# What was something you REALLY didn't like about older consoles but no one seems to mind that much?



## 330 (Feb 9, 2018)

Mine would be having the PS2 with only two controller ports instead of 4 like Nintendo consoles. You had to buy an additional peripheral to let other 2 people play.

Another thing would be the Game Boy's red LED to indicate power. It was never clear to me. I saw no difference from the batteries being half-empty to 5 minutes before the console would shut down. The first GBA was a load of bullshit for many reasons but they got the new way to measure battery life right.


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## Deleted User (Feb 9, 2018)

Buying a memory card, I guess. For the longest time, I couldn't save my game at all on my PS2 because I didn't have a Memory Card. It took a while before my parents decided to buy me one.


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## supergamer368 (Feb 9, 2018)

If you forgot to plug a controller into the n64 before turning it on, you had to turn it off to plug one in. But if it comes out during gameplay, you can just pop it back in fine!


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## migles (Feb 9, 2018)

330 said:


> Mine would be having the PS2 with only two controller ports instead of 4 like Nintendo consoles. You had to buy an additional peripheral to let other 2 people play.


suits the title perfectly XD i never played a game more than 2 players, and i didn't mind at all only have 2 ports


330 said:


> I saw no difference from the batteries being half-empty to 5 minutes before the console would shut down.


my gbc led would really dim when the battery was running low
however i believe this only worked with non rechargeable batteries, devices usually have a hard time figuring out rechargeable batteries charge due to the way they work, interesting article here, can't say for sure if its totally accurate\correct cuz i ain't technician: https://michaelbluejay.com/batteries/rechargeable.html

btw to the topic
what i didn't enjoyed about old consoles, the fact you needed a separate link cable not supplied when you purchased the game boy :C
my parents where "video games are evil, you shouldn't play with theese machines" kind of parents, therefore, i only got the link cable plenty of years later, and so many ocasions i wish someone in the school had the cable


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## Yepi69 (Feb 9, 2018)

PS2 DVD lasers scratching my brand new games.


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## Deleted User (Feb 9, 2018)

Yepi69 said:


> PS2 DVD lasers scratching my brand new games.


Actually, come to think of it, a lot of us have problems with the PS2's design in some form or another.  That system has had 3 examples so far.


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## Psionic Roshambo (Feb 9, 2018)

Static on the screen, any sort of interference.... Other people are like "It looks fine, it's just a few random white dots?" I cannot stand that shit, or static in the sound...  

Thankfully with HDMI it's all gone, clear and clean the way it should be


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## THEELEMENTKH (Feb 9, 2018)

-PS1 and PS2 (and NES and SNES too) need an adapter to play games with 3, 4 or more players
-Memory Cards on PS1 and PS2, once you somehow lose it you lose your saves and you can no longer save
-(Does PS3 count as an old console nowadays?) The fact that you need to use a DualShock 3 or Sixaxis controller to play PS2 titles on PS3, because USB controllers don't work and PS4 controllers makes the PS3 crash (if wireless)
-The original GBA and DS design, clunky.


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## sarkwalvein (Feb 9, 2018)

B_E_P_I_S_M_A_N said:


> Buying a memory card, I guess. For the longest time, I couldn't save my game at all on my PS2 because I didn't have a Memory Card. It took a while before my parents decided to buy me one.


This. I don't know how many times did I replay the first 5 hours of Wild Arms, until I finally got hold of a memory card.

What else...

From back when I was a kid, the not really hand friendly square borders of my Famicom controller... The fact that the controllers 
were attached to the console. How could people put up with that?

The ridiculous dark non backlit screen of the GBA (but sure I'm not the only one).

The PoS original PS1 drive mechanism, where the center with metallic balls that held the CD in started to fall apart on its own.

How fucking loud the PS4 gets. Hell, I think I would shot it if I was not using noise cancelling headphones. Oh wait, that is not an older console.

How slow Sonic ran on my Megadrive, yeah I see some people are bothered by that today, but back in the day it didn't seem so.

The Mode button on the Sega Megadrive. Meeeeh.

The damn scanlines on the PSP-3000 (not so strong but also present in the other models). That shit drove me crazy.

The weird way the LCD on the DS Lite worked, I don't know how to explain this, but if you set it to brightness zero, it all looked right (albeit very dim), if you set it brighter, it is like black still looked kind of black, but then very dark grey now looked like light gray, and light gray also looked like light gray, and it all looked weird.

The idiotic fuse on the X360 wireless PC receiver that had no reason to exist, blew up often requiring you to solder a cable over it, what again means there was no reason for it to exist. Oh wait, not sure if this is PC or console related.

The classic ATARI2600 standard controller, what can I say, that stupid stick thingy left my hands full of calluses. It was uncomfortable, it didn't respond well, sure the alternative controllers were better.


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## FAST6191 (Feb 9, 2018)

Why bump a general discussion type thing after a few hours?

