Anchor games?

[Video]

Being a forum dedicated to classic games and consoles, I'm sure that like me, many of you have a few, or few dozen to many consoles and potentially a few hundred titles for each.

 

This is awesome, we get to play pretty much what we want, when and how we want to.

 

BUT, many of us also have, er, "those" systems. You know, the one you just really aren't into. But it has that one game that you just love, so you keep it around because there's really no good way to get that experience any other way.

 

Anchor games, what are yours?

 

One of my more obvious ones would be game.com. Yeah, it gets the hate, much is deserved too. Personally I liked it, the quiz games are ok, but most I could do without. But, duke nukem. It's duke nukem! And it was a few years off before d3d came in a better form on a handheld. This one I still play a lot, so while the game.com is a fairly lousy console with an assortment of ok (but only ok) games, and a bunch of suckage, I still keep and play it for this one game. I don't know the state of emulation for this system, last I checked, there wasn't one, and this game was quirky and different enough for me to love, so the system sticks around.

 

Another one, less obvious, and I WILL absolutely get a dump truck load of hate for this, but...sega. Pick a system, any one of them. (I have all the us release consoles) I just don't get them. Most the multi platform games I prefer on other systems, and of the first party stuff, most is just "meh" to me. BUT...sonic. Yeah sonic. I love side scrolling platform games in general, and these are for the most part good to great games. They also mostly seem to emulate poorly, oddly even the official Sega versions (sonic collections or genesis collections, lag, improper graphics, slowdown, etc) maybe their better now, but as of last generation, they still weren't there, so I've got 8 or so consoles (er, depending on if you count CD or 32x as consoles) just almost strictly for this one series of games.

[+save2600]

PS3 for me. Keep it around for one reason only: The Pinball Arcade. Only real reason I bother to maintain 3D glasses in my home theater too. If it weren't for TPA, I'd have gotten rid of that stuff a while ago.

 

PS2 is another... I love all the Arcade Classics discs (especially Rush 2049, but hate that Wizard of Wor is unplayable), the Burnout series, but no longer find myself playing the system much at all anymore.

 

Oh and I keep a PAL PS1 around for only one game: The War of the Worlds.

 

Guess I'm pretty much over PlayStation systems.

[doctorclu]

I can rattle off a lot of these as I have gone through times where there was only one game that made me keep a system around. Interest might have picked back up later, but for a time these were the anchors for me:

 

TI99 - Parsec

Intellivision- Tron Deadly Discs and B-17 Bomber *

Atari 2600 - Warlords *

Jaguar - Bubsy and the VLM

Oddessey 2 - Quest for the Rings

Atari 800 - Star Raiders, Archon

Newton MessagePad - Solitare DX

68000 Macs - Cap'N Magneto

68030 Macs - Rescue (Star Trek game)

Sol Terminal 20 Computer - Trek 80 (Star Trek game), Targ (Target)

Genesis - Golden Axe

GameCube - Gameboy player

Gameboy (Advance) - Rayman 3

Nuon - Ballistic, Merlin Racing

Super NES - Bubsy, Bubsy 2

Android - Angry Birds (kept an old phone around to continue playing)

Dreamcast - Internet, IRC, Linux for BBSing, and Little Green Army Men.

Wii - A glorified Netflix player in the end. Exercise programs were fun for a while.

PS1- Bubsy 3D

PS2 - Battlestar Galactica.

PS4 - Only played Bubsy on it for a year. With Tempest 4K Currently my fav system. Good media system.

That is really about it.

Sadly there were system I did not find anchors for.

 

Turbo Graphics 16: Given one by a friend, fixed it up, gave it back.

Atari Portfolio - A system I could not get into mostly due to it static ram.

Atari 5200 - Great selection, all of which ported to the Atari 800.

Atari ST - Great selection, most of which ported to the Jaguar.

Atari 7800 - Aside from the Cuttle Cart 2, nothing has grabbed me.

 

Summary:

Especially in recent times (Jaguar, Dreamcast, Wii, and PS4) the multimedia aspect was a savior.

Hands down the Dreamcast was the most amazing for being used for everything BUT it's original gaming.

Edited November 2, 2018 by doctorclu

[+GoldenWheels]

At this point my N64 basically exists on my shelf only to be an AKI wrestling machine. Revenge, WWF2000, Virtual Pro 2.

[Flojomojo]

I felt that way about Atari Jaguar for a few games (you know what they are). I let it go, but there's something about that chunky thing that was kinda cool, and if I could get one for the bargain bin prices at which I originally bought it, I'd have one again.

