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We've had some real corkers over the years, but which is your pick of the bunch?
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We've had some real corkers over the years, but which is your pick of the bunch?
I will always have fond memories of the PS1, yeah there were Ataris and all sorts before hand but the Playstation heralded the true beginning of the console generation IMO.
I agree with the ps1, just because of how much more power they managed to get out of it than expected, the opening up of 3d polygons to the masses, the thumping speed and soundtracks of games like Ridge Racer and Wipeout, it literally was a home arcade machine and there was what seemed like an endless supply of both western and Japanese titles with all kinds of new genres and ideas coming out of the woodwork. I have gamed since the spectrum, commodore and amiga days but the transition from a Sega mega Drive to a PS1 was unreal, it was such a great gaming era and it even carried through to the ps2 era to some extent.
Playstation 1 definitely! It was such a huge jump for games and gamers. No other consoler has made the jump and impact it did since or dare I say before either.
I've only ever owned a sega megadrive console wise so I'd have to plump for that one.
I'll let ya know soon - just put together a retro gaming suite as a moving in present to myself :rockon:
N64, has to be. Great games and a controller that has not been bettered since!
Dreamcast
I'd first have thought the NES, as even I had one.... eventually... once the N64 had driven the prices down...
Second might actually have been the Gameboy, as I saw those everywhere and they were so much more affordable.
But then, I spent the most hours playing Goldeneye on the N64, to the point where I was probably close to the levels of a Pro Gamer.
What makes one THE best?
Probably the one that the most people got, whatever the myriad of reasons for them choosing it.
Playstation 2. The variety and quality of the games was astounding. Just a massive library of big hits and hidden gems.
Whichever's the latest. Take nostalgia out of it, and each console is better than the last. Old games were rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishe, short, and lacked depth. Every generation is s leap forward in gaming and the consoles they play on.
Also, the PSX was the best.
I think over the years I owned:
Master System
Mega Drive
PS1
PS2
XBox 360
I would have to say, out of those, PS1 is where my most fond gaming memories are. Metal Gear Solid, WWF, Gran Turismo, Tekken, Crash Bandicoot.... yeah it was great.
I've always been a PC gamer really though, so its pretty much always been secondary.
I do love my SEGA Megadrive still to this day and it is setup under my 51" TV and used quite often, I also love the Dreamcast as it is just cool looking and has some great titles. I still love the Camecube also, great quality built machine and another machine setup under my TV alongside the PS2 & 4.
Thinking on it though I think the PS2 has been my favourite console (prior to current gen), it runs 99% of PS1 games and has a great library of its own.
PS1 + FF7 = fun childhood
Has to be the Vectrex.
Has to be the Vectrex. For the babies wondering what that was - https://youtu.be/rFlHdlfZQgI
Double post ... but the Vectrex was that good it deserves more than 1 ;)
Atari 2600
amiga cd32, years before the playstation, and the only reason the playstation existed
it cost £500 or something and nobody saw the point without a keyboard, when proper amiga cost less, so it failed good, buts its the first full console that had the full packaged layout for the future
Megadrive or Snes closely followed by the N64.
The PS2 has to be the best console of all time.
So many groundbreaking games, Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, Burnout, Time Crisis with Guncon, Onimusha... good times!
ps4 pro
SNES
I miss paying £90 for a cartridge
I wanted to pick Amiga500 but that isn't a console...
I guess this question it all depends on how we define 'best'.
N64 and the dreamcast great games on them .
Toss up for me between the SNES, Sega Dreamcast and N64. All were amazing and innovative for their time. And in some sense they were the biggest seismic shifts in the console market to date. Every thing since has been a tweak on their formula.
The almighty PlayStation 2.
i gave up on playing games a long time ago. how you define the best console is a matter of opinion. it's probably going to be the latest most powerful one available. the better question would have been what's someone's most favourite console unless the wording was intentional to raise post count
personally i played a lot of ps1, it was fantastic in it's day and there weren't all the same distractions that the internet brings today, and cable/sat tv wasn't as overbearing as it is now, so i spent a lot of time on that
i followed up with the dreamcast which really was a great machine and it's a shame it didn't last longer. great fun games, internet capable and could do all sorts via homebrew, such as watch divx and vcd and play mp3s and run emulators like the zx spectrum
the first xbox was also great for similar reasons. hacking it meant i got a second box so i could have one in two rooms running xbmc and did that for years before 720p material became more popular and it couldn't play it very well. it was also great for playing emulators like mame as i loved to play the original arcade games i played as a kid like star wars and spy hunter
i got the 360, ps3 and wii and didn't play them much. the 360 was to play HDDVD which died quickly, the ps3 to play bluray, and the wii novelty ran out quickly. i never bothered with the latest batch of consoles as they don't offer anything interesting to the non gamer. no ultra bluray and a £25 android box with kodi does all my streaming stuff a couple of hundred quid or more cheaper (apart from occasionally using legit apps i don't do online streaming, home network streaming mainly - sky and youview boxes do iplayer etc much better in my experience for the official channel apps, and likewise for netflix)
i played the original gameboy a lot too. i had a sega colour console that was pretty cool but the batteries drained like no tomorrow and games were limited and expensive and it was pretty big so only much good at home when it could be mains powered. that's the flaw in a portable player
zx spectrum was what i played most games on. a lot of time spent on that in the day
Does the original Game Boy count? As its the only one I've ever used.
