What's the Worst Console You Ever Played?

[youxia]

When Wii was released it was groan-worthy...I hated it for its gimmickness and forcing the hand-waving lunacy on sacred franchises such as Zelda (yes, I know, lot of folks love it - I don't). Although after a while I had to begrudgingly admit that Nintendo has pulled a great comeback and captured a totally new audience.

 

But now I love it: for ~20USD you can have a machine which does perfect Gamecube, has a bunch of good emulators, and outputs RGB to CRTs without any fuss. And yes, it has some good games too. What's not to like?

[turboxray]

On 8/26/2020 at 9:03 AM, zzip said:

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.

Well, I'm sorry you were touched in the head hahah. I played the NES with friends.. as we took turns playing levels, etc - in all sort of games. I was never bored.

 

Some of the weirdest people conjugate here at atariage. Some other guy said he doesn't like any type of game music and just puts the radio on. Why even bother playing games at that point???

 

 

The Gamegear could have been a great handheld if it weren't for that nearly decade old SMS sound chip. Give it 4096 colors, but do nothing with the sound chip. GB's screen was crap, but the music in some of those games was fantastic. 

Edited August 29, 2020 by turboxray

[Osgeld]

23 hours ago, zzip said:

The problem with the Wii library is it has a relatively small handful of great gems buried in a sea of crap.   It's very easy to miss the good ones.  In retrospect, it's not one of my favorite consoles.

PSP is like that as well, A lot of people say the library for it is great, but the problem is BITD you would walk into a game shop and be greeted with a wall larger than xbox or playstation, almost as big as wii full of games, and a 90% chance you were going to waste your money. It became tiresome real quick

[Osgeld]

5 hours ago, turboxray said:

Well, I'm sorry you were touched in the head hahah. I played the NES with friends.. as we took turns playing levels, etc - in all sort of games. I was never bored.

 

Some of the weirdest people conjugate here at atariage. Some other guy said he doesn't like any type of game music and just puts the radio on. Why even bother playing games at that point???

 

 

The Gamegear could have been a great handheld if it weren't for that nearly decade old SMS sound chip. Give it 4096 colors, but do nothing with the sound chip. GB's screen was crap, but the music in some of those games was fantastic. 

I had a buddy like that, would come over insist on playing sega sport game he dragged with him and turn down the volume and play some shallow garbage music (hey want to play NHL 95 and listen to Dave Matthews Band? GET OUT ?)

[youxia]

There are heaps of really good games for PSP, the fact there is a lot of crap does not nullify that and it's up to a buyer to do their research first. It's the same with NDS...just on a larger scale. The amount of Barbie, My First Pony and other abysmal tie-ins is staggering, but there are countless awesome titles as well.

[Osgeld]

didn't say there wasn't, just a high crap factor 

 

21 minutes ago, youxia said:

 it's up to a buyer to do their research first. 

google says there's 606 north american games released for the system, there's some gem's, a lot of meh, and a ton of direct garbage, its tiresome

 

I honestly think that entire generation, wii onwards killed console games for me, all systems from the time were just chocked full of shovelware and lazy rehashes and I havent owned a console newer than that generation

Edited August 29, 2020 by Osgeld

[youxia]

Metacritic is useful for that. It's not ideal of course, but games in the 75-100 range are unlikely to be complete turds.

 

I also think that there's much more shovelware now but it's probably function of the much bigger videogame market and also the fact it's easier to cobble a functional game together.

[Leeroy ST]

I thought about this topic and it's got to be the Hyperscan or wahtnot from Mattel in 2005-6.

 

I tried it and it wasa decent idea poorly executed with near flash newgrounds level games and poor controls, with single digit game library and execluviely sold in Radioshack due to caution and Mattel not really wanting to put in the resources.

 

The Card idea would later be replicated with Toys (and latter cards again) by games such as Skylanders, Disny Infinity and the Lego thing, heck even Amiibo somewhat, several years later.

 

If they actually put out real marketing and put in effort to place in on the shelves of multiple retailers with decent third-party developers, we might have seen a revolution in interactive video gaming. What's worse is the specs weren't that bad you could do somewhat 2010 level 2D and 3D gaming on that 2006 consoles, so you wouldn't have to have large budgets for development and that would apply to third-party developers as well.