[derFunkenstein]

For me it's the OG Xbox. There are just a couple games I can't do without, and it's the best way to experience those. NFS Underground 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Super Monkey Ball EX, Mech Assault, and Crimson Skies. That's 5 games, and that's basically all it's good for...

 

...until you soft-mod it. It's paying its own way that way, since it does a good job of emulating 8bit and 16bit consoles and 2D arcade games.

Edited November 2, 2018 by derFunkenstein

[Tanooki]

Anchor systems to keep because of certain games, but not so much the hardware. I used to use quite a lot of them, but since I decided to let so much go over many years now I'm down to just two. I think depending on the fans here I'll get the hate for it.

 

PSOne+LCD combo I keep on my desk, and also the SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color.

 

The PSOne just has some of the best games Sony ever put out, and while some have been emulated on their PSN shops since, not all of them have, or at least as nicely as using it on the original hardware with that nice little LCD for me. Some games I think play better as such, like Diablo handles so much better on a gamepad vs rapid mouse clickage everywhere.

 

The other, the NGPC, it has some unique releases homages/spinoffs of those nice arcade games of theirs and in a few cases others. The two unique story driven stage based Metal Slugs, the really nice spin on Neo Turf Masters, even Rockman Battle and FIghters (demaster?) of those 2 Capcom arcade robot fighters. The list continues even with some oddly solid Sega rooted stuff like Evolution, and to me, one of the best (and for handheld is best) Sonic games made. NGPC may not have a huge library, but what is has, plenty of solid on the go anchors there to justify it not going away still and given for some dumb reason emulation is still not great for it (why?!) it's the best alternative still too.

[CatPix]

Those systems for me are mostly modern ones. For that if I need one old system for ONE game... I emulate it.

 

More like an anchor series, but I first acquired a Xbox360 because it was the big thing and it was cheaper to get one used, especially when they released the model with HDMI, several non-HDMI models came on the used market for dirt cheap (I got mine for 50€, when the Xbox 360 had been out for... 4 years at best?).

Then I found out that the Silent Hill series would be mostly released on PS3, even if a few ones were released on the Xbox as well.

So I jumped in and got one...

Ironically, not counting PC, the system on which I have the most games is the PS3 (second to the PS2, admitedly) since I got the PS3 when it caught on in Europe and sent the Xbox360 in the dirt, meaning that tons of game were available second-hand. In addition, changign the hard drive was cheap and easy, and the network (at least to chat and buy games) was free, so...

I suppose then that I don't have any anchor game/system...

Maybe, the Cube-Up game on the Gamate, because it's a Tetris with a nice music.

[digdugnate]

good discussion question, I think. A lot of the stuff I have anymore is largely emulatable (is that a word? prolly not lol)- so I don't have the desire to hoard as much as I used to.

 

That being said, I retain a TI 99 4A mainly for nostalgia reasons, but I can play Alpiner, Parsec, and Slymoids on it (among several other super cool games).

 

Likewise, I keep my 2600 for old-school games because they just *play* better on them, even though I have Atart Vault on Steam. In particular I like River Raid, Lady Bug, Pac Man 4k, among others. Looking forward to Mappy and Wizard of Wor!

 

If I had a C64, I'd keep it for several games, too: Blue Max, Lode Runner, Fort Apocalypse, etc. I'm tempted to get a Mini, but I'm getting slightly off-track.

[Eltigro]

I have a N64 for one game. Mario 64. Dont really have much nostalgia for the system other than that game. Wasnt super into Ocarina or Majora or any of the other big games. I havent had it hooked up in a couple years, but I keep it around just in case.

[godslabrat]

Xbox 360 - Rock Band. Even though I haven't played it in years, I still think the Beatles set is damned cool and I can't part with it.

 

PlayStation 2 - there's a Friends trivia game on there that's hokey fun. I was a big fan of the TV show and can't ignore it

[Robbbert]

Have you checked out MAME lately? As of the next version (0.204) all the games will run and are playable. The sound is problematic though.

 

One of my more obvious ones would be game.com. Yeah, it gets the hate, much is deserved too. Personally I liked it, the quiz games are ok, but most I could do without. But, duke nukem. It's duke nukem! And it was a few years off before d3d came in a better form on a handheld. This one I still play a lot, so while the game.com is a fairly lousy console with an assortment of ok (but only ok) games, and a bunch of suckage, I still keep and play it for this one game. I don't know the state of emulation for this system, last I checked, there wasn't one, and this game was quirky and different enough for me to love, so the system sticks around.

[+davidcalgary29]

I have a boxed CD32 and a bunch of boxed games. I haven't played it since I bought it (aside to test it out)...but also can't justify getting rid of it, as I got it at a good price and NTSC units are scarce. It's therefore "anchoring" my "basement collection".