AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Spinning the conversation a bit, now that the "current" gen is ending, what are your thoughts regarding the consoles?

To be honest, I was largely disappointed in the actual consoles. There were amazing games, but I feel like a lot of the games were not as memorable as in other gens.

I enjoyed my 360, but I never really gamed much on it in the two years I had it. Maybe if I bought more games at launch things would be different, but I often didn't have the cheddar or motivation to do so. I really ended up playing more Xbox, PS2, and GameCube games than 360 ones.

The Wii was a bit frustrating. Perhaps it's because I feel "wasted potential" applies to it in many ways. The console had so much charm and options available to games that either took too long to realize or left me wanting more. Perhaps most shockingly brilliant thing to me was the sideways Wii remote control scheme used first in Super Paper Mario. There was so much going for it, and it's a bit sad and frustrating to know this. In addition, my Wii near the end of the generation had a disc drive issue so it worked loudly. I certainly got my cheddar's worth out of it, and I'm pop flyin' with it, but it doesn't stack up well against other consoles. I like that the Wii U doesn't drop the functionality so some ideas can be carried over, but I'm not fully convinced that those concepts will be revisited instead of focusing on the gamepad.

The DS, by and large, was the winner for me last gen. Amazing library, great variety, and memorable experiences. Portability was, as it often is, a great asset to the console. I could stay at home and play for hours or play on the go. The DS though is the first handheld that gave consistently solid games. I'm very pleased with the DS, and I'm loving its gradual spread to more people around me. The DS is a lot more fun when more people have them.

Sony's consoles never grabbed me too well, but I might grab a PS4and maybe a Vita to cover all 4 consoles. At that point it might be worth it to me.

All in all, not a bad gen, but not very memorable. I think I prefer the previous gen, and I still need to work on filling my library.

I think that the Wii's lack of horsepower actually resulted in some benefit. There was shovelware by the truckfull, yes, but if the Wii were an HD powerhouse comparable to the PS3/360 games like Muramasa or Little King's Story (or hell, No More Heroes) would never have seen release due to the higher development costs.


The PS3 was a joke to me at first, but it gradually got more interesting to me after the first 2 years of NOGAEMZ ended. Not enough to make me buy one, but it really turned itself around.


And the one thing that really riles me up are the people in comment sections or on /v/ or whatever who say things like "Wii U isn't next gen" or "Wii U is only gen 7.5".
Because you can totally tell that they have no problems placing the PS2 in the same gen as the GCN and Xbox.



I mean just look at this shit.

I think the lack of horsepower was the least of the Wii's problems. The main one is that Nintendo ended up nearly single-handedly having to prove the value and versatility of the Wii, which resulted in less focus on the same gameplay. Like how Warioware played? Too bad there was no other goofy game that played the same way.

It left the system a bit shallow. Blame could be placed on many sides for this, but the end results are the same. The Wii was more capable than it ended up being.

The reason most devs went for "waggle around like a jackass" was because ever since the N64, Nintendo consoles have largely been first-party only machines.

If a game was multiplat on the GCN/PS2/Xbox, the game would be ignored on the GCN. Noticing this, it seems they went "fuck it" and made it pretty much impossible to port games over from the market competitors and making the Wii a Nintendo games machine.

They at least seem to be remedying this with the Wii U, both by funding games like TW101 and Bayo 2, and also making the Wii U far closer in power to the competition.

I didn't get into the current gen consoles until 2009 so I missed the initial eras of them, so I can't say anything about the PS3's weak start or the horrible red rings of death at the beginning. But from what I have seen and played, the PS3 was the best. The Xbox 360 ran most multiplats I've tried better, but outside of Dead Rising and EDF 2017 I can't think of a single exclusive that was worth getting on the thing. Meanwhile the PS3 multiplats for the most part still ran fine enough, and it had much better exclusives such as Valkyria Chronicles, inFamous and Tokyo Jungle. The Wii had good first party games that were certainly worth the price of admission (does help the Wii was much cheaper than the alternatives), but not otherwise. Really I can't think of any other titles I played on the thing besides Muramasa (I had NMH on the PS3 and never got around to 2 for some reason.)

Honestly if you aren't intending to play online with regards to the Xbox 360 they're all good consoles I'd look into.

The Wii is largely what's turned me off Nintendo consoles other than handhelds just because it's a great example of gimmick gameplay shoved down my throat. Not even good gimmick gameplay considering you need to buy an addition to the controller to get it to have some semblance of accuracy. And it was fucking required in every Wii game by Nintendo's law. Also the most I ever used my Wii for was playing Gamecube games because it had practically no games I was interested in, which means RPG's.

Xbox 360 was my first foray into a broader console library and better graphics, and I think it did okay. I didn't do Live at all other than the initial trial, which sucked, but I only had one game that utilized multiplayer in the first place: Dark Souls. It has a great selection of RPG's that I could have never played before I got my new computer just this year, so I pretty much went from Oblivion era games straight to stuff like Skyrim, Fallout NV, and Kingdoms of Amalur.

PS3 can't say much on since I don't have one and never played one, but I'd like to pick one up on the cheap sometime since it has its own RPG library in addition to a ton of the PS2 ones. I will say that if I could do over, I'd pick the PS3 over the Xbox though.

http://i.imgur.com/3Yx0ja2.png

http://i.imgur.com/mjLBmDI.png

I seriously love making these things.