NES - the console i played most as a child. Had a lot of fun with it. This was back when you'd go to the local gas stationon fridays to rent cartridges, and play through the games over the weekend.
And i'd say the gameplay, graphics and sound still gives a good impression today. Although not all TV's play nice with yesterdays 4:3 ratio.
In terms of setting setting the benchmark I suppose the NES was the biggest single jump, and as such the greatest in my opinion - and the SNES furthered the brand nicely, even just for Mario Kart (the original is still the best!). That said, I was a SEGA guy.
I guess later on the PS1 was the one which took things into the next generation, but it was a long way behind the NES in terms of how revolutionary it was in my opinion.
My trouble is most of my gaming started on computers, Acornsoft's Defender on the BBC Model B was a favourite until I lost a lot of my childhood to Elite with Thompson Twins on in the background. Always been more of a PC gamer than a console gamer :)
Not a clue. The only console I've ever owned is a woodgrain Atari VCS (which I still have).
Other than that it's been computers all the way - ZX Spectrum, Amiga 500, Amiga 1200, then many different PC's :)
I had a cd32. It was utter crap. Luckily, it didn't cost that much. Hundred and something, bought it by selling a snes.Quote:
Originally Posted by me-yeah
The machine itself was poorly made. Games used to reset at random, likely caused by primitive cd technology that was easily upset. The games were just amiga games put onto cds, nothing seemed to be specially made to take advantage of its specifications. Worst console ever.
N64 + GoldenEye! Followed by the XBox 360 and PS4.
I had the most fun on an Atari ST, playing Frontier Elite 2, until it finally got replaced with a PC playing System Shock and Sim City 2000.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tunnah
Given your last line I honestly can't tell if your first line was meant to be sarcastic or not ... ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Tunnah
But to answer the rest of the post, my experience is that technological advancement only improved the gaming experience up to a certain point. I remember owning a Master System and going round to play games with friends who had SNES/Megadrive, and just thinking how much better the gaming experience was on their machines - the Master System simply couldn't handle some of the things the SNES/Megadrive was able to do, and it really did make a difference to the gameplay and overall experience: yes, many SNES/Megadrive games were longer and had more depth (although that said there was a NES port of Elite, and you can't really get deeper/longer than Elite ;) ).Quote:
Originally Posted by Tunnah
Once we got up to - well, probably the PSX generation as it happens - the technology could handle pretty much anything a game developer wanted to chuck at it, and the only things that really improved after that were the graphics - to the extent that some devs started essentially dialling in the gameplay and storylines.
I've owned PSX and PS2, and I honestly can't say I owned or played a PS2 game that was objectively better than any PSX game. Same for the following generation consoles that I've played with friends. There's simply very little that you can do on a current gen console that wasn't possible on the PSX, albeit with blockier, less pretty graphics. Gameplay, depth, game length - they really haven't advanced that much.
Which brings me to my (controversial) choice for best console: the Wii. It actually did something different, and in many games had genuinely compelling gameplay because it was different. I still have a Wii. It's the only console I liked enough to buy twice (my first one was stolen). In fact, it's been sat on a shelf unused for months while I sorted the house out ... time to get the TV on the wall and swing the 'mote :D
It is a hard toss up between PS1 and PS2. N64 was great as well.Back then all the consoles had lots of exclusive titles.
Hard to beat Crash Bandicoot games. Haunted maze game from the playstation magazine was a great indie developer game.
At primary school there was a big discussion of playstation 1 vs N64. I had a playstation one and one of my mates had the N64. I liked both consoles and i could play mario kart 64 for hours. I purchased an N64 myself later on and still have goldeneye now which is such a great game.
Look back and ask yourself which games are the most timeless and don't really age?
I think most would agree that the very best 16bit, 2D pixel art games are least susceptible to the ravages of time, SNES classics like Super Mario World 1&2 and JPRG classics like Zelda Link To The Past, Secret Of Mana & Chrono Trigger still looks as beautiful today as they did 20+yrs ago.
The same can't be said of Playstation 1 games, which quite frankly look terrible to modern eyes.
So, I would have to go with the SNES, and I didn't even own one!
The best games console of all time?
PC.
Shame on you for demoting the PC to little more than a games console. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Mr_Jon
Bests Console for me was the Sega Saturn.
Megadrive was the first I had and was excellent too, so was SNES and Dreamcast.
