Dreamcast’s Monaco Grand Prix Online is back online again!

You gotta hand it to the Dreamcast community and their tenacious ways of keeping the Dreamcast and its library alive. If you’re not aware, there’s a pretty strong and growing community over at Dreamcast Live, filled with gamers dedicated to keeping the Dreamcast online and bringing back its library of online games to the Internet.

As reported by Dreamcast Live and Dreamcast Junkyard, a wonderful person by the name of ‘Shuouma’ has now resurrected the overly-long-titled Racing Simulation 2: Monaco Grand Prix Online (we’ll just call it Grand Prix Online). What’s great is that Monaco Grand Prix Online features full online racing for up to 6 players, plus online leaderboards.

Above, you can see a video of Pcwzrd13 (from Dreamcast Live) and Shuouma playing a two player game online with the game.

However, before you all get too excited, it should be noted that Monaco Grand Prix Online was a PAL-only title – meaning many gamers will either need to import a copy (and have a Dreamcast that can play imports), or you’ll need to burn a copy of the game (if you’re happy to do so). And if you’re thinking: “But I’m in America and I own a NTSC copy of Monaco Grand Prix.” There were three confusingly named versions of Monaco Grand Prix on the Dreamcast and only one, released late in the Dreamcast’s life (2001) had online multiplayer.

It also looks like the best way to get Monaco Grand Prix Online working is with a DreamPi – which now seems to be one of the most favoured ways of getting your Dreamcast online these days. It’s possible to make your own DreamPi, or you can buy them directly (all setup) from Dreamcast Live (which is actually what I did recently).

If you do happen to own a copy of Monaco Grand Prix Online and also have your Dreamcast working online, then Dreamcast Live has a nifty connection guide, to helping you get online with the game (as many of these games do require a little fiddling to get back online), you can find the guide here.

It’s great to see more online Dreamcast games coming back as they were meant to be played – online. Fingers crossed we’ll see even more soon!