Next-gen moments

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Next-gen moments

Post by 3DOKid » Sun Jun 15, 2008 1:01 pm

After being in the 'next-gen' for over 18 months, I had my first next gen moment this weekend. Being a big old cynic and believing everything to rubbish until I convince myself otherwise, the Wii/360/PS3 finally came into it's own. Codemaster GRID. I just wrote off a Dodge Viper at 130Mph and the car barrel rolled through the air showering the ground with bits and stared with my big-opionated gob wide open. It was f**king cool. That's the only to put it. The next gen starts here :D

It was, and you know me, I'd be the first to complain if it was just a bit rubbish, absolutely stunning. When I'm mega rich, I'll buy you all either a PS3 or 360 and copy of this. IT'S ACE. HONEST.

Got me thinking - when was the last time that happened?

- PS2, sort of dawdled on, with me being cynical about it, then there was Shadow of Collosus. The game was OK, but the effects blew my socks off.

- The DC moment of WOW was early on, day one in fact, Soul Calibre. I remember thinking - this ain't a PSX. :shock:

- Xbox. Again nothing really. I enjoyed lots of games on it, but nothing really amazed me. Maybe SplinterCell 3. I remember being in some caves and thinking - this Microsoft console isn't all bad :)

- PSX was Ridge Racer. A mate of mine had an import one before they were widely available in the UK. And my gob went silent at Ridge Racer running in Black and white on my cheapo colour TV. I had been Ridge Racer arcade fan.

- PSP. Nowt really. Plenty of nice games but... oh, the Ridge Racer movie is actually something to see on the PSP. Seeing that for the first time in the palm of your hand is quite something.

- Saturn. The saturn never gave me a next gen moment. I loved all the arcade ports the Saturn got, but it never blew my socks off.

- 3DO. Shockwave. Opening sequence. Awesome. That space stealth fighter peeling off into the earths atmosphere. Sold.

- Jaguar. Again, never really impressed me. Zero 5 and Pitfall really impressed me, but only in the past 3 years, not at the time. And the Native Demo impressed me.

So what were your next gen moments...?

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Post by Trev » Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:09 pm

Best next gen moments ...

3DO - Most everything I played actually. All my friends were still playing Sega Genesis, so 3DO's graphics & sound capabilities knocked my socks off!

DC - Similar to 3DO, in the era of the grainy PSX & the blurry N64, the DC wowed me fresh out of the gate w/games like Soul Caliber, Sonic Adventure, Hydro Thunder, etc ... "It's thinking"

GC - Resident Evil 4. Felt like a next-gen game landed on a last gen platform. Great swan song for the cube.

Runners up - First time I played Daxter on my new psp w/it's huge wide screen crystal clear display. I love my DS, but man this machine is sharp! Even my wife was amazed.

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Post by Lemmi » Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:47 pm

humm lets see

Atari 7800 - wow these games look alot better than the atari 2600 and it can play 2600 games as well, Food Fight blew my socks off because it was so fast and i had no idea when you did something awesome the game replayed it for you :)

TG16 - sweet now me and my friends can play Hockey and finally be on the same team instead of always playing each other, and World court Tennis how can you not like a tennis game with a role playing mode :lol:

Genesis - awesome this hockey game is a million times cooler than the TG16 hockey (plus it used real hockey player names) and we dont have to buy highly expensive extra stuff to play 2 player games, this was the last system i bought before i started my collecting phaze in 97

i also bought a SNES off my girlfriends brother around 93 or 94 and i only had super mario world (great game) but the sports sucked so bad compaired to the Gen

well that it for my next gen moments, because those are the only systems i bought very close to launch day

i had the N64 and playstation in 99 but nothing on those systems made my eyes pop out or go sweet!


everything else was bought 3+ years after launch usually when the system was dying, mostly when they were clearing out stock like the DC when it hit $50 new in late 2001


i just thought of something, i really dont play many systems where the controller buttons arent in a row of 3/6 - i use a non VMU controller for my DC and the buttons are in a row instead of the Diamond shape
and the GC controller is just a cluster f***
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Post by 3DO Experience » Sun Jun 15, 2008 5:47 pm

Damn you Trev I wanted to be the first to respond! LOL

Wow Kid, I started writing this and it brought back so many memories. Thanks for bringing this up. I'm gonna start after the TurboGrafx-16...

