BydoEmpire

I love the Saturn version - by far my favorite. It's the best Sinistar you can get at home.

The 90s were the pinnacle of PC gaming, certainly ("PC" meaning "IBM compatible," not counting Commodore, etc). I wouldn't say we're entering a golden age of PC gaming, but the platform is looking more viable than in the last 10-15 years. As far as it being cheaper, don't forget to factor in the cost of the games. Steam and GOG.com have made PC gaming simply dirt cheap, almost on par with mobile. For better or worse, the days of me buying $60 games are over (except the occasional Atari Age release ).

This. I don't see the 2600 having much impact on 7800 vs. NES sales.

There have been "Death of the PC Platform" articles for the many years... but this is really odd timing and seems counter to everyone else. With Steam, Origin, Kickstarter, web, etc this is probably the most hopeful the PC market has been in a long time. That pretty much sums it up.

I've made numerous commercial games for both systems, and I'm fairly confident in the assessment that the Xbox is a little more powerful: more memory, programmable GPU. There are certainly things the Gamecube does well, but in general the Xbox is a little bit ahead. Same generation, same general class of hardware. I wouldn't say the ps2, gc or xbox were significantly ahead or behind any of the others. "Power" in terms of consoles is a really vague term anyways. "Power" is pretty irrelevant in terms of ability to make good games. FWIW the Gamecube was my favorite console of that generation.

Heh, me, too. And Steam/Gog.com games on my pc...

Every year I fire up the Dreamcast for a few rounds of Zombie Revenge. Every year I get to the level in the factory where you get the drill, and then I die. Might try to squeeze in a couple rounds of House of the Dead 2, too.

Depends on the kids, but personally, I'd hold off on scary and violent stuff as long as possible. I watched a lot of horror movies when I was a kid, and seeing Jaws too young STILL has a lingering effect on me (I'm 40 now). There's no rush - it's not like they're going to get any life lessons from these games, it's just entertainment, so why push it? You can't unsee things, so I'd err on the side of waiting if you have doubts. My son is 4 so video games aren't even in the equation yet, but I'm going to keep Teen and Mature games away as long as possible. That said, your kids are you kids, so only you know where they're at developmentally.

This. Zero interest... not sure why I come to the Modern Gaming section anymore... habit, I guess. Around my office, it's probably 60/40 ps4, though a few folks are getting both on their launch dates.

IMHO, there's a charm to the pre-NES consoles and games that the NES and later systems lack, which is why that's most of my collecting (and playing) is at. Nostalgia is a part of it, but back then it was much more wild west in terms of both themes and mechanics. Anything was fair game - Lost Luggage, Kaboom, Demons to Diamonds... weird and wonderful stuff! After the NES it seems like things settled into a handful of themes (crime fighting, sci-fi, fantasy) and there weren't a lot of exceptions. I talk to a lot of younger (20s) gamers and they just don't get arcade types of games. They don't see the point. They want something they feel they can finish, and want story. Broad generalization, I know, and I know there are plenty of exceptions, but I've seen it to true more often than not. Just different strokes for different folks, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with platformers or the NES (I do have an NES and actively pick up games for it).

The writing and characters in the original Paper Mario and 1000 Year Door were just fantastic (I was in my 30s when I played both of those), but the writing in Super Paper Mario was nowhere near as good. Because it's a platformer with some RPG elements isn't bad in and of itself, I just think it didn't turn out very good.

You memory is faded. I love the c64 and it did a lot of things really well, but the NES's tiled graphics opened up a whole lot of new possibilities. I'd definitely consider them in the same general range of "power," but I wouldn't say "walks all over" at all. Again, I love the c64, and there were certainly a ton of fantastic RPGs, but it's more of a market thing than a hardware thing (other than maybe lack of keyboard on the console). Ultima 3, Pool of Radiance, and others were ported to the NES just fine. Wasn't Maniac Mansion ported to the NES, too? Also, the c64 is not a console, so it doesn't even really belong in this conversation.

I played about 2/3rds through it, quit, and never went back. There were definitely parts that I thought were cool, but it just got a little tedious for me. It's not even in the same league as the other 2 PM games for me. That said, for $20 you could do a lot worse.

Apollo makes some of my very favorite 2600 games!

They'd run into the exact same issue.

Greedy college athletes and they're lawyers just cost a lot of good people their jobs and killed a 20 year old franchise. Way to go.

My favorite has always been Spiderman for the 2600. Unique gameplay, easy to get into but gets really challenging in later levels. Good difficulty curve.

Definitely one of those "Different strokes for different folks" threads...

I had my 2600 hooked up to something like this awesome B&W console TV (I got to put this in my room after the family got a color TV): I also watched episodes of Manimal on it... good times.

One of the Batman games for NES. It was about $70, which was a big chunk of change in college - I really wanted an action/platformer and it seemed like it had it all, with the driving levels and everything. Truth be told, it probably wasn't *that* bad, but it was so far below my expectations - especially considering the price - that I have to rate it "worst game I ever bought."

Hah, the last time I had video game dreams it was on the Dreamcast. I had a dream where I was living my normal life, going to work, etc. but everything looked like Shenmue. Everything in my dream looked rendered like Shenmue. It was pretty cool, actually. I had PSO dreams as well.