Console/computer you like that others "Hate" on.

[OldSchoolGamer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpPiXhmv2Bw


PLEASE WATCH AND PARTICIPATE in my open TAG.
Topic: Console or Computer you like (or love) that others "Hate" on.
This is an open tag so please respond in comments or even better video form and give your story about a console or computer you happen to think is great that others tend to dislike, crap on or down right despise. One mans garbage is another mans treasure as they say and this certainly applies to consoles and computers. YES there actually ARE people out there who enjoy Atari 5200/Jaguar/Virtual Boy/Lynx/3DO/CDi that many others simply think are not worth a second look! If you enjoy on of these or another less than popular console/computer then PLEASE chime in with your story!

[Steve W]

As far as consoles, I've always loved the Atari Jaguar. All the arguments against it tend to be from people with very little to no first-hand experience. "The controller is huge and clunky." Well, sure it looks that way, but once you hold it and play something with it you'll realize it's very comfortable and you'll never get hand cramps. "There's no good games on it." There are quite a few good games on it if you'll give it a chance. Ignore what others say and make up your own mind rather than letting internet consensus do it for you.

When it comes to computers, my first one was the Texas Instruments 99/4A. And there's a lot of merit in the arguments against it. Yes, it's BASIC interpreter is slow. Yes, there's a hell of a lot of edutainment software on it. But once you start digging deeper, you'll find some pretty good games and really quality ports on it. Unfortunately with the TI, you'll have to dig deeper than with other computers. Mainly because you'll only find the early cartridge releases in the wild, which are usually dirt common educational or home finance stuff and not the later 1983 and onward carts that have all the good games on them. And you have to really be a big TI junkie to dig deeper into the floppy disk and cassette games to find European MSX ports and the like.

I disagree to an extent with your explanation for the '84 market crash. Everybody has their beliefs on why the game market took a nose dive, and to an extent they're all right. The main problem is that it wasn't one or two things that happened, it was several. Atari did flood stores with games like E.T. and Pac-Man that wouldn't sell, too many companies were releasing bad games, Atari's incompetent management that forced stores to buy games for an entire year all at once, and so on. Atari was also spending massive amounts on research and development, with (what I've read) 180 buildings strewn across Silicon Valley creating everything from holographics to videophones. Then suddenly the marketplace was flooded with home computers that kept getting cheaper and cheaper all the time, giving kids the opportunity to create their own games rather than just play them. The 1984 video game crash happened because of a convergence of problems, not just 'bad games flooded the market'.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I disagree to an extent with your explanation for the '84 market crash. Everybody has their beliefs on why the game market took a nose dive, and to an extent they're all right. The main problem is that it wasn't one or two things that happened, it was several. Atari did flood stores with games like E.T. and Pac-Man that wouldn't sell, too many companies were releasing bad games, Atari's incompetent management that forced stores to buy games for an entire year all at once, and so on.


Yeah that was the point I was trying to make, you just have a better way of explaining it. Yes my focus was really just about the people that go on about "E.T. caused the videogame crash" and how so many people including kids that we're not even born yet say the same thing. Of course you are right it was a result of several things indeed, and to be fair I DID say both E.T. and bad games flooding the market were contributing factors. Anyway I just wanted to get a discussion going and get different opinions and judging from the comments so far on my video that is exactly what is happening. I certainly don't claim to be any type of authority on these subjects but I do look forward to different takes and ideas.

Great response and thanks!

[tom]

These youTube posts are always not very relevant.
Video game crash was 83, not 84
Nintendo Virtual Boy, very small library of games, but many good titles.
Atari 5200 has a small, but very excellent library of gaming titles. And they are not just re-hashes of VCS titles.
Atari Lynx, 80% excellent library of games.
Atari Jaguar has a 40% of excellent titles in its library.
Compare that to NES/Famicom with its 2000 games library, maybe 20% good to excellent titles, no more.
Philips CDi was never intended to be a gaming console (source: Philips, Holland), with the restricted hardware, some developers did quite an amazing job doing games on CDi

[OldSchoolGamer]

These youTube posts are always not very relevant.


