When it comes to throwback gaming YouTube channels, not many compare to Tyler Esposito’s My Retro Life, at least in terms of impressively preserved archival footage.
Truthfully, just about anyone with a smart phone and a passion for old games can publicly wax poetic about their digital days of yore, but I’d wager very few people possess piles of dusty camcorder tapes that attentively document what appears to be—at least in Esposito’s case—their entire retro gaming journey. From what I understand, Esposito’s late father was rather compulsive about filming the family’s day-to-day life back in the ‘80s and ’90s, and praise be, because we now have a clear glimpse into this rapidly fading past.
It’s Thinking… About The Internet
I’ve long been a fan of My Retro Life, but once in a while, a particular video will hit home in a painfully nostalgic way. Published earlier today, the latest entry in Esposito’s history excavation project details his teenage spiral into the exciting Y2K world of nascent Dreamcast online functionality. Don’t think I didn’t notice the Battle Arena Toshinden music during the video’s front-loaded ad, Tyler. As far as I’m concerned, though, PlayStation and Sega’s ill-fated 128-bit console go together like peanut butter and jelly, only the peanut butter went on to win the console war and stop taking creative risks.
But back to SegaNet. In a way, Tyler’s dial-up descent mirrors my own, as I’m around his age, and was also chronically online with my Dreamcast back in 2001. To be fair, I did grab a copy of Chu Chu Rocket prior to this date, specifically in March of 2000, and was happily battling other Dreamcast users over the World Wide Web for a good year before the more mainstream, AAA offerings started to hit shelves. Similar to Esposito, though, my family didn’t have internet access until around the time I got my Dreamcast in 1999. The hours I spent chatting on AIM are innumerable. Regrettable, too, maybe.
Mic Drop
The video goes on to show Esposito’s online experience with Quake III Arena, Alien Front Online and the GOAT, Phantasy Star Online, all inexplicably (and thankfully) captured on film by his dad. These were three heavy-hitters that really showed what the Dreamcast was capable of, even over its admittedly slow—by today’s standards—built-in 56K modem. The sounds and gameplay of these titles take me straight back to high school, a time during which I was also playing them online every day. It’s wild to think how, at some point, I probably faced off in Alien Front Online against the My Retro Life guy. We’re all more connected than we might think.
Speaking of, it’s so cool to see someone utilizing Alien Front Online’s voice-chat functionality back when the game’s official servers were operating in 2001. I imagine it’s difficult for most modern gamers to comprehend how mind-blowing this was, to hold down a button during an online deathmatch and send a compressed voice clip to other players. Sometimes the clip would glitch and comically loop, making for many hilarious infinite curse word moments. What can I say, I was a teenage boy with teenage humor.
Sega Dreamcast red VMU
Credit: Mitch Wallace
Bizarre virtual pet simulator Seaman shipped with the Dreamcast microphone a year prior in the summer of 2000, but when Alien Front Online launched with the same teal-tipped microphone the following August, everything changed. Real-time voice-chat had arrived on console, and while this feature is practically ubiquitous in 2025, it was groundbreaking in 2001. Propeller Arena, a promising dogfighting game that also utilized the Dreamcast microphone for real-time voice-chat, was supposed to release in September of 2001, not long after Alien Front Online. It was subsequently cancelled because of sensitivities related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Side note: I actually wrote a feature on AFO for Retro Gamer (issue #169) a few years ago wherein I spoke to the developers and gushed about my love for this frantic arcade-turned-Dreamcast game. It’s only available in print, so track down a secondhand copy if you’re interested.
Casting the Dream Away
You can still play AFO through Dreamcast Live today, which is awesome, but there’s no substitute for watching the software operate as intended, during a time when Dreamcast was firing on all cylinders, and of course, labeled as a dead man walking. Even as we were playing these excellent online games in 2001, it was common knowledge: Dreamcast was dying, and fast, so enjoying network innovation like this was bittersweet, to say the least. I had to get in as much time as I could with Bomberman Online, Ooga Booga and Datona USA 2001.
I give Tyler major props for putting his awkward puberty years online for everyone to see—my high school career was just as cringe-inducing, and whose wasn’t? However, in the end, we all get to benefit from not only his courage, but his dad’s camcorder foresight, as it were. Peering into the Sega Dreamcast’s infamous twilight year feels surreal, and revisiting those halcyon online days is a unique privilege.
To quote the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up: “We really did have everything, didn’t we?”
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