games systems

here is what i think about some current and past systems aswell as my personal rateings.

first system i ever played was the atari 2600, great system and i think it may have had one hell of a run. i know the system was sold for over 10 years( mid/late 70' to 1990)

The NES is also a fav, however it did have problems. heat was a big problem also that stupid thing u put the game into would fuck up sometimes.

gameboy, exelent system and with a grea life 10+! so many great games. my only beef with it is that nintendo had such a hold on portable game market that it has failed to have some upgrades. though i like the GBA i think it is behind in its technology. GBC was a joke to me and i didnt even buy that.

NeoGeo like a gameboy but with more stuff. however it had a very short life in the US. had games like duke3d too(really dumbed down and in b&W)

SNES, no complaints here great system great games and loads of fun.

sega genisis, great too but a longer life than the SNES. came out in 1990(maybe 1989) and lasted for many years. also it was upgradeable. sadly the upgrades where not that great and they where expensive. Also the original sega plus sega CD plus the 32X made one hell of a monster that needed 3 plugs.

playstation, another great system with many games. hell it is still popular today. however some early game took for ever to load.

N64 great graphics but its downfall was the use of cartiges. thought the ROM cartrige has a extreamly fast transfer rate it is expensive and puts a large limit on game size. infact some games where around $90. doom64 could not be found for less than $70 around here for the longest time. toys-r-us had a sign on its release day saying this "DOOM64 now out! get it for only $84.99 today!" also i thought the controler was a bit off.

Playstation2 i hate that thing. at first i thought it looked cool but then i played one. first it had serious heat problems and many friends have replace thiers only after 2 months of owning( good thing sony did it for free and gave them a free game for the troble) Also it was so easily broken, i have dont my PS1 off the night stan a few time with no ill effect. however i have know people who knocked it over, when it was in that stand deal, to have it permentaly broken. Also the hardware was not that much of an upgrade from the PS1, i think it has at most 4 mB or VRAM. also its max res is a gay 640x320 and it uses a wierd software blur to mask it( but not well to the trained eye) and it is expensive, $200 only 2 good qualities DVD player and a shitload of games,plus all old PS1 games.

Game cube, i own one and like it. looks great small and light. just one problem, games. there are very few games out for it. also sence columbine nintendo has gone all flowery and lame in terms of games. only 1 m rated game for the GC is out(that i have seen) resident evil. but it has a shit load of gay ass easy to beat kids games. also i am not a fan of sports games so those dont appeal to me. now i am not saying all the kids games are lame, some are fun, plus bond is a good one too.

Xbox, looks great just i dont like microsoft. however it has some great games. but the thing is huge. i might be getting one of these.

sega dreamcast, in terms of what it has it beats the PS2. a very underrated game that was out hyped by the shitty playstation2. it has better hardware, res, more ram and it did not break or heat up as the PS2. wish it was still being made as well as games. only thing it lacked was a DVD rom drive

My dreamcast sometimes overheats but thats pretty rare. I still love the system and it has my all time favorite RPG: Skies of Arcadia.

As for the PS1 and PS2, I find they both share the same problem, most of the games are great, but few are worth actually buying, only renting IMO. This is especially true for PS2.

I don't know why people rag on cartridge size. It forces developers to be very clean and efficient in their programming code, resulting in far fewer bugs. What real extra enjoyment value does that 100's of megabytes of developers space provide, anyway? Some MPEG intermission videos, big deal. Besides, you can't write to disc mediums. You have to buy accessories just to save the game whereas cartridges have built-in save functions. Did I mention that it's far easier to damage a disc?

N64 is the bestest of them allest.

yes i do see the advantages of cartriges. however like i said they are a seriuos limit on game size. offten makeing a devlpoer remove parts they may have wanted included, even if it is at full effecientcy and clean of as many possible bugs. the type of memory used in those things is very expensive, thus that is why games cost so much. if however they found a way to make just as good memory at a much cheaper price i could see them comeing back big time.

i didnt say the N64 was bad, also on almost all games u saved onto a mempack too

Cartridges/N64 rule. Extra size in MB has nothing to do with fun factor and/or lasting appeal.

Fredrik: I agree. Some ZX Spectrum games are still fun, and nearly all of them were all limited to 48K ;) (there were a few 128K games made).

Where's the review of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum? Now THAT'S a console :)

AndrewB said:

What real extra enjoyment value does that 100's of megabytes of developers space provide, anyway?

Dunno, maybe hundreds of megabytes' worth of art, levels, music, speech, cinematics...

I stuck a ZX rubber keyboard onto the dash of my 1st car, made it look like it had computer on board :P

There are in my opinion two elements that make up a game. Immersion and action.

Action can of course be fit in any size format. The action is also the most important aspect of the game. The fun factor.

