March 25, 2009

Talkin Bout My G-G-Generation

Something just hit me while listening to the latest Platform Biased podcast, Three's Company. One of the hosts was talking about raising his son on a escalated schedule of old-school gaming. First, the NES for 3 months and his 5 favorite games, then the SNES for another 3 months and 5 more games, and so on until he's current.

It got me thinking about what systems I would choose to own if I could only own 1 system from each generation. My apologies if anything turns out factually inaccurate; I don't care.

Starting from the generation I came in:
What was available -- Atari 2600, Intellivision, too many others
What I had -- Intellivision
What I would choose now -- Atari...I hear too many great stories about people and their Ataris. It feels like I missed out on something huge.

The real first generation by most people's standards started with Nintendo:
What was available -- NES, Sega Master System, something else insignificant
What I had -- NES
What I would choose now -- NES...Of course the NES. It was the pivotal console gaming platform. If only my Mom hadn't sold it with all my games during a garage sale.

The pretender consoles start to die down as Sega and Nintendo reign:
What was available -- SNES, Sega Genesis, Atari holding on by a Lynx...or was it Jaguar?
What I had -- Sega Genesis
What I would choose now -- SNES...Resoundingly, I would choose the SNES. Based on all the games I played and obtained for emulators, I wish I had stayed on the Nintendo train.

Sony enters the fray as Nintendo continues ascension. Sega lapses:
What was available -- Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn
What I had -- Saturn
What I would choose now -- Sony Playstation...It was the only system I owned a game for but never owned the system (Tony Hawk Pro Skater). I found some good games for Saturn, but I was bitten for the last time purchasing a system only because it came with games and the others didn't.

In which Microsoft claims gaming space, Sony gets cocky, and Nintendo turtles:
What was available -- Xbox, Playstation 2, and Gamecube (Dreamcast swansong)
What I had -- Xbox
What I would choose now -- Playstation 2...I loved my Xbox and Halo a bunch. But there are too many games coming from the largest gaming library I still want/need to play.

Duct tape, red rings, and little big things:
What is available -- Wii, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3
What I have (had) -- Xbox 360 (gave away my Wii)

Of course this discounts the plethora of PC experiences over the years, handhelds, and systems only delusions would call big competitors (ahem, 3DO).

-- "Adventure, excitement...a Jedi craves not these things."

2 comments:

Tom Mason said...

They held on by a Jaguar, Lynx was the hand held (I always wanted a Lynx, not sure why).

Man you were always off in your own world when it came to consoles weren't you :)

I think that was a good thing. You were able to experience many other games the rest of us missed out on. And since the mainstays of the others systems were so popular it's not hard to find them now or try and new iterations.

Oh crap, forgot to look at the quote...

Wow in how many movies has that quote been quoted, I'm guessing Episode II, confirming answer...

I knew it was a Kevin Smith movie, just couldn't remember which one. Still need to buy Mallrats.

Hey you said you were going to talk about movies this post. Not that I'm complaining, I enjoy your game commentary much more than you elitist movie banter :D

ScoreSetter said...

I'm trying to leave the movie snob in the past so I enjoy more movies, hence why I liked Transformers :-P

But later today, will be a game write-up instead of talking about more movies (I'm watching a ton lately).