Mr_8bit_16bit

Good find! Man, what is it with people just throwing out video games?! Even my duplicates I either hang onto out in the garage, or donate to goodwill or sell on e-bay or trade for other games. Unless a game, or controller, or especially, a system is genuinely broken, I mean like broken broken, why throw it away?! I mean, you could be preventing someone from aquiring one of their most sought after, most important things from their childhood. You could be quashing someone's dreams of sweet reunion with an old childhood friend. (okay, that's a little over dramatic, but hey)

That role-playing nut would not be being very objective about his hardware analysis. He would see how well the systems handled his favorite thing, choose that system and then not give appropriate weight to the other aspects of that hardware. His analysis would be biased and not really comprehensive. I know that you're torn between RPGs and Shooters. And I guess I'd be willing to agree that the SNES beats the competition in the former and the Genesis beats the competition in the latter. And the reason you can't choose is because you can't decide which of the two genres you ultimately prefer (I assume) and you're gonna favor the platform that best does your preferred genre. But that too, is being a little subjective. I encourage you to emotionally detach yourself and give all genres equal weight. Then go back to the architecture of the two systems, analyze, and give equal weight to all factors, and then you may yet be able to decide. Even though I prefer the Genesis all around because of it's software, I still believe the SNES hardware is superior all things considered. Anyway, if I can "re-semantics-ize" what you're saying: You're essentially saying: "Genesis better at X, SNES better at Y, overall winner inderminate." That I can live with. Re:Xbox 360: You mean the way we used to laugh at the Atari2600 sports games 10yrs ago? You know, we don't laugh at them anymore...or at least not as hard. Antiquity eventually becomes virtue. Just like how a 20 year old car is just an old car with no honor, but a 25+yr old car is a classic, and an honored thing. That 20yr old car will become a classic in 5yrs and it'll become honorable too. It'll suddenly go from being contemptible to being desired and revered...it seems that video games work kinda the same way...first we're amazed by them, then non-plussed. Then we ridicule them, and then finally embrace them, and embrace them for the very things we once ridiculed them for. I know you meant that as a joke, but it got me thinking. Which is a dangerous thing.

ebay just doesn't have the same magic, does it?

JB, I actually was going to beat you to the punch on correcting that resolution issue, but my browser crashed and then people came over...so, kudos. What I found interesting is the resolution difference between SG and SN vertical resolution is a ratio of 1.25 (320/256) This difference ratio is not all that dissimilar from the difference ratio between EDTV originally in 16:9 (852x480p) and EDTV originally in 4:3 (640x480p) which is 1.33xxxxxxxxx. (852/640) I've noticed on some multiplatform games, a lot of times, the characters seem slimmer in the Genesis version (more vertical lines on screen, same vertical lines in character) as if they were originally intended for 16:9 but it automatically compresses the image to fit 4:3. Now, I realize that that wasn't the thought process, but that concept can be applied retroactively and in reverse. I speculate that if you take those games with the scrunched characters and put them on a 16:9 TV in normal view mode (in other words it auto stretches 4:3 to 16:9. and then compare it to the SNES version on a similar sized 4:3 TV, I'd imagine the characters would look pretty similar. What value that has, I guess I don't know, but I just notices the ratios, did some math to verify and came out pretty close (I actually theorized that they would come out the same.) I just thought it was interesting to note. Anyway, JB: I can understand not being able to decide which one is the ultimate. Fortunately, we don't have to decide which is best in order to play them. If you want to remain neutral on the hardware thing, I can dig it. But I do have a semantics disagreement: as I said in my previous post. You can't say which is better overall depends on the context because overall includes all contexts. You can say which is better in certain contexts and worse in others, and then say the best overall is indeterminate. But to say the best overall in certain contexts is self contradicting. Okay, I'll quit splitting hairs with you now.

