# thaddius' Console Roast 2014 Edition - Round 8



## thaddius (Apr 10, 2014)

Welcome back to _thaddius’ Console Roast 2014 Edition_. For those of you who are not aware this is a poll where you, the GBATemp user, get to vote on what GBATemp thinks is the worst console ever is. For more information check out the Rules section below.

*Recap:*

Another decisive poll last week. And the winner is:





The Panasonic/Goldstar/Sanyo 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. Congratulations to Panasonic, Goldstar, and Sanyo! You’ve all been selected as having the worst console of the fifth generation. Maybe it was your horribly pixelated MPEG-1/VCD playback, or your bloated edutainment library, or even ‘games’ like _Dennis Miller’s: It’s News To Me_, but either way you sucked.

For more details about how the voting went you can check out last week’s thread here.

*Intro:*

Thanks for bearing with me in my week-long hiatus. My trip to Toronto was a bit more disruptive than I anticipated. But having a week off would make you think I'd spent the rest of the week making this week's poll extra nice. You'd be wrong if you thought that though...

Anyway, the sixth Generation of handhelds! Another Nintendo dominated generation. In fact, this is the generation that brought a bunch of us together to this very website. Our insatiable lust for GBA ROMs and what to do with them.

But first: Rules!

*Rules:*



Spoiler



There can only be one!

Each week I pit each console generation against itself to determine what the worst console of that generation was. Updates will hopefully be up every Thursday from now till the end.

We’re going to work our way up through consoles and handhelds until we reach the current generation. Once that’s all done, we’ll determine the worst console and the worst handheld. From there we choose the definitive GBATemp-approved WORST CONSOLE EVER.

Your only job, Mr. or Ms. GBATemper, is to cast your vote for what you think the worst of the generation is. Please try to do some research, watch some videos, maybe play a few of these games on a (completely legitimate) emulator, and you just might learn a little about the weird amorphous blob that is video game history. But I can't (and won't) keep you from just shooting from the uninformed hip. You're also encouraged to explain your choice in the form of a response to this topic. 

In the event of a tie, I (Sir thaddius prigg) will cast the deciding vote. It is my Roast after all...

The Generations are taken from Wikipedia as I've deemed that to be an appropriate neutral third party. I understand if you might have some concerns that I've put things in the wrong generation in your opinion, but I'm not too concerned about that. Generations are murky constructs at best and are based on arbitrary distinctions made by outsiders as post hoc rationalizations that don't mean anything to anyone anyway. Don't take any of this too seriously. I'm not going to change the polls based on your opinion of them.

Aggressive discussion is allowed, but please try to keep within the rules of the forums. Just try to have fun and don’t be a jerk, k?


Enough of that crap, time to get started!

*This Week's Challengers are:*

*The Neo Geo Pocket Color*




Following the Japanese success of the Neo Geo Pocket, SNK released their slight upgrade, the Neo Geo Pocket Color [sic].

This 16-bit handheld was heralded as being technically superior to the Game Boy Color as well as having a nice form factor. And that centering on the joystick? Superb!

Just like the original, the NGPC took two AA batteries as well as a CR2032 battery for saves and internal clock. And just as the NGP was forwards compatible with NGPC games, the NGPC was backwards compatible with NGP games, and in some cases added convincing colour (I don’t think we would have had it any other way).

It’s North American and European presence was stymied by the purchase of SNK by another company, but it was considered ‘successful’ in Japan in that it managed to sell units in the shadow of the Game Boy Advance launch.


*The Bandai SwanCrystal*




The WonderSwan was a rather impressive success in Japan. So much so that it warranted a revision in the form of a WonderSwan Color [sic] hot on it's heels. But the tech was getting a little sluggish and in hopes of competing with the Game Boy Advance Bandai released the SwanCrystal in 2002.

Sadly by this time the SwanCrystal had lost it’s edge as it’s price point was much closer to the Game Boy Advance’s. Additionally their partnership with Square that had spurred sales initially meant nothing once Square started making games for the GBA.

Once again the system enjoyed relative success in Japan, but this would be the last entry in the WonderSwan line.


*The Game Boy Advance*




A major problem with system releases is lack of quality games. This is especially difficult with modern Nintendo systems as their launch titles are primarily first party. Such was not the case for the Game Boy Advance though. 

Fantastic games aside, this system would be the beginning of Nintendo’s obsession with rapidly releasing different versions of the same console. The GBA, GBA SP, GB Micro, and the GBA SP2 (backlit) would all be released between 2001 and 2005. And Nintendo would get something wrong with each release. The original GBA had no built-in light (a common complaint) and required an auxiliary purchase to be able to use a plug-in adapter. The SP, while it boasted a rechargeable battery and front-lit screen, the front-light washed out colours, and somehow they forgot to include a headphone jack, which required another auxiliary purchase to have as a feature. The Micro was abandoned before we got any cool faceplates, the faceplate design meant you always had dust on the screen that couldn’t be wiped off without you worrying about damaging the screen, and (for form factor reasons) they dropped GB and GBC backwards compatibility - which not too many people were worried about. The SP2 did fix the screen issue of the original, but never addressed the lack headphone jack.

