Your shittest console

[buntyman]

I bought a Virtual Boy and a load of games for about $20 on holiday in the US when all the shops were trying to get rid of their stock. As a 12 year old it was amazing and it was quite a boon to be the only person in my school with one. It was extremely uncomfortable to use for any length of time but most of the games were only really designed for short spells of play (much like how VR is now, really). I remember the controller being really nice though. I had bowling, golf, tennis, tetris and Wario Land for it and most didn't really benefit much from being 3D. Wario was the best was to show it off as it was pretty cool having a side-scroller where you could to jump between platforms at the front and back of the screen and dodge spiked balls swinging towards you. Apparently there's a Virtual Boy emulator you can get for VR now so I'll have to see if it's still quite good or if i'm remembering it through garish red-LED VR goggles.

[Ferris]

Wii U, easily.

The only console I've given away, then had the recipient give it back to me, then given away a second time.

This was before I knew it was mod/homebrew friendly and actually I'm itching to get it back and make it play TimeSplitters on a GameCube emulator.

Why the fuck is "GameCube" in my autocorrect.

[samadriel]

I owned a Sega Saturn, and the games I owned or rented were generally quite good, but there were very few of them. The Panzer Dragoons were good, Sega Rally was good, Fighters Megamix was a chuckle, Dark Saviour was okay (interesting multiple branches tho the storyline there), I had the first Discworld game on the Saturn. Now that I think about it, I probably managed to play almost all the good Saturn games that came out in the West, but there seriously weren't many, and because I never had a Playstation, there were tons of fabled games from that generation that I never got to play. My dedication to gaming took a hit, and has never been quite the same since.

[Huxleys Babkins]

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

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.

But let's not forget that they also had to offset the not insignificant cost of the modem when speccing it up and that they probably realised that it was a bigger priority than a wee bit of extra grunt or a colour screen that they'd never take advantage of with their shitty, shitty games.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Wii U, easily.

The only console I've given away, then had the recipient give it back to me, then given away a second time.

This was before I knew it was mod/homebrew friendly and actually I'm itching to get it back and make it play TimeSplitters on a GameCube emulator.

Why the fuck is "GameCube" in my autocorrect.

I've done this on the wii. If you're getting impatient they seem to hold their value a lot less than the wii u.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Did anyone have the 3d glasses for the master system?

I think they were lcd shutters that were synced to the video out so you got one field per eye. Or basically half the vertical resolution and refresh rate. So you'd need an old CRT to play them.

[peanutbutter]

the WonderSwan was released one year after the Game.com, in 1998, with vastly superior graphical capabilities.

Wasn't the WonderSwan also amazingly cheap?
[googles]
Yeah, google is saying £35 for the original model on current exchange rates (apparently was closer to £25 in 1998), the WonderSwan Color was like £10-15 more, for a machine that was drastically more powerful than the GBC and ran on one battery for up to 40 hours.

Gameboy Advance was supposedly only £55 in Japan on launch? That's crazy low, have to assume the WonderSwan Color played a part in that. Actually, with that in mind, you'd have to wonder if the WonderSwan Color being insanely cheap and touting ports of FF I-IV was a big part of why the original GBA was so shite, hugely cutting costs to avoid the risk of looking like the Game Gear in comparison.



Game.com was $69.99 in the US on launch, apparently a much cheaper model came out in 1999

[Sebastian Cobb]

There was the GP32 which seemed good at inception but then dragged on so long a DS and flashcart was a much better option.

[I.D. Smith]

Not counting the consoles and systems I was buying off Ebay during the mid 00s*, I'd say my least used console was the original Xbox. Thing is, there wasn't anything wrong with it, but I just never used it nearly as much as my PS2 at the time. I didn't like the control pad and I only had a handful of games for it. I was also PC gaming a lot during this period too, so the Xbox was relegated to 3rd position in my rankings.

Having said that, what it did have going for it was that it had three games that fall in my Top 20: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, and Fable. And I suppose it also had Broken Sword 3 on it too. So for that I don't have the heart to call it my shittiest console, but more my least used console, as I do still have a soft spot for it.

Speaking of which, in the mid 90s I nearly spent my lifetime savings on an Atari Jaguar, just because I wanted to play Alien vs Predator and a decent version of Doom. So glad I held off and waited for for the Playstation to come out instead, as it ended up having a superior version of Doom, and whilst it had no AVP, it did have Alien Trilogy which was pretty decent.

*I went through a spell in the late 00s of going back and purchasing alternate consoles from the ones I'd actually owned at at the time. So a CDI and Atari Jaguar in place of my Playstation; a Sega Megadrive in place of my SNES; Game Gear and Atari Lynx in place of my Gameboy; and a Dreamcast in place of my PS2. Of course, I barely used any of them beyond a cursory novelty try out.

[madhair60]

The Wii U had a terrible launch, with forgettable gimmicky games, and the worst mainline Mario game to appear on a home console

I don't say this lightly, but you should be killed for thinking this.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I had a modded original xbox but the fact games were essentially free meant I didn't stick with them all that much.

XBMC got a lot of use as being able to play videos off of network shares was still a rare thing in those days.

[madhair60]

Overall it's probably PS4, absolute king of the fuckaches. Tons of great games and to play any of them you have to wade through an ocean of shit

Wii U sucked leper dick, but it had a good library of exclusives, such as the ace Super Mario 3D World, and you could play Wii games on it with slightly nicer output.

I sort of hate the Switch with its cacky joy-con drift and piss-awful battery life.

[I.D. Smith]

I had a modded original xbox but the fact games were essentially free meant I didn't stick with them all that much.

