A Sprite

Well, just a note the N64 wasn't necessarily at or around the bare minimum due to price but rather due to technology restraints. While the system was cartridge based in order to come in at a reasonable price this didn't actually directly effect its ability to produce quality graphics. The problem had more to do with the fact that real time 3D technology was just past its infancy and reaching toddler stages. yes, the N64 could have used more RAM (and this was eventually addressed with the RAM expansion later in the systems life) but that wasn't the reason for the relative ugliness. Also if we're comparing the N64's position in 3D to older systems in 2D, I think maybe the 5200 or Colecovision would be a more fair comparison. The reason being there were a number of systems with large 3D libraries (and hardware in the console designed for 3D) as I stated before being the Jaguar, 3DO, Saturn and Playstation that came prior to it (and had inferior hardware). Like Sprite mentioned if you compare 2D to 2D from SNES to N64 or 3D to 3D there's a HUGE difference with 3D. Watch StarFox for SNES and then compare it to StarFox 64. With 2D the SNES was pretty far along so while the N64 was a lot better (more colors, more sprites, higher video output resolution, more RAM) it's not as noticeable because the differences are far more minor with what can be done with a 2D title. A thoughtful response - you're raising my respect for the professional writers. I originally was going to use the N64/Colecovision comparison, but thought better of it when considering that aside from the Vectrex, which wasn't as influential as it was a farewell to vector technology, the previous generations of 3D console games were usually novelties, dungeon quests, space sims, basic shooters, and tech demos. Combining them all together, you probably have the same amount of 3D games as there were 2D games seen in University computers, dedicated consoles (like the Odyessey), and transitional systems few remember today after Atari conquered the market. (I'd compare the Jag to the Fairchild more than the 2600 - most programmers were abusing it's 68k chip, transforming it into an incredibly colorful Amiga.) For better or for worse, the Playstation, the Saturn, and the N64 were the true pioneers into 3D gaming. As far as price vs. technology is concerned, we've always had the technology to create more powerful gaming systems if price wasn't an issue. Take the Bally Astrocade - with a few modifications and extra ram into what was basically crippled arcade hardware, people could have brought the arcade experience home for just a couple hundred more. Later SNK would try that very idea. Same with the N64 - the technology existed for better texture mapping, but you'd at least double the price, on a consumer base that would be apathetic to the slight improvements, while resenting the need to pay more for it. At some point, common sense has to take over, and acceptable compromises made.

The problem with using an overall percentage of fan reviews to gauge a games quality is that it fails to take into account that a lot of fans who vote or review typically have far less experience than professional (or high level amateur working on large websites) game reviewers. It also leads to games with more militant fan bases garnering higher scorers with the instant 10s being more excessive. But you also get militant reactionaries scoring 0s and 1s on games that are at worst average, so it's actually balanced out in the end. The advantage to fan reviews is a game often exists only as itself - it's features are new to someone experiencing them for the first time. The only question asked is"did I enjoy this, and why/why not?" More importantly, you'll find reviews scattered out over the course of several years, allowing more of a perspectice than an industry writer is allowed. If I seemed too harsh initially on professional reviewers. I apologize. But I believe the current state of the craft is lacking something not missing in film reviews, or in consumer reports. Seldom is it asked if a game achieves what it's team intended for it to do - far too often, I see the opinions of fans of a game a reviewer doesn't like dismissed as being irrelevant ( in a review of Ultimate Ghouls n' Ghosts, one critic defending himself against imaginary complaints about the difficulty being rated poorly by suggesting the fans would defend the game no matter how bad it was ) and worse, sometimes reviewers defending their opinion as a fact ( My favorite example was Gamepro's Major Mike rating Virtua Fighter 3 as a shallow button masher, then when responding to a reader's complaint, asking who was going to take the time to learn all those moves? ) When that happens, the only difference between a professional writer and an amateur fan is how well the transitions are placed between each thought.

What DragonmasterDan said. It would be more fair to compare the N64 to the Intellivision - though more advanced than previous systems, both were actually near the bare minimum of their primary graphics types, in order to come in at a reasonable price - to the point where it affected the types of games they could realistically achieve. Since then, both have been made obsolete. But if we compare the SNES to the N64 2d to 2d, 3d to 3d, there is a clear generational leap in every case. And in some genres, like Wrestling, Extreme Sports, and Racing, the N64 wins out over the SNES just due to the superior amounts of animation a polygon model can present vs a sprite set.

