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scifista42

No console

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I've never had or used any kind of a gaming console. I play games on a PC/laptop. I don't even play games on a mobile phone anymore. The closest I've got was using a joystick ages ago, and once trying pedals/steering wheel accessories for a racing game. I'm a young (studying) adult, by the way, and I'm not interested in getting a device solely for gaming separated from the PC where I can work and do anything.

Is that a rarity, or is there anyone with the same experience? I certainly don't place this in blogs because I wanted a discussion instead of a personal confession, I've just started speech on the topic.

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scifista42 said:

I've never had or used any kind of a gaming console.

You are very strange ;) To each his own, dude. Although speaking for myself I don't see how I could've got through the nineties without playing at least one game console.

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*shrug*
People say the 1990s were the best for video games... I didn't have any consoles between the NES and the PS2. I don't feel as if I missed anything.

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I am just like Scifista42 in the very sense that I grew up without any consoles at all.
I always wanted a Sega Genesis when I was a 9 year-old child, but my dad kept saying: "Why do you need that primitive thing when we already have a computer which is capable of performing way more functions in a way more convenient way?"
Obviously telling him that the PC didn't offer any Sonic games at that time was utterly pointless.
(If you guys actually think that I'm too stubborn, oh boy, you haven't met my dad. Compared to me he can often be the Deity of Stubbornness. Trust me. I'm so much more relaxed and easy-going in comparison to him. :p)

So yeah, I couldn't enjoy all of those Sonic games until the year 2000 when a Korean immigrant at my higschool gave me a CD containing emulators and ROMs, and opened my eyes to a new heavenly world.

Fast-forward to 2014 and I own 2 laptops, each of which is crammed with the emulators and ROMs of 5 consoles.
I might sound extremely biased when I say that it seems efficient and convenient to have so much diversity being offered by a single little box, and also when I say that using a keyboard and a mouse is way more comfortable than using a cluncky little controller, but it is the truth.
I was molded to be this way and I've grown to embrace it and take full advantage of it.

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Personally, I think the advent of CD ROM media and the PS2/GCN/Dreamcast generation was the peak of the genre. When developers could do what they wanted without being strangled by hardware (that much), but without many of the trappings of the AAA market as you see them today.

Also, an aside about emulators? The hell with every single TurboGrafX 16 emulator out there. They either lack a GUI of any kind, are being sold, can't read ISOs, or are just plain unwieldy. It's not like the Turbo Duo is a technical monster like the Saturn or anything like that, either. So why is this so?
I've had better luck with Dreamcast emulation of all things. XD

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Well, I've had a lot of fun with DOS games, and also ZX Spectrum games emulator on a PC when I was young. Later also a couple PS1 games through an emulator.

I know I'm strange, thanks. :)

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Bucket said:

*shrug*
People say the 1990s were the best for video games... I didn't have any consoles between the NES and the PS2. I don't feel as if I missed anything.


Yea because you don't know how to feel

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I only got my first console a year or two back, and that was just a PS2: it's safe to say I'm not very high-tech.

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You're in for a world of awesome games if you can get hold of them though - a lot of my best gaming memories come from PS2... Most of the rest from SNES, TBH.

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I'm like you, I've never owned a console, never played one, never even seen one in real life I think (well maybe saw some in stores but never paid attention). Pretty much all my console knowledge comes from watching AVGN. Lack of any knowledge in this field made the series quite interesting for me, I was basically introduced to a whole new world I knew nothing about. After that I found some emulators and played a couple of games but not much.

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My console experience!
* Played Burnin' Rubber on the Amstrad GX4000 a lot since it was all I had. I wanted a Nintendo, got that instead, never asked for a console anymore after that
* Played Alex Kidd on a Master System II for a weekend as I temporarily swapped the Amstrad for a friend's console
* Watched a friend play Duck Hunt with his laser gun on his console. He said I could play after him but he hogged the console until I got bored and left
* Played Tetris and Super Mario on a cousin's GameBoy during a camping trip, for a couple hours before the battery went out (there were no other batteries)

SUCH EXCITING WONDERMENT

(PC master race)

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Memfis said:

never even seen one in real life I think (well maybe saw some in stores but never paid attention). Pretty much all my console knowledge comes from watching AVGN.