Okay.....well I am actually aware of the details you've posted just thought it would be a fun video to do and get some responses to it.........appreciate your reply none the less THANKS. :D

[Bill Loguidice]

These youTube posts are always not very relevant.
Video game crash was 83, not 84

There is actually some debate about whether the actual crash was '83 or '84. To me, '84 is the more accurate date because that's when the effects of the crash started to be felt by consumers. The argument for the '83 date is related to more of what was going on behind the scenes, so to speak.



Nintendo Virtual Boy, very small library of games, but many good titles.
Atari 5200 has a small, but very excellent library of gaming titles. And they are not just re-hashes of VCS titles.
Atari Lynx, 80% excellent library of games.
Atari Jaguar has a 40% of excellent titles in its library.
Compare that to NES/Famicom with its 2000 games library, maybe 20% good to excellent titles, no more.
Philips CDi was never intended to be a gaming console (source: Philips, Holland), with the restricted hardware, some developers did quite an amazing job doing games on CDi

All personal opinions, of course, and all that can be argued against if one were willing. That was kind of the original point of the video, arguing for your favorite "misunderstood" system...

[madman77]

These youTube posts are always not very relevant.
Video game crash was 83, not 84
Nintendo Virtual Boy, very small library of games, but many good titles.
Atari 5200 has a small, but very excellent library of gaming titles. And they are not just re-hashes of VCS titles.
Atari Lynx, 80% excellent library of games.

I agree on all of these, I joked with a friend the other weekend that I have a soft spot for crappy video game systems.

I actually got a Virtual Boy from Tronix when they first got the Japanese version in stock long ago and thought it was awesome. Red Alarm is still fun to me and many of the games really give a feeling like you are "in" another world since you are totally blocked to the outside world. Many people complain that it is mono in color, but then again so is Asteroids and the original gameboy, but do those suck? Nope.

The 5200 I only got recently and had never played as a kid nor through an emu. I think many of the games are great, but yes the controllers are crap. This is a system that I think would've been much more successful had the crash not happened and Atari had released better controllers or more 3rd party controllers were available.

Lastly the Lynx is also one of my favorite systems. In my early teens I drooled over the system and all the advertising that Atari was doing for the games. It wasn't until a couple years later when they were being sold with 4 games for $99 that I finally got one. Fast forward to today and I have a nearly complete Lynx collection. There are some stinker games on it, but the system was far more advanced than the GB or GG.

[drmay]

Easy, my undying love of the Sega CD brings laughs and riddicule to me.

[Atarileaf]

For some reason when I bring the Sega Pico out at parties for a little Berenstein Bears action, I get laughed at.

[mattimeo310]

For some reason when I bring the Sega Pico out at parties for a little Berenstein Bears action, I get laughed at.

Sonic the Hedgehog for the Pico pretty much defined me around age 5 or so.

[diskoboy]

There is actually some debate about whether the actual crash was '83 or '84. To me, '84 is the more accurate date because that's when the effects of the crash started to be felt by consumers. The argument for the '83 date is related to more of what was going on behind the scenes, so to speak

Alot of people (myself included) saw the signs of the crash as early as 1982. It wasn't necessarily ET's fault, it was the culmination of many factors - but Atari was primarily responsible. It really began with their handling of Pac-Man.

In 1983, good arcade games were still coming out. 1983 was the year of Q*bert, Atari's Star Wars, Spy Hunter, Mappy, Gyruss, and Mario Bros. In 1983, you would be hard pressed to know that the market was crashing down around us - the arcades were still constantly full, and people were still happily playing their Atari's, Intellivisions, Colecovisions, or Odyssey 2's.

The crash didn't really become apparent until around 1984, when prices for video game carts and consoles dropped like a rock - most stores had them on clearance... Even alot of the newer consoles like the Colecovision and Vectrex. The games coming out in the arcade after 1984 just didn't have the creative "spark" they did only 2-4 years earlier... 1984 is also the year when alot of companies that were doing great a year before were suddenly bankrupt - arcades were closing right and left. The only arcades that managed to make it to the rebirth of the arcade in the late 80's/early 90's were giant chains like Chuck E. Cheese and Bally's Alladins Castles.

