Your favourite console, and why?

[dreama1]

Your favourite console, and why? Plus 20+ exclusives for it.

[burningdoom]

Either NES or SNES, depending on my mood. Nintendo's heyday when they were still on top of the world. They made some of the greatest games ever made in that era, and they had all the third-party support in the world. Great time to be a Nintendo fan.

[dreama1]

Either NES or SNES, depending on my mood. Nintendo's heyday when they were still on top of the world. They made some of the greatest games ever made in that era, and they had all the third-party support in the world. Great time to be a Nintendo fan.

It's a great time to be a Nintendo fan today lol.

[burningdoom]

Either NES or SNES, depending on my mood. Nintendo's heyday when they were still on top of the world. They made some of the greatest games ever made in that era, and they had all the third-party support in the world. Great time to be a Nintendo fan.

It's a great time to be a Nintendo fan today lol.

Yeah, great first-party titles. But they're still missing the third-party support.

[maximo310]

Gamecube. It's the first console that I owned, and I think it was pretty underrated back in the day since it got cast as a kiddy machine with the original indigo model and handle on the box, along with Nintendo not giving third-parties info on the console until too late. Despite that, it has a decent third party lineup for exclusives and has a great selection of first party games as well. There's a lot of accessories to enhance the console as well for online( as limited as it is), the best way to play the whole Game Boy library of games, and more. It's a nifty machine, and its one of my most used system thanks to the library of games, even with its limitations in some genres, features, and overall games compared to the original Xbox and Playstation 2.

[amauriel]

Mine's the DS, by far. It's got a lot of really unique titles, a ton of exclusives, and a few great remakes of some of my favorite games for other systems (such as Chrono Trigger). For someone who loves the point 'n click and visual novel style, it's pretty perfect. It's also the only system I've ever really imported a fair number of games for.

[gf78]

It would have to be the first PlayStation for me which I got at the end of '95 at the ripe old age of 21.  I know implicitly how Nintendo single-handedly brought gaming back from the brink and have huge amounts of respect for them.  But PlayStation brought it home for me.  It was-aside from the wreckage that was Sega Saturn-the first fully-3D gaming system that ran on dedicated CD-ROMs instead of cartridges and a CD-ROM add-on.  Game series that I enjoyed from the NES and SNES took on a completely new life with their PlayStation sequels.  New series unlike anything that came before arrived like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil.  I signed up for PlayStation Underground and instead of a monthly magazine, I received two-disc packages full of demos, interviews, previews, etc.  Sony also sent me dozens upon dozens of demo discs like MediEvil, Legend of Legaia, Crash Team Racing and so many more.

My top 20 games?  Here goes with a brief "why I loved it" and in no particular order.

1)  Crash Bandicoot (series):  The first non-Nintendo/Sega Platform series that made realize others can make great platformers.
2)  Spyro (series):  Another great platformer that made me question Nintendo's dominance in the genre
3)  Resident Evil:  What more can be said?  The birth of the survival horror's dominance & the zombie sub-genre.
4)  Silent Hill:  While Resident Evil was gory horror, Silent Hill was true psychological horror.
5)  Tomb Raider:  Exploring 3D "tombs" was born here.
6)  Metal Gear Solid:  I loved the NES stealth and this game cemented the genre and this series place in history.
7)  Final Fantasy VII:  What more can be said?  It is the most beloved Final Fantasy and the one JRPG that everyone has heard of.
  Gran Turismo:  The first true, console sim racer.  Nothing like it existed before it and it is still relevant today.
9)  Twisted Metal:  Vehicular combat with a backstory about psychopaths.
10)  Ape Escape:  The first console game to make use of dual-analog controllers.  It was a pretty good platformer too!
11)  Soul Blade:  The beginning of the single best weapons-based fighter in existence.
12)  Tekken (series):  On par with Street Fighter for fighting games.  King of Iron Fist Tournament indeed!
13)  Fear Effect 1 & 2:  Truly creepy, adult-themed games with live-motion backgrounds.  Still love these to this very day.
14)  Rayman:  One of the most vibrant, gorgeous platforming series was born here. 
15)  Lunar & Lunar 2 Eternal Blue:  RPG's made even more perfect with the most awesome packaging & extras ever conceived.
16)  Grand Theft Auto:  Who knew this fun top-down game would spawn a juggernaut franchise?
17)  Parappa the Rapper:  Kick, punch!  It's all in the mind!  A fun game that Sony took one big gamble on.
18)  Oddworld-Abe's Oddysee:  With a funny but sad story, tight controls and a loveable character.  A true classic.
19)  Colony Wars:  A fantastic space-shooter.  May not be considered "AAA" but I loved it nonetheless.
20)  Everything else Squaresoft and later, Square-Enix released was pure GOLD on the original PlayStation.

