17. Virtual Fighter 3TB (SEGA/AM2)
It might not be as graphically sexy as Dead or Alive 2 or
SoulCalibur (see further down this list), being a slightly dodgy port of a three year-old arcade title at the time of the European Dreamcast launch, but this is a landmark fighter by any other standard. Obsessive fans of the fighting genre - and the VF series in particular - never shut up about Virtua Fighter 3TB. Apparently the controversial addition of uneven surfaces makes this version of Yu Suzuki's ultra hardcore series a divisive one amongst tournament players, but it's probably the boldest change in gameplay mechanics VF has ever undergone - with the twist missing from all subsequent iterations. The same applies to the addition of a "dodge" button to what was previously a three-button fighter. And don't be alarmed by the "TB" mentioned in the title: it's not referring to the infectious lung disease fashionable in nineteenth century literary circles. Instead it stands for "Team Battle", referring to a game-mode in which you could select two fighters, to be used consecutively in the event of a KO. A feature which has since become a mainstay of fighting games from
Tekken Tag Tournament onwards
.
16. House of the Dead 2 (SEGA/Wow Entertainment)
SL: House of the Dead is to me synonymous with childhood holidays abroad. It seemed like wherever you went, there would be an arcade cabinet of House of the Dead 2. Theres something comforting in that, God knows why. The Dreamcast conversion was absolutely perfect though, with SEGA showing exactly how it should be done. The guns were nice too, although personally I loved welding a keyboard in the spin-off Typing Of The Dead . If I have one major regret over the games released on Dreamcast, it's that SEGA wasted the opportunity to port more of their light gun games from the arcade. There were fighters and racers aplenty, but aside from the sub-par
Confidential Mission, and a Japan-only release of
Virtua Cop 2, House of the Dead was the only reason to own the gun peripheral. Light gun controllers have always been under-served whatever console they've been on and, with the coming of the Wii, Kinect and PlayStation Move, are now altogether redundant. But I'd have loved to have seen bloody brilliant coin-op
Jurassic Park: The Lost World on the machine. Oh well. Nevertheless, if you were only going to get one light gun game, HotD 2 would hopefully have been that game. The graphics were amazing for the time, whilst the voice acting was so
beautifully wooden that I could almost weep tears of joy hearing it again. Of course, coming from a pound-coin gobbling arcade title, the boss fights get near impossible towards the end - but for those who could afford to splash out on two guns, it was one of the best experiences the console had to offer. The multiple paths on offer also meant that replay value was pretty good for a game spent on-rails.