Most Under Rated Game System

[Azure]

Sega Saturn. That console just rocked. I remember when I first got it, I played Daytona USA, Virtua Cop, and Virtua Fighter all night long. The games also came in the best cases ever. It also had and still has the best music cd player interface ever (PS looks like shit, the same with the PS2 one, the XBOX is a little better but not really impressive, the dreamcast one is at the same level as the XBOX one).

 

[Mosch]

The Gamecubeis definitely underrated. Nintendo still has the kidie image, and it does not seem anyone wants to admit to liking something produced by a "kiddie company". Eternal Darkness is the game I see as the best horror game EVER. Viewtiful Joe might have Cell Shaded cutie graphics but is still a great game. Mario Kart is THE Party Game. The Gamecube got a remake of Skies of Arcadia.
I never wanted to be cool, I just wanted a great console with great games, and I have found one in the gamecube. It is sturdy too, unlike the PS2. I'm not going into console fanboy wars - I *know* I have the best one currently available

As for potential that was not reached, Virtual Boy, definitely. It is a great gadget, just suffers from the poor number of games.... there are endless possibilities with the 3D (Red Alarm is SO GOOD), sadly it flopped....

 

[GPswe]

Gamecube, Dreamcast, and GP32

If only the gamecube's default color wasn't purple it would have done better. I don't care since it has some real good games that only exist for gamecube, like Mario Sunshine, Double Dash and Zelda windwaker. Zelda Windwaker is one of the best games of all time, I personally love the graphics, but some people don't buy it because of the cel-shading and cartoonish style which makes it "childish"

The GP32 has lots of potential, but because of the lack of 3rd party support and good boxed games it hasn't become well known, but for a wierd company in korea that just popped out of nowhere, it has done okay..

Has Gamepark done anything before?

Dreamcast was the best console ever. It was light years ahead of the other consoles at the time. The first 128-bit console ever..I have no idea why it flopped, it had some good games...

 

[Lethe]

the gp32 isnt underrated, its unknown. if it had more promotion that everyone would know the power of the gp32.

 

[shinneri]

My vote goes for the Dreamcast for sure. It is far and away the greatest video game console ever made, in my opinion. And it was in no way given a fair chance.. simply because of Sega's inability to market it properly and people's distrust of Sega hardware.

GP32 isn't underrated. It's just a very niche console.

 

[DaveC]

Sega Saturn. That console just rocked. I remember when I first got it, I played Daytona USA, Virtua Cop, and Virtua Fighter all night long. The games also came in the best cases ever. It also had and still has the best music cd player interface ever (PS looks like shit, the same with the PS2 one, the XBOX is a little better but not really impressive, the dreamcast one is at the same level as the XBOX one).

​

Actually the 3DO probably had the best CD player as it had that color organ thingy that would change to the music.

 

[DaveC]

The Gamecubeis definitely underrated. Nintendo still has the kidie image, and it does not seem anyone wants to admit to liking something produced by a "kiddie company". Eternal Darkness is the game I see as the best horror game EVER. Viewtiful Joe might have Cell Shaded cutie graphics but is still a great game. Mario Kart is THE Party Game. The Gamecube got a remake of Skies of Arcadia.
I never wanted to be cool, I just wanted a great console with great games, and I have found one in the gamecube. It is sturdy too, unlike the PS2. I'm not going into console fanboy wars - I *know* I have the best one currently available

As for potential that was not reached, Virtual Boy, definitely. It is a great gadget, just suffers from the poor number of games.... there are endless possibilities with the 3D (Red Alarm is SO GOOD), sadly it flopped....

​

As for the GC image as a kiddy box well it IS a kiddy system for the most part. They can't seem to pry themselves away from Mario, Donkey kong and friends and Pokemon. Mascot games are ALL Nintendo releases! "great games" is all opinion. I have a Cube and I don't like 95% of their games. The graphics are mostly the same as PS2 stuff with a higher framerate sometimes. It is a number 2 system in terms of power, hardly the "best one".