Neo Geo - Magician Lord. All in all it wasn't a major difference from the arcade games at the time but the transformation and deaths got me saying "This is way better than SuperNES!" I didn't get one until after SNES had been on the market for quite some time.

3DO - HELL: A Cyberpunk Thriller. As much as I loved Escape From Monster Manor and thought it looked great Hell was the first game that made my jaw drop. The immense pre-rendered graphics made me fall in love with the system (as well as the first game I played that had swearing and nudity).

Atari Jaguar - Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy. This is really the only game that impressed me. AvP was good but didn't show off what the system could really do... none of the games ever really did.

Sega Saturn - Nights into Dreams. 'Nough said.

PlayStation - Fail. Never impressed really. Had a few good looking games, most of them looked better on the DC or 3DO, but there was never a pop-out awesome looking game.

Nintendo 64 - Fail. I may be a Nintendo fan boy but I was disappointed with almost every game for this for one reason or another.

Virtual Boy - Vertical Force. Can I list this system? I have to admit, as big of a failure this system turned out to be I LOVE it! This game was just one of those things that makes you realize that no other system has this!

Sega Dreamcast - Ready 2 Rumble Boxing. I'm not a sports fan and a friend of mine owned it but I couldn't believe this game when he put it in. The characters looked soooooo good and the FMV seemed as though I was watching a DVD. I glorious game with many more to follow on this awesome system.

PlayStation 2 - Fail. Never impressed even once, and the DVD playback looked like VCD.

Nintendo GameCube - Resident Evil. Even though Resident Evil Zero looked better and RE2 looked like dog barf this puppy came first. I figured an old game that was damn good made to look new would be a good flashback of days gone by. To see the cheesy acting gone from the beginning left me with mixed feelings. Yeah the CGI looked good but it kinda omitted part of the nostalgia. And then the waiting came... the video went straight into the game but I didn't know it. I was thinking oh great a long ass load time and being tired of waiting I mashed a button on the controller and the character moved! The real-time rendering looked just as good as the pre-rendered graphics, it was then I had my most impressive (short of the 3DO) Next-gen moment.

Xbox - Fail. Nicer than the PS2 but never a Next-gen moment.

Xbox 360, Wii, PS3... nothing yet, look good but still no "WOW" moments.
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Post by 3DOKid » Sun Jun 15, 2008 6:57 pm

I just remembered the Dinosaur head demo on the PSX. That was pant wetting moment. It really was -- honest.

DC Crazy Taxi was a bit of a moment too. I bought it because everyone said it was awesome, and I was all set up for a massive fail -- then it was awesome. That doesn't happen to me often.

Another vote for RE4 on the GC. To be fair, Capcom getting RE4 on the PS2 to look almost like the much more powerful GC version was very impressive too.

Dungeon Master on the ST. The game was as boring as hell, I do remember watching it being played thinking oooh-that's-cool.

Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga. Parallax scrolling. IN THE HOME!!! I mean, IN THE HOME!!!

The BBC micro playing Elite. I wasn't posh enough to own a BBC micro home computer (your parents had to be card carrying middle-class to own one, and they had to be into recycling, in 1988 that was unheard of down our street.) Anyway, 3D space, millions of galaxies, and a TV advert. More awesome, than awesome. Well, to 10 year old it was.

Starwars the arcade. I was on a camping holiday in Wales with my parents, and my brother and I had saved a whole £7 to spend while on holiday (between us that is) we blew the lot on Starwars and Battlezone. 3D graphics - it was not like being Luke Skywalker, it was BEING Luke Skywalker. Only better. Wireframe 3D is still awesome to this day. It's the law.

