63 replies to this topic

[wood_jl]

save2600, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 8:42 AM, said:

wood_jl, on Wed Aug 10, 2011 11:55 PM, said:

I agree, they should have gone "all out" with the 7800, but in a thread where people are bashing NES sound - WTF?? I guess if it's in your signature, it gets a pass.

Touche!

HA HA! For what it's worth, while we don't have the exact same historical experiences and choices, we have quite similar interests/experiences (in general, if not absolutely specific) and I share many (most?) of your opinions that I've seen. Forgive me for the occasional crankiness; you're one of my favorite AA contributors - even if I sometimes come across as a ball-busting prick(who, me?) Touche, back atcha!

Edited by wood_jl, Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:11 PM.

[save2600]

wood_jl, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:10 PM, said:

HA HA! For what it's worth, while we don't have the exact same historical experiences and choices, we have quite similar interests/experiences (in general, if not absolutely specific) and I share many (most?) of your opinions that I've seen. Forgive me for the occasional crankiness; you're one of my favorite AA contributors - even if I sometimes come across as a ball-busting prick(who, me?) Touche, back atcha!

Oh man... thanks, but no need for apologies! I feel the same exact way. World would be pretty damn boring, a bunch of carbon copies. I totally appreciate the similar, yet interesting cornucopia of diversity that is AA and you're definitely one of my heroes when it comes to all things a8 and ST.

It is I who owe a few members here an apology for some of the rather brash posts I've spewed. Usually after a nights worth of consuming mass quantities, but no excuse all the same. Okay, I'm done sounding like an aging liberal hippie douche now.

[toptenmaterial]

save2600, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:25 PM, said:

wood_jl, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 7:10 PM, said:

Okay, I'm done sounding like an aging liberal hippie douche now.

Hey! I represent, um, resent that remark!

[svenski]

I just found it very strange that the Atari Lynx headed the article but the author admitted there was nothing really wrong with it and that it was arguably superior to its competitors.

[toptenmaterial]

svenski, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 8:34 PM, said:

I just found it very strange that the Atari Lynx headed the article but the author admitted there was nothing really wrong with it and that it was arguably superior to its competitors.

Yes, and again, what is a failure even based on? Market share? Profit? A successor to the system (or handheld)? Quality of games? Power of hardware in relation to its competition? Length of production and support? Homebrew community or lack there of?

Edited by toptenmaterial, Thu Aug 11, 2011 9:44 PM.

[amiman99]

They have spared CD32!!!

[Rex Dart]

I'm just wallowing in the fact that "Top 10 Worst Consoles" was brought up in the Jaguar forum

[Itchy Koala]

toptenmaterial, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 9:42 PM, said:

svenski, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 8:34 PM, said:

I just found it very strange that the Atari Lynx headed the article but the author admitted there was nothing really wrong with it and that it was arguably superior to its competitors.

Yes, and again, what is a failure even based on? Market share? Profit? A successor to the system (or handheld)? Quality of games? Power of hardware in relation to its competition? Length of production and support? Homebrew community or lack there of?

Whether anyone wants to play it or not?

[atarian63]

toptenmaterial, on Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:24 PM, said:

save2600, on Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:18 PM, said:

toptenmaterial, on Wed Aug 10, 2011 9:49 PM, said:

But you've gotta give it up for the music on games like Contra, Castlevania, TMNT, Metroid.....

Oh, for sure! Final Fantasy, Tetris and Zelda are way up there too.

It's hard to communicate something so subjective without offending or someone scratching their head I guess, but outside of a handful of really great titles, I was never too impressed with the NES. Overall, I just feel it has a certain "generic" quality to it somehow. Not totally hatin', and I definitely enjoyed the top notch titles throughout the 80's and some of the 90's, just wouldn't bother playing much of or anything on one today or the last 20 years is all. I can't say that about any of the systems in my sig.