Sure. Both have circumstancial superiority. As I had elaborated on using graphics and sound as the examples. But if I were to have to choose one or the other and say that when all the pros and cons are weighed and all the talleys counted and all the considerations made, if I were to say which one ultimately was the superior hardware, then by a slim margin, I would have to say SNES.. Now I do understand what you're saying. I understand that you're saying it's too circumstancial and you can't decide a one ultimate victor. But I urge you to consider it. I'll bet you end up being pulled one way or the other. I certainly never meant to imply it was a cut and dry decision, nor an easy one. I almost went the other way. But it was the fact that the graphics were better more than 50% of the time, and the sound was always superior accademically and usually superior philosophically. I think the intensity of the SNES slowdown phenomenon was overplayed and exagerated, and the claim that Genesis had no slowdown is false. The slowdown never really bothered me. And regardless of which system could do it faster, many a time, a cross platform game would play at about the same speed on both units and usually looked and sounded better SNES side. (I call Earthworm Jim 2 to the stand, your honor.) I guess the deciding factor is that despite a slower processor and a more lopsided architecture that through the weakness of one component can't even harness the full force of another component. This nightmare in a box still manages to outshine the competition approx 70-85% of the time. That's why it gets my vote. If not the little engine that could, the 65816 is at the very least, the little engine that somehow managed to anyway. You would still contend that the overall merits of the system are circumstancial, but that's self contradictory. There's no room for circumstantial in overall. Overall is the summation of all the black numbers and all the red numbers. It's all things considered. It's all circumstantial's weighed in and compared. If you can determine for yourself which one you believe is the overall champion, I would be very very curious to hear your answer.