Up until GRID, everything on the PS3/Wii/360 has been PS2/Xbox game with minor upgrades. Little more than playing the same old games on your PC, then buying a new monitor and graphics card and being amazed for 30 seconds at the new resolution of your old games. RUBBISH :evil:

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Post by Trev » Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:34 pm

Damn you Trev I wanted to be the first to respond! LOL
Hey, what about Lemmi? Wheres his zing? :wink:


Seriously though, props for listing Nights ... awesome!
Virtual Boy - Vertical Force. Can I list this system? I have to admit, as big of a failure this system turned out to be I LOVE it! This game was just one of those things that makes you realize that no other system has this!
I forgot all about this game, but I do own it. You've kinda made me want to dig it out and play it again. Mario Clash & Wario World were great VB game too!

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Post by 3DO Experience » Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:54 am

He posted as I was damning you. ROFL
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Post by 3DOKid » Mon Jun 16, 2008 7:06 am

Trevour McFur had a screen shot, that appeared in a magazine, which I remember thinking at the time: Awesome! I want that.

Years later I got it. The awesomeness, had to be fair, worn off by that point.

The N64. I racked my brains over this. Golden Eye and the Sniper Rifle. You could shoot them in the leg and they would hop about. You could shoot them in the hand and they would wave it about. Like they were in pain. It was brilliant.

As an aside. The only other N64 game I had was Llyatt Wars. All I kept thinking was, that it was some kind of sequel to Total Eclipse on the 3DO. LOL!

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Post by Trev » Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:55 pm

I forgot two next-gen moments that should have been obvious ...

N64 - The 1st time I played Super Mario 64. Well, actually the 1st time was an import copy, but still. I was in awe w/how smoothly and quickly I could navigate this huge colorful 3-d world! When I scooped up my own N64 it was the 1st game I grabbed. I have a ton of great memories w/this game. In fact, it is prob the only N64 game to really give me a next-gen moment (although there are several N64 games I love) Years later I bought the update for my DS, and while the wow factor had lessened considerably, the fun was still intact.

DC - Shenmue (duh!) This game still wows me, as does it's sequel. So many times I'd play a 3-d game and it would show me so much and I'd wonder why in such a big detailed world my options were so limited? Not w/Shenmue ... I really could go anywhere, touch anything, talk to anyone.
Graphically this was the most jaw dropping game I ever played at the time! Games like this helped make my DC into the 128 bit equivalent of my 3DO ... a system years ahead of it's time, a library of games I loved, and gone way too soon.

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Post by Devin » Mon Jun 16, 2008 8:35 pm

Trev wrote:GC - Resident Evil 4. Felt like a next-gen game landed on a last gen platform. Great swan song for the cube.
Meh to! That game was tight.

I've been gawking at GRID for a while, downloading the demo so I can sample it on the 360.

As for other moments, I'm gonna be unconventional and go for Homeworld on the PC. Remember playing the demo on my mates PC and as a result ended up spending my entire years Biomedical Grant on a spanking new PC with *GASP* '32MB of Video RAM and 128 MB of system memory'... go Windows 98! Actually the Grant I claimed as 'traveling expenses' but it was a worthwhile cause and the only time in recorded history the NHS has supported a video game addiction :wink:

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Post by 3DOKid » Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:17 pm

Ahhh. The PC.

Homeworld was indeed awesome looking.

Back in 1987 I remember being suitably impressed by a picture, a picture mind, of a pelican being displayed on a 386sx SVGA graphcs. Easily impressed me.

Alone in the Dark on the PC was also a bit of a moment. My mate had 486 DX2 66, and AITD looked amazing.

Mobius

Post by Mobius » Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:35 pm

Mario 64 and Soul Caliber are the most memorable "next-gen moments" for me. Not many games after the Dreamcast have really wowed me. Technological updates since then have been rather... incremental, at best.

