What's the Worst Console You Ever Played?

[Ransom]

EDIT: Also, if I were a game reviewer, I'd be reviewing stuff like Channel F, Studio II, early Atari 2600, TRS-80, Color Computer, MC-10, TI99/4a, and VIC-20 games. It would probably be the least-watched channel on YouTube.

 

I'd watch it! I enjoy watching well-crafted reviews of the games from the late 70s. There is something special about many of those games.

[mbd30]

 

I'd watch it! I enjoy watching well-crafted reviews of the games from the late 70s. There is something special about many of those games.

 

Do you watch the Lazy Game Reviewer? He has some awesome videos about old tech such as the VIC-20 and ZX Spectrum.

 

 

[Ransom]

 

Do you watch the Lazy Game Reviewer? He has some awesome videos about old tech such as the VIC-20 and ZX Spectrum.

 

 

I hadn't come across his reviews. Thanks!

[BassGuitari]

Yeah, I like LGR. He seems to be more about hardware, though.

I like AtariLeaf's CoCo videos, myself, even though they're not so much "reviews" as "this is a cool game, you should play it if you're into the Color Computer."

[Ransom]

Nice and Games did a lot of good video reviews a few years ago. They were always well-written.

 

[+thegoldenband]

I think it'd be an awesome project to review the full Studio II or Channel F library -- I'd certainly watch those videos. More TRS-80 Model I/III, CoCo, and MC-10 stuff would be great too.

 

This makes me wish Chronogamer were still active! He was taking good footage of early games for a while there.

 

EDIT: Ha, I was just thinking of Nice and Games when I hit the post button. He's another one I wish were still active. Great, dry sense of humor.

[bretthorror]

Nobody bought Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy eh? Is that why both games are on list for top 20 SNES games sold? I'm sorry but this post simply reeks of historical revisionism. Simply put, what really set the SNES apart from the Genesis or the Master System was the fact that the SNES had a bunch of great RPG's that are beloved by millions even to this day.

 

The sales numbers of these games always seem to be numbers from Japan that I've ever found. I don't give a shit, if you think the RPGS sold more and were impressionable on kids than Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario Kart and all the other games kids actually consistently had and craved RPGs for the system back then, you can believe what you want.

[BassGuitari]

I think it'd be an awesome project to review the full Studio II or Channel F library -- I'd certainly watch those videos. More TRS-80 Model I/III, CoCo, and MC-10 stuff would be great too.

Sounds like I need to start learning how to make videos.

 

I used to write reviews (I've got a couple on my blog, link in sig), but I'd get carried away and go probably *too* in-depth and they'd take me forever.

[CatPix]

Yeah. I tried to do a couple of reviews. Written ones are totally different.

Can you believe, while watching my own video, I got BORED OF MYSELF???

[+wongojack]

I am also a fan of Nice and Games - those are great. He did a lot of Astrocade videos that I really appreciate.

[Atari2008]

Sounds like I need to start learning how to make videos.

 

I used to write reviews (I've got a couple on my blog, link in sig), but I'd get carried away and go probably *too* in-depth and they'd take me forever.

Going to have to check out your blog. I would also like to see more video reviews of late 70s consoles, in particular the RCA Studio II and Channel F.

[BassGuitari]

Going to have to check out your blog. I would also like to see more video reviews of late 70s consoles, in particular the RCA Studio II and Channel F.

I appreciate that. It's very much a backburner, when-I-feel-like-it/have-time-for-it thing, though. I don't think I've posted in over a year.

[Atari2008]

I appreciate that. It's very much a backburner, when-I-feel-like-it/have-time-for-it thing, though. I don't think I've posted in over a year.

It's pretty awesome! I read your posts about UFO for the O2, quintessentially 80s games and Ralph Baer. That rare promotional photo for the RCA Studio II was a treat!

[78001987]

I find it hard to take anyone seriously that states any successful, mainstream video game console is the worst they have ever played. Either it's complete ignorance (i.e., lack of in-depth, first-hand experience, be it self imposed or not), or they are intentionally looking to get a reaction out of people (i.e., trolling).