"You had to buy an additional peripheral to let other 2 people play."
For all three games that supported it?
Also the four controllers thing appeared again* on the N64, well into gaming's existence/being big. Multitap (or indeed game carts with ports on them) had been around for a long time before then.
*between arcades and the Atari 5200 I am not sure what I want to call first/standard.

Anyway nothing really. Plenty of stuff I disliked at the time others also disliked. Most of my issues are with odd takes on history -- I still don't know where people got to thinking Sonic Adventure was good from. Several things have since aged very poorly and we have gained a small handful of new annoyances but for the question of the OP... nope, got nothing really.


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## KiiWii (Feb 9, 2018)

Controller connector port pins bending or snapping off in those older 8-16bit consoles.

For me it was a guaranteed write off. For my older mates who could get it fixed it was no issue


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## GameSystem (Feb 9, 2018)

OG XBOX needing Live Gold to play online. Set the rest of the future up for failure.


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## 330 (Feb 9, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Why bump a general discussion type thing after a few hours?


I am not a patient man.

But I won't do it next time. Sorry.


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Feb 9, 2018)

The dreamcast controller looks like a boat! There is a reason why it IS ONE IN SONIC RACING TRANSFORMED! Why the wire comes out the bottom and has to curve around to the top! 

Why did we need memory packs on nintendo 64 when the cart saves out games in the first place? What kind of memory card is that good for.


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## Kioku_Dreams (Feb 9, 2018)

330 said:


> Mine would be having the PS2 with only two controller ports instead of 4 like Nintendo consoles. You had to buy an additional peripheral to let other 2 people play.
> 
> Another thing would be the Game Boy's red LED to indicate power. It was never clear to me. I saw no difference from the batteries being half-empty to 5 minutes before the console would shut down. The first GBA was a load of bullshit for many reasons but they got the new way to measure battery life right.



Literally every other console of the time had 4 ports. Sony was being weird. 

Mine would be stupidly long load times on the PS2. Some games would take an excessive amount of time to load. Xbox had load times, but they weren't as bad. 

Another would have to be the sticks on every Playstation controller. I know the saying goes "if it ain't broke don't fix it" but they are so unpleasant to use.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Sonic Angel Knight said:


> The dreamcast controller looks like a boat! There is a reason why it IS ONE IN SONIC RACING TRANSFORMED! Why the wire comes out the bottom and has to curve around to the top!
> 
> Why did we need memory packs on nintendo 64 when the cart saves out games in the first place? What kind of memory card is that good for.


Not every game allowed for saves on the cart due to memory restrictions.


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Feb 9, 2018)

Memoir said:


> Literally every other console of the time had 4 ports. Sony was being weird.
> 
> Mine would be stupidly long load times on the PS2. Some games would take an excessive amount of time to load. Xbox had load times, but they weren't as bad.
> 
> ...


I never encountered such game


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## THEELEMENTKH (Feb 9, 2018)

Sonic Angel Knight said:


> I never encountered such game


One example is Excitebike 64, I believe


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## Seliph (Feb 9, 2018)

Not being able to use a ps2 memory card for ps1 savedata when playing ps1 games on ps2


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Feb 9, 2018)

THEELEMENTKH said:


> One example is Excitebike 64, I believe


There was a excitebike on Nintendo 64? I thought the only other game was on wii ware.


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## AmandaRose (Feb 9, 2018)

THEELEMENTKH said:


> -(Does PS3 count as an old console nowadays?) The fact that you need to use a DualShock 3 or Sixaxis controller to play PS2 titles on PS3, because USB controllers don't work and PS4 controllers makes the PS3 crash (if wireless)



Usb controllers work perfectly fine for ps2 games on PS3 here is a quick video of me using one to play Final Fantasy XII (sorry for the blurry video i smashed the camera on my phone lol)


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## FAST6191 (Feb 9, 2018)

Sonic Angel Knight said:


> Why did we need memory packs on nintendo 64 when the cart saves out games in the first place? What kind of memory card is that good for.



Never took your perfect dark profile, bomberman costumes or such like to a friend's house?


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## Tom Bombadildo (Feb 9, 2018)

Sonic Angel Knight said:


> Why did we need memory packs on nintendo 64 when the cart saves out games in the first place? What kind of memory card is that good for.


The controller paks were initially designed so you could transfer saves to another copy of the game. It was usually used with rental games that are super long, so you could keep your save between rental periods and not lose out on progress. I believe a couple games also don't have a memory chip on board. And I'm sure giving friends your save may be a reason as well...

EDIT: whew, d a lot ._.


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Feb 9, 2018)

Tom Bombadildo said:


> The controller paks were initially designed so you could transfer saves to another copy of the game. It was usually used with rental games that are super long, so you could keep your save between rental periods and not lose out on progress. I believe a couple games also don't have a memory chip on board. And I'm sure giving friends your save may be a reason as well...
> 
> EDIT: whew, d a lot ._.


I don't remember lot of games with such feature. Mario 64, mario kart, legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong 64, which was games I had.



