Systems that just arnt worth it

[shep]

...wow little one, dissing the NES and the Atari in a single post. Brave, but stoopid. I agree with what Nova said on the first page, every console seems to have something enjoyable on them. Heck, Frogger for the game.com wasn't bad at all...and that's the freaking game.com!

[Osbo]

I don't know what he expected from a system with a 1.19 Mhz clock and 4K

 

There are excellent games for the VCS, you can't say a console sucks because the controller it hurts your hand.

[keilbaca]

I don't know what he expected from a system with a 1.19 Mhz clock and 4K    

 

There are excellent games for the VCS, you can't say a console sucks because the controller it hurts your hand.  

 

I would say overclock it, but no games lag.

 

The NES however, is OC'ed from 1.8mhz to 2.5mhz, and almost all the lag is completely gone

[Dones]

Hey, I have a question about the N64, which I am becoming really attached to by the way.  Why exactly is it that they chose to go with carts, when it limits things like video and sound?  I mean, I love Shadows of the Empire and all that, but the cut scenes could have had real audio on a CD.

 

Nintendo Arrogance IMHO.... Ended up causing problems with 3rd party support. Simliar issue with GC and the proprietary discs. Sure it stops piracy, but causes a huge increase in pressing the games.

 

I heard that it actually had more to do with Shigeru Miyamoto's insistence that Nintendo use a cartridge format to avoid the load times associated with most CD-based systems. He hated the thought of people having to wait ten seconds to play a stage in Super Mario 64, and so, after much whining, he eventually was able to convince Hiroshi Yamauchi to make another cartridge-based console.

 

Of course, this move cost Nintendo a once strong relationship with Squaresoft and ultimately its leadership of the video game industry. However, if they'd made the Nintendo 64 a CD-based system, they might have lost Miyamoto, the most creative of their game designers and the mind behind their greatest hits. So for Nintendo, it really was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

 

JR

 

I think Nintendo engineers thought CDROM were slow because the technology they considered were early 1X drives. That was probably their reality at the time they made their design decisions for N64.

 

Quoting some passages from Steven Kent's "The First Quarter" sheds more light on the issue:

 

At the time [1995] Howard Lincoln claimed the reason Nintendo decided to stick with cartridges instead of moving to CDROM was speed. With CDROMs, game consoles access information and load it into memory. These "access times" could take a few seconds with early CDROM drives such as the ones used in SegaCD and 3DO. Because cartridges have ROM chips builtinto their circuits, access time is not a problem. (p.410)

 

Like mentioned before there probably was arrogance in part of Hiroshi Yamauchi [big N's ex-ceo] and fear of losing control:

 

Speculation about why Yamauchi had chosen cartridges ranged from curiosity to antagonism. Tom Zito, founder of Digital Pictures, said that Nintendo went with the cartridge format because cartridges are harder and more expensive to copy - Making it easier for Nintendo to avoid piracy. Other game company executives claimed Nintendo went with cartridges so that it would have complete control over the manufacturing of games for the console and maximize its profits. (p. 411)

 

This I personally think is the most likely reason for it. Nintendo did not want to change it's business model. That would have required doing away or re-modeling their cartridge manufacturing facilities, which they had already invested a lot of money. They didn't have CD-Rom manufacturing capabilities and they did not want to cut deals with companies that did, like when they ditched Sony with the SNES cdrom.

[Artlover]

Maybe but many of you grew up with the atari i didnt so its going to take a lot longer to grow on me then it would for some one who would get nostalgia from turning it on.

 

It's not an issue of nostaliga. It's an issue that every game doesn't need to have good graphics or sound to be playable, fun and enjoyable. More ofthen then not, it's pointless eye candy that is more of a distraction then anything else.

 

Yes, SOME games require good graphics and sound because of the very nature of what they are trying to accomplish. Halo, GTA, so on. They are trying to create a realistic enviroment, ergo, it needs to be realistic. Graphics and sound are PART of the gameplay to a large extent.

 

But when you get to the basics. Like platformers. Lets look at Super Mario Bros. series. You have the NES versions, then you have that SNES versions of the EXACT same games, only with better graphics. Characters are the same, gameplay is the same, levels are the same, enemies are the same, items are the same, everything is in the same location. The only difference is the graphics are better. But it in absolutly no way shape or from makes the game any different. The game is not better because the graphics are. It's the exact same game, plays the same, and has the exact same fun factor. When you're busy trying to jump across a line of goombas, and over the hole without dying, your NOT lasily staring at cartoony mountains in the background, are you?

 

Ambience, yeah, fine whatever. It's nice, but it has nothing to do with the game. If you're playing video poker, all you need are images of everyone's cards, not some perfectly rendered fake casino (when you get older, go to casino and play a real video poker machine and see what you actually get).

 

Music doesn't have to be stereo to be enjoyable to listen to, movies don''t have to be in color to be enjoyable to watch, etc..

 

It's an issue of having a lack of perspective and being spoiled.

[sega saturn x]

I don't know what he expected from a system with a 1.19 Mhz clock and 4K    

 

There are excellent games for the VCS, you can't say a console sucks because the controller it hurts your hand.  

When i hooked it up but i heard such geat things i guess i thought it would just grab me. It didnt but i dont mind giving it another shot ill look for kaboom see if thats fun. And why shouldent the controler have any impact on it? Really now i have heard so many people complain that they didnt like x-box because of how large the controler was. But at the risk of being atacked again ill give the 2600 another try ill list the games i played and what i thought of them. One thing i do like about the 2600 is getting it to work is a cake walk. Also i never said the system sucked i said i didnt like it thats a far cry from saying it totaly suxorz.

[Jess Ragan]

I don't know what he expected from a system with a 1.19 Mhz clock and 4K    

 

There are excellent games for the VCS, you can't say a console sucks because the controller it hurts your hand.  

