What's the Worst Console You Ever Played?

[Osgeld]

yea the year or so tween the launch of the 3d0 and the PS1 yea it was the best 32 bit 3d cd console that costs as much as a neo geo genration ?

[Hwlngmad]

On 8/23/2020 at 7:28 AM, Lost Dragon said:

Mentioned just a short while ago, Sam Tramiel saying Sega screwed the chips with Game Gear and it suffered screen blur. 

 

Out of the GB, GG and Lynx, owned all 3,for myself, GB was easily the worst. 

 

Screen was sharp, but no matter how much i adjusted the display settings, I could never get an image I was at all happy with. 

 

Game Gear screen was flaky and had bad ghosting, but i could play for hours on it. 

 

GB minutes at best. 

I didn't like the Game Boy back in the day either.  I was more than happy to ditch it for a Lynx II system.  Still, the Game Boy does have a massive amounts of good games.  But, the screen on the OG Game Boy was crap imo, hence me ditching it.

[Hwlngmad]

20 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Use whatever generational guidelines you wish. There's nothing definitive. In my opinion, compared to its peers, it was the best example from its short-lived era. 

I gotta agree with you to some degree Bill.  The 3DO was actually a pretty good system all things considered.  However, its initial price, lack of games when launched, and its (later on) "porn" notoriety really hurt it.  That being said, it was a good system that I myself thought about ditching my Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 to try and get.  However, I shifted my parental asking efforts to a Jaguar (which I never got), but that is another story.

[Bill Loguidice]

14 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

I didn't like the Game Boy back in the day either.  I was more than happy to ditch it for a Lynx II system.  Still, the Game Boy does have a massive amounts of good games.  But, the screen on the OG Game Boy was crap imo, hence me ditching it.

I hated the screen on the Game Boy back in the day too. The Game Gear and Lynx were so much better. The first of those three I got was the Lynx 1. I didn't regret the purchase despite the weaker selection of games compared to the other two.

What's funny is that to my modern eyes now, all of the classic handheld screens are absolute garbage. The only way I can enjoy any of them is with a modern screen replacement. Today's perfect displays really spoiled me.

[Lost Dragon]

14 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

I didn't like the Game Boy back in the day either.  I was more than happy to ditch it for a Lynx II system.  Still, the Game Boy does have a massive amounts of good games.  But, the screen on the OG Game Boy was crap imo, hence me ditching it.

The games i wanted to try back then, i ended up playing on the GB Player, so it wasn't a total disaster ?

 

Appreciated GB Alien 3 for being a stand alone title. 

 

Nice to know i wasn't the only one who just couldn't get on with that damn GB screen mind. 

[Lost Dragon]

1 minute ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I hated the screen on the Game Boy back in the day too. The Game Gear and Lynx were so much better. The first of those three I got was the Lynx 1. I didn't regret the purchase despite the weaker selection of games compared to the other two.

What's funny is that to my modern eyes now, all of the classic handheld screens are absolute garbage. The only way I can enjoy any of them is with a modern screen replacement. Today's perfect displays really spoiled me.

Yes and Bill makes 3 of us ?

 

You can chalk me up on thinking on reflection the classic handheld screens are rubbish. 

 

I've been spoilt by the GB Micro screen onwards and my original model PSP doesn't suffer ghosting. 

[tripletopper]

On 8/23/2020 at 1:39 PM, rayik said:

I've acquired a number of systems. Most disappointing to me was the Emerson Arcadia 2001.  To me it does not compare well to other systems of the same era.

Foreign people say the Emerson is given more credit in the rest of the world.  There were licenses in foreign markets that couldn't be used in the US because either Atari or Coleco who were aggressively acquiring hone rights. All the games had to be reprogrammed to avoid copyright issues.  When you have to fundamentally change the game with no playtest time,. The results at best would be a very boringly easy  and at worst maddeningly difficult (ie broken)

 

Escape was a Berzerk/Frenzy ripoff.  Cat Trax is Mouse Trap ripoff, etc.

[Bill Loguidice]

I kind of like the Arcadia 2001 and it has some interesting home ports like Route-16, but considering when it was released, it was way underpowered. I think it was meant as a budget alternative in some ways, but it really wasn't necessary to have such a thing at the time.

 

For me, the most interesting thing about the Arcadia 2001 was that Emerson reused the console and cartridge molds from APF and their M/MP-1000. That's why there are two different cartridge sizes. Certainly for me, the APF ranks as one of the poorer consoles along with the Studio II, but I do have a fondness for how the M/MP-1000 converted into the Imagination Machine computer.

[Osgeld]

6 hours ago, Hwlngmad said:

I didn't like the Game Boy back in the day either.  I was more than happy to ditch it for a Lynx II system.  Still, the Game Boy does have a massive amounts of good games.  But, the screen on the OG Game Boy was crap imo, hence me ditching it.

