I've always had a fascination with online play on a home console.  I didn't really have access to the internet until 1999.  My father had a PC and an internet connection as early as 1995 but for some insane reason he wouldn't let me anywhere near his PC. So the internet remained mysterious and elusive until I got my grubby mitts on a PC of my own and started paying for internet access in late 1999.  Because of this the idea of accessing the internet on the Sega Dreamcast without having to buy a PC always appealed to me and seemed like a good alternative.  See I have this glitch in my brain that won't let me play games on a PC so if I were to game online it would be on a console and as far as I knew at the time you could only do that with the Sega Dreamcast.

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Christmas 1998 my idea of video games changed.  I had to stop and rethink video games as a medium of entertainment.  It was the day after Christmas and my friend from across the street Michael had come over to ask me a very important question.  It had been a long time since I really hung out with Michael so it was a little odd that he came over at all but his mission was important.  The first thing he asked me was "Did you get Metal Gear Solid?!"  He was beaming with excitement.  "Yeah I did get it actually."  I answered curiously.  I hadn't really heard of the game, I had seen the hilarious commercial but hadn't really thought much about it.  Back then Dr Jerry Terrifying wasn't a hardcore gamer that followed all the news in the gaming magazines and primitive internet.

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I remember the first time I ever read about Ad Hoc Party thinking about how useful and cool it would be. A free app on the Playstation Network that lets you play Ad Hoc only games with your friends over the PSN. Being a brilliant idea and extremely useful it naturally didn't come out in America until a year after the Japanese release.

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