thaddius' Console Roast 2014 Edition - Round 9

[Foxi4]

I find it surprising to see you defending the weakest console of the generation while your pick for the worst console was the most powerful one. If only there was a modern parallel of powerful hardware vs. uniqueness...

Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think that the best specs equal the best system, quality of a console springs from a variety of factors, including but not limited to specs. Specs don't have to be the best, they just need to be "sufficient", they're means for success in other areas, not success in and out of themselves.

 

[The Catboy]

This is actually an impossible for me .-. I loved all of them and hated all of them for pretty much the same things. In sales they were all different, but I actually still play and enjoy games on all of them to this very day. In fact they basically make up my list of my favorite systems
1. Dreamcast
2. Xbox (original, I know a shocker, I like a M$ system.)
3. PS2
4. Gamecube
5. SNES

 

[codezer0]

I had already finished going through about 3 ps1's and after my first ps2, I was intent on simply washing my hands of the mess and not giving sony any more money. two years later though with the gamecube only, I was frustrated with the fact that most of the mupltiplats were horrible on the GC for no technical reason, and at the time I couldn't afford a Live subscription since I had nothing resembling a steady income. There's also the issue that it would take many more years before I would find a PS# emulator that actually worked consistently. Up until much, much more recently with pSX, every PS1 emulator I had tried to at least still use the game discs I still had simply would only work once and never again. Bleem worked pretty well as a demo, but even if I had the money I couldn't find anywhere to buy it. and it certainly wouldn't work on a modern system now. Let's not even go into the difficulty of finding a PS2 emulator that works even half-decently.

I bought a pre-modded PS2, because at least then the reasoning was that even if the bastard ruined my legit discs, I could at least reburn the ISOs for the games it chose to ruin. This was fine until it stopped reading discs too. I contacted the seller, who was willing to take it in for repairs. he is who mentioned how on its last day of testing (before he was going to pack it up and send it back), the disc drive shattered. He confessed it was paranoia that led him to replace the capacitors and resistors in the replacement he bought in its place. Transferred the chip over, added some extra support wires to the soldering, and so on. The system I got back (PS2 #3) is depressingly the longest-lasting thing I've had that actually has a Sony badge on it. It has since outlasted the first three of my PS3's, and - for the moment - the 20gig PS3 I had rescued.

HDLoader is nice with the system... however, I'm still waiting on there to be a Rebug CFW with the Cobra files integrated to come out so I can finally retire it. What's Crazy about all of this is the amount of people I know still interested in buying the system off of me, especially after I tell them of the rather horrible experiences I had leading up to getting it.

 

[mightymuffy]

Xbox all the way: my living room's a temple (well, not really), and I've seen better looking 80s VHS players than that, and that first controller - good lord was it horrific!
Had some cracking games on it though, and many cross platform games were best on it, then of course once you modded it....but no I won't sway my judgement: 'tis a good machine, but an easy, clear 'winner' out of that list.

 

[codezer0]

So, other consoles also had its fair share of hardware problem. Why aren't you complaining about them?

For the record I owned three PS2s: a Japanese launch model and two PS2 Slim. Till this day I never had any issue with it. In fact you are the only one who claimed that your PS2 experience were so bad that you had to replace capacitors and resistors. I beginning to wonder if they failed because of other reasons.

Why? here's the diff...

1. Strange as it was, I never had to do the whole "blow into your cartridge" thing with my NES. Though given how many years before the internet that was, I'm surprised everyone seemed to know to do that to fix issues like that.
2. Suffice to say, the cartridge-based home consoles were decidedly better built.
3. Obviously it has taken me a while to have the kind of income to be able to have more than one console of a given generation.
4. I didn't have very high expectations of the Original Xbox since I bought it from ebay. And at least, by the time that it was inoperable for me, I was able to afford a 360, and most of the games I had accumulated were already compatible.
5. My original 360 only red-ringed due to hard drive failure... the rest of the system still worked if I coulda replaced the HDD. The store however treated everything as a set. Since it was kinda late in the replacement plan, my original purchase price was enough to put me over to upgrade to an Elite unit, which has worked as a tank to this day.
6. I couldn't entirely fault the Dreamcast for failing after nearly 7 years of constant use. And unlike any of Sony's systems, it didn't ruin any of my games so that I couldn't play them anymore.
7. Every time a Playstation died, it usually ruined a bunch of games with it - many of which were either irreplaceable or still at full price.

Sony's systems had the very dubious honor of always taking something with them when they failed - usually a fair amount of my games. So not only did I have to raise funds to replace the console, but I usually had to repurchase the games, too.

 

[emigre]

T

• MGS2, which I am convinced was Kojima trying to troll the hell out of us. Either that or an early sign that he didn't want to make games anymore.

???

MGS2 is a fantastic gaem. It's fucking nuts but fantastic nevertheless.