You can also debate wether or not it really was a crash, but that it was really only a market shift... Many people just simply switched from the arcade or their Atari's, to a Commodore 64 or Apple ][ - the market was still there, it just changed...

[jwlowry]

The one console that I will always have a soft spot for is the 3DO. It was my first big purchase after getting my first job at age 16 back in 1995, shortly before the 3DO's quiet death. Shortly after getting the console, most retailers began slashing prices on games to make room for the spiffy new PlayStation and Saturn (more fond memories) which allowed me to build up a sizable collection quickly on my $4.50/hr.

I agree that there are a number of unimpressive titles in the 3DO library, but there are quite a few good ones that you never seem to hear anything about. I spent hours with Gex, Battlesport (vastly underrated), Return Fire, Road Rash (best version ever), Wing Commander III, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo (best home conversion).

[Sonicwolf]

The one console that I will always have a soft spot for is the 3DO. It was my first big purchase after getting my first job at age 16 back in 1995, shortly before the 3DO's quiet death. Shortly after getting the console, most retailers began slashing prices on games to make room for the spiffy new PlayStation and Saturn (more fond memories) which allowed me to build up a sizable collection quickly on my $4.50/hr.

I agree that there are a number of unimpressive titles in the 3DO library, but there are quite a few good ones that you never seem to hear anything about. I spent hours with Gex, Battlesport (vastly underrated), Return Fire, Road Rash (best version ever), Wing Commander III, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo (best home conversion).

I also feel fondly for the 3DO. Has some pretty good games. I even like Night Trap's 3do rendition. I love the controllers and the look of the systems themselves. I just lack the nostalgic value of the system as I first played it at 17 years old in 2008.

[Oldskool]

JW - that sounds like my story, I was about the same age working at McD's at the time and I purchased a new 3DO at the discounted price of $399. At the time it was absolutely the best there was, and it showed! So I have memories of it as my first big purchase of ANYTHING. And the games were not too bad either, I enjoyed it and still to a lot.

So the consoles that I like, that others "hate" on are definitely the 3DO. Another big one that I just love that everyone hates is the Sega CD. For it's time it was mind blowing (If you were not into computer games that is).

[bangtango]

As far as consoles, I've always loved the Atari Jaguar. All the arguments against it tend to be from people with very little to no first-hand experience. "The controller is huge and clunky." Well, sure it looks that way, but once you hold it and play something with it you'll realize it's very comfortable and you'll never get hand cramps. "There's no good games on it." There are quite a few good games on it if you'll give it a chance. Ignore what others say and make up your own mind rather than letting internet consensus do it for you.

I agree 110%. Especially when the system constantly deals with the stain of 22 to 25-year old nitwit magazine and blog writers who will talk all day long about how the Jaguar sucked but you know for a fact they never picked up a controller and tried it.

The feel of the controller is very natural and the Jaguar pad quickly became one of my favorites.

The system seemed to get a lot of scathing reviews for poor sales numbers, for not living up to expectations and because of the success of systems that happened to be competing against it, such as the original Playstation.

Other thing is that the list of "popular" Jaguar games is already well-documented. However, I always thought that a few of the games which got horrible reviews really weren't bad at all, such as Cybermorph and Club Drive. I enjoyed both of them.

[SegaAges]

I got lots of them, but for me, it would have to be the N-Gage.

The earlier games were not the best ports of ps1 games, but they were decent (Pandemonium on my phone was worth the price of admission alone). Tony Hawk was also not a bad port and also had the soundtrack in there as well, which brought back some nostalgia for me.

There were also some incredible games like Glimmerati.

WarHammer 40K was a really good game because the way you played it make it feel much more like its tabletop counterpart.

Yeah sure it sucked balls to switch out games if you did not have a QD, but with some crafty sniping on eBay, you can get one for $50 or less.

OldSkool can vouch that I use my N-Gage everyday, as I use it as my phone. I also have a 2nd QD on backup in case I mess my main one up.