This happened to me with my original chunky Nintendo DS. When I was originally buying games for it, I got a lot of use out of the games I bought, but once a friend showed me how to hack it and upload ROMS it actually killed any enthusiasm, as games just became disposable - try one for 2 minutes and then stop, because there'd be another free game waiting there, crying out for my 2 minute attention span.

[Abnormal Palm]

Had another good think about this and I'm probably going to have to say the PS2.

[The Culture Bunker]

My mam was hectoring me the other day about my Game Gear still cluttering my old room up. I mean, she has a point, given I left home 20 years ago. I wonder if anyone would be daft enough to give me £10 or something for it.

It wasn't much cop if you wanted to take it out and about, due to the aforementioned battery eating issue, but I never had much problem playing it in the car with it plugged into in the tab lighter. Plus I had the thing so you could use Master System games, which was just as well as I don't remember any of the actual GG ones being much cop. 'Castle of Illusion' was alright, 'G-Loc' wasn't too bad if you had someone to play it with. Shame just about everyone else had a Game Boy instead.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The price on ebay seems to be £70+ if you've got a few games, but it looks like it can suffer from ageing capacitors so the screen goes dim and the sound suffers. There seem to be recap kits but you'd need to be handy at electronics.

[peanutbutter]

Had another good think about this and I'm probably going to have to say the PS2.

Super Nintendo, no?

My mam was hectoring me the other day about my Game Gear still cluttering my old room up.

How fucking big are they?!

[ImmaculateClump]

I don't say this lightly, but you should be killed for thinking this.

Gasp! (Passes smelling salts to madhair) does he mean the 3d one where you dress up as a cat? There's no way I'm having that!

Yeah, I don't like those fiddly malfunctioning joycons either. It should come with a pro controller out of the box, or in the box, preferably.

I'm well past handheld gaming, but the weight and the glossy screen means I probably wouldn't use it away from home anyway.
You lot did a good job talking me out of it, but I still feel like I was pretty disappointed by the switch.

[The Culture Bunker]

How fucking big are they?!

She can be a bit OCD on the tidiness front. It's only sat on a bookshelf, but it does bug her a bit. I should tell her to just chuck it away, really.

[peanutbutter]

On the basis of this thread, I assume no one has a Vita? If I had a PS4 I think I'd buy one just for the remote play but like... what even came out on it?

[Ferris]

I've done this on the wii. If you're getting impatient they seem to hold their value a lot less than the wii u.

I've had a look, annoyingly they seem to have aged into retro status and are getting expensive again. I bought a second hand for about $40 years ago and gave it away when I got the Wii U. Stupid move.

[Jim Bob]

...I suppose it also had Broken Sword 3 on it too.

Bah!  Awful game.  "Let's take our series renowned for beautiful hand-drawn graphics and replace that art with ugly early 3D polygons because technical superiority is obviously the same thing as artistic superiority.  Also, let's take our inventory based puzzles and add a ludicrous number of crate pushing puzzles, like some kind of shit Tomb Raider knock-off.  Oh, and be sure to add in some badly programmed stealth sections too because everyone loves them".

That's progress for you.

[peanutbutter]

I've had a look, annoyingly they seem to have aged into retro status and are getting expensive again. I bought a second hand for about $40 years ago and gave it away when I got the Wii U. Stupid move.

Not so sure it's their retro status so much as they were just suffering from there being so many sitting around doing nothing. About a year ago you could get a a Wii with Wiimote for like £20, a used official Wiimote by itself would cost like £12+, for like five years they were in or around that price with people like me constantly telling people how much of a steal that was when you could hack them so easily and HDMI adapters were so cheap.
At <£30, Wii Sports alone is enough to justify having one lying around for a party some time really, isn't it?


I also notice on ebay that you can get used DS for like £20 but if you add an R4 to the mix they'll instantly sell for over double that.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yeah I've got mine hooked up to a 320gb USB drive. The only reason I haven't played it is because I'm waiting on a component cable, my rgb scart lead has lost a colour and composite looks wank.

[Dewt]

That's progress for you.

Ugh! Christ. Yeah, the disease of replacing beautiful art with slightly more technically-advanced ugliness is a huge bugbear of mine.

[Consignia]

On the basis of this thread, I assume no one has a Vita? If I had a PS4 I think I'd buy one just for the remote play but like... what even came out on it?

No way, until the Switch, the Vita was my best console. I've said that many times before, and there were tons of games for it. Not much in the way of triple A games, but loads outside that niche.

[Jim Bob]

Ugh! Christ. Yeah, the disease of replacing beautiful art with slightly more technically-advanced ugliness is a huge bugbear of mine.

It was a big problem for adventure games in particular during the late 90s/early 2000s, because they had traditionally relied on hand-drawn or pixel art for their graphics, but then along came the trend for everything to be rendered in 3D, regardless of whether the genre of game suited it or not.  Case in point...

SIMON THE SORCERER


1993


2000

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GABRIEL KNIGHT


1993


1999

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MONKEY ISLAND


1997


2000

In everyone one of those cases, the latter example, at least by the publishers, was at the time considered to be "superior".  So damn wrongheaded.

[Consignia]

Are there any good 3D "point and click"[nb] I put in inverted commas as I don't necessarily mean point and click controls, but you know what I mean[/nb] adventures of that era? I quite liked Grim Fandango, but that didn't have the baggage of existing series, and the art style worked for it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I was just about to say Grim Fandango worked.

I didn't realise until someone mentioned it that Thimbleweed Park wasn't just a homage to that stuff, it was actually made by a guy who was in charge of a lot of the old Sierra/Lucasarts stuff and built the SCUMM engine.

Someone I knew at uni had a rendered Leisure Suit Larry game for the PS2. AIDS tier.

[Abnormal Palm]

Yeah, Ron Jeremy