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Post by UnholyTancred » Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:54 am

Comrade, surely the PC version of GRID is superior to the PS3/Xbox360 one.

$20 cheaper too.

One of the many reasons why I don't understand why people buy PS3s/360s. Games are more expensive and available on the computer. With the amount of money you paid at launch, you could have easily upgraded your computer if it wasn't up to snuff.
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Post by klogg » Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:06 am

3DO: Road Rash opening.

Playstation: The sound of the jet engines in Boogey: Dead 6 demo .. after soo many hour playing Flying Nightmares and VR Stalker, that was something.

N64: Maybe Pilotwings, maybe Doom 64.. nothing, really.

Dreamcast: (edit) SOUL CALIBUR

Xbox: Chronicles of Riddick. It made me buy that system.
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Post by nocturne » Tue Jun 17, 2008 5:19 am

Sega Master System - Bubble Bobble, So close to the arcade and after owning an arcadia, this blew me away

Snes - Mortal Kombat, So there was no blood without an action replay code. But the characters where huge. I was told to the snes after this one

3DO - Both road rash and N4S, @ the time my friends had the 16bit consoles, The site and sound experience blew me away, I cared more about the console then anything,,,, mis spent youth

Sega Saturn - VF2, Virtua cop. Talk about aracade at home experience. I was never good at VF2 & just admired the graphics. VC bought blisters to my hands. For it's time, it was gold.

N64 - Mario 64, I still think this was one of the biggest leap forwards in gaming technology. A true 3d platformer, i still play this once a year

Dreamcast - Crazy taxi, sonic adventure, Soul calibur. This machine just kept delivering, but the launch titles where just plain awesome. A true next gen experience way ahead of the pack

Gamecube - Res evil remake, Metroid.

unworthy mentions

Megadrive
psx
ps2
xbox

The latter 2 never amazed me, mainly due to the dreamcast

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Post by 3DOKid » Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:20 am

UnholyTancred wrote:Comrade, surely the PC version of GRID is superior to the PS3/Xbox360 one.

$20 cheaper too.

One of the many reasons why I don't understand why people buy PS3s/360s. Games are more expensive and available on the computer. With the amount of money you paid at launch, you could have easily upgraded your computer if it wasn't up to snuff.
You have a point, but while my PC is a duelcore 2.somthing doo-daar and has 2Gb RAM, the graphics card is a bit of tin foil I found in the garden. My PC evolved over 6 years. The harddrives, it has 5, are a sorry reflection of this. A dodgy combination of SATA and IDE. And it has more fans than a windmill factory. So it's as noisy as hell too.

I tried, and it'll run 5 year old games like a trooper, newer stuff, like C&C Tiberium wars, it grinds to a bit of a halt. Grid would probably make it run off, and I kind of need it. Plus, the big TV is downstairs, and I am allowed one, and only one, games console next to it. Since the PS3 has the most games (PS1, PS2 incl) it wins. PLus I bought the scabbiest little case for my PC, meaning I can probably fit only a scabby little GFX card into it.

What I need is a new case, possibly a Mboard, a new graphics card, new powersupply, new quieter fans, a decent PC joystick, some speakers. But then, I'd have to research GFX cards... too much effort.

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Post by Game.com » Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:34 pm

I remember trading in Wipeout for Resedent evil on the Ps 1 then getting home and creaming ma pants when the intro started !! HOLY CHRIST THAT LOOKS GOOD :shock: :shock: Could'ne put the game down for hours.

Then the big N brings out a remake and its even better :shock: who would have thought the graphics for a small box like were just to good.

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Post by 3DOKid » Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:19 pm

There was a piece of music (Not the Prodigy) used in the original Wipeout that sounded like the future. That whole Designers Republic thing was quite a cultural shift too in the UK. DJs and nightclub culture. Record cases with WipeOut written on it. It was pretty amazing considering that prior to that, gamings contribution to fashion was a black t-shirt with Amiga written on it. (Still have mine mind you.)

I loved this game too. Many reckon that 2097 is better, but I think it lost something from the original. I am looking forward to Wipeout HD.