 

Personally, I feel the Bandai Apple Pippin is one of the worst. The library consists mostly of edutainment software and the handful of actual games are either mediocre (i.e., Power Rangers Zeo), or they are already available on other platforms (i.e., Shockwave or Marathon). It's really interesting in a historical context, but from a gameplay perspective there's very little on it that makes it a long-lasting, satisfying experience.

 

For non-Japanese speakers, the NEC PC-FX is fairly awful as well. Yet another interesting piece of gaming history and it's a cool looking system no doubt, but there's very little that's not hindered by the Japanese language that also isn't mediocre (i.e., Zeroigar).

 

The ZapIT Game Wave consisted nearly entirely of quiz style games, with a puzzle game or two on it for good measure. It was a novelty for a few minutes, but as a long-lasting game console, it's one of the weakest I have owned.

 

There are surely more consoles that are far worse than the three above, but of the ones I have personally owned and experienced, they were the weakest.

 

Of the mainstream platforms, the CD-I is my least favorite. It's hardly the worst system (in this case, "platform") out there, but the action/arcade style games are mediocre compared to the competition at the time, and you really need to have a keen interest in puzzle/adventure games to get the most out of it.

Whereas, I find it hard to take seriously anyone who suggests that something being fairly popular would exclude it from criticism, regardless of how valid and fact-based that criticism might be.

 

Also - the thread title is "What is the worst system YOU'VE PLAYED". So obviously you're going to have lots of opinions in this thread of people who've really only every played the mainstream popular systems. Then you go on to point out a few very rare, very obscure near-vaporware systems that almost no one has played as the worst. - I'm sure they are terrible, but only a tiny handful of people have even seen them.

[CatPix]

Except that the criticisms here about popular systems (mostly the NES) were of the trollesque kind "Doesn't work, sucky controllers, bad games, blablahblah."

Anyone overly putting negative comments on a popular system expose himself to be mocked and not taken seriously.

I myself mentionned here that out of all mainstream systems, the worst I have played is the N64. Tho I pointed out the facts that bothered ME, and still said that I knew the good games from it. And apparently it was received well as no one went mad at me.

[leods]

Thinking about it, I think the list of consoles I played is:

 

Atari 2600, MSX, Master System, NES, Mega Drive, SNES, Nintendo 64, PS1,2 and 3, xbox 360 and handhelds.

 

To be sincere probably the worse of all is the Atari 2600. But I never thought it was bad.

 

Unless you Count one of those tiger LCD things. I had a couple of those that sucked ass.

 

 

as to: "suggests that something being fairly popular would exclude it from criticism", I must say: it's not because the NES is popular people wouldn't take criticysm against it seriously. It's because the Controller is functional, the Hardware itself is pretty decent and the library of games is good for all tastes. So calling it the worse System you ever played when the worse complaints are the Controller being square and the loading mechanism for the cartridges makes it hard to take seriously.

 

OK, you like the atari Systems better. really hard to make a Point that the atari Controllers are more functional. Even ergonomy...

 

But then, whatever. You can say whatever you want and pretend it's "valid and fact-based"

[Flojomojo]

This is an interesting list of weird, mostly bad consoles. I love it when people take time to write up stuff like this, it's so much more accessible to me than sitting thru "hey guys what's up" YouTube videos.

 

http://imgur.com/a/RsrAt

[Flojomojo]

Cafeman: I'm with you on the ColecoVision. My early 1980s console of choice was the Atari 5200, even with all its problems. When I bought a ColecoVision at a garage sale in 1992, expecting a near-NES quality experience, boy did it miss that mark. Choppy scrolling, barfy colors, a horrendous controller, conversions that were far from the arcade experience that Coleco promised... it was a profound disappointment. We're discovering what the system can do NOW thanks to ace programmers like Eduardo Mello, but ColecoVision owners weren't getting that kind of quality in the 1980s when the system was still officially supported.

Well, obviously, right? ColecoVision was a "had to be there" kind of system. It's full of ports from the early 1980s. It was amazing coming from the Atari VCS, Intellivision, and Odyssey 2. Donkey Kong, Venture, Cosmic Avenger all looked AMAZING in 1982. It was looking pretty tired by 1986. Forget about 1992, which was SNES and Street Fighter II time.

