, but not before the system dragged down the company’s share of the market.

But Sega already has taken in 300,000 orders for Dreamcast. Although the machine stands above its 32- and 64-bit competitors, Sony and Nintendo are developing next-generation offerings and are ready to claim their chunk of the $6.3 billion spent each year on video and computer games.

Sony has shown off the technology behind its 128-bit system, which is expected to hit the shelves in 2000. Nintendo’s next machine is expected to land sometime after that. So while Sega may own Christmas ‘99, it will face stiff competition over the next two years. As Sega Director of Marketing Communications Charles Bellfield put it: “2001 will be the really interesting year.”

In the meantime, apology accepted.

To comment on a column or to suggest games for review, send e-mail to aaron.curtiss@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Essentials

Platform: Sega Dreamcast

Price: $199

Bottom Line: Welcome back

Sonic Adventure

Platform: Sega Dreamcast

Publisher: Sega

ESRB* Rating: Everyone

Price: $40