[spluffen]

Does PC count? I'm torn between Super Famicom/SNES and PC. For both system there are a lot of japanese and western old school RPGs respectively. SNES era console RPGs are to me the peak of the genre, while cRPGs on PC were just as great in an entirely different way during the 90s and early 00s.

In the end I can't decide but I know I've spent by far the most time playing on PC since I didn't get my Super Famicom until early 2014.

[retroone]

The Nintendo Gamecube. I am probably the only picking this one out of the bunch. I love the Gamecube. The console contains some of my first console gaming memories and some of my favorite games of all-time are on the console. I played a lot of GBA back in the day but never touched to much into to consoles. The first game I tried out was Sonic Adventure DX and was blown away. I may of only had the demo but I've played the Emerald Coast levels so many times that I could probably speed run it. It easily sits as one of my favorite games of all time without a doubt. Yea sure it was on the buggy side, but the intense gameplay and many broken controllers make it a gem in my eyes. Luckily since then I bought the full game on multiple platforms and always get that sense of joy I remember those many years ago. Not to say the system didn't have any other gems of its own. Super Smash Bros. Melee, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters, Luigi's Mansion, Mario Kart Double Dash!!, Shrek SuperSlam, Crazy Taxi, Super Monkey Ball, and Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker just to name a few. I love the NES and SNES but the GameCube surpasses those by a long shot in my mind. It's a shame Nintendo wanted to scrap this quickly so they could work on the dreaded Wii.

[bikingjahuty]

Sega Dreamcast


I got my first Dreamcast during the holiday season of 1999 and played, loved, and supported it all throughout its very short life. I remember the first time I played Sonic Adventure and being absolutely floored by the graphics and high speed gameplay. Being a huge fan of the arcade, it was pretty amazing that the Dreamcast really felt like the first console that had arcade perfect ports on it which was awesome to have that experience in your home. It was also an awesome system for fighting games which has always been a favorite genre of mine.


In addition to that, the Dreamcast has a strange charm to it that I've never experienced with another console.


And of course I have massive nostalgia for the system, with tons of memories of renting games, getting games for XMAS and birthdays, and just countless hours of fun with it.

[nova1977]

I'm gonna be weird and say that the original Xbox manages to beat all else in my mind, even though I'm a huge Nintendo fan and have since shifted to the Playstation hemisphere after the 360 lost me. Maybe it's just because of KotOR 1+2, but even to this day it's a fun console to collect for considering its games are pretty cheap. Had the best graphics of the generation, too! It's funny that I was never really involved in the major selling points for the console though... never liked Halo much and didn't have a live subscription back then. Just a lot of good memories (should point out I didn't have a PS2 back then, and if I had chosen it instead it would certainly been in the running).

Runner up is either the 3DS or PS3, I got both systems around when I started to get some actual income and I started to try out series that I had never had the money or time to get into.

