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What's the Worst Console You Ever Played?


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On 8/30/2020 at 6:10 PM, Leeroy ST said:

  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.)

 

I had an R-Zone when it came out. At 11 or 12 years old, I was probably even its target demographic. And I'm here to tell you that nobody believed it was amazing. ?

 

The R-Zone seemed mildly interesting because...well...the Virtual Boy was interesting. (Truth be told, I actually thought it had a cool-looking controller.) And it was cheap enough that you could say, "eh, what the hell." Just looking at the ads and commercials, we--my friends, siblings, and I--knew it was just more of those cheesy Tiger LCD handheld games long since rendered redundant by Games Boy and Gear, but in a gimmicky pseudo-VR form factor. We never had any greater expectation than that. But, some of those cheesy Tiger LCD handhelds weren't actually too bad (relatively speaking)...so what the hell! ?

 

Unfortunately the games were forgettable even by LCD standards (although also not glaringly terrible...also by LCD standards), and getting a playable game "screen" on that little eyepiece always seemed to require some mixture of sorcery and luck; best results were usually obtained by sitting in the closet or in my completely darkened room after I was supposed to be asleep. Half the time I couldn't tell if it was even working right or if I was doing something wrong. I really only played it a handful of times before it was relegated to "curio" status alongside the likes of Mario Is Missing! and my DOS copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My friends who tried it out laughed it off immediately. Every once in a while my brother or I would dig it out for lulz, before it got lost or broken at some point.

 

And that's my story with the R-Zone. Actually, seeing what Tiger later attempted with the Game.com makes me kind of wish they had gone sorta balls-to-the-wall with the R-Zone and done something akin to a Game.com-in-a-VR-headset-that's-really-just-a-backlit-red/black-screen-in-a-box-that-straps-to-your-face kind of thing. Imagine it...the R-Zone.com!...?

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10 hours ago, famicommander said:

Worst overall platform I've played is a ZX Spectrum. I have no idea how anyone could enjoy playing anything on that device, and this is coming from someone who still plays Atari 2600, 5200, Odyssey 2, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc. Horrible graphics, horrible sound, barely capable of handling any sort of motion.

The worst specific device I've played is the Atari Flashback Portable. I bought one and the screen was only visible from a ridiculous angle. I was assured this was a one-off issue so I went back to the store. We opened 25 different units and every single one of them had the same problem. AtGames is and will always be garbage. I should've known better than to buy one of their products but I never learn.

I really enjoyed the Spectrum through emulation in 1997. It was the first time I had access to a library of hundreds of games for one system. Trying random games just for the name was a blast.

 

As a kid, I had an Amstrad CPC, where many games are direct ZX Spectrum ports, and enjoyed most of them.

 

But my Amstrad CPC had a color monitor, a proper keyboard and floppies, whereas the first versions of the ZX Spectrum had a tiny keyboard with rubber keys and used casettes, so you needed to wait 5 minutes to play one of these games that couldn't feature more than 2 colors in an 8x8 pixel square, mixing up colors or turning into black and white games to avoid it as a result.

 

The sound was also terrible in the first models of the machine, but the 128K model improved the sound and the keyboard and it even had 3" "Amstrad" floppies. Which ZX Spectrum model did you play?

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16 hours ago, famicommander said:

Worst overall platform I've played is a ZX Spectrum. I have no idea how anyone could enjoy playing anything on that device, and this is coming from someone who still plays Atari 2600, 5200, Odyssey 2, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc. Horrible graphics, horrible sound, barely capable of handling any sort of motion.

Never played one, but I bet the answer is "well it's better than what we had before"

 

I get that, because systems often get judged by what came after.   Like how the ST always gets crapped on because it's not an Amiga.  But when the ST came out, it was better than virtually anything else in the home market until the Amiga arrived.

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26 minutes ago, zzip said:

Never played one, but I bet the answer is "well it's better than what we had before"

 

I get that, because systems often get judged by what came after.   Like how the ST always gets crapped on because it's not an Amiga.  But when the ST came out, it was better than virtually anything else in the home market until the Amiga arrived.

I wouldn't even consider the ST better than the A8bit or C64.  The lack of sprites and scrolling really kills its gaming performance.  Aside from vector/polygon type games, everything on it is so jerky, choppy, and slow.  For practical and music applications, it would outperform, but I've never seen it as a viable gaming platform.

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The terminology "worst console" seems kind of flame-bait-y so I'd rather not use it. 

 

I'd rather talk in terms of enjoyment vs. disappointment.  Easily the biggest disappointments for me were the Atari 7800 and Atari Lynx (both of which I had when they were current, by the way, so the disappointment was very real). 

 

To me, the absolute only thing that matters is having high-quality software and an assortment thereof.  I don't care if there are "also" lots of crap games on a system, what I care about is whether or not there are lots of good ones.   This is where the 7800 and Lynx fail(ed) for me.  Both of them definitely have some gems, but nowadays, there are fewer than 10 original commercial releases on either system that I would ever want to play for more than 2 minutes, and it is not for lack of familiarity with the libraries. 