 

Of the 90's+ systems I still own, 32x is my pick for worst console . Even though I own about 10 games for it, only VR Deluxe and Space Harrier are still worth playing a few rounds. The others pretty much suck. It coulda been much better. I loved it for like 4 months back in 94/95 or whatever that year was. During that time window, it had some worth with Doom / Star Wars Arcade / VR Deluxe / Knuckles Chaotix. But now its only a nostalgic curiosity, I would not recommend it to anybody.

 

I will also mention Jaguar. At first, I was excited to play it, had a couple games. But overall I found its games and performance to be rather poor, and it didn't have anything that I didn't already own with other systems like Saturn or PSX. The only games I liked were games which I already owned elsewhere - Rayman and Tempest 2000. Raiden was a good shooter, but not enough to own a system. I never really liked any Doom-style games, so the oft-beloved Aliens/Predator game didn't appeal to me either. A couple games I tried, I really hated them. Didn't like the controller, didn't find the performance to be good at all (certainly seems weaker than Saturn). So I sold it.

I would enjoy a Sega 32X all-in-one portable that could also play Genesis games. I agree with you that the 32X as implemented was pretty awful, with its extra power supply and AV cords, especially at the time given its very brief shelf life. I like Star Wars, Virtua Fighter Box People, and Virtua Racing on it, though. Doom was blecch. It certainly doesn't make sense to own one today.

 

Jaguar as bad system is too trite to talk about and I'm somewhat surprised the Jag-u-fans aren't in here to defend its honor. I I liked enough about it at the time to not feel it was a terrible thing.

 

Surprised no one has voted for Ouya

 

Awww, I like Ouya. It's small, cute, does what it says it should, and the controllers are not as bad as some retro controllers.

 

I think I can find something kinda nice to say about every game system I have played or owned, even if I don't have them anymore, and even if I wasn't in love with them at the time. The NUON had blurry, weird Tempest 2000. Virtual Boy had that crazy 3D wireframe game Red Alarm. Odyssey 2 has Pick Axe Pete and KC Munchkin. Intellivision has the wonderful Imagic lineup. Early Atari VCS had Combat, Superman ...and games got a lot better. Atari 7800 got a Food Fight port in addition to nice Xevious, Joust, Robotron, and Dig Dug. Sega Master System had a few run and jump things, and was only bleh when compared to the NES. Lynx had STUN Runner and APB, not seen elsewhere very much. If there are two or more games I want to play on a system, then it isn't all bad.

[Osgeld]

32X has its good point, and a lot of bad ones, but what I find funny is game reviews on it

 

"oh it takes a whole seperate power supply noooo" ok that's true, and thats a pain in the arse, but I dont want to hear it from some guy who turned his entire basement into a shrine with 58 consoles hooked up to a elvis array of TV's making a overdramatic stink about it lol

Edited January 5, 2016 by Osgeld

[mbd30]

32X has its good point, and a lot of bad ones, but what I find funny is game reviews on it

 

"oh it takes a whole seperate power supply noooo" ok that's true, and thats a pain in the arse, but I dont want to hear it from some guy who turned his entire basement into a shrine with 58 consoles hooked up to a elvis array of TV's making a overdramatic stink about it lol

 

I like what the AVGN said about the 32X and Sega CD... that connecting all that crap to your Genesis makes it look like it's on life support, which it was.

[masschamber]

rca studio II, nothing else even comes close. Like remotely close, it is objectively the worst. Tiny library, awful visuals for the time, mounted keypads for input, audio through just a speaker. It is the worst, man the keys aren't even fun to push.

[Seob]

I really don't know, or care. I love every little system i own. And can't say any of them are worst. I like the systems as they are. Even the least favorit system has something that makes it unique in my opition.

But it's all about personal taste. I love my cd-i system, it get more game play then my nes and snes combined together. Doesn't mean the nes or snes are bad, but i just love systems that wheren't mainstream.