FAST6191 said:


> Never took your perfect dark profile, bomberman costumes or such like to a friend's house?


Never had those games on my nintendo 64.


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## simbin (Feb 9, 2018)

Loud fans.

PS2 Slim and Fat model, always seemed loud to me.

Seeking suitable replacement, like exist for Dreamcast and OG Xbox.


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## THEELEMENTKH (Feb 9, 2018)

Marko76 said:


> Usb controllers work perfectly fine for ps2 games on PS3 here is a quick video of me using one to play Final Fantasy XII (sorry for the blurry video i smashed the camera on my phone lol)



Do you have it as an original disc, an ISO or as a PS2 Classic install?
Because I tried using my PS2 games (original disc and ISO) and USB controllers won't work at all on my 60gb, BC PS3 (again, only on PS2 games)


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## AmandaRose (Feb 9, 2018)

THEELEMENTKH said:


> Do you have it as an original disc, an ISO or as a PS2 Classic install?
> Because I tried using my PS2 games (original disc and ISO) and they won't work at all on my 60gb, BC PS3


ISO as can be seen in the video mine is a phat 40gb non bc PS3.


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## THEELEMENTKH (Feb 9, 2018)

Marko76 said:


> ISO as can be seen in the video mine is a phat 40gb non bc PS3.


Hmm, maybe something's wrong with my ps3 then (also sorry for off topic)


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## Kioku_Dreams (Feb 9, 2018)

Sonic Angel Knight said:


> I never encountered such game


Every Turok on the System. Doom 64 was kind of limited but also had a password system.


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## FAST6191 (Feb 9, 2018)

Sonic Angel Knight said:


> I don't remember lot of games with such feature. Mario 64, mario kart, legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong 64, which was games I had.
> 
> 
> Never had those games on my nintendo 64.


I dare say you missed out then, though if you feel the need to go back get the XBLA remake of Perfect Dark. Sadly the N64 branch of bomberman seems to have died out so you are more or less left with those to try to do something with. Spin it another way, would you want to have to start a new character in something like battlefield or borderlands? Such things have a very long history in the likes of the PC but were also not unknown to consoles in that era.

As for controller pak options they tended to be buried in options menus (if you have ever seen reviews where people seem to spend far more time than you might think they should poking around options menus it tends to be a force of habit from coming up through all that), only given as a secondary option (as you say most had inbuilt memory they could use and most were happy enough with it), or have limited scope (Mario Kart 64 time trial ghosts were one of those if memory serves, though as there was very little to unlock and even a GP tended to only last 40 minutes at most then yeah) so you might have missed them.


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## KiiWii (Feb 9, 2018)

Member when they said you could preconfigure your N64 pad (if you were a lefty) and take that config with you to play at mates house?

Fair play it was probably just said as a minor detail in a magazine from before the launch of the ULTRA 64, but my left handed mate brought it up and whinged his titties off about it everytime we played mario kart & goldeneye etc.


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## astrangeone (Feb 9, 2018)

I grew up on portable consoles, so my complaints usually were:

-  battery life (I played the shit out of my brick Game Boy), and standard batteries were expensive.  Rechargeables were shitty.  I eventually got a hold of some off-brand batteries called Mallory in Chinatown, and somehow they had better mAh than even Energizer.  (Yes, I knew the Game Boy had the DC in wall wart, but I couldn't find it in my "big" town either, so don't give me that shit.)

-  the choice of consoles.  Either you had the terrible Game Gear (heavy, major battery hog), the Atari Lynx or the Game Boy line.  I played a lot of Game Gear at the time, but honestly, my console of choice became the Game Boy thanks in part to Pokemon.  I had a phat PSP as well, so yeah?

-  disc based media gets on my nerves.  Either the drive itself fails (happened with two PSPs I owned), OR the disc itself becomes damaged.  I was a frequent customer of a local mom and pop gamestore that had a disc repair machine.  I want to buy one for myself as well...


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Feb 9, 2018)

I also hate how N64 had a directional pad, but hardly ever had games that used them. Sure I get that is a new 3D console with precise stick controls but that doesn't me to add a control pad and hardly any games that use them. We just got fresh off a SNES, let us ease our way into the new 3D world, like playstation did before making dualshock controller with analog.


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## Deleted User (Feb 9, 2018)

Seliph said:


> Not being able to use a ps2 memory card for ps1 savedata when playing ps1 games on ps2


Yeah, I found this out the first time I got a PS1 game for my PS2.  I'm sure there's some technical explanation for it, but it's annoying nonetheless.



astrangeone said:


> I grew up on portable consoles, so my complaints usually were:
> the choice of consoles.  Either you had the terrible Game Gear (heavy, major battery hog), the Atari Lynx or the Game Boy line.  I played a lot of Game Gear at the time, but honestly, my console of choice became the Game Boy thanks in part to Pokemon.  I had a phat PSP as well, so yeah?