 

Sure you can! The controller is a major part of the game playing experience... if the controller sucks, then how can you expect to have any fun playing the games? Having said that, Sega Saturn X should just throw out his 2600 joysticks entirely and use a Sega Genesis joypad instead. It makes the 2600 game playing experience a whole lot more fun.

 

JR

[SteveW]

You know, you don't absolutely have to use the standard Atari joystick. There were dozens of companies churning Atari compatible controllers out back then, they can still be found in the wild. Either find a controller with more rounded edges, like a SlikStik or a Tac-3, or get an Archer/Radio Shack controller with suction cups on the bottom, so you can attach it to a table. Those Archer sticks are all over my area, so they shouldn't be too hard to find. They're more common than standard Atari sticks in my area.

[Osbo]

I agree in some points, and I disagree in others. I think the atari joystick is really good. Myself, I get better scores using the joystick than a gamepad (either genny pad or the atari pads).

 

Second, I don't know how a joystick hurt your hand, I get sores tumbs using a NES gamepad (I tend to use a lot of pressure when I'm playing)

[sega saturn x]

Well i have given my 2600 the old college try to see if i found somthing i enjoy that i missed first time around. Well first thing i had to do was hook it up and i started playing and i noticed the pictuter quality was awful and it had nothing to do with the system. I looked at the conecter box and it looked awfuly beat up. So i threw it out and used the one that came with my spare turbo grafix 16. WOW it was like night and day it was sooooooooo much cleaner looking. Well after that i atempted to use my joystick again i found them mildy more useable this time around but opted for one of my favorite pads of all time the genny 6 button. Well now that the system was hooked up and my controler in check i looked at my games. And started to play and here are the results.....

Atlantis A- This was a surprise i remember enjoying atlantis befor but this time around i was really hooked! I played for about an hour and finaly got a score of a bit over 50000 give or take a zero i forget. But i had a ton of fun with this plus it looks and sounds great to boot so colorful and well defined.

 

Combat N/A- Well this game is only 2 player so i couldent test it out but it looks great and the second i get a pal over ill be sure to check it out.

 

Defender F-What the hell happend here? I love defender at the arcades probably one of my all time favorite arcade games. And after how great atlantis looked i thought they could get a decent port to the 2600. But man was i wrong not only is every thing ugly but its just plain hard to tell whats going on. This one was a huge let down. Does any one know if defender 2 on the 2600 is good?

 

Berserk C-I didnt know much about this game when i started but i had a nice time for about 20 minutes then it just got kind of repetitive is there a way to kick up the difficulty? Im sure i would enjoy it more if i didnt destroy the comp ever time.

 

Space invader C-Never a big fan at the arcades but was always a hoot for 30 minutes and so is this one. But what i love is the changing colors its great to look at and much more enjoyable then those plain old white lines.

 

Asteroids C+-This one was on the verge of getting a B but in the end i just found the controls a little to hard to navigate plus whats with the popcorn asteroids? I would have much prefered the out lines to the full color ones.

 

Missle command B-I love love love missle command one of my favorite classic games i played this for hours on genesis. Well this isint up to par with one i played on genesis but still a fin rendition.

 

Over all i now enjoy my 2600 a hell of a lot more then i did befor and will continue to look for games for it. Next i need a paddle controler to play break out and castle crisis to more old favorites.

[Zonie]

What the.....? People born in 1990 are talkin, typin and playing video games? Feel like I am in a friggin time warp or something 1990 still sounds like the day before yesterday to me or worse yet THE FUTURE!!!  Geez I'm sounding/feeling old.  

 

Ditto for me, Bud!

[Flojomojo]

Well i have given my 2600 the old college try

Or in your case, the old high school try ...

 

Also try DEMON ATTACK, GRAVITAR, STARGATE (DEFENDER II), ROAD RUNNER, KABOOM!, PITFALL, SOLARIS, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK ... and many, many more ...

[Atariboy]

"Golden eye is not the kind of shooter im talking about im talking about vertiacl or horizantal shooters."

 

http://ign64.ign.com/articles/153/153799p1.html

[shep]

There's also a Space Invaders

[sega saturn x]

I thought that vanishing earth was an import? Yeah i forgot about space invaders and vanishing earth looked pretty awful. And dosent even seem to be worth looking for especialy when the saturn,snes,genesis and turbo grafix 16 have better shooters in spades. And i thought hat high school try thing was very funny.

[Artlover]

Over all i now enjoy my 2600 a hell of a lot more then i did befor and will continue to look for games for it.

 

 

Thought we were going to need to drug & brainwash you there for a while.

[sega saturn x]

Next im going to try the same thing with the nintendo i just got 2 new games for it defender 2 and burger time.

[shep]

BurgetTime rocks my freakin' face off!

[sandmountainslim]

Do you like Super Mario 3 for the NES SaturnX? That is a favourite of mine, I am glad you are trying so hard to like the Atari, I dunno if you have Star Voyager for it or not but I think you will be impressed with it, hang in there

[sega saturn x]

Im not to big a burger time fan but it was is such great shape for ten dollars plus its not exactly common. And i just love defender and this is a great version of it feels a bit easy from the arcades though. And sadly no i dont have super mario 3 but that have copys at teh flee market ill have to pick it up along with star voyager and kaboom which i had no luck finding today. Also is pac man on the 2600 as awful as i have been told because i love pac man and would love to have a good version for the 2600. Im trying to find those paddle controlers but i have only found the driving ones. And really the reason im trying to like the atari is honestly because so many others do. Im not saying im trying to follow the crowd im saying people wouldent like it unless there was somthing worth liking there. Befor i purchased a dream cast and saturn i thought the fans were nuts but i quickly fell to the charms the systems held.