Sega MegaDrive ! No SNES ! No no, its The MegaDrive ... I think.. Orrr SNES yes!! ..errmm MegaDrive - I dont know :S my head hurts
Wouldn't know. Never had one.
And no, Amiga, C64 etc don't count. They were *computers*, not consoles...
On a technical level so are the Xbone and the PS4. Multiple cored x86/64 APU based Iirc.Quote:
Originally Posted by azrael-
I do find it odd that consoles seem to be trying their hardest to get rid of all their advantages. It used to be you didn't have to wait for a console to install a game, the loading times were quicker, games "just worked" without any need for patching, and they cost a lot less than an equivalent PC.
These days the only one of the above that's still true is the lower cost, but console prices have gone up and PC prices down so it's not as big a win as it used to be. Especially when you add in the increased cost of the games & in the case of Xbox having to pay twice for online play (once to your ISP and again for Xbox Live.)
Without wishing to put words in Tunnah's mouth, I'd guess that his two answers reflect the (perhaps delberately) ambiguous nature of the question which, to me, it seems could be asking either ...Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
- what's the best console, as in hardware spec?
or
- which console has provided the best ever gaming experience?
The latter, obviously, is much more subjective, in that it's about the range of games on a given console, AND how the gamer enjoyed them.
Given that some consoles had wider and better options in certain genres than others, the question implied second interpreration is also some invalidated because it will depend critically on whether each gamer biught the optimal console for their gaming taste.
That is to say, if Console A is what you bought, and played most games on, then you likely haven't sufficient experience to realise console B would have been better.
Personally, the best gaming machine, by miles, and by definition 2, us the PC, but the use of "console" in the question precludes that.
Of consoles, my ljmited experience tells me that XB360 > PS1, mainly because I've had a 360 for FAR longer than I had my PS1, and have a far larger range of games for it.
But what my answer really tells you is more about my experience kevels with each than which is the better console, whuch is why I ssid it's very subjective.
It should also tell you I'm not really qualified to have much of an opinion, having far too limited experience. If, on the other hand, this was about PC hardware in general, I'd bet I've handled far more of it than almost anybody else here - though less so the last few years. But it isn't, so I'll shut up now.
The PS1 was excellent, but I think the sheer quality of games, for me, it's got the be the Xbox 360.
Just for the sheer customisation and the beginning of what eventually became Kodi (and just to be different lol) - The original XBox
I would ask that the question be rephrased tbh, to something like "which was the most iconic console?" or something of that ilk
anyways
iconic : ps1 - redefined the controller into something useable (n64 one sucked btw), introduced the greater world to Final Fantasy, was the first console to actually give arcade quality in the home (tekken, Virtua Fighter, Ridge Racer, Gran Tourismo, Time Crisis to name a few) had proper adventure style games too and didnt use cartridges.
Current Best : For me its the xbox one, but the newer consoles are not just consoles anymore, they are full on entertainment systems and mine is used for netflix and amazon tv as much as gaming
for what its worth, i never owned a console before the ps1, but friends did and I played most of them, back when we used to visit each others houses rather than use xbox live or psn. occasionally we went outside to play too... I had spectrum, bbc, amiga 600, before I got a pc (now have around 8...) and since that ps1 have had all the main models of playstation 1-4, still have all my xboxes, and own a wii u, psvita, 3ds and will probably buy a switch soon.
Anyways, PS1 gets my vote, otherwise the clear winner is the Atari 2600
^thatQuote:
Originally Posted by deepblue08
Although SEGA was pretty strong as well and imo it helped gaming popularize. But PS1 brought probably the biggest jump so it's a tough one. My vote goes for SEGA due to having enough good games to play there (Shining Force, Phantasy Star, Shining in the Darknes, Robocop, Lion King the list goes on and on).
From a personal perspective, the PS1 was it. Most of my waking childhood was spent on that thing (and a fair amount of my current adulthood..)
Looking at the numbers and influence, it has to be the PS2. I believe it's the best selling console of all time, and they were still publishing games for it up until just a few years ago
Best of all time to me means the best contextually when it was a current console, not a retro console and to that end it's probably the PS1 because the jump from 2D (MD/SNES) to 3D (PS1 & Saturn) was a much more significant leap than anything we've had before or after. It was also the beginning of the end for the arcades too as home conversions could begin to match what you could play in the arcade. The Naomi arcade board based on the Dreamcast was the natural evolution of this.
I think personally I prefer the Saturn but it's hard to deny the effect the PS1 had on gaming generally- it made it cool :)
I was a home computer gamer (Spectrum, C64, Atari ST) up until the Megadrive, and then a console gamer from the Megadrive and SNES generation right up until now. Although I've had gaming PCs from the days of the PII onwards, there is something that psychologically works for me in just turning the game on and playing it without having to fanny around with graphic settings and resolutions.