 

What a squandered opportunity that turned into such a wasteful consoles. I'm a collector and even though I played one I hesitate to buy one for myself. 

[Bill Loguidice]

I feel like the Hyperscan is one of those systems that shouldn't really qualify. While it fits the standard definition of a console and as such DOES qualify in this discussion, I feel like it was never meant to be any more than a type of collectible toy. There were several such hybrid and odd-ball systems over the years - ones from Leapfrog are good examples - that are really hard to genuinely say they were ever meant to be considered as serious consoles, computers, or handhelds in the same way as what we consider the more traditional types of systems/platforms. 

[DragonGrafx-16]

Has to be the R-Zone for me lol

[joeatari1]

I've never met a console I didn't like.

[nester]

On 8/27/2020 at 9:02 PM, Swami said:

Aren't all five games basically the same one with a different character? Reminds me of the xbox 360 kinect games PowerUp Heroes and Marvel Avengers, by Ubisoft no less. The former had generic characters and the latter Avengers characters, but the gameplay was the same ... why?

No each one seems to be terrible in its own way. They were each a bit different at the very least. There are two I haven’t played yet though 

[Leeroy ST]

  

19 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

Has to be the R-Zone for me lol

 

R-Zone had the novelty fad factor which made people believe it was amazing for the time it came out. You kind oif have to do your best to break your brain and try to put yourself in that period to play it now (and the VB but at least that's not as bad.)

 

_{Also 3Do has like 400 games you should look into the library more.}

Edited August 30, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[Leeroy ST]

21 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I feel like the Hyperscan is one of those systems that shouldn't really qualify. While it fits the standard definition of a console and as such DOES qualify in this discussion, I feel like it was never meant to be any more than a type of collectible toy. There were several such hybrid and odd-ball systems over the years - ones from Leapfrog are good examples - that are really hard to genuinely say they were ever meant to be considered as serious consoles, computers, or handhelds in the same way as what we consider the more traditional types of systems/platforms. 

Not necessarily. Mattel had initially planned to have more games and push it as a console, sure an experiment but nothing comparable to a Vtech or leapfrog machine from the early and mid-2000's.

 

They kind of shifted gear starting with Radioshack exclusivity then cutting the game push and marketing campaign which I assume was due to some higherups not wanting to take the risk or interfering with the team in charge of the project, or both.

 

It's a shame since the idea would be used to create a 6-7 year fad toy to life industry (and cards again) that definitely was a major screw-up in hindsight. One mattel guy in some interview mentioned something like that as well, or maybe he was one of the devs for the device can't recall but he thought the change at launch didn't make sense because no one knew what it was and the lack of a push in marketing basically made it something that couldn't have possibly succeeded.

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

Of course my second choice would be the PC-FX, the thing had like nothing on it, one debatable 3D game that is barely 3D (adventure game) that moved at .5mph and a ton of TG16 level 2D games, anime, FMV (at least it was clean video), and some other weird stuff. 

 

Man what a terrible import back in the day, I was expecting a TG16 2. 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Leeroy ST

[turboxray]

16 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Of course my second choice would be the PC-FX, the thing had like nothing on it, one debatable 3D game that is barely 3D (adventure game) that moved at .5mph and a ton of TG16 level 2D games, anime, FMV (at least it was clean video), and some other weird stuff. 

 

Man what a terrible import back in the day, I was expecting a TG16 2. 

TG16 2??? I think you skipped over the Duo haha

[Leeroy ST]

4 minutes ago, turboxray said:

TG16 2??? I think you skipped over the Duo haha

That's not really a TG16 2 though lol.

[Tanooki]

22 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

Has to be the R-Zone for me lol

Leeroy kind of put it well.  I never had one in the day, but I had probably around 10 Tiger and other samey-Tiger clones too from Acclaim and Konami.  They're fun, but you have to have an expectation going into it, that you're basically playing in the pre-Gameboy pool that Nintendo really opened the door with on Game & Watch and of those I had probably 20 of the things easily too.