Immersion - the graphics, sounds, music, cinematics, story, etc, etc. add to a game but are not required for it to be fun. You get these from watching a movie as well. They do require space.

Observe that to last long, a game will only require lots of space if it contains lots of the immersion part.

The perfect game has either action or both.

Regarding the ZX Spectrum: you might already know this, but there is a fully functional Spectrum emulator for the Psion 5 (moderately priced palmtop that runs off a couple of small batteries). So you can play all your favourite old Spectrum games on buses, trains, whatever, using something that fits in your pocket. The screen is small and b/w, but the sound isn't much crappier than on the Spectrum.

There's also a sort of Doom emulator for the Psion 5, but it's only partially functional.

Heh, remember the "massive" 16K RAM Pack for the ZX81?

Cartridges couldn't have been a huge burden, because they were able to get ALL of Resident Evil 2 on a cart...And THEN some. But the N64 suffered from the same problem as the PS1 and 2...most of the games were shit. Also, the N64 DOES suffer from heat (humidity REALLY fucks it up), enough that I had to buy a fan for it. However, at least with the N64 it's seasonal...And I actually enjoyed the controller, it's great for all of the FPS's and racing games.

I've got a PS2 and I like it just fine. No problems ever with over heating, and I've played it hours on end. I recall the earlier realeases have some problems, which could be a reason, but I waited to get mine. Also, I don't see anything wrong with the hardware. Sure it's not as flashy as XBox of GC, but if someone makes a fun game, than it's all the same to me.

Hundreds of megabytes of art adds little or nothing to the enjoyment of a game. It's a game, not a museum. Music in MP3 format is rarely more enjoyable than MIDI music in cartridge games, it's just a bit more flexible. Speech? See the 2nd N64 Bond game. Cinematics? Games that use the actual game engine for cinematics are more immersive.

And levels? Despite excessive storage space, the average game is not much longer now than games from 10 years ago. Developers are still restricted by development time. It's compounded by the fact that levels are getting harder and harder to make.

The SNES has always been my favorite system, despite not owning anything more advanced. Games like Final Fantasy 2 and 3 (5 using the emulators), Chrono Trigger, Contra 3, Ogre Battle, Castlevania 4 (one of its oldest games), and Actrasier (just about as old), beat out most of the more recent games, even though the graphics pale in comparison to games like Final Fantasy 9 and 10.

AndrewB said:
I don't know why people rag on cartridge size. It forces developers to be very clean and efficient in their programming code, resulting in far fewer bugs.

Placing limits on the developers makes the games better? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is?

What real extra enjoyment value does that 100's of megabytes of developers space provide, anyway?

More levels. More textures. More/better music. Yeah videos are not particularly brilliant but hey.

Discs are way cheaper than cartridges so I guess that makes the price lower. This means more games for the player to play (at least this would be valid if games were priced fairly)

You have to buy accessories just to save the game whereas cartridges have built-in save functions.

This is why memory cards exist. Infact, cartridges with save functions just have a "built in" memory card. So cartridges kind of "force you" to buy a new memory card every time you buy a game. And theres a limit on the number of saves you can make. With memory cards, just buy another card and you get a whole load more save slots.

Basically, cartridges are a stupid, brain dead system and I'm glad that all the modern console manufacturers have seen the sense to use something sensible to store games.

Music in MP3 format is rarely more enjoyable than MIDI music in cartridge games, it's just a bit more flexible.

hahahahaha

fraggle said:

Placing limits on the developers makes the games better? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is?

Strange but true. How successful/interesting would the 10sectors contest be if there was no 10 sector limit? What if speedmappings were all regular maps, no theme?

It's a universal rule. Limits make things interesting.

I TOTALLY agree with you Sephiroth. This is the way I see the new systems:

GBA - Great little system. Processing power is the only drawback. Make one aspect of a game outstanding, some other part is going to suffer. Hopefully this gets solved in the future. The existing library rules, with tons of great games to come. If you love old-school games (like me) this is the system to be excited about. Another drawback is the system could've used 2 more buttons.

Gamecube - Quiet start-off, but picking up, considering the games (Metroid Prime, Zelda, Mario Sunshine, Medal of Honor, etc) coming out this fall. Eternal Darkness and Resident Evil are some of the best games out so far. Connectivity with the GBA is great, and the price is more than right. The controller's a bit weird, but with practice, is pretty damn good.

PS2 - Crapola. Slow, delicate, malfunctioning garbage. The only games worth mentioning are PC ports. If you own a PC there's no point. No exclusive great games, except for Gran Turismo 3, Devil May Cry and Final Fantasy X. Metal Gear Solid 2 and Grand Theft Auto 3 can or will be found elsewhere. The controller still rules though. WAY too much money, even with the recent price drop. The only reason it'll ultimitely win the war this time is blind followers that loved the PS1/PSX, and thus assume and expect the PS2 to be the best. WRONG!

