Are the so called "worst consoles of all time" really that bad?

[xDragonWarrior]

I like my game.com, got the complete collection (w/modem), some of the good games are:

Solitaire

Wheel of Fortune 1 and 2

Quiz Wiz

Jeopardy

Henry

Tiger Casino

Light's Out

Monopoly

Scrabble

Resident Evil 2

Hey half the gaming library is actually good, who'd have thought.

 

I even surfed the internet with my game.com

 

Yeah I hate when people say that the Game,com has no good games.

Edited November 29, 2013 by xDragonWarrior

[Rhomaios]

Is it really worth it when they can be played elsewhere? Especially since they're not even the best ports.

[Austin]

Hey half the gaming library is actually good, who'd have thought.

 

When you consider half the library consists of card, quiz and digitized board games, the weight of that statement drops considerably. It's the same reason you find many not caring for the CD-I. Yes, it has some "good" games if you dig hard enough, but there's simply not enough of what your average gamer wants from that era of gaming: Shooters, platformers, *good* arcade-style games, etc. And the ones it does have mostly consist of lackluster efforts compared to what its competitors offered. However, if adventure, puzzle, quiz and edutainment software floats your boat, then the CD-I might be a really good platform to you.

[Manoau2002]

Are the game.com games the same as the tiger handhelds. If so ive played both jeopardy and monopoly and I agree they were decent games for the time. I have a monoploy game on the ipod that is much better but thats now.

[BydoEmpire]

 

 

Funny, for me, the 7800 Proline are the best joysticks ever!!. I still have and use the very one i bought in 1983!

You bought your 7800 in 1983?

[Classic Pac]

I seen a lot of bad console you tube vids to me what seems to be the worse was Pioneer LaserActive

[Lentzquest]

The Pioneer LaserActive can be redeemed for its ability to play Genesis, Sega CD, TurboGrafx, and Turbo CD games. But you're right, the actual laserdisc games themselves are nothing special. Pretty much crosshair shooters, fmv games, and point-and-clicks.

[Rex Dart]

Don't be afraid to admit that you enjoy/own/collect for a piece of crap system.

They can't all be good.

[Algus]

The 32X is a lovely piece of tech that I recommend heartily to any Genesis collector. It isn't 300 1994 USD lovely but, you know, for 15 bucks and a foot long from Subway it's pretty great.

 

Price of something still remains very important to me in determining the value of something. Plenty of great Xbox games out there that would have been lousy buys at 59.99

[CatPix]

Don't be afraid to admit that you enjoy/own/collect for a piece of crap system.

They can't all be good.

I do!

 

I have a Game Master and a Game Tronic (same guts, different shells) and more than half og the games for it.

They are total crap... but interestingly so crappy that it sucks you into finding more of it to taste the horror of badly programmed games on a poor, graphic calculator like display and hardware.

 

The fun value is close to zero tho.

[gamecat80]

NES what an awful console, as far as consoles go, it is the worst, plus the worst controllers, some of the games are good though.

 

So you're really talking about 'GAMES' not 'CONSOLES'

 

You say the majority of the CD-I's library kinda sucks, well look at the NES/Famicom library, 90% suckee (~2000 game library), goes for the majority of consoles actually,

few exceptions are Lynx, N-Gage, Atari 5200, SMS, PC Engine and Game Cube.

 

 

W........T........F?? The NES is one of the BEST consoles of all time! Great system with lots of great games. Controllers are reliable and comfy. Damn good graphics and sound for 1983 console hardware!! Advanced for it's time.

 

 

Wrong way around, no stick for control, and yes too small. Ugly Japanese cheap rubbish.

 

Comfy, reliable, well-made, responsive controllers. I think they look good too. Better than previous crappy joystick/phonepad controllers. Why don't you EVER say anything bad about the SMS? It's also Japanese and also uses D-pad controllers that are actually not as good as the NES D-pads.

 

 

And the NES is sooo ugly, grey, blocky, at least the famicom isn't bad looking, but the NES, designed by an eastern bloc communist state.

 

There are far uglier consoles than the NES. And the NES model 2 is like a cross between the original Famicom and SNES in design.

 

 

Most people just have no choice, that's what it is....You can't beat a good joystick, D-pad sucks, it's sad how quick the Americans let the Japanese rule all over the American invented video game industry.

 

You can't beat a good D-pad The 2600 joysticks suck, imo. Very stiff and uncomfortable. My friend said he used to get "Atari hand" because of the 2600 joysticks.

 

The Japanese have been in the video game industry almost as long as us. Nintendo and Sega were both involved with arcades very early on before they went into home consoles. The American video game market was completely saturated with tons of systems and games of varying quality. If the NES had "sucked", it would not have done nearly as well as it did, trust me. Nintendo came in with a polished superior system with lots of great games that American gamers were craving for. That's it!

