Your shittest console

[Jim Bob]

As a 15 year old, I came this close to asking for the Tiger Electronics' Game.com handheld system as a birthday present, after spying it in an in-store Argos catalogue back in 1997...

There were no in-game screenshots within the Argos catalogue but it had listed titles such as Duke Nukem 3D, Resident Evil 2, Sonic the Hedgehog and Mortal Kombat!  Surely this must be the king of handhelds, I figured.  After all, why else would such big titles from major companies be available for it?  I imaged playing the likes of a faithful port of Resident Evil 2 on a handheld system and how amazing that would be.

My Mum (who I was in the shop with at the time) suggested that I ask the staff if there would be any more games coming out for it first.  I don't know what insider knowledge I expected an Argos staff member to have on such things but still, I did ask and rather predictably in hindsight, they replied "it likely depends on how well it sells", so I decided to hold off asking for the system as a birthday gift and to wait and see how the system fared in the marketplace first.

A few years back, I remembered that day and curious, I looked up what the games were like and what I had missed out on...

Duke Nukem 3D

Resident Evil 2

Sonic Jam

Mortal Kombat Trilogy

...Phew, disaster averted!  Imagine having to feign happiness when asked "how do you like your birthday present?" after playing those digital turds!

"Ooohhhhh, yer wee ungrateful bastard!"

[Blue Jam]

Barcode Battler

What took you all so long? ;)

I had a go on one of these when someone in my class at school got one. I thought the idea sounded shit when I saw them advertised and the reality was no different.

I guess they were designed for the playground, where people could let the owner scan the barcode on their Transform-A-Snacks in return for a go. Shame the actual game was so crap.

If they were brought back now you'd probably get the most powerful characters by scanning a bag of carrot sticks and the least powerful by scanning a Greggs' sausage roll.

[Pink Gregory]

I actually bought Superman 64 because the video shop was getting rid it's cartridge games.

[Dewt]

If they were brought back now you'd probably get the most powerful characters by scanning a bag of carrot sticks and the least powerful by scanning a Greggs' sausage roll.

I tried drawing barcodes by hand

Not a single attempt scanned, for obvious reasons

And of course not a single other person I ever met had a Barcode Battler and nobody cared about mine so it was a single-player experience

[peanutbutter]

The guy who mentioned the N64 too, like him, it seems a bit unfair because it could well have been down to the meagre selection of pony games I had.

No no, this is about fairness, if it totally failed to live up to your hopes then that's the exact kind of thing I want to hear.

Wii U is maybe worth a shout for how despite it being a unique machine, it's somehow managed to become totally irrelevant. So it both failed to live up to expectations and didn't really seem to achieve anything from the risks it took.

How was this as shit as it was several years after the Game Gear et al? Was it just something that had to drastically scale back technologically before release to hit a budget? Or were they using some weird new tech they didn't know would be absolutely shite until it was nearly done Virtual Boy style?



Think that whole wave of handhelds in the early 90s would be fairly ripe for this thread, in retrospect they're obviously shit but a child in the early 90s would've been amazed. I can remember being amazed just hearing about the Game Gear, "Sega's Gameboy is in colour and has Sonic the Hedgehog on it!" For a few years in my childhood it was like some holy grail kind of thing.

[Bently Sheds]

It's the GBA for me. Wore my original GameBoy out playing Tetris, Link's Awakening & Prince of Persia, utterly loved it. I was so excited for the GBA, but that dismal screen just destroyed any enthusiasm I had. This was in the days before afterburner backlight mods. I think I played a bit of Mario Kart Advance & then stuck it in a drawer.

Sheds 1 has it now as it's well retro and in v good nick. He doesn't play it though, for the same reason I didn't play it, plus he - like every other modern young person - can play everything ever made on an emulator.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The really space age thing about the game gear was that it could be turned into a pocket television, so it could be converted into another device that never quite lived up to expectations!



I had a radio adapter for my game boy. It didn't pass sound down into the gameboy, it just had a jack on the side.



This was of course less useful than a normal pocket radio or walkman, because you couldn't play your gameboy and listen to Lisa I'Anson at the same time.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Wii U for sure. Just an absolute dearth of software and everything that came out on it seemed specifically designed to show off the second screen whether that was a good idea or not. Like Super Mario Bros U where you couldn't do multiplayer with the controller it shipped with. The rabid Nintendo fanboys were fucking insufferable about it too. "Ooooh, these are unique games that simply couldn't be done anywhere else. You couldn't do Zombii U on an Xbox! You couldn't do Wonderful 101 on a PlayStation!" Fucking cunt-bollocks all since shown up for the fucking cunt-bollocks it was.