I remember playing Adventure for the first time. That square moved fast as a mouse arrow, all too soon, the graphics became just symbols for the world inside my head. Just a few months ago. As a child, I never would have played it. I remember looking at the box of Journey: Escape as a child, and somehow, without ever having seen a "Behind the Music" special or knowing Journey was a real band, writing the story of one man trying to wake from his dream come true. I was convinced it was the deepest, most heart felt videogame ever written. Like Alice in Wonderland, across a sea of endless night. The music speaking all the words left unsaid. Just a few months ago, I played it: I was assaulted by a horny goose with Tourette's whenever my attempts to escape the looping two second ringtone led me to foolishly seek death at the hands of my enemies. And why am I running towards my enemies? Granted, the pretty lights are kinda trippy still, so maybe my virtual rock star is trying to find out where they came from, but deep down inside he knows there's no answer worth getting or he wouldn't be so bored that he would risk pissing off the horny goose. 5 minutes later, the game ends, and I swear never to touch it again. I feel ashamed to even write about how much it meant to me back when I never heard another licensed videogame soundtrack. So, I guess my answer to this thread is: Bad games seem worse, good games seem better, and it's all because I see more clearly now. Sometimes it's a wonderful thing. Sometimes I wish even bad games still took me back to Wonderland.

I prefer openly subjective reviews - the emotion a game brings is just as important as it's mechanics, and the reviewer's personality is going to factor into the final score either way - why hide it? Sites like HonestGamers get more credit from me than any of the magazines, just because I've seen their reviewers defend bad games that entertain them and attack good games that didn't, without pretending their opinion is the last word on the subject. Now to the fun part - bitching about the ones who fuck it up. Here's how they do it - 1. Rate the game's quality based on how hard it is. If it's easy enough for a beginner, it's a personal insult. Too hard for the critic, and they cry that making the player die if they hit the wrong button is an obsolete play mechanic. Here's news: Most games aren't made for video game critics. Insane, I know, but let me explain why they aren't the center of the universe: They play more games than anyone else ever will, are hired because they're better at them than most people, and they have a deadline in which to beat the game. They want challenge, but it has to be a challenge they beat in less than a month - that's a narrow window for a developer; how much time is wasted tweaking the difficulty to their tastes in order to avoid a bad review? 2. Rate the game's quality compared to the same game on more powerful systems - If all you own is a GBA SP/micro, what do you care about how the X-Box version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted compares? If the GBA version had been released in the last days of the Super Nintendo, we would have shat our pants, and set up tents as we waited outside stores for it's release. Textured polygons?! Multiple race types?! Tons of unlockables?! Fuck Stunt Race! But because it's released now, we get brilliant observations about the lower resolution and lack of long cut scenes - as if you, the customer, would be expecting that cart to contain a PS2 inside it, and only the reviewer could save you. 3. Rating the bells and whistles instead of the game: Critics can bitch about Madden throwing in unnecessary extras just as easily as they can turn on 2K sports for making a new football game without all the extras Madden has. This only makes sense to game critics. 4. Trying too hard to seem cutting edge: Gamepro informed it's readers there was a Virtua Fighter for the Game Gear, and then informed their readers they didn't want to see it. Let's assume it's so ugly it could compete with the actual Virtua Fighters game. Why wouldn't we want to see that? Even if it's a trainwreck filled with orphans on Christmas, it's worth seeing at least once for the novelty. But the point was just as much about being seen being above caring about an old game as it was giving a history lesson about videogames. The more I think about that kind of logic, the more I can understand why the people in marketing see themselves as part of an editorial team.

Sega Master System - Biggest: (1,024k) Sangokushi 3 Last release: Sonic Blast (1998)

Gameboy Original: (Best guess) Smallest - (32K) Tesserae, a tile based puzzle game. Biggest - (1,024K) Zankurou Musouken; a super deformed Samurai Spirits 3.

Why my list sucks: No Space Invaders (why wouldn't we want to shoot things that can fire back for a change?), no Guitar Heroes, (another game I hate, but it did what it did better than anyone else.), and I haven't ever played a real time strategy game. Who's next?