The lifespan of the GBA was also a bit distressing. The Nintendo DS was released ~4 years after the GBA. And while Nintendo claimed that it would continue to support the GBA as a ‘third pillar’ alongside the DS and GameCube, the success of the DS soon killed off the GBA as developers flocked to the DS. It’s short lifespan would not prevent a flood of games from being released for the system though.

The GBA would also see a marked increase in piracy. While piracy was nothing new to the industry, the rapid growth of the internet and increase of download speeds (combined with the small size of GBA games) meant that getting GBA ROMs was rather easy. And while flash carts and other technologies had existed before, there were a bunch of flash carts were released during the GBAs lifetime and were produced in such quantity that people are still buying and selling them successfully today.

I can’t see why anyone would vote for this console this round, but even the best of a generation has to have some issues, right?

*The GamePark GP32*




A little South Korean company known as Game Park decided to release a 32bit handheld known as the GamePark32 (how original). Just like the GBA there were a bunch of different models all with their own problems (most of them revolving around the screen and the type of lighting therein).

Being limited to a South Korean release, the Game Park was not able to have strong third party support, and it’s media of choice was Smart Media cards which some of you might remember as gigantic flat cards that held - at most - 128MB.

So why did thaddius put this on the list? These guys would be completely forgettable if not for one difference: they didn’t just license games for the system. In addition to commercial games they encouraged people to program their own!

On paper this seems like a great idea. They hoped programmers would wet themselves at the idea of an open platform, and a bunch of programmers took the bait. In practise however this meant that most if the software for this system was either emulators or ports of Linux.

Due to it only being officially released in South Korea it quickly faded from the public consciousness elsewhere, but their initial success would not only spur other 'open' handhelds, but it would help them with future projects as well…


*The Tapwave Zodiac*




In the late-90s and early 2000s there was no such thing as a smart phone. Instead some people used Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) or PalmTop Computers. These were small touchscreen based computers that had organizers, calendars, memo programs, text reader/editors, etc.

Tapwave, somehow not seeing that the PDA market was in decline, released the Zodiac to a cool reception. It was released just before the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable so most people decided to pass on the $300 no-name console.

Due to poor sales is was taken from shelves in 2005 and the company sold all of it’s assets and no longer exists.

Also, Tapwave? WTF.


*The Nokia N-Gage*




Maker of fine, completely indestructible phones, Nokia, decided to enter into the video game market with an all-in-one device of their own. It would combine the rugged durability and telecommunications capabilities of a Nokia phone with the crappiness that is non-Nintendo handheld gaming. And thus the Nokia N-Gage was born!

In their infinite wisdom they decided to use MMC cards (predecessor to SD cards) to house their games, which made piracy a breeze. They also opted for a portrait orientation for the screen, which by today’s phone standards might be fine, but trying to play games like Splinter Cell and Tomb Raider on a tiny portrait screen was not seen as a plus.

They did include an FM radio and Bluetooth capabilities, but removed them from it’s successor, the N-Gage QD.

As far as phones go it was apparently nothing special (although people lampooned the ‘side-talking’ as well as the ‘taco’ shape of the phone). And while it did have online multiplayer for some games it was allegedly painfully slow. The games were also rather terrible and button presses were not as responsive as one would expect.

Nokia would later turn the N-Gage name into their phones’ gaming platform, similar to Sony’s Playstation Mobile platform, and drop production on dedicated gaming phones altogether.


*Outro:*


And there you have it, folks. Another generation down, another generation closer to finding out who the worst is.

It's too bad this generation has so many entries. I would have loved to talk about the Pokemon Mini and it's strange existence.

Anywho, happy voting! See you in the comments!

*Current Standings:*



Spoiler


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## BlackWizzard17 (Apr 10, 2014)

Every thing crept game boy,


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## Gahars (Apr 10, 2014)

In the words of Captain Jean Luc Picard, "N-Gage!"


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## calmwaters (Apr 10, 2014)

I don't know. All of these enjoyed success in Japan, where people love handhelds (Streetpass). I admit the best GameBoy Advance was the SP: flip screen, back light, built-in adapter. Plus one of the largest game libraries. I think I'll go for the GamePark; it sounds like it was the least successful. And I've also heard about the Pokemon Mini - the epitome of Pokemania. Seriously, guys?


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## Attila13 (Apr 10, 2014)

Send all nuclear bombs on me, but I rather enjoyed the N-Gage and am a bit surprised that it's way ahead of the others, so you can kill me now. Call me what you want, but this is my opinion. 



Spoiler: For DinohScene



Will you mention the Dual D-Pad again?