I didn't either, but now its my most played system, add a bivert mod and a backlight and most of its issues go away (bivert mod inverts the screen which helps contrast and speeds the apparent switching time up so blur is reduced greatly, then you use a polarize to flip it back normal again) 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Osgeld

[Tanooki]

Hmm interesting.  I keep stock Gameboys around me/in my desk and I still can play just fine on them up to now 30~ years later. Yes the ghosting was a bit of an issue on the original with smaller things say like bullets in a shooter or in some like Mega Man, but it wasn't death.  Once the Pocket came around a few years later that fixed that up fairly well, pretty sharp and clear.  Gameboy was gameboy, it wasn't the bland colorless screen, it was the insane dozens of hours battery life coupled with some lower cost high quality games for various genres and age groups, it had a bit for everyone who wanted to care at all.  It's hard to ever call that system the worst, there really is nothing worst about it other than the blur, but unless your eyes are that bad, it's more of an excuse than a reality.

[Osgeld]

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Hmm interesting.  I keep stock Gameboys around me/in my desk and I still can play just fine on them up to now 30~ years later. Yes the ghosting was a bit of an issue on the original with smaller things say like bullets in a shooter or in some like Mega Man, but it wasn't death.  Once the Pocket came around a few years later that fixed that up fairly well, pretty sharp and clear.  Gameboy was gameboy, it wasn't the bland colorless screen, it was the insane dozens of hours battery life coupled with some lower cost high quality games for various genres and age groups, it had a bit for everyone who wanted to care at all.  It's hard to ever call that system the worst, there really is nothing worst about it other than the blur, but unless your eyes are that bad, it's more of an excuse than a reality.

not calling it the worst, just calling it the most overhyped garbage of its moment in time, a OG creme n spinach game oh boy's only redeeming factor is that its library is only 40% shitware, and if you mod the holy piss out of it, risking permanent destruction (I have killed two out of the 20 modded)  and it never got much better until the advance SP ... though to be fair, its got a better crap to meh ratio than the PSP

Its also to note that batteries cost a butt ton less  back in the day, aside from vacation or trips, if your in your room burning 6 sets of batteries a day on a game gear ... buy a genesis 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Osgeld

[Hwlngmad]

20 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I hated the screen on the Game Boy back in the day too. The Game Gear and Lynx were so much better. The first of those three I got was the Lynx 1. I didn't regret the purchase despite the weaker selection of games compared to the other two.

What's funny is that to my modern eyes now, all of the classic handheld screens are absolute garbage. The only way I can enjoy any of them is with a modern screen replacement. Today's perfect displays really spoiled me.

Same here Bill.  I had zero regrets getting the Lynx and sticking with it.  Also, 100% agreed on the screens.  Modern screens on something like my Retroflag GPi or even modern screen replacements are so much better than those screens in the past it is not even funny.

[Hwlngmad]

21 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

Nice to know i wasn't the only one who just couldn't get on with that damn GB screen mind. 

No, you definitely weren't The Lone Ranger regarding the OG Game Boy's screen ?

[Hwlngmad]

14 hours ago, Osgeld said:

I didn't either, but now its my most played system, add a bivert mod and a backlight and most of its issues go away (bivert mod inverts the screen which helps contrast and speeds the apparent switching time up so blur is reduced greatly, then you use a polarize to flip it back normal again) 

 

 

Modern day screen mods are awesome and fix a lot of viewing ills from handhelds of days gone by.

[Leeroy ST]

At least the Gameboy Pocket is somewhat playable, though the screen is still petty bad. But at least it's not as bad as the originals. 

 

Slight tangent, but the gameboy light was an interesting idea, I'm baffled they didn't combine that idea with color whenm they released the GDC. That would have been the (releatively) perfect way to play GB games on the original GB hardware format/shape.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[Tanooki]

The original GB screen wasn't ideal not even being fairly so black and white, but the pocket made it clean and fair to use.  Depending if someone buys it's the original 'pro' model or a new system, the GBC outside of not being lit up really fixed all those remaining issues with the GB design.  I keep a little of everything now, even the Japanese Light model, but if I really want the best 8bit experience I tossed one of those 3rd revision backlit LCDs into my grape GBC and that's just pure awesome.

 

 

Leeroy: I think the sole issue there was regional timing.  The GBL and GBC had I think like a 6mo gap between releases so by the time it would have hit the US, it would have been shortly if not already outdated by the color handheld. The screen on it is slightly nicer than the pocket, but when you flip on that timex indiglo like green light to it, that's just beyond nice when it's too dark to play.  Combining just wouldn't be practical as that wouldn't work when the colorized games so that's likely why they didn't as the other affordable option then would have been a battery sucking CFL.

[tripletopper]

On 8/20/2020 at 1:16 AM, Tanooki said:

No they did, just their seal of quality was more of a front.  They let people release whatever pretty much as long as it wasn't broken so you could get the greats from existing still third parties, or the crap like from LJN and a few others people openly mock.  As long as your game wasn't broken and you paid the licensee fee it was fine for you to release 6 games a year, and for those who got crafty and opened a front, such as ULTRA for Konami you could do 12 a year.   And yeah the NES lived with a steady though shrinking run of games in 1991-1993 a good  year and a half into the SNES on the shelf, and the final game Wario Woods was in 1994.