 

[Foxi4]

MGS2 is a fantastic gaem. It's fucking nuts but fantastic nevertheless.

Raiden was incredibly madgay and whiny, but the gameplay itself was far, far superior to MGS1 and it became the template for most future MGS games, I loved it myself too. Of course the PS2 also has MGS3 which is legendary, but that's besides the point.

 

[coolmario]

This is the hardest poll, I liked all four. They were are all good consoles.

 

[razielleonhart]

none is this poll for me all the systems were great in their own right​

 

[assassinz]

I had to vote Dreamcast since the game library is so limited compared to the other systems.

 

[RchUncleSkeleton]

I voted Xbox since I didn't own one and the limited time I played one didn't do anything for me. Not to mention the fact that it was just an underpowered PC when I had a great PC at the time.

 

[PolloDiablo]

Dreamcast>PS2>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>GameCube>Xbox

 

[Taleweaver]

I had to vote Dreamcast since the game library is so limited compared to the other systems.

718 games is not something I would call limited! It's not that different from the 954 from xbox, or the 636 the gamecube had. Though yes, the PS2 had more: 2050 games.

Which is kind of odd, now I think of it. The thing was only available for 568 days...which means there was an average of 1.2 new games coming out EVERY FREAKING DAY. Now THAT is something I would say nintendoesn'tdo.

(unless I'm mistaken...did it really have that many games???)


EDIT: okay, wikipedia states 688 official games. But that's still over 1 new game a day...

 

[matpower]

So the Gamecube had less games than the Dreamcast... That is impressive. xD
Sega does what Nintendon't and Nintendo is what Genesisn't!

 

[Foxi4]

718 games is not something I would call limited! It's not that different from the 954 from xbox, or the 636 the gamecube had. Though yes, the PS2 had more: 2050 games.

Which is kind of odd, now I think of it. The thing was only available for 568 days...which means there was an average of 1.2 new games coming out EVERY FREAKING DAY. Now THAT is something I would say nintendoesn'tdo.

(unless I'm mistaken...did it really have that many games???)


EDIT: okay, wikipedia states 688 official games. But that's still over 1 new game a day...

A lot of those games were territorial exclusives. As far as I know, there were only 247 releases in the NTSC-U and 216 in PAL territories, the rest of the games were for the Japanese audience only - that's where the system "lived" the longest.

US Checklist
EU Checklist
Other US Releases (Magazine Discs etc.)

 

[assassinz]

The best Dreamcast games to me are the NAOMI and CPS2/CPS3 titles.

 

[Foxi4]

The best Dreamcast games to me are the NAOMI and CPS2/CPS3 titles.

A large portion of the library is definitely very arcade-oriented, that was SEGA's angle at the time and to be honest, it's not surprising considering the fact that they've been in the arcade business for ages, they're in it to this day and that's what they're good at. I think it makes the Dreamcast library especially unique, it offers an experience quite unlike anything else in its generation.

 

[codezer0]

It's also worth nothing that - even unofficially - Half Life on the Dreamcast looked better and played smoother than the official PS2 port of the game. Its version of Q3A could even communicate and play against PC players, which none of the console makers would dare do since.

 

[Foxi4]

It's also worth nothing that - even unofficially - Half Life on the Dreamcast looked better and played smoother than the official PS2 port of the game. Its version of Q3A could even communicate and play against PC players, which none of the console makers would dare do since.

I don't know if I can agree with that. The game was definitely looking great, but it was bug-ridden. Either that, or the several burns I made of the unofficial ISO were all corrupt for some reason, despite the fact that most of my other burns work fine. I agree with the Quake III Arena point though, it was a far superior port to that on the PlayStation 2 and it really showed that a console can support keyboards and mice and benefit from it. It's a shame that most game developers completely forget about including such support even though consoles have had USB ports for years now and they're almost all Bluetooth-compatible these days anyways.

 

[codezer0]

I don't know if I can agree with that. The game was definitely looking great, but it was bug-ridden. Either that, or the several burns I made of the unofficial ISO were all corrupt for some reason, despite the fact that most of my other burns work fine. I agree with the Quake III Arena point though, it was a far superior port to that on the PlayStation 2 and it really showed that a console can support keyboards and mice and benefit from it. It's a shame that most game developers completely forget about including such support even though consoles have had USB ports for years now and they're almost all Bluetooth-compatible these days anyways.

Yea, I can attest that at least my iso of Half Life for Dreamcast worked perfectly. Did a couple of full playthroughs and everything, including its then-supposed-to-be-exclusive Blue Shift Add-on.

UT also had key/mouse support as well.

I think 4x4 evo was one of the few really multiplatform at the time. If I remember right, it was able to allow cross-platform play between Dreamcast, PS2, Windows and Mac versions of the game.