Of cause, this was all when Sony was young and fresh, and had no clear idea where to spend it's marketing budget, and Nintendo was the evil overlord. The opposite of today. It'll be like that again once were sick of Nintendo and Sony come with something young and fresh. Like the Wii, only newer, with Sony written on it.

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Post by Bas » Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:06 pm

Seems a little out of place but I had a great moment when I played Doom on my tiny Game Boy micro! I never expected a GBA to handle 3d this good. Later on I experienced the power of GBA was pretty solid when playing games like Payback (those visuals were very good for GBA!) and Driver 3.

The same thing happened to me when I played Atlantis: The Last Resort on CD-i. (obvious remark, perhaps) :D

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Post by mattyg » Fri Jun 20, 2008 3:17 pm

I thought GT5 prologue was alright till I put Grid in the work PS3 wow! I need this on PC

Great moments for me - growing up I shared a house with three computing students one was an amiga nut , one ibm and one apple so thre were a few:

Tie Fighter/x-wing - this IS WHAT I WANT A STAR WARS GAME TO BE! - this had nothing come close for years

Prince of Persia - the fluid movement knocked my socks off

Ancient Art of War on the apple - brilliant strategy game

Wing 3 on the 3do - nuff said

Nights - really the last great platformer

Sonic - the speed was amazing

Beneath a steel sky on the amiga - moody and clever

Resi 4 on the gamecube - agreed - this consoles shining moment

Tekken PSX at last we were getting almost arcade perfect at home

PS2 - GT4 - probably the last decent game we'll see on this platform

xbox - please forgive me everyone but Halo did look good

xbox 360 - nothing - anything decent ( grid , GTA4 etc) were on PS3 and Pc but done better

I too find it hard to believe anyone would buy a 360 when a pc with the pc/xbox controller does it better with a bigger range of games and most "exclusives" are co ported onto windows anyway (halo , shadowrun) for example.However ,the 360 has the BEST controller ever in my opinion - I'm just glad they make a PC version - it makes playing arcade style games easy.
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Post by 3DOKid » Fri Jun 20, 2008 3:59 pm

PGR4 on the 360 is extra-awesome with a big dollop of awesome spread thickly over the top. In places. There was a bit where you get given a classic sports car from the 1930s, a Jaguar I think, and it's dawn at the Nuremberg ring. And there was crisp untouched snow, as far the 720 resolution would let you see. And it was so beautiful I nearly wept with joy. Like the time when I found the black-ice cheat for NFS on the 3DO.

PGR 4 is the reason why i shall fix my 360. :shock:

A screen grab I made in PGR4, just before I got bored of it altogether and
just after I got bored of actually playing it:

Image

You can't tell me that's not mega-ultra-super-awesome or what!? That's an ingame screen shot.

(My love of cars, as you can see, has not subsided any in recent times)

And yeah, Halo, did and does look pretty neat! Having thought about Halo a lot, I think it's the wooly feel of the controls that puts me off. I think I figured it after playing Resistance on the PS3. In Resistance you have a choice of normal machine guns, shotguns and handguns and Halo 'like' plasma rifles and stuff. I prefer the real guns. My favourite FPS is Black.

GT4 was pretty special. Upscales nicely on the PS3 too.

GT5? Prologue for GT5 did, what the Prologue for GT4, put me off the game. It's only epic car lust that made, and indeed, will make me get proper GT5, which I'm confident will be aces.

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Post by 3DOKid » Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:15 pm

jaguar awesome.

Image

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Post by Trev » Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:09 pm

Hmmm ... this pic looks familiar :mrgreen: Jaguar vs. Jaguar

Too bad IS had such bland polygons. A good game, but could have looked so much better. Metal Head for the 32X actually looked nicer w/texture mapping and so forth. Neither were a next-gen moment though.