Dreamcast - Underated for sure. For the length of it's life, it's unbelievable. Load times are (mostly) non-existent, and the system just plain rules. The controller, though with it's lack of buttons, ruled. It took a long time to get used to it, but once you did, it was the best. The stick blows the PS2's controller sticks away. Too bad Sega backed out of the system wars too early when they had a goldmine at their fingertips...

X-Box - Started off great, excellent launch with Dead or Alive 3, Blood Wake, Halo, and more. Not much interesting ever since. The system's fast, has a hard drive, but new, great exclusive games are coming out at a trickle. The controller is like the Dreamcast, but with more buttons, easily the best controller of the bunch. I can see this one dying soon.

The best systems out so far are the SNES and PSX. No doubt about it.

As for the cartridge argument, there's no excuse for the games to suck. With games like Resident Evil 2, and Conker, which are both massive games on cartridge, there are no excuses for N64 games missing cinematics, features, or anything else. Unless you count lazy programming.

AndrewB said:

Strange but true. How successful/interesting would the 10sectors contest be if there was no 10 sector limit? What if speedmappings were all regular maps, no theme?

It's a universal rule. Limits make things interesting.

Limits mean restrictions for the developers. They have to spend time working around those restrictions. Which means less time spent making the game and more time wasted as they strive to keep everything small.

And the 10 sector analogy is fallacious. Sure, its an interesting novelty but if the 10 sector limit was a built in limit of the doom engine, would it have made the original doom levels better? Of course not.

Look at SNES doom. They had to cut out all the floor/ceiling textures and half the wall textures to make it fit in the cartridge. Did that make it a better game?

Fact remains, cleaner code means less bugs. Compare the number of bugs in, say, Mario 64 to that of Diablo II.

SNES didn't make Doom better, but it was a clean and organized game to begin with.

Restrictions HELP a system. Think of it. Duke Nukem 3D and Quake shouldn't have been possible on the Saturn, but Labotomy pulled it off with flying colors. Quake 2 was thought impossible on the PSX, Hammerhead did so awesome that it blew the N64 version out of the water. Restrictions and limits make programmers work at a better game. If there are no restrictions, the programmers get lazy and make lackluster games that have no reason to suck other than laziness. Look at Soldier of Fortune for the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast can easily hold the game in memory, or have on the fly loading. Instead, the programmers decided to take the easy route, kept the loading like the PC original, and thus there were 5 minute loading screens. Pitiful. The Dreamcast should've been able to run Soldier of fortune flawlessly.

Or look at Resident Evil: Code Veronica X. They just converted the Dreamcast code onto the PS2 instead of redoing the game like they were supposed to. Choppier gameplay. Or Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight for the Saturn. The Saturn, which excels at 2D games, gets a choppier, uglier version of the PSX game because of laziness.

Make the programmers work, they'll do a better job. Period.

The xbox has nothing on NES.

gatewatcher said:

The xbox has nothing on NES.

True. They sure don't make game systems like they used to...

/me goes and plays Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3...

AndrewB said:

Fact remains, cleaner code means less bugs. Compare the number of bugs in, say, Mario 64 to that of Diablo II.

Forcing the code size to be smaller will decrease the number of bugs but it will just further restrict the game. If anything, increases in technology mean we can afford more human orientated development tools. Long ago games had to be written all in assembler because of the size restrictions of the cartridges but we now have the memory that we can now write game in high level languages such as C or C++. High level languages make the source code more opaque and hence less prone to bugs.

Furthermore, memory restrictions are likely to make the code less clean if the developers have to use clever hacks to work around the restrictions. Less clean code = more bugs

Either way the developers can spend more time finding and fixing bugs if they dont have to spend their time working around memory restrictions, as I mentioned above.

I am not saying that better technology neccesarily makes the game better, because I do not believe this is true. However, you seem to be assuming that the opposite is true: that worse technology makes games better. This is nonsense.

elbryan42 said:

Restrictions and limits make programmers work at a better game. If there are no restrictions, the programmers get lazy and make lackluster games that have no reason to suck other than laziness. Make the programmers work, they'll do a better job. Period.

You are clearly not a programmer because it is obvious you have no idea what you are talking about. What you are saying is utter bullshit. Giving the programmers what they need helps them do their job better. If anything, it maybe allows less competent programmers to develop the games (as it is easier) but that is not the fault of the platform, rather the HR department of the company writing the game.

<troll susbstantiated=1 justified=1 owned=1>

Doomworld readers are by and large misinformed and quite willing to spread such misinformation, kthx. Good job fraggle, on helping the unwashed masses.