I think the Xbox is underrated. It is number 3 in sales but no. 1 in power. Just look at Riddick, Halo 1&2, Ninja gaiden, Fable, Doom3, and more that use bump mapping and normal mapping to make textures look like a pre-rendered video. Plus the per pixel lighting and shadowing makes stuff look almost real.

The PS2 is the weakest hardware with the poorest framerate, severe aliasing in most games, low res blurry textures, longest load times, simple lighting model, no bumpmapping. But hey it is no. 1 by a landslide. Add the GC and Xbox sales together and triple it and still doesn't come close to Sony.

I have all of the systems so I just know what I like. I am not a "party game" fan so I guess that is why the GC doesn't do much for me. I am a solo gamer.

Out of the ones on the list I think the Lynx was the most underrated one. At the time its competition was the smeary piss yellow screened gameboy that you had to be directly under the sun at noon on a sunny day to even see the gamescreen. The Lynx had hardware sprite scaling and all kinds of awesome effects and was even backlit.

 

[davey g]

I think the Saturn vs PS was the first example of everyone wanting graphics over gameplay. A lot of the Saturn's best games were 2d but everyone wanted 3d at the time. So much so that most of the great 2d games didn't even make it to these shores.

The xbox is still in number 2 worldwide but I still think it should sell much more than it does. I wouldn't call it under rated though as it has performed better than anyone could have expected.

I too own all three current gen consoles (four including the DC) but my GC goes almost unplayed. With the gamecube if you don't like two or three of the exclusives you are left with a very small choice of games. The lack of third party support REALLY hurts it and I don't think developers are going to flock back the the GC any time soon.

 

[finty]

Sega Saturn. That console just rocked. I remember when I first got it, I played Daytona USA, Virtua Cop, and Virtua Fighter all night long. The games also came in the best cases ever. It also had and still has the best music cd player interface ever (PS looks like shit, the same with the PS2 one, the XBOX is a little better but not really impressive, the dreamcast one is at the same level as the XBOX one).

​

Actually the 3DO probably had the best CD player as it had that color organ thingy that would change to the music.

​

But we had a flying spaceship, moving stars, and green(?) cubes that pulsed to the music! Plus you could control the spaceship if you knew the right cheat.

 

[spray]

i'd have to say neo geo pocket, great console with some real gems, shame it went under.

with regards to the cube, i've had one since release date and have never looked back. i remember when i was younger and playing tomb raider II, how great it would be to play a game composed entirely of fmv style graphics and not these blocks and odd looking walls. as soon as i whacked on luigi's mansion i was blown away, it is graphically brilliant!

 

[Mark]

I think the Saturn vs PS was the first example of everyone wanting graphics over gameplay. A lot of the Saturn's best games were 2d but everyone wanted 3d at the time. So much so that most of the great 2d games didn't even make it to these shores.

​

Agreed. Perhaps why Sony are so anti-2D?

The PSOne may have some good games, and a huge choice but there's just something about it. It hasn't got a soul.

 

[CUPC4KES]

Definitely the dreamcast, even now i think the better looking dc games (especially soul calibur) are better than anything ive seen the ps2 achieve graphically, and most importantly it did have a load of brilliant games, tokyo bus guide is one of my favourite games of all time.i can understand why it failed in the uk. i had mine more or less straight from the jap launch.

 

[finty]

Is it true that sony discourage developers from making 2D games on their systems?

 

[Mosch]

The Gamecubeis definitely underrated. Nintendo still has the kidie image, and it does not seem anyone wants to admit to liking something produced by a "kiddie company". Eternal Darkness is the game I see as the best horror game EVER. Viewtiful Joe might have Cell Shaded cutie graphics but is still a great game. Mario Kart is THE Party Game. The Gamecube got a remake of Skies of Arcadia.
I never wanted to be cool, I just wanted a great console with great games, and I have found one in the gamecube. It is sturdy too, unlike the PS2. I'm not going into console fanboy wars - I *know* I have the best one currently available

As for potential that was not reached, Virtual Boy, definitely. It is a great gadget, just suffers from the poor number of games.... there are endless possibilities with the 3D (Red Alarm is SO GOOD), sadly it flopped....