 

   

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Torr said:


The OP wasn't asking for worst of ALL TIME

 

Just the worst YOU'VE played.

 

I realize that, but my point remains.  Talking in terms of what one personally finds "disappointing" makes more sense to me because it underscores the subjective nature of the answer.  It also makes no comment up or down on how a given platform's technical specs line up with something else, because that stuff is kind of beside the point.   

 

When you start calling something "the worst" then people will want to explain why you don't have your facts straight (which is a big part of the reason this thread is 26 pages long). 

 

If people want to use the terminology "worst" that's fine; I was just clarifying what I personally meant with my picks. 

 

 

   

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26 minutes ago, zetastrike said:

I wouldn't even consider the ST better than the A8bit or C64.  The lack of sprites and scrolling really kills its gaming performance.  Aside from vector/polygon type games, everything on it is so jerky, choppy, and slow.  For practical and music applications, it would outperform, but I've never seen it as a viable gaming platform.

Owned both, don't agree.   The A8/C64 were severely restricted in how colors could be placed.   The A8's P/M sprite system is rather weak.   The memory restrictions limited the types of games that can be played.   There are plenty of ST games that did an adequate job with software-only sprites.  Later models had blitter and hardware scrolling.

 

But sprites and scrolling only matter to certain types of games.    The C64/Atar8  were never going to be able to handle games like Civilization, Dungeon Master, Populous,  Monkey Island, Starglider II, etc  particularly well.

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6 hours ago, zetastrike said:

I wouldn't even consider the ST better than the A8bit or C64.  The lack of sprites and scrolling really kills its gaming performance.  Aside from vector/polygon type games, everything on it is so jerky, choppy, and slow.  For practical and music applications, it would outperform, but I've never seen it as a viable gaming platform.

Maybe because the ST was more of a home computer than just a games machine?

 

Yes I liked the Psygnosis type games on it even though they weren't 100% like the Amiga but it sure got me through college just by being practical as well.

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No console I've played is 'the worst' . They all have excellent games that skilled programmers utilised the strong points of. Some may not have a large number of games in total, like the Jaguar and Neo Geo Pocket but that's not due to the hardware itself since both of those consoles have some excellent games on them. 

 I have heard there is no redeeming feature of the Game.com console but I haven't played it ?

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Hmm.. I gotta go with the Fairchild Channel F. ?

I scored both a model 1 & 2, plus a stack of CIB games at a local flee market, back in the early 2000s for pretty cheap.. got it all home, tried it out and wasnnot impressed.. I immediately sold it on ebay. Neat console and all, a cool piece of history, but it's not for me.. Definitely the worst console I ever played. It's just a little too primitive for my tastes. Atari vcs/2600 is about where I draw the line. Lol

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23 hours ago, zzip said:

Like how the ST always gets crapped on because it's not an Amiga.  But when the ST came out, it was better than virtually anything else in the home market until the Amiga arrived.

Very true.  The ST seems to be a forgotten and underrated gaming system.  Granted, the Amiga is better than ST.  But, if the ST is your jam, there is nothing wrong with it as it (seems to me anyway) that it was quite capable all things considered.

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11 hours ago, wongojack said:

First time I think I've ever seen someone claim that the ST wasn't as good as the A8 or C64.  I'm not very experienced with the ST.  Is this a common opinion?

That I am not too sure.  However, I would say that the A8 and/or C64 were, in some ways, better gaming platforms than the ST.  However, the ST is a pretty good games machine in its own right and could obviously do a lot of things graphically that the A8 and/or C64 could only dream of.  Unfortunately the ST gets crapped on a lot unnecessarily and/or unfairly at times imo.

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3 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

That I am not too sure.  However, I would say that the A8 and/or C64 were, in some ways, better gaming platforms than the ST.  However, the ST is a pretty good games machine in its own right and could obviously do a lot of things graphically that the A8 and/or C64 could only dream of.  Unfortunately the ST gets crapped on a lot unnecessarily and/or unfairly at times imo.

I'd say there's a lot to like about the ST, although like the Amiga, a lot to dislike and/or be frustrated about. It's perhaps a little underappreciated because it was overshadowed overall by the Amiga (as I'd argue it should have been - Commodore got a bit more right with the Amiga series), but it certainly has its fans, and rightly so. I have to say that even though I've had extensive ST and Amiga collections in the past, I'm OK with enjoying them via MiST and MiSTer these days. Both can really be a handful and take up a lot of relative room to really use properly in their native forms.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I'd say there's a lot to like about the ST, although like the Amiga, a lot to dislike and/or be frustrated about. It's perhaps a little underappreciated because it was overshadowed overall by the Amiga (as I'd argue it should have been - Commodore got a bit more right with the Amiga series), but it certainly has its fans, and rightly so. I have to say that even though I've had extensive ST and Amiga collections in the past, I'm OK with enjoying them via MiST and MiSTer these days. Both can really be a handful and take up a lot of relative room to really use properly in their native forms.