Most influential, most fun, it's about whatever makes a game important to you, not necessarily anyone else. Here's mine - 10. Street Fighter 2, and upgrades - combos, layers of special moves, and paper, rock, scissors turning video combat into the new chess. It's a rare game that end an era, but after it's release, arcades would never be the same. 9. Final Fantasy 7 - For the record, I hate this game. No idea whether it's the bad graphics, the bad translation, or the story having so many plot twists at the end that the promising story about a mad boy who failed to become a hero forced to face his hero gone mad turns into a Metal Gear style pretzel about genetic engineering instead. But here's what it did right - it took fantasy out of the gutter. No ye olde fake English. No making every character uglier than the rest. No smearing everything in dirt in order to claim depth that doesn't exist. Anyone who wants to know why FF7 still holds power, need only walk a city at night, watch traffic tear by, and imagine what it would be like if magic was real. 8. Space War - Pong wasn't the first arcade game. It wasn't even the first videogame about ping pong. Arguments about it's popularity are great, but since we're not rating that, Space War gets the nod. 7. Need for Speed: Underground - other games nailed the physics. This was the first to nail the feel. By asking what the effects of that speed were on a driver, instead of just the car, they shamed more serious sims. 6. Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Link to the Past is often called the best pure game in the series. But it was missing it's soul. Link's Awakening took all that was good about it's Super Nintendo cousin, and then added a dark twist - instead of fighting to save the world, your quest would end it... 5. Ms. Pac-Man is the best hack ever. 4. Tetris has to be here, by law. 3. Elite was sandbox gaming before Rockstar ever got the idea. 2. This spot reserved for the Super Mario Bros. 1. Adventure - before the 2600 existed, before computers had monitors, virtual warriors lived and died by their words. A text based Dungeons and Dragons style adventure, it's popularity led to Zork, Ultima, Nethack, nearly every MMO ever made, and of course, Adventure, for the 2600. Evolutions of it's ideas can be found anywhere from Maniac Mansion to Zelda. No other game comes close to matching it's legacy.

Of 8.8? That's a B+ for a bare bones last gen port with Wii controls expertly stapled on at the last minute. Sounds fair. Shouldn't an "A" be reserved for the very best someone can do? Since when was a B+ an attack on innocent children? Please tell me you're just being a devil's advocate. And don't defend this as the way business is done. The company just burned millions of dollars since people who would never have heard of that review now view it as gospel and are out to spread the word. It's an anti-commercial. Someone needs fired. It isn't the critic.

"You owe us. Remember that." "Was Gerstmann a team player? It's not just about one man." "We take the 5th."

I've got Scrapyard Dog, Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong Jr. done so far, but other than that nothing. You want to divide the list of games in half, and you take one part and I take the other? Here's the list: http://www.atariage.com/software_list.html?SystemID=7800 I'll take up the second half then, starting with Matmania.

The games where you hit one button over and over again to kill 5 ethnically diverse people 20,000 times? Probably number two. Defend the games you like instead of attacking those who disagree. Please.

I'll help. What shots are still needed?

Try Digital Press, if you haven't. Hard to give you a real price, because you have a very rare remix of a puzzle game type that's not only easy to find, but has been given out for free in the past. Casual collectors will want to pass, obsessive Mario completists will want to be in touch. Good luck.

Majora's Mask deserves the love. Better than Super Mario 3? I respect Miyamoto's masterpiece more, but Clocktown is alive in a way that jumping over the holes of shattered worlds can't ever hope to match. It's what Shenmue wanted to be, when it grew up.