</troll>

Of course, I can't stand consoles anyway. But saying cartridges are superior to a medium over ten times it's size (or even a medium that's nearly 80 times it's size) in any way aside from load times is simply ridiculous, and you should all banish the notion. That said, I wouldn't mind the return of the cartridge, provided they were DIMM-sized packages that could hold up to, say, 4GB. Hey, it could be done. ^.~

Elbryan42, are you aware that the complete entirety of the non-biased gaming press (i.e. excluding magazines such as PSM and XboxAddict and Nintendo Power, and including mags like Gameinformer and Gamepro) and the largest majority of gamers (2.5m units vs 700k says it all, kthxbai) disagree with what you said regarding Xbox vs. GCN vs. PS2? The PS2 is easily the weakest hardware platform, just like the PSX was in the PSX vs Saturn vs N64, but that's not really relevant. By the way, there are a grand total of THREE well-known PC ports on the PS2 - Half-Life, Quake 3 Arena, and Unreal Tournament. GTA3 can be found elsewhere, but few people really have the computer power to run it, and MGS2 is not available elsewhere yet, nearly a year after it's release. And by the way, neither one is a "PC port" - both were available on the PS2 long before they ever came/will have ever come to the PC.

Also, you are the only person in the world that actually likes the steaming pile of horseshit that Microsoft calls a controller. And I LIKE the Xbox.

As far as the GCN goes, Nintendo is doing the same crap they did with the N64. Late games (MP, SMS, and Zelda are all late), and picking up franchises super-late (Wipeout64 on N64, and Medal of Honor on GCN). Nintendo just sucks - they haven't done anything notably worthwhile (outside of a few games) since the SNES, save the GBA, which is (surprise!) an SNES on stimulants.

The xbox still has nothing on NES. ;)

I'm not saying that it's EASIER to make a game if you have restrictions. I'm saying that it's easier to be motivated if you surpass an obstacle, like a limitation, compared to have everything laid out for you. If they make the game themselves, compared to using someone else's, the game will turn out better, simply because of the state of mind.

Surpassing limitations makes great games. Look at most of id's games. All revolutionary because they surpassed the current limitations and expectations of existing engines and hardware.

It's in no way easier to make a good, or even great game when you're faced with limitations, but surpassing the limitation will help the project. It's not a technical way of looking at a project, but a psychological way of looking at it.

And no, I'm not a programmer by trade (though I trained to be). My friends are, and when faced with a project that's partways done, they tend to improve on other people's projects, rather than just completing it to get paid.

Consoles suck. I mean, you buy one machine that lets you run a limited number of games, then it becomes obsolete in less than year. And even then, you continue to buy the games a $60 a pop or whatever (I've never actualy bought any) giving even more money to the game company you've sold your soul to. In the meantime, you're playing obsolete games with bad gameplay or horrible translations (because I guess all games are made in Japan then translated by first year english students) until you decide to funnel another two month's pay in to a new gaming system.

I speak from my opinions on the game systems, NOT what magazines, game sites, or other people say.

I was completely for the PS2 (I planned on buying one on launch, but didn't have enough money). Then I rented it. There ARE some great games for it, but I judge a system by it's exclusive games, not ports, or games released for every system. Why should I buy a system if I can play the game elsewhere? The only games that interested ME on the PS2, other than a few games, were the PC ports, including Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Drakan (technically a sequel though), Half-Life, etc. The breaking point to buy one was Grand Theft Auto 3 and Metal Gear Solid 2 (beaten every Metal Gear game so far but that one). Grand Theft Auto 3 is for the PC (and I have it, great game) and MGS2 is coming out soon and I await in anticipation. I found the load times on the PS2 unbearable, the games boring, and the price too expensive.

As for Gamecube, I know it's not the popular choice. I bought one for Metroid Prime, and bought Resident Evil and Eternal Darkness for it. Both games surpass anything I've seen on the PS2. I await Medal of Honor Frontline simply because I refuse to buy a PS2 just to play one game. I never even looked at the new Zelda or Mario Sunshine. Guess I like rooting for the underdog. I sure hope Nintendo wins the war this time.

As for the X-Box controller, that's my opinion. I'm one of the few people that really liked the Dreamcast controller (many, many hours of Quake III helped. :P). I truly hope X-Box pulls together and brings out some awesome games (once Sega releases more Shenmue games may make me get an X-Box, oh and Doom 3 :)).

One thing I'm sure many agree with me on is the price of consoles nowadays. $150 should be as high as they go (SNES days). I refuse to pay more for a piece of plastic that plays games and has no other function. If I want a DVD player I'll buy a DVD player, not a PS2 or X-Box. The Gamecube so far is the only one within my price range. If I wish to spend a fortune on a gaming system I'd might as well buy a computer.

Anyways, my opinion is my opinion. I just stated it.