[psydswipe]

The Sega Genesis is my favorite though I can't say that I've played it too much in the past 20 years. Back when I was a teenager I really got into sports video games and played a ton of EA's NHL and Madden games, as well as a fair amount of NBA Live and FIFA. I don't see too many fans of sports games on these forums, perhaps because they aren't very unique or interesting to collect. I don't play too many sports games anymore, but back then I was someone that wanted the new version each year. Aside from sports games, my favorites were Golden Axe, Phantasy Star II, and Warsong. I played so much Golden Axe that I had memorized where each enemy would appear. I'm looking at my manual right now as I used to write down all of my scores in it (Sega put in three pages labeled Scorebook) and while I can't really remember how the game was scored, it looks like my top score was 390.0 as Gilius Thunderhead. I've got Strength ratings written down here too and can't recall at all what that was. That particular score was 69.0 but I did have higher strength in other games with slightly lower overall scores. The game assigned grades too; I've received as high as A+++ which I'm guessing was the best  I know I played that game over and over trying to perfect my scores which is not something I do these days. 

I'm not too sure I can name 20 Genesis exclusives and I don't really own that many non-sports games. Unfortunately I did trade a few in for credit to get Lunar: The Silver Star on Sega CD. It's the only time I've ever traded in games and still regret it a little even if not all of them were great. A few I traded it because I got them on the Sega CD Genesis classics compilation, though I still wish I had kept the cartridges, such as Streets of Rage. During the 16-bit era I also rented a lot of games from a local video store. I remember liking Flashback but not having enough time to finish it. I did finish Gunstar Heroes and Strider. Of course I've played some Sonic the Hedgehog games too, though I've never been a big fan of platform games. Ecco the Dolphin was a unique game but I don't think I played the original on Genesis. I did try it more recently on a Genesis compilation. Speedball 2 was a favorite even though I never owned it. I've got the first one on Commodore 64 and did later pick up Speedball 2 on XBLA. The old Shinobi games are fun too. Revenge of Shinobi's ending area had all of those damn doors and forced me to check a magazine's strategy guide  Browsing the VGCollect listings quickly for some other exclusives: Moonwalker , ToeJam & Earl, and Herzog Zwei -- all games I did rent.

[kamikazekeeg]

I would probably say the N64, even if it's not the best console, but it has some of my favorite games of all time on it and I love it's design (even if the controller isn't remotely comfortable lol).  I'm certainly holding a bunch of nostalgia for it which might be way, but I just love it.

For exclusives, let me see...Not sure I can pull up twenty personal favorite exclusives, but I'll try.

1. Super Mario 64
2. Banjo-Kazooie
3. Banjo-Tooie
4. Donkey Kong 64
5. Diddy Kong Racing
6. Mario Kart 64
7. Goldeneye
8. Beetle Adventure Racing
9. Conker's Bad Fur Day
10. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
11. Perfect Dark
12. Pilotwings 64
13. Star Fox 64
14. Star Wars: Shadow of the Empire
15. Super Smash Bros

About all I could add.  There are other good games, but I either don't have solid memories for them, or didn't play them enough to feel like I should add them.  Like I never beat Majora's Mask and I don't want to add it there just because I'm a huge Zelda fan lol

If I had to pick another console with abit less nostalgia hanging over it, I'd probably say the Playstation 2.  Tons of great games on it.

[abe]

Definitely the SNES. It has so many awesome exclusive games and some of my favorite games of all time. Here's some of my favorites for the system (in no particular order):

-Earthbound
-Super Metroid
-Chrono Trigger
-Mega Man 7
-Mega Man X
-Mega Man X 2
-Mega Man X 3
-Donkey Kong Country
-Kirby Super Star
-Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest
-Final Fantasy II
-Final Fantasy III
-Super Mario RPG
-Sim City
-Contra III
-Castlevania Dracula X

I could easily keep going, but I don't want to make my post too long.

[krelyan]

Original Playstation was the big one.  It was right around the sweet spot of me being 11-12 when I started playing it.  The Gamecube is also pretty special as it was the first console I purchased myself when I was in college and it was nice to re-immerse myself with all the Nintendo franchises I hadn't seen since I was a child on the NES (never owned a SNES or 64).