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## Foxi4 (Apr 10, 2014)

I ain't got nothin' - all of those systems have huge good qualities to them:

Neo Geo Pocket Color is the exact same good 'ol SNK machine, except with a far superior display. The fantastic 8-way microswitch joypad is still there, the form factor remains unchanged and the library is sizable - good system.
Bandai WonderSwan Crystal is very much the same deal - it's the exact same handheld except in colour, and that's great.
GamePark32? Underrated. I remember this thing trying to seriously compete with the GBA, it had its own newspaper ads back in the day. It was the perfect marriage between a high-end game system with licenses for established developers and a homebrew machine for those passionate enough. It's a shame that it failed to meet the recognition it deserved.
GBA is legendary, there's just no question about it. A lot of people say that it's a _"portable SNES"_, but it's so, so much more than that. The form factor of the original is brilliant too. I have only good memories connected with the system and if the original was backlit or at least frontlit, it'd probably be the best handheld of all time.
Tapwave Zodiac was... misunderstood. It's another one of those powerful machines that tried to be a marriage between a palmtop and a video game system, and I can only wish that it was met with more praise. It was pretty high-end for its time, it had a touch screen that _actually worked_ as opposed to the Game.Com and it ran a PalmOS distro, so that's a lot of functionality out of the box right there.
The N-Gage _was the f*cking bomb_ when it comes to smartphones at the time. Sure, it had no camera, but who cares about that when it had video game controls? Contrary to popular opinion, you didn't have to hold it like a taco to actually use it - holding it normally worked just fine. Like the GP32 and the Zodiac, this was a powerhouse when compared to the GBA and could rival the DS. That paired with online multiplayer? And a Symbian distribution? Sign me in! Its only downsides I can think of was a lack of shoulder buttons and the portrait screen, I have a lot of good memories with this one and I'll have to buy another some time - my old system was unfortunately stolen.


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## Veho (Apr 10, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> The N-Gage [...] Contrary to popular opinion, you didn't have to hold it like a taco to actually use it - holding it normally worked just fine. [...] Its only downsides I can think of was a lack of shoulder buttons and the portrait screen


You must be thinking of the N-Gage QD, the revision. The original N-Gage you _had_ to hold like a taco (or watermelon slice) because the speaker was on the side. And if you had the original N-Gage, there's no way you could have forgotten that in order to change the game, you had to _open the phone and remove the battery_. Yeah.


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## Foxi4 (Apr 10, 2014)

I had the classic and held it normally. The speaker hole was on the side, yes, but you could still hold it normally and hear it. The MMC placement was stupid, but I had a 512MB one with all my games () so it never bothered me. The QD was meh - no native MP3 support and mono sound are not my cup of tea - taco master race.


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## mightymuffy (Apr 10, 2014)

I actually FOUND my N-Gage - handed it in to the police, but no one claimed so got it after a month... if that's not proof enough (whoever 'lost' it clearly had enough of the POS) of how bad it was, my continued attempts at getting into it were futile (hey, another [vague] Star Trek TNG ref!). And I LOVE handheld machines, but nah, sorry Foxi4 but it was a steaming owd load of shite!


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## Foxi4 (Apr 10, 2014)

Sure - if you say so. In the meantime I will fondly remember Tomb Rider, System Rush, Warhammer 40K: Glory in Death, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Pathway to Glory, Asphalt back when it was good, Call of Duty and other excellent official and unofficial games, most in 3D while the GBA crowd wallowed in 90'ies-level 2D. ;O; Actually, I remember emulating the GBA on the N-Gage, which only goes to show how much more advanced it was in comparison.


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## DinohScene (Apr 10, 2014)

I used to have an Ngage.
I fucking hated that thing yet I loved it.

Seeing the games where incredibly bad, I chose you Ngage...
The worst handheld ever.


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## Attila13 (Apr 10, 2014)

DinohScene said:


> I used to have an Ngage.
> I fucking hated that thing yet I loved it.
> 
> Seeing the games where incredibly bad, I chose you Ngage...
> The worst handheld ever.


 
Son I'm disappoint ... Was waiting for another reply which I mentioned in my post earlier...


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## DinohScene (Apr 10, 2014)

Attila13 said:


> Son I'm disappoint ... Was waiting for another reply which I mentioned in my post earlier...


 
The double Dpad indeed is off, but seeing I hated the Ngage so much and strangely, loved it so much that I just had to pick it.


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## Foxi4 (Apr 10, 2014)

Sometimes I feel like I played on a completely different system or had some godlike access to good games on it since the N-Gage is one of the many cases of hardware that I found great and everybody else invariably hates. I am compelled to educate the Temp about all the good gaems for it almost immediately, even though I don't like the whole _"List Wars"_ game.