Yeah, I also hate how battery lives for handhelds seem to have gotten worse over the years instead of getting better.  The GBA SP could handle around 10-15 hours of gameplay on a full charge, while a normal old 3DS lasts for only about 3 hours, with subsequent revisions being only marginally better.  I guess that's the price to pay for greater CPU power.



FAST6191 said:


> Why bump a general discussion type thing after a few hours?
> Anyway nothing really. Plenty of stuff I disliked at the time others also disliked. Most of my issues are with odd takes on history -- I still don't know where people got to thinking Sonic Adventure was good from. Several things have since aged very poorly and we have gained a small handful of new annoyances but for the question of the OP... nope, got nothing really.


IIRC, Sonic Adventure was actually pretty well-received when it first released.  People were impressed by, funnily enough, the game's graphics.  There were a few reviews that did call out the game for being nothing but graphics with a lack of deep gameplay to back it up, though.  

As the game aged and technology got better, however, people began to realize how buggy and patched together it was, and the game got really polarizing from that point forward.  Some like it and call it the best game in the series, while others have a very strong distaste for it and mark it as the beginning of Sonic's decline.  There's no definite, concrete general opinion on the game (which can be seen as sort of an analogy for Sonic in general).


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## GerbilSoft (Feb 9, 2018)

supergamer368 said:


> If you forgot to plug a controller into the n64 before turning it on, you had to turn it off to plug one in. But if it comes out during gameplay, you can just pop it back in fine!


Interestingly, this is a software issue, not a hardware issue. Nintendo probably recommended it, but I'm pretty sure there's some games that don't care. (Fun fact: N64 uses the same controller protocol as GameCube, though the only GCN title I know of that still supports N64 controllers [with a passive wire adapter] is the GameCube Service Disc.)

On that note: The GameCube's inability to boot from the expansion port. This is why Game Boy Player requires a startup disc, and if the startup disc is misplaced, the Game Boy Player is effectively a brick. (Not counting the homebrew Game Boy Interface program here.)


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## APartOfMe (Feb 9, 2018)

laggy sound during gameplay. i can handle the game lagging to an extent, but if the sound lags, i can't stand it


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## Veho (Feb 9, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> "You had to buy an additional peripheral to let other 2 people play."
> For all three games that supported it?


1: Developers don't make 4 player game modes because they require a peripheral and that would fragment the userbase. 
2: People don't buy the peripheral because not a lot of game use it. 
3: Repeat.


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## Taleweaver (Feb 9, 2018)

The damn length of the controller's cables. Back when I was young and we had a SNES, two player games were always a fight on who got to get on the side couch (which was closer to the television). You could sit on the other couch, but just barely. Meaning: either hold your arms stretched in front of you or on the tip of the seat (or move the couch forward, which'd get us into trouble with the parents). 


I'm honestly baffled that when nintendo made the mini versions of their consoles, they not only NOT went wireless, but made the stupid things_ even shorter than the original_!


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## The Real Jdbye (Feb 9, 2018)

I don't know if it counts as something no one seems to mind that much about, but I really hated the N64 expansion pak. I still remember getting Majoras Mask for christmas, getting home to plug it in, and being greeted with a "you need the expansion pak" screen. Weeks later I found it in a store, and I had to spend all my birthday+christmas money on it just to play Majoras Mask. Never did get another game that needed it.
I know that for many people it wasn't much of a problem, as it came free with Donkey Kong 64. But I didn't know that at the time, nor did I ever get DK64.

Also, it might seem weird, but I really hated that the N64 didn't come with a RF adapter. Many times did I come across a TV I couldn't plug my N64 into, and the RF adapters were expensive.
This might be largely my fault since I had long since lost the SCART adapter that came with the N64. A lot of TVs had SCART in but no composite in. I didn't know you could just walk into any electronics store and buy a SCART adapter. I thought it had to be made specifically for the N64.


B_E_P_I_S_M_A_N said:


> Buying a memory card, I guess. For the longest time, I couldn't save my game at all on my PS2 because I didn't have a Memory Card. It took a while before my parents decided to buy me one.


Oh god, I remember playing through the first couple of hours of Final Fantasy 7 so many times, because dad hadn't bothered to get a PS1 memory card for his PS2.
And you know RPGs aren't exactly the type of game that are still fun to play when you can't save.


migles said:


> suits the title perfectly XD i never played a game more than 2 players, and i didn't mind at all only have 2 ports
> 
> my gbc led would really dim when the battery was running low
> however i believe this only worked with non rechargeable batteries, devices usually have a hard time figuring out rechargeable batteries charge due to the way they work, interesting article here, can't say for sure if its totally accurate\correct cuz i ain't technician: https://michaelbluejay.com/batteries/rechargeable.html
> ...


I did hate that as well. I did eventually get a GB/GBC link cable but at that point I wasn't really playing the GB(C) Pokemon games anymore and didn't really have any other games with multiplayer, at least not that other people owned, so it didn't matter, never got one for GBA though.
Good thing GBC had an IR transmitter, at least you could do some basic multiplayer stuff with that.