Not anyone could get a license.  if I remember right Beeshu tried to get their ultimate super stick licensed, but Nintendo refused because it was competing against their NES advantage.  despite the fact the Beeshu Ultimate Super Stick had one thing the NES did not, ambidexterity.

 

but Beeshu did get a version licensed for the Turbo Grafx 16 and the Sega Genesis and that's when Nintendo decided to open up possibly competing licenses for their own peripherals.

 

It makes me wonder if Japanese companies just hate right hand sticks, because when most of the titles in the arcade and home were made in America of the eight consoles at the crash six of them head ambidextrous options. Five of them had OEM options.

[youxia]

It is a bit funny reading about GB woes in this thread, one could think it was a total flop and not one of the most succesful videogame products ever. I suppose they were doing something right after all

[Lost Dragon]

2 hours ago, youxia said:

It is a bit funny reading about GB woes in this thread, one could think it was a total flop and not one of the most succesful videogame products ever. I suppose they were doing something right after all

Put the wind up Sony good enough at the time,claim went they went mental with their R+D Department, saying GB was a device they should of created. 

[Osgeld]

3 hours ago, youxia said:

It is a bit funny reading about GB woes in this thread, one could think it was a total flop and not one of the most succesful videogame products ever. I suppose they were doing something right after all

Mc Donalds ... just cause its popular doesn't mean its not crap

[Bill Loguidice]

3 hours ago, youxia said:

It is a bit funny reading about GB woes in this thread, one could think it was a total flop and not one of the most succesful videogame products ever. I suppose they were doing something right after all

Well look, the screen really was terrible, which is why there were a million screen magnifiers, lights, and other enhancers released for it (of course, those things also found their way onto other handhelds of the 90s, though not to the same degree). Despite the garbage screen, it was a good size, had good controls, had excellent battery life, and was reasonably priced. Of course, the topper was that it was released at the height of the NES craze and had some killer, desirable titles, including of course Tetris, that none of the other platforms, even Sega's, could match. All of this is of course is obvious now and was obvious then. I don't think it's unreasonable to look at a product critically, warts and all, no matter how successful. I know I have very specific frustrations with all kinds of console and computer hardware that I otherwise like or have fond memories of.

[zzip]

Objectively, the worst console I've played was the Channel F.  Very simple games, made the TV make loud buzzing noises.   Made the 2600 look hi-tech.

 

But my personal least favorite was probably the NES.  I didn't have one, all my friends did.  Gaming with friends used to be "die your three deaths and pass the joystick to the next guy".   NES games changed things so that you could continue the same game basically forever,  the SMB games it was super easy to earn bonus lives,  so one or two guys basically hogged the game forever.   So NES sessions with friends became sitting their being bored our of your mind.   So I still mentally associate NES with "extreme boredom"

[youxia]

1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

 All of this is of course is obvious now and was obvious then.

Indeed. Which is one of the reasons my post wasn't exactly deadly serious. Though Osgeld seems to be

 

About OP, I only started using consoles starting with PSX era, so for me "the worst" would be the original Xbox. There were many reasons for that, some of them quite meta, like Microsofts general pushiness, neediness and the overall corniness of the console itself. Its elephantine design also did not help, starting with the controller and ending on the tedious lets-cram-a-PC-in-a-box machine design. The thing was so bulky and heavy that it was more akin to a car part than an entertainment device. I also sulked at the countless ports, being still partially a proto PCmasterracer at heart.

 

Of course it also had some great games, that little best-SP-FPS-ever thingy amongst them, so I had to get it eventually, but that's a story for a thread with a different name.

Edited August 26, 2020 by youxia

[mbd30]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Objectively, the worst console I've played was the Channel F.  Very simple games, made the TV make loud buzzing noises.   Made the 2600 look hi-tech.

 

But my personal least favorite was probably the NES.  I didn't have one, all my friends did.  Gaming with friends used to be "die your three deaths and pass the joystick to the next guy".   NES games changed things so that you could continue the same game basically forever,  the SMB games it was super easy to earn bonus lives,  so one or two guys basically hogged the game forever.   So NES sessions with friends became sitting their being bored our of your mind.   So I still mentally associate NES with "extreme boredom"

 

Because SMB is the only NES game ever made and represents a system with literally hundreds of games. NES is the worst system because this one game is better as a one player experience, that seems logical.

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by mbd30

[zzip]

10 minutes ago, mbd30 said:

Because SMB is the only NES game ever made and represents a system with literally hundreds of games. NES is the worst system because this one game is better as a one player experience, that seems logical.

SMB was hardly the only offender here.   But the only NES game I played back then that I was mildly interested in was Castevania.    I just didn't enjoy the NES game aesthetics,  most of the music was irritating,  too many of the games were cutesy and for kids rather than a teen like me.   But this is personal experience, so no point in arguing about it as it won't change my memories of the system.

Edited August 26, 2020 by zzip