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Post by mattyg » Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:54 pm

ok I just played Grid for the first time and I can assure you all it wont be my last - just AWESOME!
For me driving games should be realistic or arcadey not somewhere in between. Back in the early nineties I had my motorsport licence and dabbled a bit in racing - this is why NFS was such a ground breaking title for me - forget the graphics - these cars handled the way they should.
It was after using the porsche and the way the back would swing out on the coastal track that prompted me to build a modified a modified type 3 VW and put it through its paces.This is also why I have great affection for the GT series - the Japanese seem to have a reverence for classic marques that the US doesn't - you will not see Jensen Interceptors or renault alpines in their games - and just like a real Jensen the one in GT4 accelerated like hell but handled like a sack of potatoes!Where the GT series has let me down is its lack of real time damage and accidents - to spend so much time on getting the details correct it seems just wrong to then throw realism out the window at the last moment.
I used to pump a lot of coins into cruis'n usa and outrun in the early days - they were just arcade fun , daytona and sega rally too - they were at the other end of the spectrum with a dollop of realism and next gen visuals that made my jaw drop , but I always hated ridge because it fell somewhere in between.So when I go into work today I'll put grid on the PS3 and enjoy , and if I'm lucky a PC version will be coming home with me. Grid is fun . GT5 will be my Sunday drive in a quirky classic I'll never own and the future of gaming is still looking healthy.
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Post by FrumpleOrz » Sun Jan 29, 2012 5:07 am

Sorry for digging up such an old thread, but I though the topic was kinda neat and I'm bored and we all know what that kind of alchemy brings forward, eh? I think I'm a bit younger than average on the forum, so I'm gonna guess that my opinions on these things are a bit different.

SNES - Super Mario World, obviously. I was super young at the time, but seeing all of the colors and looking better than the cartoons I'd watch, my seven year old mind was blown.

Playstation - I think this is where I'll differ from everyone else. The Playstation was the first console I'd ever seen that had 3D graphics for standard games. I was 9 when the console came out in August 95 and my neighbors got one on launch day. They had Battle Arena Toshinden and we played it for hours for next few months. Say what you will about Toshinden now, but when it came out it was cool. I still think the character models hold up pretty well but gameplay... blerg.

Also, the original opening video from Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. That one still holds up today, even.

3DO - So I got my 3DO a couple years after the Playstation came out. It came pack-in with Gex, which I loved since I played it on my neighbors and loved it. However, the game that sold me was Foes of Ali. The first time I went into the first person mode and had the right side of my screen go black from my eye swelling shut was mesmerizing. Heck, it was enough to get my dad interested in it and he still brings up that game today. Of course, he refers to it as "That super realistic boxing game. the game that almost looks like a real boxing match," to which I have to remind him that the game came out with I was 10 and it doesn't look so good anymore, comparatively. At least SOMEONE else has an appreciation for the stuff though.

N64 - Goldeneye. Now THAT was my game. I played that A LOT. It was the first competitive multiplayer game that made sense to me. Sure, the multiplayer aspect hasn't aged too well nowadays but at the time? BRILIANT STUFF.

Dreamcast - Soul Calibur. Does anything else need to be said?

PS2/Xbox 180 - Honestly? I don't remember being wowwed by anything on these consoles. I didn't have either one of them until waaaaaaay into their life cycle though, so that might have something to do with it. I do remember being blown away by Stranger's Wrath's opening videos though. Those Oddworld dudes really knew what they were doing.

360 - I remember thinking the number of character on screen at once on Call of Duty 2 was really impressive. I don't know if I was simply buying into the hype or not at the time though.

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Post by Trev » Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:55 am

Nice post. I agree about Toshinden ... it may not hold up now, but it was a powerful launch window game!