Sonic Angel Knight said:


> The dreamcast controller looks like a boat! There is a reason why it IS ONE IN SONIC RACING TRANSFORMED! Why the wire comes out the bottom and has to curve around to the top!
> 
> Why did we need memory packs on nintendo 64 when the cart saves out games in the first place? What kind of memory card is that good for.


Some games used it for extra features that you couldn't get otherwise. Like sharing data between different cartridges, or simply for extra data that wouldn't fit on the cartridge. Like the ghost saves in Mario Kart.
I did come across some games that needed the memory pak just to save at all. Snowboard Kids was one of them. That game also used rumble pak so you had to be swapping the paks constantly if you wanted rumble.
Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon was another. Both great games.
But I think they mainly omitted built in save support to save money, there's nothing really that complex about either of them that would require more save space than could be included on a cart. Snowboard Kids saves very little data since it's basically just unlocked/completed stages, characters, snowboards and some high scores. And money.
Mystical Ninja does save a lot more data, but still it's no more complex than a game like Zelda OoT/MM. It only needs to save completion of the various objectives, unlocked characters, and inventory contents/money.
On that topic, Rare's reasoning for why Stop 'n' Swop was dropped was because it would be near impossible to perform the cartridge swap trick. But didn't they ever think to store the S'n'S data on a memory pak? That would have solved the issue completely.


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## Mikemk (Feb 9, 2018)

Games with less save files than you have siblings.



B_E_P_I_S_M_A_N said:


> Buying a memory card, I guess. For the longest time, I couldn't save my game at all on my PS2 because I didn't have a Memory Card. It took a while before my parents decided to buy me one.


Also, memory cards dying or being corrupted.


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## FAST6191 (Feb 9, 2018)

B_E_P_I_S_M_A_N said:


> IIRC, Sonic Adventure was actually pretty well-received when it first released.  People were impressed by, funnily enough, the game's graphics.  There were a few reviews that did call out the game for being nothing but graphics with a lack of deep gameplay to back it up, though.
> 
> As the game aged and technology got better, however, people began to realize how buggy and patched together it was, and the game got really polarizing from that point forward.  Some like it and call it the best game in the series, while others have a very strong distaste for it and mark it as the beginning of Sonic's decline.  There's no definite, concrete general opinion on the game (which can be seen as sort of an analogy for Sonic in general).



I am willing to concede that I might have found myself in an echo chamber but teletext games pages did not care for it, don't think I saw a paper article liking it, all the online sites I had at the time did not care for it and the playground also was like "this shit ain't Sonic". It was not quite what we would later see for 2006 but I can't get to well-received. In the time since I had equally not met anybody singing its praises. Then all of a sudden there were people claiming it was great and I found that massively jarring.



Veho said:


> 1: Developers don't make 4 player game modes because they require a peripheral and that would fragment the userbase.
> 2: People don't buy the peripheral because not a lot of game use it.
> 3: Repeat.


I can see that applying, and indeed would say the same myself, in the case of processing expansions (memory, CPU, extra CD drive and what have you) but for something you could almost enact in software as a throwaway mode I still struggle.

Granted for the PS1 then "lack of memory issues" comes up in every discussion I see on it so I guess that could factor into it.


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## DeoNaught (Feb 9, 2018)

Being old


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## Captain_N (Feb 9, 2018)

lol. I like everything on older console over the new ones. No OS to load, game just starts. Never needs to be updated. you got 100% working console out of the box. The games were complete and less buggy. Memcard are good because saves are not locked to a console. You got a book and a poster with about every game (nes and snes era), No moving parts (cart console obviously). little to no security, no online DRM. Actual console specific utilization of its resources. What could not be better, Oh 1 thing is not better, blowing in a nes cart to get it to boot. Other then that not much for me.


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## FAST6191 (Feb 9, 2018)

Captain_N said:


> lol. I like everything on older console over the new ones.
> 
> No OS to load
> 
> ...







You know how "music was better when I was a kid" is a false concept because all the dross has long since been forgotten. Same thing applies here. Also http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/ is laughing at that notion.

Is that an issue now? I seem to have profiles that can shuffle themselves around online and on cheap and cheerful USB devices.

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/cf2/cf2.htm

Just leaky batteries, capacitors and dodgy connectors.

What does page 45 of the manual say to this question?

So devs were forced to go all http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html ? Why is that better than almost anybody being able to rock up and make a game just like anybody can rock up and type a book out.


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## GerbilSoft (Feb 9, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> You know how "music was better when I was a kid" is a false concept because all the dross has long since been forgotten.


Amiga and C64 are both home computers though, not consoles. C64 at least did have the option of running games from cartridge, though tape was far more prevalent in the European market.


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## FAST6191 (Feb 9, 2018)

GerbilSoft said:


> Amiga and C64 are both home computers though, not consoles. C64 at least did have the option of running games from cartridge, though tape was far more prevalent in the European market.