Well, I actually did see them and I did play them whenever I came over to visit other people's houses.
So I do have an idea of what using those cluncky controllers feels like in comparison to using my comfy keyboard.

Asides from the controls, another reason why I'm glad that I got introduced to emulation is because it doesn't have any geographic limitations.
I mean, if were to own a North-American based model of the SNES then I would not be able to enjoy any of the Sailor Moon games since those particular cartridges were sold only outside of North America and were designed to function only if inserted inside the foreign models of the console. But since I have an emulator of the SNES then I have the ability to change the model type in a menu and enjoy those things which I would have otherwise been deprived of enjoying if I were to own the local model of the console.
So overall, I am indeed grateful for what my dad did.

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Gez said:

SUCH EXCITING WONDERMENT

(PC master race)

Bah, you just weren't exposed to the good stuff. I recall reading a post of yours on the ZDoom forums where you said that emulation is better as long as it's accurate "enough." I don't entirely agree. It's useful, but the A/V output just isn't quite the same. It's only accurate enough when it's a flawless replication of every hardware quirk.

While you could hack up a video card to output 240p/288p video at 15khz, that's already getting into the realm of hardware. I want my real scanlines, dammit! :P

188DarkRevived said:

I mean, if were to own a North-American based model of the SNES then I would not be able to enjoy any of the Sailor Moon games since those particular cartridges were sold only outside of North America and were designed to function only if inserted inside the foreign models of the console. But since I have an emulator of the SNES then I have the ability to change the model type in a menu and enjoy those things which I would have otherwise been deprived of enjoying if I were to own the local model of the console.

In that case specifically, the only thing you'd need to do is remove the parts of the plastic blocking the Japan/Europe style cartridges. The North American SNES doesn't have any region lockout for playing Japanese imports.

In more general terms, I believe the ideal setup these days is to customize the real deal. Don't bother with buying the legit carts, just use a flashcart. Also, mod the hardware to have a region switch, and have a CRT display worth a shit (no TVs, get an RGB broadcast monitor).

My retro console of choice, the Mega Drive, is pretty easy to hack in a region switch. It has two bits, one is language (Japanese, English), the other is signal format (NTSC, PAL/SECAM). While in practice, no games that I'm aware of use the Japanese-PAL/SECAM configuration, it's possible to set up.

And why are you so obsessed about some girl anime?

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Ralphis said:

Yea because you don't know how to feel

I don't know how to suck Nintendo's cock while cradling the balls, either. Maybe you could provide advanced courses.

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Sodaholic said:

And why are you so obsessed about some girl anime?

Why are some people obsessed with studying how cartridges work?
Because everyone has their thing that they value.
And gender biases are such an old fad. We live in the world of female pilots and male nurses who have freedoms about whether they prefer to buy consoles or PCs.

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When I was younger, the PC we had really wasn't up to snuff for gaming. Forget Doom, the darn thing couldn't even play Bio-Menace (memories of spending agonizing hours trying to get that game to work are permanently seared into my brain). As such, I relied heavily on my NES and later SNES. I will say, eventually we did get a better computer, and that caused me to basically abandon consoles for a while, but I'm always up for a game of Mario, to be perfectly honest. And yeah, oddly enough, Doom was one of the primary motivators in getting me to move from primarily console to PC gaming - I mean, once I found out you could make or download new levels, that was a serious game-changer right there.

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Growing up, every time I visited a friend with a console I'd be irresistibly glued to it until my parents came to extricate me. If I went to a friend's place expecting to play games that they didn't have any more I would break down crying. I'd borrow a friend's Gameboy and drain a stack of batteries playing it non-stop for a week, beating bosses that the owner had never even seen.

Yet, somehow, it never occurred to me to buy my own. I'm not sure I ever wanted one. I could get just as obsessed playing games on my PC so I guess I never really felt the need.

