10 Critically-Acclaimed Video Games That BOMBED

Ah, Sega Dreamcast. Ol' Casty. Big Dreambo.

Nowadays, the console is widely accepted as one of gaming's finest, but in the early 00s it was considered by many to be too arcadey, too unconventional as a home console - the impending PS2 promised to be more cinematic, and less about the immediate, fleeting thrills and colourful visuals Sega's Dreamcast had become synonymous with (as well as midnight gaming-ruining screaming memory cards).

Enter Shenmue - the game which sought to change this impression by being the single-most cinematic, filmic epic ever played, a playable movie featuring revenge for a murdered father, magic mirrors, forklift truck races and loads of Kinder Egg toys.

It cost Sega as much as $70 million USD - by far the most ever spent on a videogame at the time - and whilst it's arguable this payoff was worthwhile from a creative standpoint, it was simply too much to recoup financially.  Shenmue was intended to be a twelve-part saga spanning multiple console generations, but it ended up being one of Sega's very own coffin nails after the second part failed to match a tenth of the original's Dreamcast sales.

Still, with a hauntingly beautiful score, excellently-Segaish combat system and a deliberately slow pace which encouraged players to draw beauty and interest in the richness of the in-game world, Shenmue has influenced many games in its wake - arguably making its sacrifice more than worth the money and effort involved in its creation.