Neat thread idea tying all three of these eras together! I think if you were gonna do war though, you should do total war and go ahead and include 32bit, pre-crash, and current gen. I may make a thread that takes your wonderful idea and expounds upon it. I don't know what Zylon Bane's talking about. I'll elaborate on my choices, which incidentally mirror yours. I'll start with the one I have the most to say about: The 16-bit era: ******************************************************************************** I know most of this I've already said on previous threads, but they go back over a year so I figure I'm clear to repeat myself: Back in the day, I was actually adamantly pro-SNES for it's better graphics and sound. And for games like Mario, Zelda, Contra, Castlevania, FZero, Mario Kart etc etc etc. Come 93, I did get a Genesis and liked it, but it failed to change my persuasion...in fact, it cemented it (although I could give up the "I hate Sega Genesis" mantra now that I was playing on both sides and it was no longer my mortal enemy. ) But looking back, I have changed my aleigences. While it could perhaps be argued that the more of the absolute creme de la creme, top of the mountain, quintessential games of the 16-bit era graced the SNES than the Genesis, the wholesale number of excellent games in my opinon was much higher on the Genesis. It seems that apart from the elites, the SNES games were more ho-hum than the Genesis games. And the SNES sound system was a double edged sword. When it did well, it did very well. But when it did crappy it just sounded cheesy. The same could be said about the Genesis, I suppose. But the Gensis not only didn't aim as high, but it's sound scheme had sort of a mystique to it. It had it's own character to it. It had personality. The SNES's simply attempted to replecate reality...sometimes well, sometimes not. And the graphics difference isn't cut and dry either. Sure, the SNES had way more colors than the Genesis (256 vs 64 simultaneous and 32,768 total vs 512 total or in other words, 4x the simultanous colors and a whopping 64x the total available colors...one more way to look at it, the SNES could simultaneously produce half of the Genesis' total pallette...now, whether it actually did or not is another question.) But there's the resolution issue. I was gullible as a teenager. So much so, that I would dismiss what I saw with my own two eyes as wrong just because I had read a spec that said it was the other way. The SNES spec sheet says it can do 512x448 resolution wheras the Genesis could only do, like 320x260 or something like that. What I hadn't realized is that the SNES routinely only ran at half resolution to keep the processor load lower. It had actually appeared to me that the Genesis games looked higher resolution in places with soft or no colors, or on things like Sonic's character sprite or Altered Beast. But since the spec sheet said what it did, I dismissed it as a trick of the eye. Anyway, since learning the truth about the SNES resolution, I have since become accutely aware of the resolution difference. And so, the graphics advantage is circumstantial. In instances where multiple, beautiful, clean and clear colors are a bigger advantage than higher resolution, the SNES wins. But in instances where colors are pale or not there, of extremely high levels of detail are essential, the Genesis actually wins. Now, everything the SNES did, it did cleaner than the Genesis. And the SNES color management was perfect whereas the Genesis in the name of backwards compatiblilty inherited the same color management nightmares and oft blurry picture of the Mastersystem. So, high color instances are detrimental to the Genesis because many of the details are lost in the colors, and the colors had a tendancy to pixelate on the genesis, especially when there was a bright color with a bright contrasting color behind it. Also, if there is an advantage to be had to the lower resolution, it took fewer pixels to make a larger character on the SNES. I suppose the high color, larger character, crystal clear, unpixelated or distored colors, perfect picture of the SNES won more battles than the Higher resolution, higher detail picture of the Genesis did....but the victory is not total. While it's true, if they had tried to do Contra III on the Gensis, it wouldn't have looked nearly as good, and both the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games looked better on the SNES, the SNES would've done an embarrasing job trying to tackle resoultion happy Altered Beast or even Sonic. And actually, the more I play, the more bothered I become by the SNES's resolution. Especially since they made the graphics hardware capable of double that. Sure, I would have to concede that despite it's warts, and the sometimes literal, sometimes philosophical advantages of the competition, all in all, the SNES -is- better hardware all around, yet at the end of the day, hardware must ultimately take a back seat to software, and to that end, Gensis gets the Gold....sorry Mario. Anyway, that's my take on the SNES vs Genesis. ******************************************************************************** Now, the 8-bit era: ******************************************************************************** Sure, in terms of 2D side scrolling sprite and bitmap based graphics, the Mastersystem ruled all. It actually nipped at the heels of the TG 16 (which should've been in this competition in the 16-bit, BTW) It had the largest characters, the highest characters, the highest amount of detail and (I believe) the highest resolution. But it had horrible color management, a fairly blurry picture, and typically had a more sluggish pace than the NES. Also, for what it's worth at this low level, the NES had the better sound hardware. The two were not all that dissimilar, it's just the NES could do more at once. The NES had smaller characters, less colors, and less detail than the SMS, and more flicker, but it had a much cleaner, clearer picture and a faster, smoother pace. Less than 50% of the time to be sure, but sometimes the alure of crispness and clarity outweighed all the goodies the SMS had on the other side of the dirty lens. How does the Atari 7800 fare? Well, we were just debating this in another thread, and my thought is regardless of whether it was a graphics chip issue or a jack tremiel chip issue, the 7800 just consistently came in below (often way below) either of the other two in terms of graphics. Now, to be fair, in very processor intensive cases, like Ball Blazer, the 7800 is king of the hill, but those types of games that utilize those facets of the hardware were few and far between and oft were not all that great of games. So, the 7800 sits at a distant "hey, wait for me, guys!" third in terms of hardware and software..in fact, were it not for the backwards compatibility with the venerable 2600 (which shares a processor with the NES, surprisingly) the 7800 would likely have been no more than a blip on the history of video games. In terms of hardware, I have to begrudgingly acknowledge that the Mastersystem is aptly named, but once again, software is the deciding factor and in that respect, it's a no-contest. Despite the mountain of crap that the NES had to endure, it had a mountain of gold too. A mountain not even approaching being rivaled by anyone from it's generation, and arguably, any generation. So as far behind the SMS the 7800 is, the SMS is behind the NES in the same measure. And that's the 8-bit for you. ******************************************************************************** I don't have very much to say about the 64 bit systems, but the thing that strikes me right away is that the Jaguar is anything but 64-bit. They could legally call it 64 bit by some odd technicality loophole that really was a stretch anyhow. More often than not it performed more like a 16-bit system. You'll have to forgive me, I'm not as familiar with Jaguar hardware as say SNES and Genesis, but wasn't the CPU of the Jaguar actually 8-bit? Or I think I remember now. I heard that they got the 64-bit from the fact that there were 8 8-bit CPUs running in concord, like how the saturn had two 32-bit CPUs, but just as with the saturn and 32+32=32, the jaguar was 8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8=8. ***Please correct me if I'm wrong on that hardware analysis..I really need to study up on the Jag and I don't want to come off as Mr. Know it All.*** But in any case. The N64 made a big mistake sticking with cartridges. It didn't have enough memory and thus many of the textures were smudgy, and blurry, and there was way too much fog all the time. Plus, as a whole, I don't think the software on the 64 was nearly as good as Nintendo's previous two systems... The N64 was the only system I actually got on release day (two days before, to be exact) and I have found it to be somewhat of a disappointment in terms of both hardware and software....that being said, it just totally kicks the crap out of the jaguar at every single angle....okay, okay, the cosmetic design of the jaguar cartridges were cooler than that of the N64, and as worthless as the Jaguar's disc drive was, even the most crappy hardware is better than vaporware, which the N64DD was...at least stateside. Nevertheless....the N64 as big a let down as the N64 was, it is still, unquestionably, undoubtably the resounding king of 64-bit. ********************************************************************************

"The Bogeys are at: -Six- -Three- -Niner-!"