I bought my first console this year. It's a PS2. I've also got a big stack of Guitar Hero games and three guitars, three DDR games and two fraying mats, two Gods of War and one count of Grand Theft Auto. The collection has cost me about $130 so far from various used game retailers and musty basements. (I also dropped $80 today on a higher quality dance pad.)

Feels good, man. I'm now only 10 years behind the gaming mainstream instead of 20.

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My first console was an Atari 2600 (later replaced by a 5200) with tons of games, some of them not very well known like Yars' Revenge, Berzerk or Dodge 'Em. Then I had a SNES and started with a cartridge with dozens of games, but I can't remember a lot besides Mario, Double Dragon, etc. Then I got my first PC in the late 90's and never returned seriously to consoles, but even then, I owned a PS2 and a Nintendo64 some time ago.

So, as you can see, I can't imagine growing up without a console, even when I don't use them anymore.

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Most of my best gameing moments came from the Gamecube and partly from N64 since my brother had one, he also had a PS2 eventually but I hardly liked any of the games he had for it besides from some multi-console games such as some of the 007 games which I eventually had on my cube.

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I only ever had consoles until my teenage years. Always too poor to have a computer, and when we did get one, it was a win95 shitter with less than a GB. All computer games I played were at others houses, so I really appreciated them, being very rare treats. Even if the controls were always horrible for non RTS/Diablo games

Now I have all current consoles and handhelds except the X1 (fuck that thing) and a decent enough laptop, and it feels good to have access to almost everything.

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Its as rare as not having seen old star wars movies. Me and my friends were astonished when one friend of mine said he has never seen star wars episodes 4-6. My first console experience was with my very first console the sega mastersystem. Thunderblade, ghostbusters and world grand prix ah teh memories especially with thunderblade so many well used hours.

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Never owned a console, friend had a Pegasus (NES clone), another friend later on had a PS2.

An Atari 65XE kept me happy from 1988 to 1996 when I got my P133.

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I've played the N64, PS2, and Genesis elsewhere before. however, I only own a Gamecube, and that was my favorite. don't really understand why some hate it.

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I had consoles since the NES. I remember even my father used to play it back in the day. As for PC games, I had to wait a little before I could have a computer of my own. In high school I had a decent entry level laptop that could play Doom, Starcraft, Civilization II, and browse porn; I was happy with that. I bought myself my first desktop when I was 18, with the money I made from slaving in a warehouse, loading trucks. But the current PC I built last August, is more of a gaming PC for sure. All I need is a better fan for the processor, and a better graphics card. I'm skipping on the PS4 and Xbox One.

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Hurricyclone said:

... Gamecube... don't really understand why some hate it.

No, I never got that either - the games on it looked good enough and the controller was great for fighting games (Soul Calibur II on GC was much easier to work with than 3 on the PS2) and seemed just fine for shooters like Turok Evolution and Metroid Prime (in as much as that's a shooter anyway) too. Probably the lack of online and stuff like GTA that did for it, IMO.

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Hurricyclone said:

I've played the N64, PS2, and Genesis elsewhere before. however, I only own a Gamecube, and that was my favorite. don't really understand why some hate it.


Gamecube was and still is a terrific console. When you install gameboy player under it you are able to play nintendo handheld games all the way from original gameboy to gameboy advance on tv with stereo sound. Gamecube had nice games like many resident evil games, super smash bros melee, metal gear solid twin snakes, eternal darkness, metroid prime and other great titles

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scifista42 said:

I've never had or used any kind of a gaming console. I play games on a PC/laptop. I don't even play games on a mobile phone anymore. The closest I've got was using a joystick ages ago, and once trying pedals/steering wheel accessories for a racing game. I'm a young (studying) adult, by the way, and I'm not interested in getting a device solely for gaming separated from the PC where I can work and do anything.

Is that a rarity, or is there anyone with the same experience? I certainly don't place this in blogs because I wanted a discussion instead of a personal confession, I've just started speech on the topic.


I had a friend growing up, he had no console. His dad and uncle that lived with him always had computers. He could program his own Qbasic games at the age of 8.

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