In your opinion, what is the most underrated video game system? (including computers!)

[Punisher5.0]

9 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Oops, I was looking at lifetime sales. Maybe I should learn how to read.

Its interesting how many different numbers there are depending on where you look. Those are the highest numbers by far Ive ever seen for the PCengine

[Steven Pendleton]

2 minutes ago, Punisher5.0 said:

Its interesting how many different numbers there are depending on where you look. Those are the highest numbers by far Ive ever seen for the PCengine

Yeah, the PC Engine kicked ass, and it deserves all of the praise that it gets. It's very sad that everyone outside Japan only knows it as "the system with Rondo of Blood". I only got mine maybe 3 months ago and only got my SSDS3 in late December, so I'm still learning about it and its library, but it's extremely impressive so far, and I recognize that it's a very excellent system that deserved to do better internationally before it got killed by NEC's own incompetence.

[Steven Pendleton]

15 minutes ago, AverageSoftware said:

The Sega Saturn.  I'm a huge fanboy for this system, and it has some truly amazing games, many of which were exclusive to the console and often never made it out of Japan.  The claim I like to make is that while its competitors (the Playstation and Nintendo 64) may have had more good games, at least in the US, the best games on the Saturn were better than anything on those two systems.

Like I said in another thread someplace (I think the Amico discussion), Japan is the only country to get the entire libraries of both the N64 and the Saturn. Japan is also the only place where the Saturn outsold the N64. Not a coincidence. I am looking at buying my friend's extra Saturn, and I have never played it before, so I am looking forward to it.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[phoenixdownita]

When "you" say DOS-gaming was underrated which period do you mean?

Up until 1989/90 there was no SVGA which imho was the game changer on a 486, before that the "16 bits" computer gaming was on Amiga and Atari ST with very few DOS remarkable games in-between:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/ega-turns-35-10-iconic-ega-games-of-yesteryear

 

To put it in perspective Doom was released in 1993, there were good DOS games before it (Sierra adventures just to name a company) but honestly 16-bit gaming was not yet that strong for DOS until somewhere around 1991/92 with 486+SVGA and that is already 32bit territory imho.

https://www.denofgeek.com/us/games/pc-gaming/251613/underrated-dos-games

[+cjherr]

6 hours ago, AverageSoftware said:

The Sega Saturn.  I'm a huge fanboy for this system, and it has some truly amazing games, many of which were exclusive to the console and often never made it out of Japan.  The claim I like to make is that while its competitors (the Playstation and Nintendo 64) may have had more good games, at least in the US, the best games on the Saturn were better than anything on those two systems.

Absolutely. The Saturn had some seriously outstanding games. 

[carlsson]

Up until a few years ago, I had underrated in particular the Acorn BBC Micro for mostly having 1st party games and a few lesser known software houses. Then I found libraries with well over 3000 games of which many cross-platform games from major publishers, directly or indirectly. Even the little brother Acorn Electron got a decent share of those. I haven't investigated the Amstrad CPC but I understand it has somewhere of 1800 - 2200 games as well.

 

Of course compared to the 9800+ games on the A8, 10000+ games on the ZX Spectrum and 13000+ games on the C64 (I use to take the GB64 figure of 25700 games and divide by two to remove all hacks), a system with 2000-3000 games doesn't look like much but yes ... possibly underrated anyway.

[mr_me]

4 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

When "you" say DOS-gaming was underrated which period do you mean?

Up until 1989/90 there was no SVGA which imho was the game changer on a 486, before that the "16 bits" computer gaming was on Amiga and Atari ST with very few DOS remarkable games in-between:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/ega-turns-35-10-iconic-ega-games-of-yesteryear

 

To put it in perspective Doom was released in 1993, there were good DOS games before it (Sierra adventures just to name a company) but honestly 16-bit gaming was not yet that strong for DOS until somewhere around 1991/92 with 486+SVGA and that is already 32bit territory imho.

https://www.denofgeek.com/us/games/pc-gaming/251613/underrated-dos-games

I'd say it's the adlib sound card in the late 1980s.  Unless you had Tandy audio, pc games sounded terrible before that.  In the early 1980s PC's had composite video and the colours for many games looked quite good if it was used.  Then games were written for ega and tandy graphics, prior to vga, which isn't bad but not great.  By the later 1980s most people had monochrome graphics and displays anyway but some splurged for vga.  I'd say it's around 1988 when ms-dos gaming really took off.  There were good 3D flight, driving, and sports games on ms-dos between 1988 and 1991.  It was also around 1988 that PC sales really took off.  Of course there were good ms-dos games before 1988 too.