Foes of Ali is a remarkable title, that seemed to never get the attention it deserved. The 1st person mode was intense! Swollen eyes, blurred vision ... I really like this game. :)

Goldeneye was lots of fun, and I agree that Soul Caliber speaks for itself. Amazing that one of the best DC games was available on day one!
Most wanted - Eye of Typhoon, 3DO Magazines issues #14 & #15, Pro Stadium, Defcon 5

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Martin III
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Post by Martin III » Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:58 pm

Thanks for reviving this, Frumple. Let's see:

NES - No big surprise here, and as you might guess this was the first game for the system I saw, but Super Mario Bros. opened up a whole new world to me. Before Mario, a video game was only outstanding by virtue of being a video game - you know, "Wow, I'm actually playing with a video monitor!" Super Mario Bros. was my first video game that was outstanding compared to the rest.

Saturn - My bro and I were one of those who cashed in on the three bundled games when we got this, and all three utterly wowed me, but the crowning moment was Panzer Dragoon II. At the time, I could never have believed that such a surreal visual realm was possible for a video game.

Dreamcast - Nothing, really. Virtua Fighter 3tb impressed me quite a bit with its level of detail, 3D movement, and smoothness, but I wouldn't call it a "next gen moment". And for the most part, Dreamcast software just made me say, "Sega dropped the Saturn for this?"

Wii - Dead Space: Extraction. I don't like putting that one there since horror games aren't my cup of tea, so while Extraction is a thoroughly outstanding game, it's not one that I enjoyed that much. And there were plenty of first-rate games that I experienced on the Wii before Extraction. But... sigh... Extraction was the first one that blew me away in terms of hardware usage, rather than gameplay or stylistics.

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Post by Austin » Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:59 am

Any systems that are not listed is because I barely experienced them at all when they launched, and in some cases (like the Genesis), I wouldn't get to trying them seriously until they were three or four years old.

SNES - Super Mario World looked, played, sounded, and felt amazing. It was a massive step up from what was seen on the NES I was growing up with at that time. I didn't get a SNES until the end of '93, but it seemed like everyone else had one, so I got to play it frequently.

Sega CD - I didn't get this until '95 when it was basically on its way out, and I hadn't played a PlayStation or Saturn at that time yet. The Sega CD still floored me though. The FMV and CD quality audio was completely new to me at the time, and it made a huge difference in games for me. So much so, that I even enjoyed tracking down the conversions of prior Genesis games that now had CD soundtracks, like Flashback, Ecco, and more. Eternal Champions: Challenge From the Dark Side, Batman Returns, Sewer Shark, and Prince of Persia were the games I got with the system. Prince of Persia didn't impress much, but the rest did.

Nintendo 64 - Mario 64 on that Nintendo 64 Promotional Nintendo Power tape made my jaw drop. Star Fox for the SNES was impressive to me when it was released, but Mario 64 was something I simply wasn't able to imagine by that point (I hadn't even heard of a 3DO then, either). I didn't really get a chance to play a N64 though until a year or so after it was released.

Sega Dreamcast - I was 17 and bought one on launch day. House of the Dead 2 was the game I chose to buy alongside the system. I had to have someone else pick my jaw up off the floor for me. It was that impressive. Likewise, everything else on the demo disc included (sans the F1 demo) was mind-blowing, too. Power Stone with all background objects and crazy, bright visuals, and Sonic Adventure, with the famous whale scene on the first action stage.

PlayStation 2 - I was not impressed at all by the PS2 when it launched. Don't get me wrong, it is a killer system, and I did get one when they were still tough to find, about six months in, but the games looked like ass when the system hit. Lack of anti-aliasing alone early on made me and many others firm believers that the system wasn't any more powerful than the Dreamcast, but as we all know, that's completely untrue.

Game Boy Advance - Asides from the dark screen, this was pretty impressive. It was what we were used to already (SNES-style gaming), but the fact that it was in our hands was a big step up from what was popular before (the Game Boy). I bought one in the first week it was available (or close to), and picked up F-Zero, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, and I believe the import version of Mario 2. All great games!

