This is my personal list of the top consoles or micro computers of all time in terms of games library and my personal experience.
Top games must be first released on that platform or be a unique version i.e. Ultima 4 is an AppleII game but the MS version is unique and Rez is a Dreamcast game despite being available on PS2.
1: Mega Drive (1990)
An overpowered Frankenstein of cutting edge microchips, ‘blast processing’ (TM) is actually a real thing and refers to a fast DMA (direct memory access) controller mode only ever used in Sonic 2 split screen. But the VDU (visual display unit) runs at 13Mhz on top of the core Motoroller 6800 cpu @ 7.6Mhz. Up until the Playstation, it’s graphics could not be beaten. It’s an arcade board in the home, designed largely from one of Sega’s own boards making ports smooth and the the 6800 architecture easy to program for.
Sound is excellent, even a GEMS sequenced track can sound good (Demolition Man).
- Virtua Racing
- Alien 3
- Crack Down
- Thunderforce 4
- Desert Strike
2: Master System (1989)
Can’t afford a Mega Drive? Never mind, this £100 cheaper! If your 5, this blows your mind. I never got to own a Spectrum so now I had a proper console! The sound is kind of bad but all the games are there. Streets of Rage and even Mortal Combat are actually alright. Games are generally colourful and run smoothly with clear audio. It has a light gun and it can take game cards and 3d glasses. Stylish.
- Wonder Boy in Monster Land
- The Ninja
- Ultima 4
- Phantasy Star
- Fantasy Zone
- Basketball Nightmare
3: PlayStation (1994)
The first proper powerful console that made your Amstrad CPC 464 look a bit silly. First steps into 3d saw really innovative use in platform and driving games and every other kind of game was also available but in full colour and arcade level of sound output. I had a pc with a Voodoo 2 card though so meh.
- Tenchu
- Tekken 2
- Wipeout
- Super Puzzle Fighter
- Gran Turismo
4: Dreamcast (1999)
Two year life span, 750ish games, maracas, fishing rods, keyboard and mouse, internet connection, light gun, displays on the controllers, vga box (if you had a computer monitor). I ignored it in disgust in 1999, thinking it would be a rip off and wait for the price to come down then completely forgot about it for 10 years throughout the whole PS2 life span until I’d finished college.
The games run pretty smoothly and generally look and sound better than the PS2 counterparts, really promoting the experience of what games can be with simple high quality hardware outputs (and a nice tv) and Sega again use a redesigned arcade board, making the hardware highly optimised and easy to program for in addition to Windows CE mode and C++ architecture. Noisy and slow to load, the disc drive is a fail though.
Loads of high res PlayStation ports is a bonus. But the sense of freedom in game design was evident in the daring genres being tested and crossover with the pc market with unreleased games like Tropico, The Movies and Black and White. This experimentation, sadly did not last into the PS2 generation.
- Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
- V-Rally 2: Expert Edition
- Tennis 2k2
- NBA 2K2
- Metropolis Street Racer
5: Spectrum (1982)
Blip, bloop, dududududududududududududu. Ahh Speccy games. They are so cool. So British. Nowhere else do you get a system which had games made with the dry British sense of humour and marketed solely for a local market (given it wasn’t available anywhere else) and a Viz game with fart jokes. One colour every 8x8 pixel square did not deter games from having a visual impact. Jet black with bright neon magenta makes quite an impression on the eye. Probably over 20,000 games available. All copied onto Maxell cassettes. Grunge gaming.
- Nether Earth
- Boulderdash
- Fruit Machine
- Bomb Jack
6: Amiga (1985)
The greatest sound card ever made. Although not about gaming, Amiga tracker music is amazing and I listen to loads of it. The demo scene may as well have started with this computer which spawned some of the best developers. It was so much better than a pc or Acorn back in the late eighties and early 90’s. The output from British studios moving on from the Spectrum scene transformed the gaming industry, inventing a great many new genres and gameplay styles. Excellent sound, wide colour pallete and fast cpu make the Amiga an old god of gaming.
- Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge
- Sensible Soccer
- Populous
- Syndicate
- The Settlers
- Turrican
- Cannon Fodder
- Worms
7: PS2 (2000)
15 years on the market and 150 million sold, every game made around this time is available on this console (1850+). Albeit with reduced texture resolutions, frame rates and poor video output. I spit on this console and what it did to gaming. Then play it because there’s one just kicking about and theres loads of good games… :|
- Tekken 3
- GTA: Vice City
- Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
- Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance
8: SNES (1992)
The market leader in the US and Japan. Flopped a bit everywhere else. Some people did have them but shelf space was dominated by Sega here in blighty. The additional cost and huge size of the carts made the SNES seem brash to me and there were more buttons than were really needed on the small joypads. A wide range of inferior Mega Drive ports and 16bit games of the time are available in reduced aspect and frame rate but a wide colour palette makes some games quite attractive. Video output and low bitrate sound quality is a shame however.
- Super Bomberman
- Mario 3
- Super Mario Kart
- Street Fighter 2
Honourable mentions
Game Boy
All games played great. Responsive controls. Excellent sound. Good size and battery life. Can’t remember the games but if it’s not Pokemon, it will probably be fun.
C64
It’s a Spectrum but instead of looking like it was coloured in by a toddler with a square crayon, it’s 50 shades of pastel blue and purple with he greatest fm sound chip ever created.
Atari 2600
Pele Soccer was actually alright and I may not have played them, but I can see there are a lot of very fun games on this system.
NES
Way too many games. But from 2000 tonnes of silt there might be some diamonds. Good sound, muddy colours.
That’s all I know about consoles and the Dreamcast is the most up to date system I own.
I can’t tell the difference between Sony and Microsoft, PS3 onwards - they are too similar to separate for me. So Xbox, Xbox360, XboxOne/X, PS3, PS4/Pro all play pretty much the same, as hardware is so similar, with only the Wii offering an alternative hardware path, sacrificing power for new tech.
All consoles now offer the same thing. If the Steam boxes or Ouya took off that could have been an alternative but Sony and MS are going after the exact same demographics and alienate everyone else who isn’t the 15 to 35 male CoD fan bracket so development has been stale and many games are pc ports anyway.
I’m seeing nothing new in console gaming for the past ten years despite ever increasing tech specs, except maybe the ‘movie game’ (God of War, Just Cause, Shadow of the Colossus).
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