 

Edit: Note that it's hard to emulate cga composite graphics, so those early games won't look good with a four colour digital palette.

Edited February 17, 2020 by mr_me

[carlsson]

While it is awfully hard to search for, somewhere there ought to be some charts for how prices on PC compatibles in particular, and other brands in general, dropped in price.

 

Some quick samples in the sea of price examples:

 

February 1986: IBM XT clone with 256K, dual 5.25" drives and monochrome monitor $965 which was considered a bargain. Around $1200 you could get a 8 MHz PC w/ 640K and RGB display (compared to e.g. an Atari 520ST which was $699 with monochrome monitor).

 

July 1988: 12 MHz 286 with 512K for $949 (no monitor) or $1384 with an EGA monitor. 16 MHz 386 for $1749 (no monitor) or $2185 with an EGA monitor.

 

July 1990: 25 MHz 386 with 2 MB and VGA monitor (but no hard drive) for $2890.

 

July 1991: 20 MHz 386SX with 2 MB RAM, 40 MB HDD, VGA monitor for $1990.

 

July 1992: 20 MHz 386SX with 2 MB RAM, 40 MB HDD, VGA monitor, CD-ROM, SoundBlaster Pro, joystick, speakers, for $1990.

33 MHz 386SX with 2 MB RAM, 40 MB HDD, VGA monitor but no other multimedia for $1390.

 

Apparently a breakthrough happened some time around 1991-92, though even $1400 would be plenty for most kids who wanted a gaming computer.

[IntelliMission]

20 minutes ago, carlsson said:

I haven't investigated the Amstrad CPC but I understand it has somewhere of 1800 - 2200 games as well.

 

Check out this awesome French site with a huge Amstrad CPC database including every single game, program and demo. You can add multiple filters: I have selected the type "GAME" and the ones that include a screenshoot to remove the most terrible games or magazine listings: CPC Power > Games

[carlsson]

Ok, almost 4700 entries minus type-ins so more than twice the other figues. This is interesting as the highest verified figure I've seen for the Apple II yet is just over 3100 games, a system which supposedly should have thrice that amount but the vast majority of games not only are lost but forgotten.

[IntelliMission]

This graphic comes always handy:

 

[carlsson]

Ok, number of games per year and system? Going by Mobygames totals, the numbers would look like this:

 

C64: 4871 games (Gamebase 64: ~26900) 18%

ZX Spectrum: 3261 games (World of Spectrum: 10724 + 2217 text adventures + 1622 educational) 25%

Amstrad CPC: 2105 games (CPC Power: 4688 + 1413 type-ins) 45%

Apple II: 1899 games (Tanrunomad: 3122) 61%

Atari 8-bit: 1484 games (Atarimania: 9868) 15%

MSX: 1210 games (Generation MSX: 8405) 14%

BBC Micro: 483 games (BBCMicro.co.uk: 3364) 14%

Acorn Electron: 296 games (Wikipedia: 571)  52%

 

Every Game Going is another interesting site, but their numbers seem very skewed.

https://www.everygamegoing.com/landingMachineType/menu/

 

Amstrad CPC: 11884 (!!)

C64: 6715

BBC Micro: 4713

Acorn Electron: 2298

Apple II: 519 (Apple IIc: 503 which might be a subset)

Atari 8-bit: split into 7 groups, impossible to count

 

Though it is true that a lot of games to choose from doesn't equal that a system is suitable for playing games, as many of the underrated systems may have a limited but very polished library.

[HoshiChiri]

I like the Vita as an answer- it's a solid system that feels good to just hold & mess around with- but still has some incredible gems on it when you want to get serious. Great screen clarity & battery life, cross play, even import support- you have no idea how surprised I was when I plugged in my Japanese Orgarhythm cart & the game ran in English! And somehow, not only did it never catch on, it feels like stores dumped it before it had a chance. Like, I never saw a Tearaway demo in a store because the kiosks were already gone. Only 1 other person in my circle's even got one. It's like... you make this wonderful handheld, & immediately drop it when the launch lineup doesn't catch the world on fire. Who does that?!

 

As a second, I'm gonna say the Atari Lynx (I think handhelds in general are underrated.) I got mine almost on a whim- after all, public consensus says it's bulky & has terrible games. But when it came, I was surprised. It's not hard to hold despite the size. The ability to turn the system is a fun gimmick. And while the bad games are quite bad, the good games are, in fact, pretty darn good! I spent more time with it than expected- not to mention it's graphically impressive for its era. It's definitely got a worse rep than it deserves.

