THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: spectrumsa-z on 27 Mar 2006, 22:03
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One of the greatest tragedies of my life was that I never owned a console of any sort. Not a gameboy or a crappy old nintendo or anything. I played PC games such as Doom, Duke Nukem and Warcraft, but my parents never let me get a console. As I got older, I just stuck with PC games. The most recent game I was really into was Diablo II. That lost its appeal after a while, and I stopped playing even PC games.
Having never owned a console I really know nothing about them, but I have enjoyed the console games I have played.
So here's my question: If I were to buy one console, which would the best/most capabilities and a great selection of games to play with it, what would you reccomend? Also, should I start out with maybe a console that's less complicated?
Thanks for your time.
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If you're only gonna own one console, the PS2 is definitely your best bet, because it also plays PS1 games, which means not only does it have a gigantic library, but most of those PS1 titles have gotten really cheap by now.
A few suggestions from a wide variety of genres:
-Duke Nukem: Time to Kill (you mentioned the series, so you ought to like this; even though it's in third person, I'd call it the best of the whole series)
-Final Fantasy Tactics
-Final Fantasy 7
-Resident Evil 1, 2, 3 (to a lesser extent) and 4. Maybe Code Veronica too, if you have the disposable income.
-Metal Gear Solid (but NOT 2)
-If you're into wrestling games, the WWF/WWE Smackdown series is pretty good, there's a ton of PS1 and PS2 installments. I've only played the first three, but they were all good, so I imagine the newer ones are too.
-The Grand Theft Auto series, especially the ones on the PS2. The 2D ones were fun, but much more shallow.
-Red Dead Revolver
-The Warriors
-I'm not a big sports game fan, but my friends and I have had loads of fun with NHL Hitz 2003, so I can recommend that one
-Spider-Man 2
-X-Men Legends (either the first or the second, but if you want to go online, the second's probably a little more enticing)
-Final Fantasy Chronicles
-Worms Armageddon
-Armored Core or Armored Core: Master of Arena
For some more suggestions, this (http://my.ign.com/my/sb?action=viewUserGameList&ownedGames=y) is my game collection. Note that a lot of my Xbox games are also available on the PS2 without any major differences. I figure with the giant library, as well as the large number of quality games (especially on the PS2 side), plus one of the better controller designs, the PS2 would make a good first system for you.
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I'd agree on the choice of system — the PS2 has the most and best variety of games, no doubt about it — but it looks like a lot of the games Hustler recommends are PS1 titles. So I'm gonna throw in some more suggestions:
Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance: The gameplay's stellar, even if the story gets real weird, and this edition has lots of bonus content. And it's cheap.
Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence: Again, lots of bonus content, including the original Metal Gear games from the 80s. It's a prequel to MGS1 and MGS2.
Final Fantasy X and Dragon Quest VIII, great console RPGs that take very different approaches.
God of War, and I cannot stress this enough.
Resident Evil 4
Katamari Damacy and We (Heart) Katamari
Soul Calibur III: THE 3-D fighting game to have on PS2
Guilty Gear X2: THE 2-D fighting game to have on PS2
The entire Sly Cooper, Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank series
Beyond Good & Evil
The Prince of Persia series
War of the Monsters
Guitar Hero: Great if you like music. Or fun.
The Shadow Hearts and Shin Megami Tensei series are good off-the-beaten-path RPG series (and in case you haven't played a console RPG, do not expect the freedom of a PC game in most cases).
Mercenaries: It's about the best blow-it-up action game I've seen, and it plays like GTA.
Silent Hill 1-4: The premiere horror series on consoles.
And the PS2 versions of the Splinter Cell games are good, I hear. Pass on Ghost Recon.
EDIT: And Shadow of the Colossus; can't believe I forgot that one.
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Yeah, most of my suggestions were from the PS1 days, partly because they're the cheaper buys now, and partly because I just liked the PS1 library more than the PS2 one. If it wasn't for the backward compatibility, I'd have been pretty disappointed with my PS2.
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I would agree about ps2, but am leery of making any game recommendations because my taste in games is kinda oddball. That said, I definitely concur with suggestions like Prince of Persia, Jak & Daxter, Beyond Good & Evil, and Katamari Damacy. One suggestion I'd add is Dark Cloud 2.