Not quite the same.

yeah... right. That's why people love Food Fight. I'll do one better: I'll give the exclusives on the 7800 and *actually tell you why* they might be terrible: The bad exclusives: 1) Karateka - Controls are quite possibly the worst scheme you can think of. Not intuitive in the least. Coming from the Apple II version (which was intuitive), it was very easy to play. It's also missing some key elements from the original version (e.g. being able to hit the bird). 2) Hat Trick - VERY choppy animation, sluggish controls. 3) Impossible Mission - we've all heard this one. The game really is impossible due to a programming bug. I don't get how this got past the testers. There is a patched version out there, though. The good exclusives: 1) Food Fight - quick action, tight controls, ok graphics. 2) Desert Falcon - GCC's version of Zaxxon. Only gripe is that it's missing a 'height' indicator. But a nice shooter. 3) Scrapyard Dog - the 'Mario' of the 7800. My personal opinion is that it's quite fun, nice graphics. Fills a desparately needed void of a platformer on the 7800. 4) Crossbow is ok - not 'terrible', but most likely better with the light gun (which I'm working on getting). ... I was going to give Beef Drop, Froggie, and B*onQ, but then I remembered that Beef Drop, Frogger, and Q*Bert are available for the 5200. The 7800 versions of Froggie and B*onQ are much closer to the arcade versions than the ones put out by PB on the 5200. The "I hope you guys like them" exclusives: 1) Pac-Man Collection 2) Asteroids Deluxe (should be available next week) 3) Space Duel (also should be available next week) Notice I didn't even mention the controllers Anyway, it all comes down to personal taste. I liked both systems, so I got both of them. See? Isn't that much better than simply saying a system is "terrible" and not following up with an explanation? Bob Karateka isn't an exclusive if we're counting the XE console as an alternative to the 5200. Though only the 7800 version is crippled...

Ignore gems like 'Karate' and no offense, every hack that can't be sold as a separate game. Which era's game library for the 2600 is the overall best for quality and variety?

This isn't his first public tantrum? I take back most of the nice things I said then. Adding a billion colors and a photoshop filter to someone else's game doesn't make you a creative genius after the first time. And stealing Defender again won't help either. How hard is it to come up with an original idea for a classic style action game? Here, I'll do it now. You're a shining space gazelle escaped from Hell, trapped in a sea of demon's dreams. Trippy enough, yet? You have to move through the pretty sparkling water of the Styx river, dodging all the bad things as you'd expect, but wait! You can create whirlpools! All you have to do is run around the demonic nightmare a few times without getting shot, and then watch him or her struggle to escape while you dodge all the sharp debris the whirlpool sucks in to destroy your victim and send him back to Hell. Bonus points for rescuing drowning angels. That took me 5 seconds - anyone here could do better in half the time.

The first GB Castlevania/Legend of Dracula wasn't the best, but it at least had some good music and decent graphics for the GB. Castlevania II Belmont's Revenge/Legend of Dracula II is very well done and has better music, though. The GB Megaman/Rockman World games used robot masters from the NES games, but the levels are all new. They weren't repackaged NES games. MMIV/Rockman World IV had some features unique to that game. MMV/Rockman World V was all new with no reused robots. I found them all to be great games in their own right, except for MMII/Rockman World II. I disagree on GB games being unplayable. While the screen wasn't the best, many action games for it are far from unplayable, though they play better on the GBC screen. I used to beat Super Mario Land all that time on that screen. Movie adaptions usually suck for any system, though there are exceptions, even on GB with games like Batman. I'm only damning precrash action games as being nearly unplayable due to motion blur - the Megaman II/Castlevania tangent rant probably should have been completely removed, since both companies made it up to their fans. All Game Guide; review of Defender.

You forgot 7800, which really should be the first option. It plays the vast majority of 2600 stuff, uses 2600 perephrials, and has the 7800 library as well (including some great new homebrews). I think if you only own one Atari system, that's the one to have. Speaking as someone who's very much still in love with BallBlazer, the 7800 is so starved for good games that we all wept with joy at the discovery of an unfinished Chuck Norris movie tie-in. We still get excited about Q*bert. Xevious vs. Raiden. Xenophobe vs. Aliens vs Predator. Scrap Yard Dog vs. Rayman Asteroids vs. Tempest 2k. Pole Position II vs. Super Burnout. Karateka vs. Ultra Vortek. I'd go for the Jag, even having never owned one. Pitfall 2, Space Invaders, Battlezone, Defender 2, BMX Airmasters, California Games, Adventure, River Raid, Solar Fox, etc. You forgot about 1000 games. No. They can be played in a 2600, or, if you don't have room to unpack, Stella. The only reason to upgrade is for the 7800 games. I'm not recommending against the idea, but there are few exclusives, and many crippled games.