[Steven Pendleton]

27 minutes ago, HoshiChiri said:

I like the Vita as an answer- it's a solid system that feels good to just hold & mess around with- but still has some incredible gems on it when you want to get serious. Great screen clarity & battery life, cross play, even import support- you have no idea how surprised I was when I plugged in my Japanese Orgarhythm cart & the game ran in English! And somehow, not only did it never catch on, it feels like stores dumped it before it had a chance. Like, I never saw a Tearaway demo in a store because the kiosks were already gone. Only 1 other person in my circle's even got one. It's like... you make this wonderful handheld, & immediately drop it when the launch lineup doesn't catch the world on fire. Who does that?!

 

As a second, I'm gonna say the Atari Lynx (I think handhelds in general are underrated.) I got mine almost on a whim- after all, public consensus says it's bulky & has terrible games. But when it came, I was surprised. It's not hard to hold despite the size. The ability to turn the system is a fun gimmick. And while the bad games are quite bad, the good games are, in fact, pretty darn good! I spent more time with it than expected- not to mention it's graphically impressive for its era. It's definitely got a worse rep than it deserves.

When I got my Vita at Japanese launch, the only game I got was Uncharted. That runs in your system's default language if available, so mine ran in English. The Vita is truly amazing and nobody cared about it online. Funny thing is that I see more Vitas in public now than 3DS, although the Switch and cellphones are the primary. Vita still has games releasing for it as well, unlike 3DS. I'd say the Vita actually outlived it.

 

Speaking of underrated handhelds, Sega Nomad! I just got mine on January 1 and it's awesome! It has the single best library of any handheld EVER! Sure the screen sucks and is somehow worse than the PC Engine GT's screen, which came out 5 years earlier, and the battery also sucks since it dies in under 2 hours, but when you can plug it into the wall AND your TV/OSSC/Framemeister or get an RGB screen for it, who cares?

Edited February 17, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[carlsson]

Umm.. if you connect a Nomad to a TV, don't you more or less get a Genesis where the hand controller and rest of the system is one big unit?

[Steven Pendleton]

35 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Umm.. if you connect a Nomad to a TV, don't you more or less get a Genesis where the hand controller and rest of the system is one big unit?

Exactly, which is why having the third worst screen ever isn't a problem!

[Kokovec69]

I'm partial to the Vectrex but not sure that it fits the category of most underrated system.

The XEGS doesn't get as much love as it should in my opinion.

[Steven Pendleton]

15 minutes ago, Kokovec69 said:

Vectrex

I REALLY want a Vectrex but they are so expensive. Emulation doesn't really have the same feeling for it, either, from what I have heard, so I have not messed with it on MiSTer yet. Need the original system. That and the X68000.

 

I think Vectrex isn't so much underrated as it is obscure. Most people who know that it exists will probably tell you that it's awesome.

[carlsson]

I think much of the awesomeness about the Vectrex is due to it has a unique type of display in form of the vector based screen, otherwise mostly seen on a few arcade systems. In at least 80% of the cases, a raster based display probably would be to prefer.

[Steven Pendleton]

Yeah, you really do need the original system if you want to experience the Vectrex the way it's supposed to be played. Unfortunately, they are now quite expensive and I can use that money to pay for either a month's worth of food or maybe even an entire month of rent, depending on if it's CIB or has games/overlays included or whatever.

[+wongojack]

I think we've named every non-Gameboy handheld except the Lynx (did I miss it?), so I'll throw it out there as an answer.  Everytime I play that thing, I think it had more life in it.  Another smaller revision, better battery life . . . It probably could have stayed on the market as a cheaper alternative to the GBA if Atari had the resources to stick around.

 

I'll also point out that times are a changin' on AtariAge because every other time this discussion has come up, the Odyssey 2 has made an appearance.  It also deserves to be mentioned.

 

Here's yet another version of this discussion to add to the list: 

 

 

Forum question - is there a way to NOT post that preview of a thread and just post the link?

[+wongojack]

I also wanted to weigh in on DOS which has me thinking . . .