Madi. Bro.

A lot of games did not use motion controls at all. Games like Xenoblade offered the ability to use a classic controller instead, and games like brawl and mario kart could use GameCube controllers.

There were even games, made by Nintendo, that used the Wii remote in the same way a wireless 360 controller is used, like Super Paper Mario which is all button controls all the time, or Rhythm Heaven Fever which uses 2 button gameplay.

As for RPGs, Xenoblade Chronicles (hard to find now but not impossible), The Last Story, and maybe FFCC: My Life as a King (perhaps one of my fave Wii games despite being Wiiware) are pretty solid RPG titles.

Not trying to convince you that you're wrong or nothing, but if you already have a Wii, some of this might be stuff to look into, especially the RPGs. I think you might enjoy them.

Also worth noting that gimmicks cease being gimmicks when the entire gaming industry embraces them.
Now we have the move, Kinect, gyro sensors in the 3DS, etc.

Remember when the DSs second screen and touchscreen were brushed off as gimmicks?

I think the word 'bash' is a little harsh for my judgments, since I openly admitted I have seen next to nothing in the way of official information and would have equal points in certainty for my critique. I've gotten all my info from reliable word-of-mouth sources, particularly about the "considerately-cancelled" DMR. Fair play to you though, I may as well know nothing; that doesn't make my points invalid, though. Things are more expensive these days, and the Xbox Three got a lot of bad press from what I heard. Like... universally-panned for being a very poor, angering presentation. One thing I heard is that, "Sony kicked the shit out of Microsoft." Not my words.


That still makes it $100 more expensive than a PS4, which I have reason to believe will range between $300 and $400, new and used. I've seen the pictures of the console, and it looks like an ugly VCR to me; if they've since updated the look, I haven't seen it, but the Xbox Three I saw was an ugly VCR with a DVD/CD slot with an unappealing aesthetic- not a bash, that's just what it looked like to me. Maybe I saw a bad photo. Also, my idea of minimalism in perfection is Limbo because it's bleak and dismal enough to make me feel the atmosphere. I'm all for minimalism when it's done right; regardless, minimalism wasn't a part of my judgment. I wouldn't call either consoles minimalistic for various reasons.


The reason I'm not anticipating the PS4 has nothing to do with its looks, technological capability, launch content, or marketing. I've never even seen what it looks like. The only reason I'm not looking forward to it is that I'll be jealous of people who do when my unwillingness to shell out the cash holds me back. Also, what cash I have has to go towards restoring an old scooter my friend gave me, because I have no driver's license and it needs some serious bodywork. So... yeah, no dislike for the PS4, just... no cheddar.


Hmmmnn... look, if the Wii U is fun, all the more power to you. I'm not saying it's bad, or boring, or anything because just like the PS4, I know so little about it that a fact sheet of what I know would include stuff like, "It is a piece of technology made for things." I don't hate it, I'm just not interested. I still haven't looked up what it's like, so I have no opinion on where it stands in the console wars.

I get the feeling I'm a little neutral for this topic. Isn't that weird?

Dude. The PS4 has a set price. Your uncertainty there ruins the credibility of everything else you say, because you evidently aren't actually talking about things you know.

In fact your whole post seems to be "I don't know about this thing, but it costs cheddar so I don't want it"

Why are you even posting in this thread

You're not neutral you're just totally uninformed and you don't even care

@Kamak: That's actually another issue with the Wii. That way of holding the "controller" is not exactly natural and my hand cramped up more than once playing a game because of it. But every single game had some form of the Wiimote's motion control in it, even if it was just something like using a tool within the game. And that's where the horrid aiming vexed me to no ends.

@OA: A gimmick is a gimmick. Namely, something that either adds nothing significant to the product or gets in the way of enjoying it. I don't care if Sony and Microsoft both added it to their consoles, I never did and never will use them because they're gimmicks like 3D movies, which have also been embraced by Hollywood, but are still gimmicks. And yes, I will say the stylus for the DS is a gimmick because it has gotten in the way of my enjoyment of a game more than it's enhanced the immersion. Bullshit like "Draw this symbol! lol fail boss has health again," in Castlevania or the more universal "D-pad is for moving and stylus is for camera HAVE FUN LEFTY."

The only game I played that used the stylus in a significant way that made it fun was The World Ends With You. Every other DS game I enjoyed has the stylus as a simple "tap to select" tool.

There were a few other games with controls like TWEWY, for example (off the top of my head) Kirby Mass Attack, but I don't recall any of them being very good.

I think the stylus was pretty good for the system's RTSs though. Totally sidestepped the usual difficulties in bringing the genre to consoles.

They are gimmicks, it's just that they're gimmicks that work greatly and do indeed actually benefit the games on their consoles. Motion controls are usually pointless unless done really well, and 3D is the definitive gimmick for when you just half-booty something.

I do believe the uninformed and the indifferent put together forms a neutral party. My original post was, "I heard a lot of bad things about Xbox Three. I'm not all that excited about either of them." I'm not out of line saying that, and if I'm going to talk about things I know little about, I'm not going to assert like I do know, that's the whole point of me admitting it. Would you feel better if I talked about things I don't know about and use language that implies I know more than you? Because that would be lying, and I'm not trying to lie.

So: Atari 7200, orrr Sega CD?