I am sure someone, somewhere wrote their dissertation or something on a C64 and something something babylon 5 CGI done with an Amiga. However "games" was the primary thing for most users of such things, and absolutely nobody would be surprised to hear any given one was a games machine, they got tip top versions of games at the time (barring some awful ports I would say the Amiga probably has the best version of any given game in the 16 bit era), the makers of the devices in question clearly cared about games and I could continue these points for a while.
To that end I don't find it a particularly useful distinction.

Also why does cartridges or not play into this?


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## ThoD (Feb 9, 2018)

Honestly, for me it's 3 things, although 1 is more about the games themselves...

Having to find and buy Memory Cards separately for consoles like the PS2 (which btw could just use the USB ports or internal HDD for Phat one to store saves there and on a LOT more space than 8MBs), SOME controllers (almost exclusively Ninty's though because wtf is wrong with them thinking I want a spaceship-looking controller?) and the last one which is more for games is how clunky movement was for some because of ridiculously stupid SDK limitations Sony and Ninty put in their dev kits just because...


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## orcid (Feb 9, 2018)

handhelds without backlight

memory cards
controller cables


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## Jack Daniels (Feb 9, 2018)

not being able to play the freaking scope games on my snes since i got a LCD screen.


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## KiiWii (Feb 9, 2018)

Jack Daniels said:


> not being able to play the freaking scope games on my snes since i got a LCD screen.



Yessss! +100

I recently bought aimtraks to combat this on my RPi3.

.. thought I havent tested snes games... yet.....


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## Jack Daniels (Feb 9, 2018)

KiiWii said:


> Yessss! +100
> 
> I recently bought aimtraks to combat this on my RPi3.
> 
> .. thought I havent tested snes games... yet.....


i can play the games with wii mote and a wii, but i wanna play it on the real snes! i got it working again a few months back to find out about 10 games i used to play bugged me out... no one made a solution for this, even though it got limited bt support by using 8bitdo wireless controllers. i wished someone took the tome to make a way of fixing this... (i know at least one problem that needs attention: for an air mouse or wiimote you'll need an option to calibrate...


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## TotalInsanity4 (Feb 9, 2018)

a friend said:
			
		

> they Dusty
> they Ugly
> they Ten Frames a Second


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## Jack Daniels (Feb 9, 2018)

10 fps isn't right... should at least be 24 fps


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## VinsCool (Feb 9, 2018)

- People leaving discs loose on dirty surfaces.
- RF connections only systems. (Yes I am aware that adapters/mods exist)
- Non ergonomic controllers (n64 in particular).
- Loading times (grown up with cartridges based consoles).
- The stupid NES design, making cartridges hard to read unless you know your system with a picometre precision (and people blowing cartridges over and over are annoying. It is NOT the thing to do. Contacts not being wearing on are the problem, not the invisible dust that becomes moist, making the contact rust, thus rendering the problem aggravated on the long run).

@TotalInsanity4
10 FPS? Were they a N64 user?


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## Jack Daniels (Feb 9, 2018)

VinsCool said:


> - People leaving discs loose on dirty surfaces.
> - RF connections only systems. (Yes I am aware that adapters/mods exist)
> - Non ergonomic controllers (n64 in particular).
> - Loading times (grown up with cartridges based consoles).
> ...


an old tv (fat screen,cannon tube, CTR) needed 24 fps to proces so everey game console showed a some sort of 24 fps, though they only could do so by repeating the same pic over and over again , and resolution was 240x200? at least that's been the worst resolution i've seen so far... i loved the 1 bit coloured game consoles...


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## TotalInsanity4 (Feb 9, 2018)

VinsCool said:


> @TotalInsanity4
> 10 FPS? Were they a N64 user?


She was "just guessing"


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## GerbilSoft (Feb 9, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> I am sure someone, somewhere wrote their dissertation or something on a C64 and something something babylon 5 CGI done with an Amiga. However "games" was the primary thing for most users of such things, and absolutely nobody would be surprised to hear any given one was a games machine, they got tip top versions of games at the time (barring some awful ports I would say the Amiga probably has the best version of any given game in the 16 bit era), the makers of the devices in question clearly cared about games and I could continue these points for a while.
> To that end I don't find it a particularly useful distinction.
> 
> Also why does cartridges or not play into this?


ROM cartridges load immediately instead of having to wait for the tape player and/or disk drive.

Also I did use a C64 for word processing years ago. (Word Writer 3 with some dot matrix printer.)


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## Jack Daniels (Feb 9, 2018)

labyrinth on my ZX81, played it for hours... though it sucked compared every other console there was until there was the ultimate destroyer of fun: psx never had a funny moment on a psx/ps2/ps3/ps4/xb/xb360/xbone, it really sucked and not in a nice way.


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## Captain_N (Feb 9, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> You know how "music was better when I was a kid" is a false concept because all the dross has long since been forgotten. Same thing applies here. Also http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/ is laughing at that notion.
> 
> Is that an issue now? I seem to have profiles that can shuffle themselves around online and on cheap and cheerful USB devices.
> 
> ...



i was talking about console not computers.