 

 

Definitely there is a lot to like with the ST.  Also, yes, the Amiga is what really casts a long shadow over the ST as the Amiga was the better machine.  And, regarding MiST and MiSTer, those look to be really good solutions to play ST, Amiga, and others without having extensive collections and/or machines.  I know a MiST is being sold locally that I am tempted to pick up in order to dabble in ST, Amiga, etc., but not sure if I will pull the trigger as I just don't have really any time to mess with a lot of things.

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ST has an advantage with 3D games over the Amiga so if a collector wanted to go back and play old 3D games it may be better to play on an ST. Also has great music creation software.

 

Otherwise it was intended to be a cheap entry machine that could do the jack of traders so it's not surprising it's overshadowed. 

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14 hours ago, wongojack said:

First time I think I've ever seen someone claim that the ST wasn't as good as the A8 or C64.  I'm not very experienced with the ST.  Is this a common opinion?

I used to encounter it BITD among some Atari 8-bit fans who were resentful of the ST.   They would cherry-pick things that the 8-bit seemed to handle better.

 

But in the grand scheme of things, there is so much more power and memory in the ST vs the 8-bit, that it's hard to make a convincing argument that the 8-bits are better.

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2 hours ago, Hwlngmad said:

That I am not too sure.  However, I would say that the A8 and/or C64 were, in some ways, better gaming platforms than the ST.  However, the ST is a pretty good games machine in its own right and could obviously do a lot of things graphically that the A8 and/or C64 could only dream of.  Unfortunately the ST gets crapped on a lot unnecessarily and/or unfairly at times imo.

I watched a video the other week where a youtuber was reviewing the ST, and made a joke about developing the  "ST owner inferiority complex because it's not an Amiga".   And I just thought...   why should it always be like this?   Let's judge the ST for everything new and good it brought us instead of dwelling on "well it's not an Amiga, so it must suck"

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1 hour ago, zzip said:

I watched a video the other week where a youtuber was reviewing the ST, and made a joke about developing the  "ST owner inferiority complex because it's not an Amiga".   And I just thought...   why should it always be like this?   Let's judge the ST for everything new and good it brought us instead of dwelling on "well it's not an Amiga, so it must suck"

100% agreed.  The ST should be judged on its own merits.  Is it an Amiga, no.  However, that doesn't mean that the ST isn't a good machine and is, I believe, a lot more than a 'crap Amiga' or whatever other non-Amiga labels people tend to place on it.  The ST was very inventive and (to some degree) influential for its time.  I think it is a computer platform that deserves more appreciation and understanding, that's for sure.

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7 minutes ago, Hwlngmad said:

100% agreed.  The ST should be judged on its own merits.  Is it an Amiga, no.  However, that doesn't mean that the ST isn't a good machine and is, I believe, a lot more than a 'crap Amiga' or whatever other non-Amiga labels people tend to place on it.  The ST was very inventive and (to some degree) influential for its time.  I think it is a computer platform that deserves more appreciation and understanding, that's for sure.

Yeah, everyone forgets it was aiming to be a "better Mac",  not a "worse Amiga".   It had the crisp monochrome of early Macs, at a higher resolution, but also had color options.   So it was a bit of "jack of all trades".    It's OS was never quite as nice as the Mac's.  It's multimedia features were never quite as nice as Amiga's even with the STe, but it could play in both worlds to a degree.

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I think we can safely say that the Atari ST line of computers were pretty darn good machines.  Yes, they are not Amiga and/or a Mac, but then again what (exactly) was then?  It was a jack of all trades, master of none machine.  Nothing wrong with that.  I know that I certainly would have loved to have one back in the day even though I was in full Nintendo/NES mode in the ST's heyday.

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1 hour ago, zzip said:

Yeah, everyone forgets it was aiming to be a "better Mac",  not a "worse Amiga".   It had the crisp monochrome of early Macs, at a higher resolution, but also had color options.   So it was a bit of "jack of all trades".    It's OS was never quite as nice as the Mac's.  It's multimedia features were never quite as nice as Amiga's even with the STe, but it could play in both worlds to a degree.

And here in the UK, it was a Sinclair QL beater, cue the brief but bitter war of words between Sir Clive Sinclair and Atari. 

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On 9/3/2020 at 4:37 PM, zetastrike said:

I wouldn't even consider the ST better than the A8bit or C64.  The lack of sprites and scrolling really kills its gaming performance.  Aside from vector/polygon type games, everything on it is so jerky, choppy, and slow.  For practical and music applications, it would outperform, but I've never seen it as a viable gaming platform.

The scrolling issues could to a degree, be overcome by clever coding routines. 

 

It was the awful sound chip i had issues with, coming from the 800XL and the C64. 

 

Ocean musician, Jonathan Dunn said the Sinclair Spectrum +3, which had a similar AY chip, had superior sound, as that had a buzzer, which could be put to good use ?

 

I was a 520STFM owner for a number of years, i never saw it as a poor man's Amiga, more the ZX Spectrum of it's time, a view many in the commercial games industry reinforced. 

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