Sounds like an awesome find! Sonic CD is obligatory. And Ecco is cool too. It was a cool game for the genesis, and this one is the same game only with nice soothing new age music instead of the gratey Genesis stuff. Now Wolf Child! That's a game I want for the Sega CD. I have it for the Genesis and for the SNES, but have only briefly tried the CD version. I know it's basically the same game only with better music and cartoon video interludes (which I hear are spine tinglingly cheesy), but I wouldn't mind having it anyway. I would like to get Silpheed too. Although now that it's out on PS2, I may just opt for that version instead. As far as this matter of whether we are sinners and rebels for not using the thrift finds thread, or ingeneous revolutionaries for going it on our own, I guess my take is this: Yeah, that thread was created for this purpose, and the idea was to eliminate mass threading on stuff like this. However, that thread has gotten so big and ponderous that posts are guaranteed to get lost in the shuffle, so therefore, it is my belief that if your finds are relatively humble or moderate, that you should in fact keep it to the main thread, yet, if your finding is something especially good, like this one was, that a new thread should be created for it so that the gold doesn't get buried in the mud (if you will). Weigh carefully whether your find merits and deserves it's own thread, and then act accordingly. That's just my two cents.

Compare between the NES and 7800 the following games: Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Joust. I don't think you will find a game on both platforms that looked better on the 7800 than the NES. If you do, let me know...I'll wanna see it for myself. Now, to be fair, the 7800 did have it's own merits. I doubt that say, Ball Blazer would've moved as fast, or as fluidly on the NES, perhaps even the Master System. But numbers are theoretical. Look at actual performance. If not 100% of the time, then darn near, the NES wins. And in a match between NES and SMS, the SMS 9 times out of 10 has larger characters, more level detail, and more colors, but NES has a cleaner, sharper picture. (Compare NES to SMS Rampage...since it was brought up...it makes a great example of the typical differences) You be the judge, but majority consensus (and I would agree) is that the SMS had the best graphics of the three....now and then, it's graphics would even begin to rival the TG-16 which was the Atari7800 of the 16-bit era both in terms of hardware and software....it's still one of my more beloved systems though.....as is the 7800 (for it's 2600 backwards compatability, mostly. Were it not backwards compatible, I probably wouldn'tve been all that blown away by it.)

That's a pretty sweet little game!

I've seen claims that the drive eject belt tends to snap. Dunno if that was what you wanted. Well, at least that should be a not-too-bad-to-fix repair.

All 4. Hunt the Wumpus scared me as a kid. Now I just laugh at the giant monster teeth eating the screen. yeah, it used to wierd me out, too.

I got one back in 1990, it had hunt the wumpus, chisholm trail, blasto, and a-maze-ing. Anybody remember any of those games? I've still got all of the above, and it works, but haven't since added anything to my collection... I haven't thought about it in a while. I think you mightve inspired me to bust it out and dust it off.

Glad to hear the Genny's okay, at least.

Thank you.

Like how an 89 Town Car is cooler looking than a 93 Town Car. Cleaner video you say? I guess I'd have to do a side by side again, but I thought I remembered back in the day being used to Mk 1 and being impressed with how much sharper everything was on the Mk2 (then again, Genesis did have a problem with certain colors distorting things which was only augmented by the extra sharpness.) I'll try it out again. Afterall, the 93 may not look quite as cool as the 89, but it's got about 50 more HP with the exact same gas mileage and is more feature laden and a firmer ride (I kinda like how the 89 floats though) Interesting parallel.

Look at Mezrabad's blog for more info about the original Odyssey. Laugh at it derisively if you want, but for about two years it was without a doubt the greatest video game system available; some might argue it was the best single system on the market until the advent of the Fairchild Channel F in 1976--about four years after the Odyssey's debut. (Note: I'm aware that there were some single-function game machines available that were better than any single game on the Odyssey, but the Odyssey had more different games than any competitor until the channel F). IMHO, to qualify as a "Worst console ever', a console has to have been inferior to its competition from the moment of release. Ralph Baer (designer of the Odyssey) can't be faulted for the fact that later technology allowed better games. But the creators of the RCA Studio II or the CD-I platform can be faulted for the fact that their systems were pretty feeble even compared with others that existed at the time. Well, the CD-i actually had pretty decent hardware for the time, and while I know the selection of games is pretty weak, I have way too much in sentiment tied up in it to be able to really damn it as the worst system ever. There are more popular and successful systems than the CD-i that I have gotten less wholesale joy out of than it (such as Atari 5200....gasp!...) so I just can't do it. Besides, I really do like CD-i Tetris, and while I admit that the CD-i Link and Zelda games are terribly hokey and the controls dreadfully bungled, I like them all the same. Really, they are the illegitamate children of Zelda II. And I was part of the minority that liked Zelda II better than the original. All of Nintendo's Zelda games are offsprings of the original game design. And then there's Kether. Even if those games alone are all there is to the system's credit, I still see enough merit to not be able to name it the worst ever ever. (double on purpose)