XBOX - This was a complete impulse buy that I didn't decide on until about a week or two before its launch. Getting myself hyped up over its Pentium III 700+ MHZ processor, which was three or four times the power of the current systems at the time (PS2/DC), plus watching preview video for Dead or Alive 3, is what pushed me over the line. After waiting in line in front of Best Buy for hours in freezing-cold weather, it was worth it. I was impressed. Not quite on the level of the Dreamcast when it was new, but the XBOX still took things to the next level: seemingly infinite draw distances, bump mapping instead of seemingly flat surfaces, games that just felt huge compared to before even when they weren't (DOA3's multiple-multiple tier stages, for instance), etc., etc. The DVD playback and custom soundtracks was a nice option, too, and the later was a brand-new thing at the time.

Nokia N-Gage - It got a terrible rap and had some terrible games at first, but it still impressed me and made the GBA look dated with its ability to play games like Tomb Raider and Tony Hawk just about perfectly. That thrill wore off for me pretty quickly since the DS came out just the next year after, then the PSP shortly after that, but having it double as a phone as well kept the whole thing fresh and novel for me for years to come.

Nintendo DS - Wasn't as impressive as I had hoped. Games were of a slightly higher resolution and ran smoother than 3D N-Gage games, but it wasn't a large enough jump from what I already had. The touch screen idea was very cool, but the games were pretty average (outside of Castlevania) and I ended up using it mostly as a GBA player.

XBOX 360 - It wasn't a huge jump up from the original XBOX, but there was a good enough difference to me, primarily in Perfect Dark Zero. The mapping effects on textures were even more pronounced with the 360, and there were a lot of new effects, such as the blurring when turning in PDZ. The blades dashboard was also very cool, as well as the amazing Jeff Minter visualizer. Custom-soundtracks in EVERY game was a great addition as well (on the XBOX only specific games supported it). Along with Perfect Dark, I also bought Quake 4, Ridge Racer 6, and a friend bought me Project Gotham 3 that next week. Overall, PDZ was the only game I was rightfully impressed with. Quake 4 had massive load times and framerate stuttering, and Ridge Racer 6, while an awesome game, felt like an original XBOX title. I would have been more impressed if I got Call of Duty 2 and Kameo along with Perfect Dark, but I digress. The 360 was and was not "Next Gen" at the same time, if that makes any sense.

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Post by JohnnyDude » Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:14 am

Well I had a bad run on console choices. Really, really bad. This is going to be embarassing.

NES - Most mainstream system I ever owned. Life Force awaited me on its arrival.

Intellivision - I had this after the NES. An Atari knockoff for sure. However, I liked the casual pick-up-and-play style. Triple Action was my favorite.

Lynx - I'm the first to list this one! Nobody had this one! I wonder if it's even more obscure than 3DO! However, Electrocop was amazing. As was Warbirds. 3D on a handheld!

3DO - This is some weird console you've probably never heard of. It played games off CD's and I worked on an emulator for it or something. I don't really remember. Anyway, Road Rash was the first thing I saw for it, but Star Fighter and Killing Time entranced me. Though it wasn't so much a nex-gen moment, I suspect that I played Star Control II more than any of the others combined.

Dreamcast - The Sonic Adventure demo in the mall drew me in. I was first in line with my brother to get one at midnight of the dreamcast release date.

PC - I'll just list Scorched Earth, Duke Nukem 3D and Unreal as my next-gen moments here.

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Post by Trev » Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:21 am

JohnnyDude wrote: Lynx - I'm the first to list this one! Nobody had this one! I wonder if it's even more obscure than 3DO! However, Electrocop was amazing. As was Warbirds. 3D on a handheld!
I've got a Lynx too. Haven't played Warbirds yet, but Blue Lightning impressed me quite a bit. (It's kinda sad that the Lynx version is better than the Jag cd one :P ) Funny thing is, I never had Blue Lightning when the Lynx was in production ... I only picked it up about a year ago actually. Still, even at that late date, I could appreciate how advanced it was at the time ... even more so since it was on a handheld unit! :)
Most wanted - Eye of Typhoon, 3DO Magazines issues #14 & #15, Pro Stadium, Defcon 5

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