Spoiler: Tomb Raider









Spoiler: Splinter Cell Chaos Theory









Spoiler: Red Faction









Spoiler: System Rush









Spoiler: Call of Duty









Spoiler: Pathway to Glory









Spoiler: Pathway to Glory Ikusa Islands









Spoiler: SSX Out of Bounds









Spoiler: Tony Hawk Pro Skater









Spoiler: Worms World Party









Spoiler: Asphalt Urban GT 2



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv1zz9llZUA





Spoiler: Requiem of Hell



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4tfehxNvdE





Spoiler: High Seize



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zaa7gPCtLI





Spoiler: Ghost Recon Jungle Storm



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDXQOyeO69U





Spoiler: The Elder Scrolls Shadowkey



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiZOMJwUQ9k


...and more. Now, I have to apologize for the quality of the videos above as apparently at the time Youtube dealt exclusively with potato-level quality, but c'mon - _"you couldn't do this on Nintendo"_. I'll be the first one to admit that the system has f*ck-all official releases because it bombed big time, but certainly not as badly as some of the other contenders and to say that it has no good gaems in its library is blasphemy - anything that has Tomb Rider, Tony Hawk and Worms is a winner from the get-go in my book.


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## tbgtbg (Apr 11, 2014)

You bought an N-Gage, didn't you?

(ps, there's no reason to put [sic] after "color")


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## thaddius (Apr 11, 2014)

There is when you spell if colour normally.


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## techboy (Apr 11, 2014)

Interesting list this time.

I'm surprised to see TapWave here. I know a lot of gamers, and all of them have never heard of it. I knew about it before this only because I'd seen the wikipedia page on it. It's a Palm PDA with extra sound and graphics hardware bolted on. It may have had potential, but the fact that it was made by a no-name company, its hardware was underwhelmingm and everything else was essentially a rehash of a Palm PDA makes you wonder what they were thinking, especially with the DS around the corner. On the upside, it was backwards compatible with most Palm OS apps.

N-gage left a lot to be desired, from games to form-factor to just about everything else. Apparently there are people who still like this one though, so it wasn't a complete flop.

SwanCrystal...I guess it's to a WonderSwan what a GBC is to a GB. Specs didn't exactly keep up with the times on it from what I understand, and the fact they never bothered to really market this or its predecessor outside Japan limited its fanbase.

GBA...this was a success despite what some say. Yes the first one left a lot to be desired (no backlight, ate batteries, etc.) but the later SP version fixed most of them. It's still rather widely used and supported. That can't be said for the others in this list. Everyone complains about lack of games for it, but the first party titles alone gave hours upon hours of play, especially Pokemon. There were others that I spent a lot of time with too, like SA2 and a Yugi-Oh game.

GamePark would probably have done better had it been marketed more widely, but then being an open platform also means that what happened to it is what would be expected...Linux ports and emulators so you don't need to buy games.

No comments on the NGPC.

Vote goes to N-gage for that horrible form-factor and terrible games.


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## Veho (Apr 11, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> I had the classic and held it normally. The speaker hole was on the side, yes, but you could still hold it normally and hear it.


You can also hold earbuds at an arm's length and hear them, but that's just wrong.  

I concede on the memory card thing, if you kept all your games on one card instead of on the (official) individual game cards (  ) it wasn't as wildly impractical as how Nokia originally envisioned it. Yet another case where piracy digital downloads (  )  beats legitimate ownership at ease of use. 





Foxi4 said:


> the N-Gage is one of the many cases of hardware that I found great and everybody else invariably hates.


*cough*Vita*cough*   ;O;


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## Taleweaver (Apr 11, 2014)

I voted for the zodiac. Strange...if I do this by the numbers, it's not as hard as a vote as I first thought.

The neo geo pocket, swan crystal and gameboy advance just seem like solid handhelds. They clearly built upon tried-and-true concepts, and that's good (though I've got to mention that not all neo geo pockets look as if they've spent some time on the bottom of the sea  ).
The gamepark...am I wrong in saying it's the first open handheld? Of course emulators don't make up for a lack of games, but with innovation in this field, I can't really vote it the worst.

And the n-gage...it honestly doesn't surprise me it's leading the poll. The user comments on that are almost legendary. But I want to stress out that mobile phones were on a steady rise in that time, and when compared to those things, it's pretty much beyond comparing (on other phones, you were lucky if the thing played snakes). It's hard to overlook the small screen or clunky controls, but damnit...it did what smartphones would be doing much later...as a by-product. Or in another way: I consider the N-Gage as the spiritual predecessor of my trusty xperia play. And that's why I can't vote for it.

Besides...what's with the tapwave? By the sounds of it, it was bad technology (PDA's were never popular with gamers) with little to no games and released in a bad time (near the DS). I admit it looks slick...but that's about it.


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## Foxi4 (Apr 11, 2014)

I find it pretty bizzare that the N-Gage which was a mainstream device leads the poll with so much overhead while the Tapwave which ironically failed to tap into any market whatsoever gets a free pass. Then again, maybe that's precisely the reason? Maybe the N-Gage's failure is magnified by the fact that Nokia was so huge at the time?