LOL, I love that term!.....shovelware! Hmm... worst system ever... that's a tough one. Note to take on The Grand daddy of them all, especially since I've never been hands on with one. But from what I understand, The original Magnavox Odyssey was nothing more than dots moving around and an overlay that you tape to the screen so you can see where you're going. Problem one: what if you lose an overlay? Problem two: what if you have the wrong sized TV? Problem three: they're dots just moving about! And before you say: "But John, that's what all games are... even the newest ones." Think about the scale. Even the 2600 had some blocks of dots that at least semi resembled the character they were representing, and even the 2600 was able to render environments. The odyssey, as I understand it is just a few plain dots moving around in empty space that it takes an overlay to enterperet...therefore, it gets my vote for worst system. You should talley this up. Shovelware...I love it!

Ahh, Skull and Crossbones. I remember that one! The Arcade version was more of a TMNT style game with a pirate motif, and the NES version, unfortunately,if I remember correctly was not very much like it. Nintendo had a penchant for radically diverging from the Arcade version for it's home ports...sometimes it helped, but a lot of times it just made for an awkward game that robbed it's gamers of the arcade experience. Master System and Genesis seemed to be more arcade authentic whenever they'd port something over.

Amen to that! That's how I had to do it for years. I finally just broke down and picked up a G Mk 2 and swapped them out. I hung onto the Mk 1 as a spare in my garage....too cool to just let go of. Warts aside, I've always thought the mk1 genny was cooler than the mk 2.

This is harder for me to answer, cause most of the systems that I wanted growing up, I went back and got later. Really, the only one that I can think of wanting back in the day that I still don't have is the Jaguar CD. (I guess I had kind of a passing interest in the NEC FX and the Amiga32) I suppose I didn't get an xbox360 for christmas or my birthday like I kinda hoped. But that's really no big deal. I've been kinda lukewarm to the 360 thusfar anyway. But here is the list of the ones I didn't get in their time, that I had to go back for later: Atari7800 Mastersystem TurboDuo (Turbografix 16) Neo Geo AES (and CD) CD-i (though the magnavox top load and not the original phillips front load like I had really wanted) Jaguar 3DO and then some ones that I had never had any interest in in the day, but have developed interest in later and bought later: Odyssey 2 Atari5200 Intellivision Collecovision Commodore128 Atari800XL And a system that I had no interest in at the time, and would like to get now, but still haven't got is the Commodore Amiga.

What's even more stupid is that I've seen those machines set to charge $0.25, $0.50, or $1.00 but regardless of the actual price charged I've never seen one whose coin door DIDN'T say 4x$0.25. Does that make any sense whatsoever to anyone? 1009109[/snapback] makes perfect sense. two possibilities: 1)If someone's not paying attention enough, they may be duped into paying the full dollar, and then just be forced to play four games. The game hall still gets it's buck. 2)Or more likely, they were just lazy and assume that since the gamer sees the number of credits required on screen that they'll put in the right amount. I really doubt someone's gonna look at the screen, then look a the slot, then look at the screen, then look at the slot and then panic for not knowing what to do.

"My OTHER wife doesn't object to in the butt!" 1007770[/snapback] That's why you wait til she doesn't have a metal tray to say that kinda stuff.

I voted black, cause it's the one I'd prefer, but I almost voted any color is fine. I mean, if I were in a situation where black wasn't an option, then I wouldn't let that stop me from getting a PS3. I'd just go for white or silver.

Well, it's like I said: there was a trade-off. With the PS1/Saturn, things were horribly grainy and pixelated, and real jumpy and flickery. The N64 was not pixelated at all, and there were very little grain (I saw a fair amount of grain around the edges of things in Starfox64, but that grain behaved differently) and no jumpy and flickery that I can recall. But, since the hardware and especially, the storage capacity was not great enough, the trade-off result was everything blurry, and smudgy, and in order to hide the polygon popup, you had to have a thick wall of fog that had to be placed way too close in order for it to be effective. With the PS1, at least everything was sharp. I suppose the N64 was better overall than the PS1/Saturn, but we were supposed to be looking at an entire generational leap. It was definitely not a generational leap.