[+Black_Tiger]

The Nintendo 64 is probably my least favorite console before the current generation. That doesn't mean I dislike it though, as I'm more of a game lover than hater and appreciate the better qualities in games instead of looking for reasons to write them off. I'm not fond of analogue controls, even though I have no trouble playing any 3D game, but 2D gameplay will always be a dramatically superior experience for me.

[78001987]

Except that the criticisms here about popular systems (mostly the NES) were of the trollesque kind "Doesn't work, sucky controllers, bad games, blablahblah."

Anyone overly putting negative comments on a popular system expose himself to be mocked and not taken seriously.

I myself mentionned here that out of all mainstream systems, the worst I have played is the N64. Tho I pointed out the facts that bothered ME, and still said that I knew the good games from it. And apparently it was received well as no one went mad at me.

N64 doesn't have anywhere near the same devotion in it's fans as the NES.

 

and all of those things I mentioned about the NES were FACTS, not opinions. nearly all "toaster" model NES consoles had significant problems loading games, even during it's original run, not just when they got very old. and the NES had LOTS of shovelware, just like the 2600 did. and there are graphics comparisons of the same games existing on NES and other systems like SMS, 7800 - and nearly across the board the graphics are lower resolution, poorly drawn, using a limited color palette, and demonstrably inferior in pretty much every way to their ports on competing consoles.

 

These aren't opinions. they are facts. tangible, provable facts. and these facts help me form my personal opinion of the NES.

 

and for this I was called a troll and delusional, among other insults. and the only real defense of the system I've heard is "NES was really popular and you're crazy".

 

This thread expressly asked for negative comments, right in the thread title.

[CatPix]

I would like to see the game comparisons. Surely, yes, the early run of NES/Famicom games, from 1983 to 1986/87 were pretty average graphically. Limited color palette? In some games, but it feels like it appeared more in shovelwares. I never felt that good NES games lacked colors, but that's a personnal opinion (plus, limited palette doean't automatically mean it's crap... the Atari 2600 sucks in the RAM and audio departments and it did marvels dealing with so limited hardware anyway. I would say, it's even an admirable feature. Like reaching 88mph with a 40 liters engine is less impressive than reaching it with a 25cc engine).

 

As for the resolution, the NES is limited to a 256*240 screen size. But the SMS have two choices of 256*192 and 256*224; the Atari 7800 have a low res 160*240 resolution and a 320*240 resolution.

Admittedly, the Atari 7800 is the winner for resolution, but from what I know, only a handful of 7800 games used that high resolution mode. Whereas all NES games would have the same resolution.

 

Plus, talking about limitations, the 7800 had the worst sound chip (except for the few carts that use the amazing POKEY), The SMS had a decent but limited chip, and the NES had a good sound chip, backed with later add-ons that provided even more sound effects (and even more of them on the Famicom). Okay, it contradict a bit of what I said previously, but putting a 1977 sound chip in a 1984 console, while at the same time you own the best 8 bits sound chip since 1978 is just pure stupidity. One can mention also the FM synth chip that was built in Japaense SMS and that was never offered, even as add-on, on non Japanese SMS (and it's made worse by knowing that some of the PAL and US release of those games have the FM synthesis soundtracks still present and working if you have a Jap SMS or the TimRGB add-on)

 

 

For games released after 1987, you can't say that they are inferior to their counterparts. I would want to see the equivalent of SMB3 or Kirby on the 7800 ans SMS. As much as I like the SMS, I gotta admit that good SMS games came too late for it, and in very too few numbers.

And "every way" also include gameplay... and while I haven't played all the games that exist in the 3 consoles (which, to my knowledge, would be crappy sport games? What games made it on all 3 consoles? Not counting 100 years old arcade ports?) the NES had lots of excellent games backed up with excellent controls. For the SMS and 7800, one can mention the lack of a pause button on the pads; but heeh, game programmers aren't responsible from idiotic choices of the hardware makers.

I have nothing bad or good to say about the 7800 pad. It's ultra cheap but does the job well enough (and I think that the fact that both action buttons works as the action button on a 2600 is pure genius). The floaty square pad of the SMS make gameplay feeling much more hard to control than it should be tho.

Edited January 11, 2016 by CatPix