Oh, and that great experience of buying the thing, getting the huge mass of plastic bollocks all set up and then having to leave it on overnight to install the day one update or else it wouldn't even function.

That said, I've come to appreciate it for the stuff the homebrew scene has enabled it to do. It'll emulate everything up to the PSone and N64, it'll natively run GameCube, DS and Wii games. It's a great little box to have around for those purposes. But in factory conditions, fuck me, what a state.

.
How was this as shit as it was several years after the Game Gear et al? Was it just something that had to drastically scale back technologically before release to hit a budget? Or were they using some weird new tech they didn't know would be absolutely shite until it was nearly done Virtual Boy style?.

It was all done in-house by Tiger. The hardware wasn't so bad, certainly on a par with the Game Boy, but all the games were "ported" by Tiger themselves, so of course they were absolute bollocks. They made Sonic Jam by literally ripping sprites out of the Mega Drive Sonic games and letting it run at 10fps with fuck all collision detection.

There were games that worked well. The sort that worked within the confines of the hardware rather than in spite of it; Lights Out, Centipede, Frogger, etc. But it's not like you couldn't get games of that ilk on a Game Boy already.

[Bazooka]

I think it qualifies, there's no way a person who bought one 2001 didn't regret waiting 18 months at least a little bit though?




Anyone here buy a 2DS? I can imagine being lured in by the price but driven insane by the form factor. Could imagine the original 3DS's 3D feeling a bit embarrassing to people now, it's so easy to go off focus... fucking love my New 3DS XL though, as a piece of hardware it feels like this big fucking glorious last hurrah from a now baffling game system layout.

I never upgraded, still have and cherish my original 3ds since release, probably my console of the decade.

[Kelvin]

Actually, Wii U had Yoshi's Woolly World, which featured music like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqlIM2FiMGw

So maybe it was better than the Switch, after all.

[Abnormal Palm]

Just realised it's the 3DS. Literally can't remember playing anything good on that except for the M2 SEGA AGES 3D stuff which has never been bettered.

[Bazooka]

Just realised it's the 3DS. Literally can't remember playing anything good on that except for the M2 SEGA AGES 3D stuff which has never been bettered.

Mate I'd get that fever checked out.

[ImmaculateClump]

I liked new super Mario bros 2, mario kart 7 and the animal crossing game.
Yeah, that's pretty slim pickings, thinking about it. I had one of those flash cart thingies so I could run emulators on there, I think I used that more than playing the proper games.

[Abnormal Palm]

DS > A dogshit > 3DS

[Dewt]

Actually, Wii U had Yoshi's Woolly World, which featured music like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqlIM2FiMGw

So maybe it was better than the Switch, after all.

Until a better version of the game comes out on Switch.

Actually that's another reason the Wii U fucking sucks. Half of the good games are unportable due to form factor fuckery

[Kelvin]

Until a better version of the game comes out on Switch.

Actually that's another reason the Wii U fucking sucks. Half of the good games are unportable due to form factor fuckery

That game got an inferior sequel on Switch, so I doubt it will be ported. Shame, really, as I thought it was a decent game, and the best in series since the original Yoshi's Island. 

[Dewt]

For a really dangerous second there I thought you had called it better than Yoshi's Island.

Pleased to see that nobody here was stupid enough to have owned a Virtual Boy. Inexcusable even if you're eight.

[Sebastian Cobb]

For a really dangerous second there I thought you had called it better than Yoshi's Island.

Pleased to see that nobody here was stupid enough to have owned a Virtual Boy. Inexcusable even if you're eight.

I'd still quite like a go on one even if it's shit.

I notice someone did knock up a google cardboard emulator, but it wouldn't be the same without dropping the best part of 300 quid on ebay just to go 'oh, it really is shit'.

[Dewt]

Oh I'd love to actually own one. It's full of mirrors spinning at an incredible rate. Absolutely incredible. But anybody who bought one as an actual consumer is a dope, unlike those of us who would spunk their grocery budget on it to soak in its atmosphere.