​

As for the GC image as a kiddy box well it IS a kiddy system for the most part. They can't seem to pry themselves away from Mario, Donkey kong and friends and Pokemon. Mascot games are ALL Nintendo releases! "great games" is all opinion. I have a Cube and I don't like 95% of their games. The graphics are mostly the same as PS2 stuff with a higher framerate sometimes. It is a number 2 system in terms of power, hardly the "best one".

I think the Xbox is underrated. It is number 3 in sales but no. 1 in power. Just look at Riddick, Halo 1&2, Ninja gaiden, Fable, Doom3, and more that use bump mapping and normal mapping to make textures look like a pre-rendered video. Plus the per pixel lighting and shadowing makes stuff look almost real.

The PS2 is the weakest hardware with the poorest framerate, severe aliasing in most games, low res blurry textures, longest load times, simple lighting model, no bumpmapping. But hey it is no. 1 by a landslide. Add the GC and Xbox sales together and triple it and still doesn't come close to Sony.

I have all of the systems so I just know what I like. I am not a "party game" fan so I guess that is why the GC doesn't do much for me. I am a solo gamer.

Out of the ones on the list I think the Lynx was the most underrated one. At the time its competition was the smeary piss yellow screened gameboy that you had to be directly under the sun at noon on a sunny day to even see the gamescreen. The Lynx had hardware sprite scaling and all kinds of awesome effects and was even backlit.

​

Kiddie system, yes and no. There are children that play child's games, teenagers who waved child games goodbye and concentrate on more violent or adult games, and then there are people like me who don't give a rat's ass if the game was made for eight year olds. At the end of the day, I play games that were obviously programmed for the younger target group just because I like the games. Why is Mario viewed as a "child only" character? Because he doesn't do drugs, has no real background and is not lost in a "film noir" world? Should I not play a pokemon game I like for its gameplay because the characters are cuddly little child's toys?
And as I couldn't care less for graphics or processing power in a console, I am not going to comment on the power of the system, that may well be.
And that comment about the best was of course going to provoke. It only works on a personal basis, but anyone who couldn't see that is hardly fit to join in a discussion about it Fact is, there is one game series on the PS2 I would like to play (Final Fantasy) and nothing on the XBOX that interests me (I am talking only about the exclusive games here), so for me the Cube is the best console

And I am not really a party gamer either - but sometimes a game of Mario Kart makes the mood rise like nothing else. Four players, 2 vs 2, play it with a drunken marine soldier, a death metal fan and a mathematics student and the fun never stops

 

[PinkSpider]

Dreamcast all the way (voted for GP32). I got my DC near its launch, shame it didnt succeed... Ikaruga, Sonic, JSR, Soul Caliber, Power Stone... etc.

And on the kiddy game thing.. I play a game if its fun and I dont give a crap if it is bright and has kiddy graphics, infact it makes playing the game more fun.

 

[Huxley]

I voted for GP32. IMHO the DC has never really been 'under rated' because it achieved critical acclaim accross the board, sold millions of units and is still loved as much today as it was in 1999.

If anything it's over rated...

 

[mattmagoo]

the main reason i like the GC is because they thought about the controller

the analogue PS2 controller has to be the most poorly designed piece of arse since the virtual boy controller

 

[thebluenewt]

the main reason i like the GC is because they thought about the controller

the analogue PS2 controller has to be the most poorly designed piece of arse since the virtual boy controller

​

The Dualshock is a thing of beauty, no other pad feels right to me anymore...

 

[CUPC4KES]

Is it true that sony discourage developers from making 2D games on their systems?

​

i heard that too. i heard sony didnt want SNK to produce any games for the ps2, because theyre mainly 2d. at least you dont get crappy camera angle problems with 2d.

 

[bringoutthegimp]

the main reason i like the GC is because they thought about the controller

the analogue PS2 controller has to be the most poorly designed piece of arse since the virtual boy controller

​

what are you an idiot? i think you got the 2 controllers mixed up there fool