I have others, but they are not hated on near as much (well some are, but I do not love them, I just give them a good home, sometimes (like a red-headed stepchild))

[SpaceHarrier]

I've got alot of nostalgic love for the 32X. At the time, I was too young to get a job, and my parents weren't budging on the idea of getting a pc (for uh, school-related useage..uh huh). The 32X was the only option for me to get to play Doom! (And the SNES version wasn't something that was even on my radar at that time.) The timing and price were perfect, so I ended up receiving it from my parents as a Christmas gift along with Doom and Virtua Racing Deluxe.

After fumbling with cables for upwards of an hour, we managed to get it attached and working with my Genesis 1. Subsequently I was lost in the bliss of VR and Doom for hours, and days, and months. Later I got super-scaler classics Afterburner and the almighty Space Harrier -- with just those four games the system was gold to me.

Of course back then I really didn't have a giant pile of games, and my Genesis was mostly relegated to playing Sonic titles, so maybe that is why the 32X shone more brightly for me than others.

Also, I never understood why some called it an ugly mushroom. I thought it looked alright. This is probably because I never saw it slapped onto the Genesis model 2. So for me, it wasn't so ridiculous. I still favor Virtua Racing Deluxe over the other home versions.

[DogP]

Virtual Boy for sure! Not only do people who know the system make fun of me for liking it... the name alone gets me laughed at. I'll be talking about it with someone at work, and someone else will drop into the conversation, ask what we're talking about... I say the Virtual Boy... and I typically get the raised eyebrow, then have to explain that's it's a video game system... like a _Virtual_ Reality Game _Boy_. And since almost none of them have ever played one, it's really hard to describe how awesome it is or why I like it so much.

DogP

[BocoDragon]

Luvs my Virtual Boy! I got it back in the halcyon days of.... 2005! :P

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I absolutely love the Lynx and a majority of games in its software library.

And, as far as people hating on it, even in the days of the spinach green screen GameBoy and the Game Gear, it always seemed to be more of a matter of people being clueless about the sheer power of the thing (respective to the GameBoy and Game Gear).

Like all color portables of its time, it's totally a plug-in system if you intend to spend more than 20 minutes playing, but the awesomeness of all of the great Atari and Midway arcade ports are not to be denied.

[k8track]

There is actually some debate about whether the actual crash was '83 or '84. To me, '84 is the more accurate date because that's when the effects of the crash started to be felt by consumers. The argument for the '83 date is related to more of what was going on behind the scenes, so to speak.
QFT. Thank you. I agree with you completely. I get so sick of everybody talking about the "video game crash of 1983". I was there, and as far as I could see at the time, everything was still going very strong in 1983. I definitely noticed the change in 1984 when piles and piles of video games were stacked up on tables in Kay-bee for dirt cheap. I was in hog heaven. But the date, from my point of view as a consumer, was most definitely 1984. (I think I've posted my stance on this a time or two in the past.)

And I love many of the systems mentioned--Atari 5200, Jaguar, Virtual Boy, Lynx, TI-99 4/A.

[Kid Ice]

All of them.

I have yet to play one I didn't like or I didn't see any redeeming qualities in. From 1977 forward I can't think of a single system that didn't have something I enjoyed or admired.

Why people waste their time bagging on the CD-I, Jaguar, 3DO etc I have no idea.

The reason I don't spend as much time as I used to on forums and blogs is the continuous dogpiling on the Wii and the PSPgo.

If I have to pick one system, PSPgo, but I'm so tired of arguing about it I'm not even going to go into the reasons.

To answer more strictly in terms of consoles, I've never made a secret of my 3DO love. EVERY time I've seen someone post about how the system sucks I ask them to list the 3DO games they have played, and there is NEVER a response.

[NayusDante]

I am one of the few people I know of that really liked the audio on Virtual Boy. Nevermind the games or the 3D capabilities, the thing sounds great. The audio is more iconic for me than the red and black graphics, oddly. As for the actual games, Telleroboxer and Red Alarm were pretty good, but everything else, meh. Still waiting for a Doom port...