Dude I totally know. Sometimes people get SOOO pissed, but it's just our personal recollections. It was my first system as an 8 year old boy so they got me young! Nintendo indocturnated the youth in a way that no subversive conspiracy ever could!

Maybe you feel it's generic because it was such a monsterous behemoth in the 80s and Atari was an underdog.

In my part of the 80's the 1st part, Atari was the monstrous behemoth, there was no Nintendo.

[toptenmaterial]

atarian63, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:15 PM, said:

toptenmaterial, on Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:24 PM, said:

save2600, on Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:18 PM, said:

toptenmaterial, on Wed Aug 10, 2011 9:49 PM, said:

But you've gotta give it up for the music on games like Contra, Castlevania, TMNT, Metroid.....

Oh, for sure! Final Fantasy, Tetris and Zelda are way up there too.

It's hard to communicate something so subjective without offending or someone scratching their head I guess, but outside of a handful of really great titles, I was never too impressed with the NES. Overall, I just feel it has a certain "generic" quality to it somehow. Not totally hatin', and I definitely enjoyed the top notch titles throughout the 80's and some of the 90's, just wouldn't bother playing much of or anything on one today or the last 20 years is all. I can't say that about any of the systems in my sig.

Dude I totally know. Sometimes people get SOOO pissed, but it's just our personal recollections. It was my first system as an 8 year old boy so they got me young! Nintendo indocturnated the youth in a way that no subversive conspiracy ever could!

Maybe you feel it's generic because it was such a monsterous behemoth in the 80s and Atari was an underdog.

In my part of the 80's the 1st part, Atari was the monstrous behemoth, there was no Nintendo.

Point well taken. But was it really as pervasive as Nintendo was in its day? I remember Nintendo had a breakfast cereal!!

[toptenmaterial]

"Nintendo! It's for breakfast now!"

[save2600]

toptenmaterial, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:26 PM, said:

I remember Nintendo had a breakfast cereal!!

Yeah, but Atari had kick ass coin-op pinball machines! Space Riders, Middle Earth and Superman were all staples in my home for breakfast. Faux sugary cereals were not.

[mister_pal]

Was just reading the comment section of that article and ........ wow, the pervading sense of ignorance was rather depressing.

Edited by mister_pal, Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:36 AM.

[LinkoVitch]

svenski, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 8:34 PM, said:

I just found it very strange that the Atari Lynx headed the article but the author admitted there was nothing really wrong with it and that it was arguably superior to its competitors.

I took it that the order was from position 10 to 1st place, with the last console mentioned being the worst.

[roland p]

From that site:

Quote

Its atypical architecture probably didn't help. Anybody could knock something together for the Game Boy's nearly universal Z80 processor

Yeah, I guess hardware clipping/scaling, unlimited sprites, multidirectional scrolling, display world are the programmers pain-in-the-a$$

[Nuclear Pacman]

I must have really awful taste in video games because the first 3 systems listed in that article are my 3 favorite systems. I feel pretty confident in my game choices, so LOL 1UP.

[Zerosquare]

roland p, on Fri Aug 12, 2011 3:48 AM, said:

From that site:

Quote

Its atypical architecture probably didn't help. Anybody could knock something together for the Game Boy's nearly universal Z80 processor

Yeah, I guess hardware clipping/scaling, unlimited sprites, multidirectional scrolling, display world are the programmers pain-in-the-a$

Not to mention that 6502 processor, that was never used in a widely popular game console before

[DracIsBack]

save2600, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 8:42 AM, said:

By "all out" though, was thinking more thought should have gone into the 7800's sound chip circuitry. Instead of just TIA, Pokey (or better) built in from the get go or more carts with it built in would have been nice.

Blame that one on Jack. GCC was building a low-cost, high performance 'successor' to POKEY called GUMBY to make it more affordable to put into the cart. Went the way of the 7800 keyboard, expansion port, high score cart, computer software, 256K, 512K carts, etc. etc. etc.