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## Deleted User (Feb 9, 2018)

Oh yeah, I suddenly remembered something my dad said to me when he was first setting up my PS2 when I was a kid.  He was getting frustrated hooking up all the wires, and the controller wires were getting tangled, so he said something along to the effect of "Wireless controllers will become the norm in the future.  Mark my words."



FAST6191 said:


> I am willing to concede that I might have found myself in an echo chamber but teletext games pages did not care for it, don't think I saw a paper article liking it, all the online sites I had at the time did not care for it and the playground also was like "this shit ain't Sonic". It was not quite what we would later see for 2006 but I can't get to well-received. In the time since I had equally not met anybody singing its praises. Then all of a sudden there were people claiming it was great and I found that massively jarring.


Fair enough.  That game came out around the same time I was born, so, my sources may be a bit secondary on it.   



VinsCool said:


> - Loading times (grown up with cartridges based consoles).


This is gonna sound really really stupid, but, as someone who grew up on a PS2, I actually have a strange affection for loading times.  Yes, they can totally break a game's flow and leave you staring at a blank screen for 15 seconds, but there's just something melancholic and peaceful about some loading screens (the early ones, the ones with no music or fancy animations in the background) that I can't help but appreciate them.  I sometimes miss seeing the phrase "NOW LOADING..." appear in the corner of my screen.  I'm dead serious.

Maybe, in 10-15 years, we're going to get indie devs who purposefully put artificial loading screens in their games.  It could work if the game happens to be story-driven, and the loading screen is a way of creating suspense or leaving the player on a cliffhanger before the next scene loads.

That, or I'm just being a nut.


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## Viri (Feb 9, 2018)

Hay guys! I'm just going to come next to you, and bump a little into your NES/SNES/N64 or pretty much any older cartridge based console. WHOOPS, did I freeze your game? Sowwy!


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## Mikemk (Feb 10, 2018)

B_E_P_I_S_M_A_N said:


> Maybe, in 10-15 years, we're going to get indie devs who purposefully put artificial loading screens in their games.  It could work if the game happens to be story-driven, and the loading screen is a way of creating suspense or leaving the player on a cliffhanger before the next scene loads.


Artificial loading screens are already a thing.


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## slaphappygamer (Feb 10, 2018)

When there are too many baddies on the same horizontal line, that they kind of disappear. Always hated that.


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## Taleweaver (Feb 10, 2018)

Viri said:


> Hay guys! I'm just going to come next to you, and bump a little into your NES/SNES/N64 or pretty much any older cartridge based console. WHOOPS, did I freeze your game? Sowwy!


Wait...you're saying this is a bad thing?


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## RandomUser (Feb 10, 2018)

Tom Bombadildo said:


> The controller paks were initially designed so you could transfer saves to another copy of the game. It was usually used with rental games that are super long, so you could keep your save between rental periods and not lose out on progress. I believe a couple games also don't have a memory chip on board. And I'm sure giving friends your save may be a reason as well...
> 
> EDIT: whew, d a lot ._.





Sonic Angel Knight said:


> I don't remember lot of games with such feature. Mario 64, mario kart, legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong 64, which was games I had.
> 
> 
> Never had those games on my nintendo 64.


You could do just that if you had a GameShark. Cannot remember what version, but I think it was the "pro" version that had that feature.
Mario Kart 64 is another one.

Speaking of Mario Kart 64, what I hated the most about it was in order to save ghost data, you needed *one* controller paks for every course you want the ghost data to save. If you wanted multiple ghost data from one course, then another controller paks is needed. So in short, ghost data needed an entire controller paks to save to with maybe a few blocks to spare. Okay perhaps it isn't my most dislike, but the cost at that time is pretty steep and cumbersome.


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## Jayro (Feb 10, 2018)

Wii U, not being able to flash our NAND backup back to the Wii U without a hard-mod. (We have full control of the system, what's stopping us?)


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## Jayro (Mar 18, 2018)

The fact that game consoles didn't come with USB ports until the PS2. And even the, you couldn't use them for save data or games until hacks came around.


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## Tom Bombadildo (Mar 18, 2018)

Jayro said:


> The fact that game consoles didn't come with USB ports until the PS2. And even the, you couldn't use them for save data or games until hacks came around.


Does the first part really count though? I mean, USB didn't become a standard until 96/97 ish, by then the only consoles released after were the Dreamcast in 98 and then the PS2, which had USB.

It's a bit like saying "one thing I hate about the Atari 2600 is it didn't have 100 person online multiplayer!" Yeah, cuz it didn't exist yet 

Second part though, yeah, it was kinda annoying the PS2 had USB capability but you couldn't use it for memory card storage. Though I suppose it did make sense at the time of original release, as I imagine people would rather buy a slightly expensive memory card instead of super expensive USB drives back then. The Slim PS2 should've added USB memory card support though, would've been a worthwhile upgrade over the fatty one.