Saturn is a great console, but we all know how PSX did better. I preferred the rendering style of Saturn a lot more than PSX. PSX 3D looks "unhealthy," while Saturn's 3D polygons looked more solid.

There's a bit of ill will toward the N64, but again, I throw the rendering argument at that. Super Mario 64 looked better with its gourad shading than most textured games on PSX.

[OldSchoolGamer]

Great responses people! In just 4 days I have had 12 video responses which is more than I expected, great seeing all your comments and watching vids of your choices! Thanks everyone. :villagepeople:

[OldSchoolGamer]

To answer more strictly in terms of consoles, I've never made a secret of my 3DO love. EVERY time I've seen someone post about how the system sucks I ask them to list the 3DO games they have played, and there is NEVER a response.

One of the reasons I stated this, I to tire of people who jump on the bandwagon, a big percentage of people who bring up the same old tired arguments and complaints about Jaguar/3DO/Virtual Boy/CDi have never even owned one let alone played one in person. I don't mind people who have legit complaints but without personal first hand experience please just STFU.

[Sonicwolf]

One of the reasons I stated this, I to tire of people who jump on the bandwagon, a big percentage of people who bring up the same old tired arguments and complaints about Jaguar/3DO/Virtual Boy/CDi have never even owned one let alone played one in person. I don't mind people who have legit complaints but without personal first hand experience please just STFU.

The bandwagon of hate is very hard to get past in the gaming world. So many good games and systems get the bum rap due to the bandwagon. I know people who treat the Dreamcast as if it were a gameless disease due to the fact that it failed to continue on in the marketplace like other consoles.

[Gameguy]

I know people who treat the Dreamcast as if it were a gameless disease due to the fact that it failed to continue on in the marketplace like other consoles.
Though I don't hate the Dreamcast I can't really think of any games for it that I like. I know of the Sonic Adventure games, but people either seem to like them or hate them. I remember playing the Dreamcast at various kiosks whenever I went to the mall, but I never found anything I really liked for it. I couldn't get into the Crazy Taxi games or Space Channel 5, and I can't remember any of the other games that I've played.

[AB Positive]

I <3 the Virtual Boy. I never got the headaches and could play 30-40 min. of Tennis or Teleroboxing.

I always wanted to try Jack Bros. and some of the JP exclusives. I miss having a working set still :/

[KingCobra]

Dreamacst, without a doubt!

Back in the day, didn't seem to matter ware or who's house you were at, weather it be a an Atari or Coleco, NES or a genesis, 3DO, Saturn or whatever. when your eye caught any game system! You were like fire that up! What games you got?

The first personal hate on a game console for me was when my kid brought over some other kids from up the block and seen me playing my Dreamcast and not but 3 seconds later said "Dreamcast SUX! PS2 Rulz..."!

Right then and there, with a right sided head snap and a Dirty Harry stare. WTF!? That hole PS2/Dreamcast/Gamecube and Xbox gen war really came out of the wood work, no? people were hate'n on the web, even hate'n at the game stores sometimes. sheeeesssh..

[bacteria]

I'd say for me a console I like that is hardly described as "popular" nowadays is Intellivision. It had a lot of shovelware but there are a dozen or so very good games that are easy to play and excellent to occupy your time for a while. Talking about games like Lock'n'Chase, Discs of Tron, Night Stalker, Astrosmash, Shark shark, Skiing; basic but fun titles. The plug'n'play Intellivision sucks, the games are a bad relative to the proper console and don't even play or look the same.

[rgw825]

I'd say for me a console I like that is hardly described as "popular" nowadays is Intellivision. It had a lot of shovelware but there are a dozen or so very good games that are easy to play and excellent to occupy your time for a while. Talking about games like Lock'n'Chase, Discs of Tron, Night Stalker, Astrosmash, Shark shark, Skiing; basic but fun titles. The plug'n'play Intellivision sucks, the games are a bad relative to the proper console and don't even play or look the same.

That was my choice as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccd8drQrXe8