 

Again, why don't you put down the SMS or, in general, Sega like you do the NES or Nintendo? The SMS, by most accounts, is quite similar to the NES.

[Rhomaios]

 

Again, why don't you put down the SMS or, in general, Sega like you do the NES or Nintendo? The SMS, by most accounts, is quite similar to the NES.

 

The SMS controller is even smaller than the NES one. Perfect for my wife's small hands, but terribly uncomfortable for mine.

[BassGuitari]

Sooner or later the guy who loves the R zone will show up.

You rang?

 

At the risk of copping out, I think that any console is only as good as its games. And even the usual suspects for "worst console ever" have SOMEthing that's at least worth playing, even if only for novelty/curiosity. I point to the RCA Studio II here, a pretty universally panned system from which I derive genuine, non-ironic enjoyment (in small doses). A lot of that has to do with its quaintness and historical context, and I'm certainly not about to make any outlandish claims like "Studio II was actually better than the 2600" (or "NES, what an awful console...it is the worst..." ), but I think it goes to show that even the "worst" consoles offer something worthwhile, on some level.

 

(As for the R-Zone, I had one as a kid and didn't think a whole lot of it even then, although I thought the controller looked cool. It was kinda neat for what it was, but it didn't get played a whole lot. I kind of want to get one again, for the oddball factor. I think that the R-Zone's status as a "console" is debatable anyway, but that's for another thread.)

[CatPix]

Well. True I never played the RCA Studio II, not saw any Euroclone.

 

But... Considering the time it came it came out, you gotta give it a chance regarding the fact it's the early times of video game technology.

 

From what I can read and videos I see, the games themselves are playable, you know what you are moving on screen. And the only gripe you can really have is the stupid "keypad sticked in the system" controls. Something solved on most Euroclones by having detachable controllers and sometime even a joystick.

 

It certainly can't claim to be a good system, but... it's at least, a decent, honest try. There are later systems offering worse experience, such as the HMG 7900 (released in 1983, display graphisms and sound in between the color RCA II clones and the Channel F. And all games are unlicenced clones of arcade hits. That's what you can high robbery) the Game Master. And the Tiger R-zone... Meh. The handstrap version is probably aimed to look like a VB knock-off, tho the handheld version could have been a fun and decent way to play cheap games (like, having the carts sold for 5$ as collectible toys).

[BassGuitari]

Yeah, I mean the Studio II's at least interesting, even if it generally isn't a whole lot of fun to play for any length of time. (Although, I've said before that Squash is more fun than it has any right to be...it even has an "ending!" ) Gunfighter comes the closest to a passable action arcade game, but that's a pretty rare one. And there are homebrews, of course. Still, there's no way to mistake the Studio II for anything better than a Studio II. But even if it only has one or two games that are just alright for only about five minutes, that's still better than nothing (or the Hyperscan ). And yeah, the history of it augments its entertainment value somewhat.

It doesn't help that the Studio II is such an odd duck. If you don't have a manual or working knowledge of it, you're probably going to have a really hard time getting it to do anything. Most people don't know, for example, that you can shift into "high gear" in the built-in racing game (or that the game DOES end and that's when your score appears), or that you can throw angled balls in Bowling. The games are still pretty lame, but they're at least mildly, briefly amusing if you know how to play them.

I demoed my Studio II at Midwest Gaming Classic earlier this year, and most people thought it was broken (even with an instruction sheet sitting in front of it.... ) Nope, that blank black screen is normal.

[Rex Dart]

Why don't you EVER say anything bad about the SMS? It's also Japanese and also uses D-pad controllers that are actually not as good as the NES D-pads.

 

Worst D-pad ever made, that SMS. Worse than the xbox 360, gamecube, or genesis 3-button.

[high voltage]

 

 

 

Again, why don't you put down the SMS or, in general, Sega like you do the NES or Nintendo? The SMS, by most accounts, is quite similar to the NES.

SMS has a stupid pad, ANY forced upon Western games wrong way around pad is pure shite.

Sega is/was American, btw.

Nintendo had a difficult start in USA, the AVS flopped twice, nobody was interested.

Edited December 1, 2013 by high voltage

[high voltage]

Oh I forgot, SMS games are better than NES games, imo.

The original Master System is as ugly as the NES though.

[Hatta]

Philips CD-I

The CD-I had some good gamesThe apprentice,Burn:cycle, Dragon's lair,Hotel Mario(yes this IMO is a good game), Kether,The lost ride,Mutant rampage,Thunder in paradise Tetris etc.Yes the majority of the CD-I's library kinda sucks but It should be noted that it has some decent games that you should check out and not all bad as most seem to think.