I still haven't made my vote nor have I chosen the angle for the decision, but I'm beginning to think that it just might be the N-Gage, despite all the things it did so well. Hmph... Still stumped.


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## anhminh (Apr 11, 2014)

When I see the GamePark, I almost thought it was a Wii U game pad


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## Hadrian (Apr 11, 2014)

Zodiac was total crap. Ngage was...well for me had some really good gems on it but the controls and screen ruined it. Still have mine now (QD version) for those gems and some of those great s60 games played well on this device. It was quite a capable device, while it debuted around the same time as GBA it played host to some nice PSX ports, I mean they played like crap with the controls but later on devs were able to work around them. Pathway is still awesome to play.

These polls do tend to be voted mainly by those who haven't experienced some of the platforms so just seem to go for the bigger named flop.


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## cdoty (Apr 11, 2014)

These polls seem to be either "there's too many to choose from" or "if I really have to pick one" type scenarios.

In this case it's the SwanCrystal, which was black and white at a time when everything else was color.



Hadrian said:


> Zodiac was total crap.


 
What was so bad about the Zodiac?

It was a super powerful system (200 mhz ARM9 vs GBA 16 mhz ARM7 or even the DS 66 mhz ARM9) with decent controls; it was the first PDA that got gaming right. And, it had the top PDA operating system of it's time. Pocket PC wasn't bad, but it didn't really fit the PDA market as well as Palm did.

It was probably the first PDA that was powerful enough to run fairly high end emulators (Neo Geo and MAME).


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## codezer0 (Apr 12, 2014)

I myself voted for the Zodiac in large part _because_ it did so poorly, that it couldn't even get into the US market.

But then, the N-gage did practically become an internet meme for how bad it was. About as bad as the legendary power glove tagline from _The Wizard_.


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## Mariko (Apr 12, 2014)

I know this is about the worst handheld devices, but even with that in mind, you could try getting your facts straight. Also, have you ever held or played the N-Gage?



thaddius said:


> In their infinite wisdom they decided to use MMC cards (predecessor to SD cards) to house their games, which made piracy a breeze.



That's like saying CDs, DVDs, or any other type of optical media is a bad choice, because it makes piracy a breeze. There is no Nintendo console without a custom medium, yet, they've all been pirated. It's the type of protection, not the choice of medium that's important. N-Gage games are encrypted. You can't simply make a game image and copy it to another MMC card.



> They did include an FM radio and Bluetooth capabilities, but removed them from it’s successor, the N-Gage QD.



N-Gage QD still had Bluetooth. In fact, since the USB port was removed, it was the only means of communication with Nokia's Connectivity Suite. Also, QD had mono sound.



> As far as phones go it was apparently nothing special (although people lampooned the ‘side-talking’ as well as the ‘taco’ shape of the phone).



It was a highly capable Symbian smartphone. Side-talking and picking the phone apart to change games was remedied with the QD. Also, aside from all of the N-Gage titles, there were hundreds of Symbian games and applications which N-Gage could run, including emulators (GameBoy, MegaDrive, ScummVM and others). Due to its failure and rapid price drop, it was, hands down, the best smartphone you could get (as far as cost vs capability is concerned).



> And while it did have online multiplayer for some games it was allegedly painfully slow.



It wasn't. In fact, N-Gage Arena was really decent, especially for its time. Not only could you play games, but there were trailers and demos, much like any online store or service of today. In many aspects, N-Gage was ahead of its time, and many things it did, it did really well.



> The games were also rather terrible



Oh? Which ones? Many of them were really good. In fact, people would sometimes be outright jealous when they saw how good some of the games look, while all they could play on their phones were crappy Java games, or low end Symbian games. Check it, hombre:

Asphalt 2
Tomb Raider
Rayman 3
Tony Hawk
Colin McRae
Glimmerati
Pandemonium
System Rush

And to name a few good games that were made for Symbian and worked great on N-Gage:

Skyforce Reloaded
Super Miners
K-Rally (Karnaaj Rally on GBA, infamous for its cover)

There were tons of good Symbian games, though it's not easy looking up screens or videos today. Games by Fathammer and Infinite Dreams had quality written all over them. Aside from Symbian games (which were both N-Gage games, and regular SIS package games), N-Gage could run J2ME games. Quality of those was much lower, but there were more than a few half-decent titles, like Raiden.



> and button presses were not as responsive as one would expect.



They were OK. They just had this clickyness to them. Anyway, N-Gage wasn't half as bad as people who never held it make it out to be.



			
				Foxi4 said:
			
		

> I'm beginning to think that it just might be the N-Gage



Don't you dare ...


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## Veho (Apr 12, 2014)

Mariko said:


> That's like saying CDs, DVDs, or any other type of optical media is a bad choice, because it makes piracy a breeze. There is no Nintendo console without a custom medium, yet, they've all been pirated.



But it wasn't exactly a breeze. How much did GBA flashcards cost at the time?