As for the article:

Quote

"Not even naming a console after a vicious animal could save it when it was obsolete coming out of the gate

Whether or not you consider the Jaguar 64-bit, whether or not you like the games and whether or not you thought they executed well, this is one of the stupidest comments I've read lately.

What exactly was "obsolete" about it in 1993 when it came out? Did the Genesis and SNES have 16.7 million colours that could be shown on the screen at the same time? Could they move tens of thousands of polygons a second without hardware enhancements? Could they process 55 million instructions a second? Could they texture map?

Totally agree that Atari was kind of dumb to focus marketing on "64-bit power" without executing well on showing that result. But saying the Jaguar was obsolete "out of the gate" is idiotic, revisionist history. Go back and read articles of the day. The urges of contemporary press was to hurry up because powerful competitors were 'coming'.

Edited by DracIsBack, Fri Aug 12, 2011 8:15 AM.

[goatdan]

Articles like this that don't explain their reasoning behind their picks are always just stupid in my opinion. I'm not one to ever say that someone is wrong for having a list as this stuff is always just opinions, but to have a list without explaining your reasoning is strange. As others have pointed out, there is a few 'not console' consoles on this list. As people have pointed out, the line about the Jaguar being obsolete doesn't make any sense -- it wasn't obsolete to the SNES or Genesis. Based on what he has said in others, I think it would have made more sense to pick the 3DO and carp about how it was $699 (or was it $799?) at release? It also suffered from a lack of quality titles like the Jaguar, and it would fall into the same 'obsolete' category if you're putting it up against the Playstation and Saturn (which is still unfair, but whatever).

Also, while the Jaguar marketing for the most part was pretty stupid, *all* video game marketing from that era was pretty stupid. The 'Sega Scream' commercials were just as dumb if not more dumb. So I don't blame Atari for being out of touch with those at all, more of just a sign of the times.

So anyway, yeah -- it might be worth being on the list, it might not be worth being on the list, but with absolutely no backing up of the decisions nor explanations why they were picked, it's pointless to try to argue with it.

[Nuclear Pacman]

Is one game enough to keep a system off the 'worst of all time' list? This is a serious question, because Tempest 2000 is universally hailed as a great gaming achievement.

Obviously I don't believe the Jaguar has only 1 great game, but it has this 1 game that virtually everyone absolutely loves. I don't really care for the port argument because the Jaguar had this game exclusively long enough that it's known as a Jaguar game first and foremost. Therefore to point out that it was ported to other consoles a few years later only points to the original games' greatness.

I'm not exactly the objective observer, I am a loud and proud Jaguar fan. But we're not talking about your typical 'must-have' game. T2K is worth owning the Jaguar system just by itself. I will never get rid of the Jaguar if only because of this game. My contention is that this game should keep the Jaguar off a list like 1UP gave us.

I can't say that for the 5200. I love the 5200 and have lots of games for it, but I couldn't point out a game on there that is so far above the curve that would justify me racing out to buy that machine. So, although I would disagree with it being one of 'the worst' video game systems of all time, I can entertain and respect a well thought out analysis of why that is someone's opinion.

Thoughts?

[high voltage]

toptenmaterial, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:30 PM, said:

"Nintendo! It's for breakfast now!"

Haha Link's chasing a bent penis.

[high voltage]

But hey, CDi section, the author can't even get the name of the company right. Philips. On that alone. FAIL!

[sgrddy]

[/quote]

My top ten "worst" consoles (no particular order) of all time would go a little something like this:

8-bit NES - sure it was successful, but its bland colors, tiny sprites and cheesy sound chip (where every game sounds alike) get old real quick
A
[/quote]

I love my Atari consoles and computers. The NES, nevertheless, stands as an example of gaming excellence.

[JagChris]

Jag_Slave, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 2:57 PM, said:

Personally, I just tune out all the folks who dont like what I like. Just easier that way.

[danny_galaga]

The Sword, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 4:05 AM, said:

1UP is on my top ten list of worst video gamer websites.