Your LEAST favourite console / computer

[psj3809]

Controversial opinion coming, please don't flame me for the this .... the ZX Spectrum, in fact .... anything from Sinclair.

I'm not anti-Spectrum or anti-Sinclair .... the games produced for the system were of a great quality, it's amazing what was produced for the machine .... however, the hardware itself is horrific.
Rubber keyboard? WTF!!!! and not fitting a joystick port on a computer that was really designed as a games machine? another WTF from me.
The ZX80 and ZX81 were even worse, them sort of youch membrane like keyboards are horrible - to quote a certain TV programme "it's like reading brail through a pair of gardening gloves"
I felt that the Speccy's limitations were way more limited than say the C64 or the Amstrad CPC. The colour clash was annoying (although some did manage to "work around" this) - it wasn't until the 128K models that the Speccy got a decent sound chip.

To wrap this up, the Spectrum, a games machine with poor graphics & sound !!!! WOW!
I know it's not about graphics & sound and more about gameplay, but the Speccy could've been a far better machine had Sinclair put more thought in to it.

I kinda get what you mean. On paper if there were no 8 bit computers and you had to write down what you wanted in a new games machine it would have colour/sound etc.

BUT a bit like the Gameboy (no colour etc), the masses of games coming out, friends having Speccys, programmers getting round colour clash all helped make it become a brilliant machine

BUT the biggest thing was gameplay. I dont care if a game has flashy graphics or amazing sound, sometimes the gameplay was simply crap. Why are many of us still playing these games 30 years later ? Of course nostalgia is one thing but often its because the games are so god damn playable as that doesnt age. I see a lot of new iOS games come out and its funny when you play a modern one and you think 'this is just an updated version of xxxx' from the 80's as gameplay doesnt grow old.

I agree the rubber keyboard was dire but its what you grew up with, i started on a Speccy + so i loved that keyboard, when i played on my mates rubber one (sounds dodgy) i struggled.

[Treguard]

Rayne is a Playstation baby and is fiercely proud of it. He's not a fan boy he just likes what he likes and has an opinion I respect.

I don't think it's strange. Trouble with consoles that don't hit the height of its peer(s) is that the vocal minority won't stop waxing lyrical about them and their games whilst the silent majority just think "yeah it was quite good but....". Same with the Dreamcast that followed unfortunately. Unless you were a Sega fan, the PAL Saturn was not too great in comparison to its rival.

I am a playstation baby but at the end of the day it's all personal preference to me 8 and 16 BIT 2D will always hold up better than those jaggy laggy early 3D games.

Never suggested you were a fan boy mate, just found it odd you couldn't get on with any of those games. I'd never be one to argue the Saturn's library could compete with the Playstation's, but the Saturn had some great exclusives, just never enough to justify getting it if you wanted to have it as your 'main' gaming machine. If you had a choice between games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil or FIFA on the PS or the Saturn, you'd choose the PS every time. But surely everybody loves Sega Rally?

If you'd said you hated Virtual On though we would have had to have words though...

In terms of least favourite machine- does the CDTV count? I mean, what the hell was it for? What was it meant to be? Did Commodore just have a job lot of CD drives lying around and no good idea what to do with it?

[samhain81]

If you'd said you hated Virtual On though we would have had to have words though...

Man that game is the epitome of my childhood. Growing up in the 90s during sega's AM2 reign, the Saturn reigned for me, and Virtual On was and still is one of those games where the graphics didn't matter for me, as it played superbly. I still have 'In the Blue Sky' theme as one of my main workout tracks, as its so positive.

Viper 2 and Bal Bas Bo were my favs, where my brother always used Apharmid

[General Opulence]

In terms of least favourite machine- does the CDTV count? I mean, what the hell was it for? What was it meant to be? Did Commodore just have a job lot of CD drives lying around and no good idea what to do with it?

In the late 80's early 90's CD's were futuristic in terms of games machines, they envisioned a living room with a all in one entertainment system that could play games, watch movies and educate, so Philips/Sony etc went with the CD-i format and Commodore went alone with its CDTV (a FMV cartridge was developed for the CDTV but was canned in favour of the CD32 version when it was obvious CDTV was failing).
I remember at the time it was seen as the future of entertainment, but the high prices £500 CDTV / £600 CDi put most people off, the idea was solid but the exectution wasn't there (along with some early dodgy remote controllers) though at least the CDTV had a floppy and keyboard to fall back on A500 software!

[woody.cool]

In terms of least favourite machine- does the CDTV count? I mean, what the hell was it for? What was it meant to be? Did Commodore just have a job lot of CD drives lying around and no good idea what to do with it?

Commodore intended the CDTV to be a "multimedia entertainment system" and not a computer or games machine.
Commodore even went to great lengths of telling retailers NOT to place the CDTV within a certain distance of any of the Amiga range of computers.

[Seadog74]

Neo Geo Pocket Colour for me. By the time of it's release, it was behind other similar stuff out there. The turbografx handheld was much better and was released a lot earlier.

[kiwimike]

Hmm, never met a game machine I didn't like really, usually some entertainment on any of them- That's what they are made for!

I was thinking Game.com, due to the blurry screen with fast arcade style games- But I still enjoyed having it for the fun game show type games and a terrific version of Frogger.

I've changed my mind! The hideous disaster of crud that was the Game Gadget, and the free pile of lies that came packed as bonus.

[General Opulence]

Neo Geo Pocket Colour for me. By the time of it's release, it was behind other similar stuff out there. The turbografx handheld was much better and was released a lot earlier.

How so? The GBC came out 1998, NGPC 1999 and Wonderswan Color 2000, they were pretty equal in terms of power, battery wise the GBC came out worse and had the poorest screen, power wise the Game Gear, Lynx and PC Engine GT didn't care about power consumption hence the need for bucket loads of batteries, NGPC could last 40 hours on 2 AA's! And even though it had a short life it has some great titles for it.