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## Mariko (Apr 12, 2014)

Veho said:


> But it wasn't exactly a breeze. How much did GBA flashcards cost at the time?



That's beside the point. I only meant to point out that custom medium does not prevent piracy. Author of this thread implied, that using MMC cards for N-Gage games made pirating them extremely easy, and that's simply not true. Games had to be cracked, and there were no publicly available tools to automate the process. It's much like cracked Steam releases. It's "just" files, but it takes some skill and know-how to overcome the DRM protection. You could just as well say that companies that released Symbian games as SIS packages locked to a single IMEI number made piracy easy, because they didn't choose to release their games on some fancy-shmancy cartridge. Sure, most of those games got keygenned, but how many people can analyze Symbian crypto and write a PC program to duplicate the algorithm for all of the pirating dorks to use? Piracy is easy only when you're the one downloading cracked releases.


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## Foxi4 (Apr 12, 2014)

Another day passes and I still don't know what to vote for, partially because I literally want to own all of those devices. They all did something right, as I wrote on the first page... so it's really a matter of grading _"which one failed the most"_ given the circumstances. It's not like my vote will change anything, but I still want to stay true to my own colours and be objective about this... I might end up not participating this time around. 

Okay, time to get real...

The GP32 flopped big time, but it came from a no-name company from Hong Kong, it's their only handheld before they split into two separate ventures _(the one that survived gave us the GP2X line, so hey!)_ and it's actually not that bad hardware-wise, not to mention homebrew right out of the box.

The Tapwave Zodiac came from a slightly bigger company, but it was still niche as all hell. People often praise PalmOS, I'm personally more of a Windows Mobile/CE guy, but this was still a major advantage, plus the hardware was pretty good for the time.

And then the N-Gage... it's definitely the biggest venture out of them all, it has a great mobile OS, it has specs good enough to keep it going and even though the library is rather small, it has some great games... shame that the controls on this thing are crap and the screen is portrait instead of landscape.

Ehh... This continues to be a tough one for me.


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## Mariko (Apr 12, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> Another day passes and I still don't know what to vote for,  so it's really a matter of grading _"which one failed the most"_ given the circumstances.



Would whispering "Tapwave Zodiac" into your ear help with the decision? For all intents and purposes, this was the system that failed the most. Many aren't even aware of its existence, and that should tell you a thing or two. N-Gage was widely available and achieved at least some level of market penetration. To me, this is a no-brainer, really. Not that I have anything against the console itself.


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## Foxi4 (Apr 12, 2014)

Mariko said:


> Would whispering "Tapwave Zodiac" into your ear help with the decision? For all intents and purposes, this was the system that failed the most. Many aren't even aware of its existence, and that should tell you a thing or two. N-Gage was widely available and achieved at least some level of market penetration. To me, this is a no-brainer, really. Not that I have anything against the console itself.


Here's the thing - the N-Gage indeed saw a bigger market success, but at a bigger expense as well. Tapwave was a PalmOS no-name small company, it just wasn't from Hong Kong. I don't think games for this thing were available in Gamestop and I don't think it was widely marketed. The N-Gage on the other hand was marketed relatively well in my opinion and its games were in actual game stores... so the scene of abject failure is visible in both cases. You are correct though, the Zodiac failed much worse - I'm just cutting it some slack because it wasn't a big name system. Similarly in the last vote I voted against the Atari Jaguar not because it was necessarily because it was the worst out of the bunch, rather because Atari used to mean quality console gaming and the Jaguar failed irredeemably at that core objective. I'm still tilting my head between the N-Gage and the Zodiac now - one failed worse financially, but that's partially the fact because it was a no-name and one failed in the design department and came from one of the biggest companies in the industry at the time.


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## Veho (Apr 12, 2014)

Mariko said:


> Author of this thread implied, that using MMC cards for N-Gage games made pirating them extremely easy, and that's simply not true. Games had to be cracked, and there were no publicly available tools to automate the process. It's much like cracked Steam releases. It's "just" files, but it takes some skill and know-how to overcome the DRM protection. You could just as well say that companies that released Symbian games as SIS packages locked to a single IMEI number made piracy easy, because they didn't choose to release their games on some fancy-shmancy cartridge. Sure, most of those games got keygenned, but how many people can analyze Symbian crypto and write a PC program to duplicate the algorithm for all of the pirating dorks to use? Piracy is easy only when you're the one downloading cracked releases.


GBA games had to be dumped, you had to analyze ROMs for the latest AP measures, develop ways to patch around them, and it takes some skill too. Not to mention reverse engineering the GBA and the cartridges and designing the flashcard. But that's beside the point. Someone did that, just like someone cracked the encryption on Symbian games. What it comes down to is what's more complicated for the end user (i.e. pirating dork): setting up a GBA flashcard of the time (remember the ROM patching, flash linkers, extremely expensive flashcards, _serial ports_?) to play the ROM, or just dragging and dropping the game files onto a memory card?


