The 24 best Dreamcast games

Ranked by the scores that magazines gave these games when they came out. The list draws on 1,221 review scores of 327 Dreamcast games; 225 of them have enough reviews to be ranked.

#	Game	Platform	Year	Score
1	SoulCalibur	Dreamcast	1999	98.9
2	NFL 2K1	Dreamcast	2000	97
3	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2	Dreamcast	2000	96.2
4	Resident Evil CODE: Veronica	Dreamcast	2000	95.5
5	Skies of Arcadia	Dreamcast	2000	94.2
6	Quake III: Arena	Dreamcast	2000	93.9
7	Virtua Tennis	Dreamcast	2000	93.2
8	Samba de Amigo	Dreamcast	2000	93
9	NBA 2K1	Dreamcast	2000	93
10	Rayman 2: The Great Escape	Dreamcast	2000	92.7
11	Virtua Tennis 2	Dreamcast	2001	92.6
12	MSR: Metropolis Street Racer	Dreamcast	2000	91.9
13	Shenmue	Dreamcast	2000	91.8
14	Ready 2 Rumble Boxing	Dreamcast	1999	91.7
15	Phantasy Star Online	Dreamcast	2000	91.5
16	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater	Dreamcast	2000	91.2
17	Grandia II	Dreamcast	2000	91
18	NBA 2K	Dreamcast	1999	90.8
19	Dead or Alive 2	Dreamcast	2000	90.4
20	Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes	Dreamcast	2000	90.4
21	Crazy Taxi	Dreamcast	2000	90.2
22	Daytona USA	Dreamcast	2001	90.1
23	NBA 2k2	Dreamcast	2001	90
24	NFL 2K2	Dreamcast	2001	90

Highly rated, with fewer than 3 reviews

9 Dreamcast games have a score of 90 or more, but from only one or two reviews, and no Metacritic score.

Game	Platform	Year	Score
Half-Life	Dreamcast		100
Samba de Amigo Ver. 2000	Dreamcast	2000	96
bleem! Gran Turismo 2	Dreamcast	2001	96
Jet Coaster Dream 2	Dreamcast	2000	94
Napple Tale: Arisia in Daydream	Dreamcast	2000	93
Culdcept II	Dreamcast	2001	92
Headhunter	Dreamcast	2001	91
Ikaruga	Dreamcast	2002	90
Sakura Taisen 4	Dreamcast	2002	90

How the ranking works

The scores are the ones magazines gave when the games came out, all converted to a 0–100 scale. Only one review per magazine counts for a game: the most recent.
A game's score is half the average, half the median of its magazine reviews. A title opens the game's page on uvlist.net; a score opens the report with every review behind it.
A game needs at least 3 magazine reviews to be ranked. With equal scores, the game with more reviews comes first.
Metacritic already sums up many reviews, so it is never mixed with the magazines: it is used only for games with fewer than 3 magazine reviews, as their only score.
Each list shows every game with a score of 90 or more. Games with fewer than 3 reviews and no Metacritic score are shown apart: their score is promising, but rests on one or two opinions.

The lists are rebuilt each time reviews are added. To filter by genre, year, magazine or publisher, explore all the scores in the report.

More lists

Best 6th generation console games GameCube PlayStation 2 Xbox All the lists