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## Deleted User (Mar 18, 2018)

Jayro said:


> The fact that game consoles didn't come with USB ports until the PS2. And even the, you couldn't use them for save data or games until hacks came around.


Reminds me of when I was a kid, when I tried plugging my brother's PSP into the PS2's USB slot, and being confused as to why nothing was happening.


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## Taleweaver (Mar 18, 2018)

Jayro said:


> The fact that game consoles didn't come with USB ports until the PS2.


Erm...consoles were actually among the first supporters of USB.


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## Zyvyn (Mar 18, 2018)

330 said:


> Mine would be having the PS2 with only two controller ports instead of 4 like Nintendo consoles. You had to buy an additional peripheral to let other 2 people play.
> 
> Another thing would be the Game Boy's red LED to indicate power. It was never clear to me. I saw no difference from the batteries being half-empty to 5 minutes before the console would shut down. The first GBA was a load of bullshit for many reasons but they got the new way to measure battery life right.


having to plug in controllers before turning the console on


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## Jayro (Mar 19, 2018)

Taleweaver said:


> Erm...consoles were actually among the first supporters of USB.


PC's had USB 1.0 during the PS1 era.


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## Taleweaver (Mar 19, 2018)

Jayro said:


> PC's had USB 1.0 during the PS1 era.


Sorry...but that's simply not true.

From this source: "The USB 1.0 debuted in late 1995 and transferred data at a rate of 12 megabits per second.". Wikipedia states it as January 1996, but seeing how USB didn't became a standard for years that isn't exactly wrong (I bought my first own computer in 1999, and specifically picked one that had USB because I had read about it in magazines...things like PC and mouse still used PS2 as default back then).

Release date playstation 1: late 1994 or 1995, depending on regio. And it's safe to say that the design of the thing probably took a couple years before that.


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## Kioku_Dreams (Mar 19, 2018)

Taleweaver said:


> Sorry...but that's simply not true.
> 
> From this source: "The USB 1.0 debuted in late 1995 and transferred data at a rate of 12 megabits per second.". Wikipedia states it as January 1996, but seeing how USB didn't became a standard for years that isn't exactly wrong (I bought my first own computer in 1999, and specifically picked one that had USB because I had read about it in magazines...things like PC and mouse still used PS2 as default back then).
> 
> Release date playstation 1: late 1994 or 1995, depending on regio. And it's safe to say that the design of the thing probably took a couple years before that.


The Playstation Era... How long had the Playstation been out before PCs adopted USB? I actually remember my first PC (from 1996) Had USB 1.0... So, tell me. How is this incorrect?


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## Deleted User (Mar 19, 2018)

Yes,Paid online multiplayer on the 360.And look where it has lead us in the fanboy wars.A majority of people have switched to pc because of this.Consoles would be dead without exclusives,yet it doesnt defeat the fact that they are anti consumer,same with paid online multiplayer and no one has done a thing agenst it but wine and moan.


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## Taleweaver (Mar 19, 2018)

Memoir said:


> The Playstation Era... How long had the Playstation been out before PCs adopted USB? I actually remember my first PC (from 1996) Had USB 1.0... So, tell me. How is this incorrect?


As I said, it took years before it really became the standard. If you were an early adopter (like you were), I guess you can dislike your console for not supporting it, but that doesn't mean it makes sense. I mean...you can complain in this very thread that PS4 and xbox one controllers uses micro-USB connections rather than USB-C, but that neither changes the fact that it wasn't around when the consoles debuted nor that it isn't currently the de facto standard yet.


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## hobbledehoy899 (Mar 19, 2018)

I feel that Nintendo could have done better with the GameCube's system menu.


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## ry755 (Mar 19, 2018)

hobbledehoy899 said:


> I feel that Nintendo could have done better with the GameCube's system menu.


Personally I think the Gamecube, PS2, and the PS3/PSP's menu's were pretty cool. And the GCN and PS2's menu music were so relaxing, if not a little creepy.


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## Jayro (Mar 19, 2018)

I didn't like the NES's lockout chip, that flashes the game on and off if it's not seated properly. Thankfully we NOW know you can disable it by cutting a pin, but back then that knowledge would have been much more useful.


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## hobbledehoy899 (Mar 19, 2018)

ry755 said:


> Personally I think the Gamecube, PS2, and the PS3/PSP's menu's were pretty cool.


The GameCube's menu looked cool, but it wasn't cool beyond looks.


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## sarkwalvein (Mar 19, 2018)

Memoir said:


> The Playstation Era... How long had the Playstation been out before PCs adopted USB? I actually remember my first PC (from 1996) Had USB 1.0... So, tell me. How is this incorrect?


The PS1 released on 1994. If your 1996 PC had USB you were a early day-0 adopter. PCs only started coming with USB by default in 1997. My calendar shows 1994 2 years before 1996 anyway.


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## Jayro (Mar 19, 2018)

The PS2's menu system looked years beyond what it was capable of at the time. Just booting up the OS felt like you had a powerhouse of raw processing power. Then FFX came out and proved it.


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