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## thaddius (Apr 12, 2014)

Mariko said:


> Author of this thread implied, that using MMC cards for N-Gage games made pirating them extremely easy, and that's simply not true. Games had to be cracked, and there were no publicly available tools to automate the process. [...] it takes some skill and know-how to overcome the DRM protection. N-Gage games are encrypted. [...] You can't simply make a game image and copy it to another MMC card.


You're talking about something I wasn't. As an N-Gage QD owner I can tell you that all I had to do was download games and put them on an MMC card that cost me $10 off eBay. I was arguing that that's a relatively easy process.

It honestly hadn't occurred to me that people would think I was referring to the people who cracked the games. I guess we both made assumptions we shouldn't have.


Mariko said:


> Many [games] were really good.


I'm actually glad you enjoyed 8 games from the N-Gage's library of 58 released titles. That's way more than I did. I liked Pocket Kingdom and Elder Scrolls Travels and after trying them out a year or so ago I realized they had not aged well at all. Sadly though, I'm not going to change my post because a one person liked 8 of their games. You should know that people don't really read my posts before (or even sometimes after) voting so the original post and this discussion probably won't sway anyone either way.


Mariko said:


> [The N-Gage's online multiplayer] wasn't [painfully slow]. In fact, N-Gage Arena was really decent, especially for its time.


Perhaps Antarctica had a better telecommunications service than the US at the time? That's the only thing that could explain my _painfully slow_ experiences with it.

And if you like the buttons and think that the N-Gage made better phone calls than any other phone on the market at the time, that's great. I don't necessarily agree/care.


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## Mariko (Apr 12, 2014)

Veho said:


> What it comes down to is what's more complicated for the end user (i.e. pirating dork): setting up a GBA flashcard of the time (remember the ROM patching, flash linkers, extremely expensive flashcards, _serial ports_?) to play the ROM, or just dragging and dropping the game files onto a memory card?



I'm not arguing against your points. I'm arguing against the original statement, that Nokia's choice of medium made it extremely easy to pirate. N-Gage was, after all, a smartphone. MMC cards weren't supported for games' sake alone. You were supposed to be able to use that extended memory to install other Symbian applications. Edit - Well, looks like the author of this poll meant downloading games and putting them on his MMC card. The way his MMC remark was originally phrased could be interpreted either way, but hey, now we've cleared that up, so happy days.



			
				thaddius said:
			
		

> I'm actually glad you enjoyed 8 games from the N-Gage's library of 58 released titles. That's way more than I did.  I'm not going to change my post because a one person liked 8 of their games. You should know that people don't really read my posts before (or even sometimes after) voting so the original post and this discussion probably won't sway anyone either way.



Did you want me to list all of the games I liked, both N-Gage and Symbian? I was trying to make a point that games for the N-Gage weren't universally terrible. In fact, the good ones tip the scales in N-Gage's favor. This is highly subjective, of course, so maybe I shouldn't have brought it up in the first place. Contrary to what you might think, I'm not trying to sway anyone. Still, I do think it's unfair that the N-Gage gets the votes, because you know as well as I do that most of them are caused by stereotyping and all of those top tens, in which N-Gage is often labeled as the worst handheld ever made.

Anyway, you don't have to change your post because I liked some games, but QD does have Bluetooth, so you should at least correct that. I don't think the N-Gage made better calls than other comparable phones of the time, but were we even talking about this? Also, I didn't write my comment to argue with you or anyone else, so there's no need to be sarcastic. Lastly, I'm sorry that playing all those free games didn't do it for you. Whoops! There goes no sarcasm!


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## thaddius (Apr 12, 2014)

I'm never sarcastic.


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## Sterling (Apr 13, 2014)

Foxi4: If you had to choose, I'd suggest the GamePark32. At the time, it was a great idea, something new and never before seen. An open console would never have taken off in the long run due to the hot button topic of piracy.

The tapwave may have failed to reach its target market, but according to the articles, it actually had decent hardware and functionality. If it had been marketed as a PDA with games, it might have taken off.

Of the two, they were both failures, but for different reasons. One was due improper advertising, the other because the idea was young and uncertain.


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## Westside (Apr 14, 2014)

1. Come to a Nintendo fanboy forum.
2. Vote GBA as the shittiest handheld.
3. Massive Trolling.
4. ???
5. Profit.


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## cracker (Apr 15, 2014)

I had to go for the N-Gage due to the crappy controls, crappy library, portrait screen, need of dismantling the unit to swap games, etc.

The Zodiac has some interesting hardware. Despite it running on Palm OS, it is pretty capable for emulation needs.

I just have to say shame on the people who picked the GP32. It is a classic emulationer's dream! Wish I had one -- or a GP2X!


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## Foxi4 (Apr 15, 2014)

Westside said:


> 1. Come to a Nintendo fanboy forum.
> 2. Vote GBA as the shittiest handheld.
> 3. Massive Trolling.
> 4. ???
> 5. Profit.


