Pick only one console per generation.

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ESauce
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Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby ESauce » December 26th, 2017, 12:36 am

Retrology wrote:1st: Haven't
2nd: 2600
3rd: NES
4th: Genesis
5th: N64
6th: GameCube
7th: 360
8th: Switch


Haha, I wrote my list then looked back and saw yours is identical, including leaving out the first generation. The only difference is you answered the 8th generation. So I guess based on our tastes being aligned I can look forward to getting my Switch!

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ActRaiser
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Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby ActRaiser » December 26th, 2017, 11:21 am

Okay, here's mine. It's pretty similar to others.

1st: none
2nd: Atari 2600
3rd: NES
4th: SNES
5th: N64
6th: Xbox
7th: Xbox 360
8th: PS4

I never really got into the Genesis and only played it later in life, SNES for me. The N64 gave us Mario Kart, Smash Bros, and Goldeneye. However, the Dreamcast could certainly take the cake from the Xbox. Soul Caliber and Crazy Taxi are equal in my mind with Halo, Crimson Skies, and Knights of the Old Republic. The 7th Gen is a super easy one for me. The 8th goes to the PS4 for now. Way more games, quicker installs, and an overall smoother package.

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scotland
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Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby scotland » December 26th, 2017, 11:59 am

I've noticed a lot of us have not played the first generation. While there is not the diversity of games from later generations, there is a wide diversity in hardware and controllers, including light guns. You can probably pick up an entire unit for the about the price of a used game at Gamestop. I recommend the Atari Video Pinball unit in particular - no pong games, and a good amount of fun with Breakout using an analog paddle controller. Its all RF out, as I don't know of any A/V modifications for it.

matmico399 wrote:Wow the conversations on this have been fantastic. There are several trends going on here but I notice mainly one. The Atari 2600. Was that a great system in its day or what. So many simple games that are so much fun, still to this day. The 2600 lives! How incapable Atari management managed to screw up almost every other system after that is a mystery to me. 5200 overpriced. 7800 outdated. Jauguar poor programming and bad bad games. They nailed it with the 2600 but blew it on every console since. I wonder if the Atari ox will make many look at it. I’d out t it. But a final Merry Christmas to all before the Holiday ends! ;)


AtariToday wrote:honorable mentions - systems that just barely
Odyssey 2. As a kid the neighbors had this quirky system set up in their basement and we would play on it when their grand-kids came over. I received one as a gift a few years ago and I've fallen in love with it. Currently collecting games for this thing! Pick one up if you've missed out. It's fairly cheap to collect for and the games are fun! Pick Axe Pete and K.C. Munchkins Crazy Chase are getting lots of play recently.


Growing up, I had an Odyssey 2. It is a fun system, and it is relatively cheap to collect for. Its near and dear to my heart, and untold hours of fun on the system. A/V mods are available for the system if you are handy with the soldering iron. I have a voice unit, but never gotten it to work. However, there are 2 board game video game hybrids worth checking out - one is like Risk, the other a sort of Lord of the Rings game. There was also an early multicart for the system, that has all or almost all of the production titles for the system. You can't add anything, and it uses dip switches, but well worth it. I'm not sure where O2 emulation is.

The Odyssey 2 also had wonderful box and manual artwork. Check out titles like Showdown in 2100 AD for instance. One of my favorite games is War of Nerves, which does not have an Atari 2600 game like it, as far as I know. Something maybe some homebrew programmer could fix one day, to bring that game to a larger audience.

Given a choice though, I'd still pick the 2600 and its immense library over the O2, even with my nostalgia bias. As my friend Matmico pointed out, its sad how wrong it went for Atari. That a system launched for the holidays in 1977 (the exact release date is a conversation) was still responsible for the 1983 US Crash a full six years later is remarkable. Its footprint on gaming history is huge, but its legacy is still mostly a positive one.

matmico399
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Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby matmico399 » December 26th, 2017, 1:15 pm

Nice post Scotland. I had the 2600 but my best friend back in middle school through HS had an O2. We did a lot of gaming on it on spend the nights. I had so much nostalgia for it I went and bought one about three years back. Reliving KC’s Crazy Chase, Quest For The Rings and some others has been really enjoyable. I only have a small collection for it, 5 or 6 carts, but it is fun to play every now and then.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby Retro STrife » December 26th, 2017, 4:14 pm

scotland wrote:I recommend the Atari Video Pinball unit in particular - no pong games, and a good amount of fun with Breakout using an analog paddle controller.


I'm intrigued.. I don't usually collect these standalone systems or Pong-type systems, but I'll keep an eye out for this one.