I have a CD-I and I have to disagree. The Apprentice is a middling platformer at best. It would not get a second look if it was on the SNES. Burn:Cycle is a terrible FMV game. Dragon's Lair is ruined by having the scenes shuffled, so you can never practice the same scene. Kether is 3 potentially decent games mashed into one confusing mess. The Lost Ride is a tedious maze. Tetris is decent, but what platform doesn't have a decent Tetris?

 

Mutant Rampage and Thunder in Paradise I haven't played. Two that I would recommend (if you have a CD-I already) are Voyeur, which is about as good as FMV games get, but has a PC port. And Clue. That one keeps the rules of the classic board game, but adds a randomized plot with FMV cut scenes, and point and click adventure style investigating. Very well done. Oh, and if you watched Jeopardy! in the early 90s, the CD-I game captures it pretty well.

 

I love the 3DO, the Sega CD, etc, but I only keep the CD-I to say I have a CD-I. If I paid anything for mine, I would be pretty disappointed with it.

[godslabrat]

SMS has a stupid pad, ANY forced upon Western games wrong way around pad is pure shite.

Sega is/was American, btw.

Nintendo had a difficult start in USA, the AVS flopped twice, nobody was interested.

 

I'm all about letting you have your personal preference when it comes to controls, but it's weird how you keep implying that Japan "forced" western countries to use a joystick-on-the-left orientation. It really assumes that there was a strong desire for more Atari-style controls in the late 80s and 90s, and that it would be impossible for an aftermarket joystick to offer this option if people truly wanted it.

 

I'm just not sure why you're making this turn of events so sinister when the actual explanation is really mundane.

[+thegoldenband]

I'm looking through the control panels of arcade shooters from the early 1980s, and the majority of the ones I've checked so far have the primary movement controls (joystick or button) on the left and the fire button on the right, e.g. Asteroids, Defender, Galaga, Galaxian, Space Invaders. Sinistar and Moon Patrol are symmetrical for 2P, and Robotron's two sticks are move left/fire right.

 

Interestingly the trackball and spinner games I've checked typically have it the other way around with firing controls on the left, e.g. Tempest, Missile Command, Centipede, Major Havoc. And then there's Tron, with spinner on the left and joystick/fire on the right.

 

And then there's Maude:

 

[Rex Dart]

Oh I forgot, SMS games are better than NES games, imo.

 

Oh gee I'm shocked

[Hatta]

Some SMS games are better than NES games. e.g. Double Dragon, Shinobi. IMO the SMS is often graphically better than the NES, but the sound is almost always worse. The library on the NES is much better over all. But there are some standouts. Compare Phantasy Star to Final Fantasy, there's no contest.

[desiv]

-- apparently the 3DO was cheaper than the PlayStation when the latter was released, which I didn't know.

And THAT was another part of the problem. You could say the price drop was too little too late, but not really.

The Playstation took a WHILE to really capture the market..

The 3DO dropped their price, but they weren't aggressive enough with the advertising and marketing on that price drop..

If you look at some of the better 3DO games, and compared it to the early Playstation games, there's no reason they couldn't have seriously challenged them..

But by then, everyone still thought of them as the "expensive" system, even tho they weren't anymore....

 

I still can't believe that someone forgot the "razors and blades" sale model tho...

You don't charge that much for your system!!!! Oh well..

At least I have a 3DO now, and it has some great games..

 

desiv

[Atari2008]

Yeah, I mean the Studio II's at least interesting, even if it generally isn't a whole lot of fun to play for any length of time. (Although, I've said before that Squash is more fun than it has any right to be...it even has an "ending!" ) Gunfighter comes the closest to a passable action arcade game, but that's a pretty rare one. And there are homebrews, of course. Still, there's no way to mistake the Studio II for anything better than a Studio II. But even if it only has one or two games that are just alright for only about five minutes, that's still better than nothing (or the Hyperscan ). And yeah, the history of it augments its entertainment value somewhat.

 

It doesn't help that the Studio II is such an odd duck. If you don't have a manual or working knowledge of it, you're probably going to have a really hard time getting it to do anything. Most people don't know, for example, that you can shift into "high gear" in the built-in racing game (or that the game DOES end and that's when your score appears), or that you can throw angled balls in Bowling. The games are still pretty lame, but they're at least mildly, briefly amusing if you know how to play them.

 

I demoed my Studio II at Midwest Gaming Classic earlier this year, and most people thought it was broken (even with an instruction sheet sitting in front of it.... ) Nope, that blank black screen is normal.

I had a Studio II briefly but sold it since I just wasn't playing it much. I agree the historical value is there and it is a curiosity. Some games can be fun for a few minutes but the console doesn't have any "killer apps." There was talk of a multi-cart and a few homebrews that were made in anticipation of it (Pac-Man, Berzerk among others) and those showed that the system could have fun games.