If you look at the specs of each system and judge them by that and that alone, the GBA's standing is at best shaky.


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## Westside (Apr 15, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> If you look at the specs of each system and judge them by that and that alone, the GBA's standing is at best shaky.


If you are talking about the specs alone then yeah, but Nintendo manages to popularize their handheld through awesome games. I haven't touched my 3d function on the 3ds since I bought it, but I love the games on that system, that alone makes it worth it for me.  Although I do feel extra $$$ was wasted for gimmicks.


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## SmokeFox (Apr 15, 2014)

I guess that the original GBA was not so cool, it was really dark, but the games were cool, and kept coming. For me the worst ever is the N-cage, what is that suppose to mean??


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## Foxi4 (Apr 15, 2014)

Westside said:


> If you are talking about the specs alone then yeah, but Nintendo manages to popularize their handheld through awesome games. I haven't touched my 3d function on the 3ds since I bought it, but I love the games on that system, that alone makes it worth it for me. Although I do feel extra $$$ was wasted for gimmicks.


I think it's a combination of affordability, good design and broad support, not just Nintendo games _(unless by "popularizing through games" you also meant third-party ones, in which case sure - agreed)_.


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## Psionic Roshambo (Apr 15, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> I think it's a combination of affordability, good design and broad support, not just Nintendo games _(unless by "popularizing through games" you also meant third-party ones, in which case sure - agreed)_.


 
I voted for the N-gage, not because the hardware was bad because it wasn't. Not for the whole Side Talking thing (although I did find that pretty funny.) 

The reason I voted for it, was considering how heavily marketed it was, the thing was a massive flop... Nokia did several price drops and in the end was selling them for like 50 bucks. Launching at $300 it was more expensive at the time than a Playstation 2.  

Not to mention that comparing the N-Gage to the GBA was pretty weird. The DS was released about 1 year after the N-Gage so the GBA was pretty much at the end of it's life at the time the N-Gage launched. 

http://www.sidetalkin.com/page-1.html   <----- This page is what was funny about the whole side talkin thing lol


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## Vipera (Apr 15, 2014)

GBA and N-Gage were both awful. Then SP and QD came out, and it was great.
I wish the Swancrystal had the same treatment. Sorry Bandai.


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## Foxi4 (Apr 15, 2014)

Vipera said:


> GBA and N-Gage were both awful. Then SP and QD came out, and it was great.
> I wish the Swancrystal had the same treatment. Sorry Bandai.


I disagree so strongly it's not even funny, the classic GBA was so, so much more comfortable! The GBA SP was way too small for me - it would be much nicer if it was wider. The original GBA's only flaw was the lack of a backlight.


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## Vipera (Apr 15, 2014)

Foxi4 said:


> I disagree so strongly it's not even funny, the classic GBA was so, so much more comfortable! The GBA SP was way too small for me - it would be much nicer if it was wider. The original GBA's only flaw was the lack of a backlight.


That flaw alone made games unplayable to me. The original Game Boy was fine because you didn't have as many colors. Try playing games like Aria of Sorrow and good luck... same thing with the Swancrystal, but they never did a backlit version. No one can possibly play any full-color game at home without any light (unless it's VERY sunny and you have all of your windows open). And besides, I've always thought that, to fully enjoy a game, you have to AT LEAST understand what you are looking at.


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## Foxi4 (Apr 15, 2014)

Vipera said:


> That flaw alone made games unplayable to me. The original Game Boy was fine because you didn't have as many colors. Try playing games like Aria of Sorrow and good luck... same thing with the Swancrystal, but they never did a backlit version. No one can possibly play any full-color game at home without any light (unless it's VERY sunny and you have all of your windows open). And besides, I've always thought that, to fully enjoy a game, you have to AT LEAST understand what you are looking at.


After years of playing on the GBC it didn't bother me at all - backlit screens weren't the norm back then. The actual controls were far more comfortable than when I used the SP, and being able to control the game is just as important as being able to see it. Perhaps if the Classic and the SP had a baby, it would be an ideal system.


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## cracker (Apr 15, 2014)

It wasn't a perfect solution because you still had the old LCD tech, but there was the Afterburner kit that could be installed into the original GBA to illuminate the screen.

At least there is the DS/Lite to play GBA on with nice backlighting and comfy controls. Too bad the GB/C hardware wasn't included.


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## Foxi4 (Apr 15, 2014)

cracker said:


> It wasn't a perfect solution because you still had the old LCD tech, but there was the Afterburner kit that could be installed into the original GBA to illuminate the screen.
> 
> At least there is the DS/Lite to play GBA on with nice backlighting and comfy controls. Too bad the GB/C hardware wasn't included.


I agree, a DS/Lite is probably the best way to enjoy GBA games - comfortable controls and a backlit screen in one package is the way to go for me.


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