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zetax
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Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby zetax » December 26th, 2017, 4:30 pm

1st: Roberts Volley VI (Pong clone - yes, I'm old enough to have had one...)
2nd: Atari VCS (some call it a VCS, some call it a 2600, some just call it an Atari)
3rd: Um...not a big fan of any of them. Sort of took that gen off. Kept playing Atari 800XL.
4th: Genesis
5th: PS1
6th: Xbox (at the time), now though probably PS2
7th: Xbox 360
8th: Wii U (yeah, I know it sounds goofy, but my Xbone annoys me with some sort of update every time I want to squeeze-in a quick game)

JWK
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Joined: April 30th, 2015, 2:27 pm

Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby JWK » December 27th, 2017, 5:22 pm

Let’s see here....

3rd gen: NES
Runaway victory.

4th gen: SNES
Runaway victory, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t great games on Gen & PCE/PCE-CD.

5th gen: Saturn
Choosing between Saturn and PS1 isn’t easy, but better 2D and better shmups/fighters/arcade games gives Saturn the “W.”

6th gen: PS2
Very close call. Honestly, I’m tempted to call this a four way tie; I love the DC, GCN, XB and PS2. But the PS2 easily has the best RPGs and handles every other genre as well as the others, so it gets the nod.

7th gen: PS3
Mostly a runaway victory, though the XBox 360 has the second best shmup library (after the Saturn). As a result, I play my Japanese 360 and Cave shmups a lot. The Wii is pretty good. After all is said and done, the 360 only has a small number of worthwhile exclusives (outside of shmups) compared to the wealth of exclusives on Sony’s platform.

8th gen: PS4
No contest. 2017 alone has given us Gravity Rush 2, Yakuza 0, Tales of Bersaria, Horizon: Zero Dawn, NieR Automata, Persona 5, etc. NieR Automata and Persona 5– two of the best games I’ve ever played— ALONE make the PS4 god tier. The rest of the multiplats and great exclusives easily push it to first place.

goldenband
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Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby goldenband » December 27th, 2017, 7:03 pm

1st gen: I had a Radio Shack Pong console as a kid, I guess it had its charm.
2nd gen: Atari 2600, with Intellivision close behind
3rd gen: NES easily
4th gen: SNES by a whisker over the Genesis
5th gen: PlayStation (though I do love my 3DO)
6th gen: Dreamcast (ask me on a different day and I'd say GameCube)
7th gen: XBox 360, I guess? I don't own anything beyond the 6th gen
8th gen: never played any of 'em

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » December 28th, 2017, 12:08 am

The entire concept of generations is flawed. The Atari XE and the PC Engine were released in the same year, but Atari's console is using technology from an entire decade previous, and nobody will compare it to the Genesis and SNES. If we're going to play games with all of this -

Generation 0: The Brown Box.

1st Generation: Atari 2600. It was meant to be the ultimate Pong/Combat console, and only accidentally created a second generation because it had no frame buffer, allowing clever programming to exploit it's inability to see more than a single scan line at a time. Claiming it belongs with the Intellivision and the Astrocade is historical revisionism. The original Odyssey had a library of interchangable games too, and I don't see anyone rushing to put that in the second generation.

2nd Generation: Atari XE. It's using second generation technology from the 70's, which would have been what Atari used for their next console if the 2600 had failed. And that tech played host to a huge library of games, with stand-out titles in every classic genre. It can also be upgraded into a perfectly good retro-computer.

If you don't accept this as a valid answer, due to the late date of release, then it's the Vectrex. If you don't accept that as an answer, due to the late date of release, then you deserve to be disappointed more often. There's not a single game on it that plays like anything from the 3rd generation.

Third Generation: PC Engine, with all the upgrades. If you objected to the Atari XE being used as a 2nd generation device, you can't possibly have any issues with this placement. If you didn't, then I'll go with the Famicom/NES. It's impossible to ignore the depth of the library an illegal monopoly gives you.

4th Generation: Sega CD. Plays every Genesis game, and it's own library of exclusives, at least 20% of which aren't horrible GIFs of bad actors blown up to pixels the size of bricks. But I'll miss Super Metroid.

5th Generation: The Sega Saturn. I can't play that library on my PS3. (Spoilers.)

6th Generation: I'm flipping a coin between Gamecube, Dreamcast, and X-Box. Every single flip is a different answer. I'm also considering how many body parts I'd rather lose than make this choice. Damn you.

7th Generation: An early PS3. Look at the textures on my PSOne games! They're so smooth! And I have more gaming options than there are days in a lifetime. Just with the depth of the PS2 library alone, where all the potential DLC could be accessed through gameplay, and smaller companies could still afford to compete in the industry, it's hard to believe there was ever a time when consumers were so spoiled for choice. Plus I get PS3 games as a cool bonus.

8th Generation: Nintendo Switch. Mario Odyssey + Super Mario Kart, and a few guilty pleasures I'll never admit to being excited about. I'm really more of a handheld gamer anyways.

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Stalvern
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Re: Pick only one console per generation.

Postby Stalvern » December 28th, 2017, 4:06 am

I don't think anyone's as angry about your flouting the extremely nebulous categories of console generations as you seem to enjoy imagining them to be. It's all just convenient shorthand for grouping the biggest names.


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