 

I was alive, in school, and playing games throughout the entire lifespan of DOS.  I played PC games at friends' houses and eventually my family bought a 66mhz computer.  In the very early days, my impression of DOS was stuff like text adventures and games I can't even find links to.  This is mixed with impressions of other computer platforms like games on Apple II etc.  I never knew anyone with an Atari computer, but the C64 was better than ANY of that.  As a result, that old 66mhz with the turbo button got very little use for games.  When we finally got VGA and sound blaster, I enjoyed playing amazing games like Mean Streets, Wing Commander, Sim City and even the stupid varieties of Tetris you could find.  However, everything powerful required what seemed like a unique configuration to run, and my family wasn't really saavy enough to be able to tell me if XYZ game would play on our home machine.  Kids at school didn't know either, so people weren't exchanging DOS games and talking about them the next day.  That would have been cool, but there was a barrier of entry there that went beyond cost (which was considerable).

 

In that way, I guess that since the barriers have been removed, we can look back and say that the "DOS VGA era" (as it seems to be shaping up on this thread) was underrated because consumers couldn't fully appreciate it at the time due to cost and configuration barriers.  However, I'm not sure that earlier era of DOS gaming is really worth exploring.  I'd rather dip into the Apple II or Atari 8bit libraries to look for an underrated platform and then you'd have to ask if those platforms were really underrated to begin with.

[CatPix]

7 hours ago, carlsson said:

While it is awfully hard to search for, somewhere there ought to be some charts for how prices on PC compatibles in particular, and other brands in general, dropped in price.

 

Some quick samples in the sea of price examples:

 

February 1986: IBM XT clone with 256K, dual 5.25" drives and monochrome monitor $965 which was considered a bargain. Around $1200 you could get a 8 MHz PC w/ 640K and RGB display (compared to e.g. an Atari 520ST which was $699 with monochrome monitor).

 

July 1988: 12 MHz 286 with 512K for $949 (no monitor) or $1384 with an EGA monitor. 16 MHz 386 for $1749 (no monitor) or $2185 with an EGA monitor.

 

July 1990: 25 MHz 386 with 2 MB and VGA monitor (but no hard drive) for $2890.

 

July 1991: 20 MHz 386SX with 2 MB RAM, 40 MB HDD, VGA monitor for $1990.

 

July 1992: 20 MHz 386SX with 2 MB RAM, 40 MB HDD, VGA monitor, CD-ROM, SoundBlaster Pro, joystick, speakers, for $1990.

33 MHz 386SX with 2 MB RAM, 40 MB HDD, VGA monitor but no other multimedia for $1390.

 

Apparently a breakthrough happened some time around 1991-92, though even $1400 would be plenty for most kids who wanted a gaming computer.

It's important to recall that older gen computer were still sold alongside newer ones; it's one reason why CGA games were still programmed in 1991, as people would have acquired a brand new XT computer for a bargain price (especially laptops, though those would have been for professionnal use).

 

For example in 1987 you could acquire an Amstrad PC-1512, 8086 based, 512Ko of RAM (hence the name) 1FD and monochrome display for $799 (It was sold in the US) or, with a 10 Mo hard drive and a color monitor, $1499.

I can't find a definitive discontinuation date, but the PC 1512 and his evolution the PC-1640 appear to have been sold up to 1990, probably for cheaper.

[Steven Pendleton]

7 hours ago, wongojack said:

I think we've named every non-Gameboy handheld except the Lynx (did I miss it?)

Yeah, it got posted just before I mentioned the Nomad. We are still missing the game.com, Game & Watch (if that counts), Mega Jet (not sure if this counts), PC Engine GT, and the WonderSwan! Maybe also the Neo Geo Pocket (Color). I don't think anyone cares about the game.com, though, mainly because it's bad. Handhelds in general have this negative image of being "just handhelds" but I generally prefer them over consoles. The Nomad is a bit of an outlier, though, since it's a handheld conversion of an already existing system, in this case the Genesis 2. And I do mean the Genesis 2, not the Mega Drive 2. Same for PC Engine GT.

 

I would absolutely mention the PC Engine GT as well, but it can't play CD games... yet. Some Japanese dude is working on a way to play CD games on the PC Engine GT and I will absolutely buy one when his project is finished.

 

Edit: holy crap the PSP go. I have mine sitting directly in front of my keyboard on its dock, so I have no excuse. This is also first mention of the PSP in general.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Steven Pendleton]

I think we should have a "best looking video game systems and computers" thread as well, so I made one. We have one for ugly systems, we have one for overrated systems, and we have this one for underrated systems, so I think we should have one for good looking systems so everyone can talk about how beautiful the X68000 is.

 

Everyone go here!