[Huxleys Babkins]

For a really dangerous second there I thought you had called it better than Yoshi's Island.

Pleased to see that nobody here was stupid enough to have owned a Virtual Boy. Inexcusable even if you're eight.

It had already failed so badly in Japan and the US that we never had a chance to buy one. So embarrassing that Nintendo didn't even bother doing a virtual console of it on the 3DS.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Oh I'd love to actually own one. It's full of mirrors spinning at an incredible rate. Absolutely incredible. But anybody who bought one as an actual consumer is a dope, unlike those of us who would spunk their grocery budget on it to soak in its atmosphere.

So is it almost like a dlp projector inside then? I think it was vector based wasn't it?

I also think the Virtual Boy controller looks pretty good.

Speaking of which, I'd also quite like a Vectrex.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The Panasonic AIDS

[ImmaculateClump]

If we're including computers in this, it would be hands down the "SAM Coupé"
When the whole speccy thing died out, before getting an amiga, I had this absolute abortion of a computer. There were like 3 games for it or something.
I used to play this god awful famous five text adventure every night and feel sorry for myself for choosing it as my christmas present.
They were definitely my gaming wilderness years, it was all I had at the time.

[Dewt]

So is it almost like a dlp projector inside then? I think it was vector based wasn't it?

I've never used one. I think the mirrors spin at around 50Hz and are audible. I think the graphics are essentially raster, produced by modulating a LED (looking at screenshots and guessing here, though)

The Virtual Boy was clearly a really bad deal but is really interesting.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've never used one. I think the mirrors spin at around 50Hz and are audible. I think the graphics are essentially raster, produced by modulating a LED (looking at screenshots and guessing here, though)

The Virtual Boy was clearly a really bad deal but is really interesting.

Yeah I had a quick read. It's a single line array (1×224) per eye so I guess the mirrors move up and down to give vertical resolution.

It's quite interesting in it's quite ambitious and novel and I think usually Nintendo were good at using slightly less good hardware than their competitors but know its limitations and strengths really well. Like the affordability and the battery life of the Gameboy over the Gameboy certified it a success despite only being able to do 4 shades of black to green.

Certainly going out on a limb and fucking it up was more of a Sega mistake. I'd really quite like to know more about how far they got with Sega VR.

[peanutbutter]

I like the 3DS a lot, it really felt like the end of a certain type of gaming and there's a decent number of pretty good games on it. Dunno if I'd be saying the same with an original 3DS though, I just like the feel of the New XL a lot.

[Jim Bob]

It was all done in-house by Tiger. The hardware wasn't so bad, certainly on a par with the Game Boy, but all the games were "ported" by Tiger themselves, so of course they were absolute bollocks. They made Sonic Jam by literally ripping sprites out of the Mega Drive Sonic games and letting it run at 10fps with fuck all collision detection.

There were games that worked well. The sort that worked within the confines of the hardware rather than in spite of it; Lights Out, Centipede, Frogger, etc. But it's not like you couldn't get games of that ilk on a Game Boy already.

This is all true and on point.  However, with this particular statement...

The hardware wasn't so bad, certainly on a par with the Game Boy...

It's worth noting that the Gameboy came out in 1989.  The Game.com (with its black & white screen) came out in 1997; the same year as the Gameboy Color.  Never mind that other technically superior colour screen handhelds such as the Game Gear and Lynx were also released in 1989 (a full 8 years prior to the Game.com); the WonderSwan was released one year after the Game.com, in 1998, with vastly superior graphical capabilities.  So, that the specs for the Game.com were about on par with the original modest Gameboy was not a good thing, regardless of Tiger's internal studio's ineptitude in how they approached game development.

[Cold Meat Platter]

PS3

All multiplatforms better on Xbox. Dogshit online and shop. Non-cumulative updates.
Exclusives: MGS4 is a masssive pile of shit. Uncharted has okay gameplay but Generic Voiceactor Man with his smugfest acting and rank supporting characters fuck this up the hoop. Killzone was okay but bland as fuck. Resistance HAHAHAHA what a load of gleet.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Were there any FPS' on the original gameboy?

I was impressed that they were trying to squeeze so much out of the thing so it's all choppy and slow.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Were there any FPS' on the original gameboy?

I was impressed that they were trying to squeeze so much out of the thing so it's all choppy and slow.

Yes, Faceball 2000.