 

Early this year locally I found the XPG version of the R-Zone, the actual handheld one and it had that common pack-in Jedi title.  I was surprised actually how much it was like some evil inbred clone of Tiger and Virtual Boy.  I'm sure the eye piece one sucks, looks like an issue, but as a handheld it's actually great, as long as you're fine having basic adventures or point racking fun, and yet sometimes if it's something more regemented it can get fairly complex and fun in there like Daytona USA which I picked up shortly after.  It's surprisingly fun, it's no Gameboy, but it has some quality to it and the red 3D depth the handheld does for both eyes does give it this ghetto Virtual Boy quality to it.

 

I'm watching out for more of the little carts.  I was trying to bag most the library the other day but my phone hiccuped and screwed me out of like 10 of them with their inserts which really was depressing.

[turboxray]

2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

That's not really a TG16 2 though lol.

I mean that the TG16 was just a foot note. The Duo line completely replaced the cart only systems. So it wouldn't really be a TG16 2. I guess it just sounds weird to me, but PC-Engine 2 doesn't for some reason.

[CatPix]

The Duo is a TG16 with added RAM and a CD-ROM, nothing else. That would be like saying that the Mega CD is the Megadrive 2 (errr.... I mean, a real second system and not a redesign)

[turboxray]

4 hours ago, CatPix said:

The Duo is a TG16 with added RAM and a CD-ROM, nothing else. That would be like saying that the Mega CD is the Megadrive 2 (errr.... I mean, a real second system and not a redesign)

I know what the Duo is. I never said the Duo was the TG16 2. I said that the TG16 was dropped, and the Turbo Duo replaced it, just like the Duo replaced all hucard units in japan (shuttle, core grafx, core grafx 2, original white PCE, etc). It's not the 'TG16 Duo'. It's not even the 'TG Duo'. So why would there be a TG16 'anything' as a successor? The Duo might have only added ram, ADPCM, CD Audio, and CD storage - it still makes it different than a TG16, as well as it replaced the TG16 and all hucard systems. The PCE CD medium completely replaced the older hucard format for the PC-Engine and by extension the TG16. The MegaCD format didn't replace anything, and unlike what happened with the Duo, and is just a foot note in Megadrive's history. So no, your reference to the MegaCD is irrelevant to any of this.

Edited August 31, 2020 by turboxray

[Steven Pendleton]

There was a planned PC Engine 2, but that got turned into the SuperGrafx.

[Lost Dragon]

On 12/2/2015 at 2:27 PM, Nutsy Doodleheimer said:

The Virtual Boy nuff said. I played it at a friends house in 1996 or 1997. It is too awkward and my eyes felt strained from placing it in the visor/goggle area to see the screen. And it gave me neck cramps. The controllers are great though.

Nearly bought one, new, many years ago for £75.

 

Wish i had now, not to use, just as an investment ?

[Lost Dragon]

On 8/29/2020 at 9:28 AM, turboxray said:

Well, I'm sorry you were touched in the head hahah. I played the NES with friends.. as we took turns playing levels, etc - in all sort of games. I was never bored.

 

Some of the weirdest people conjugate here at atariage. Some other guy said he doesn't like any type of game music and just puts the radio on. Why even bother playing games at that point???

 

 

The Gamegear could have been a great handheld if it weren't for that nearly decade old SMS sound chip. Give it 4096 colors, but do nothing with the sound chip. GB's screen was crap, but the music in some of those games was fantastic. 

And... 

 

 

GB Viking Child has some very catchy in-game music. 

 

 

Lynx Viking Child has none. 

 

 

 

Boss battles differ between the 2 as well. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

On 8/29/2020 at 2:28 PM, Osgeld said:

PSP is like that as well, A lot of people say the library for it is great, but the problem is BITD you would walk into a game shop and be greeted with a wall larger than xbox or playstation, almost as big as wii full of games, and a 90% chance you were going to waste your money. It became tiresome real quick

Some of the titles ported to PSP were done quick and dirty, no consideration given to the hardware. 

 

Powerstone Collection sees the screen stretched, rather than resized. 

 

AVP was written in a minimal time frame, 5 weeks from start to finish.. 

 

Then you have oddities like Scarface, it differs from the PS2 /Xbox title and is a far weaker one. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Lost Dragon