Incidentally, do you have any emulators? You can play a lot of old consoles on PC via emulators. I would recommend downloading emulators for NES, Super NES, and Genesis.
my top 5 nes games (in no particular order:)
Mega Man II
Legend of Zelda
Mario III
Final Fantasy
Kid Icarus
my top 5 genesis games:
Shining in the Darkness
Shining Force
Desert Strike
Road Rash
Mortal Kombat
I didn't own an SNES so I'm not as familiar with its games, so I'm only doing a top 3:
Zelda III
Super Mario RPG
F-Zero
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I would totally disagree with the PS2 and recommend a modded Xbox. Slap a 250GB HD into it, and away you go. Xboxen are pretty damn cheap now...
Games:
Oddworld - Stranger's Wrath
Ghost Recon series
The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
Burnout 3 and Burnout Revenge
Halo 2
I-Ninja
Far Cry Instincts and Far Cry Evolution
Project Gotham Racing 2
Fable
Jade Empire
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (1 and 2)
Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory
Ninja Gaiden Black
Soulcalibur 2
Prince of Persia
Psychonauts
I think that's a good start.
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You can buy a slim PS2, fully backwards-compatible, for $75.00 (CDN) right now, which is a little more than the price of a new game. In fact, EBs up here in Canuckistan have been offering (off and on over the past 3 or 4 months) a deal where you can trade in 4 games for a slim PS2. So what you do is you hit a pawn shop, buy 4 $10.00 games, and then bring them to EB. $40.00 later (plus tax) you've just traded your way into a brand new console.
There are so many games to recommend, it's very difficult to know where to start, and since your PC gaming has been somewhat limited, I guess I can only really recommend the games I've found to be absolute must-haves, regardless of genre.
Resident Evil 4.
God of War.
Gran Turismo series (any of them, really... but 4 is probably the nicest)
Katamari Damacy / We <3 Katamari (either one, or both)
Guitar Hero
Tiger Woods 2K6
Soul Calibur 2 or 3 (3 is particularly good)
Devil May Cry (1 or 3... ignore 2... only purchase 3 if you want a REALLY hard game)
Mark of Kri
Shadow of the Collussus
And if you end up loving the PS2, as I'm sure you will, the PS3 will be coming out in November (worldwide simultaneous release). It promises full backwards compatibility with all PS1 and PS2 games, so the list of PS2 games above-noted will be ready to put into the next console, along with any new PS3 titles that float your boat, and any PS1 games you may have found!
You'll probably have to buy a separate memory card for the PS2 when you get the console, as I don't believe they package one in the box... it's a bit of a money-maker for them, since you cannot save a game without a memory card. The good news is; almost 5 years later, and over a hundred games... I haven't quite filled two memory cards... so their capacity is really good. Obviously I've gone in and cleaned-house on some of my older saves from time-to-time... but even still, a memory card will keep saves for an average of about 20 games per card. It all depends on the file save size which can vary from game-to-game.
As for other consoles:
Gamecube is a decent system with a number of really fun titles, but there's no backwards compatibility, and there aren't enough good games to warrant buying one (especially with the system nearing the end of it's life).
X-Box never impressed me. There are about 6 games I've played that I've wanted to play again, and about 6 others I've tried that I *might* try again if I could find them cheap. Out of the 60 or so games I've played for the system, a half-dozen really good games, and another half-dozen so-so games... well it doesn't inspire me to recommend the system to you.
X-Box 360... well... it's too early to tell, but I'm worried that it will go the way of the Dreamcast. Limited backwards compatibility, great graphics (compared to current-gen consoles, but how it will stack up to the new PS3 and Nintendo Revolution remains to be seen)... but it is becoming clear that the euro and japanese launches were failures... so much so in Japan that the system may simply be pulled in a year, according to some industry reports I've read... and the American launch is matching the original X-Box numbers... which isn't bad when you think about how well the X-Box did, but /is/ bad when you consider Microsoft spent roughly 300% more on marketing this time around, and merely met the same launch specs as last time. Not encouraging.
I could be proven wrong on the 360, and I certainly hope I am proven wrong, but right now it's way too uncertain as far as I'm concerned. You don't want to be like one of those poor dreamcast saps who bought the system right away, bought all the peripherals and a ton of the launch titles, only to have the company - barely a year later - say; "Sorry... we're not supporting the platform anymore". Now you can buy a dreamcast at pawn shops for around $20.00.
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Now, you could be all trendy and hip with the graphics, and systems that get new games, or you could be awesome.
Dreamcast/Genesis/Super Nintendo. All three together cost less than a new system. They also have some fantastic games (Genesis and Super have the best game library ever, and Dreamcast has some damn fine games as well).
I own nearly every system made (Missing Jaguar and ColecoVision) and those three still get the majority of my playtime. The downside is no new games, and the games are harder to find, but they're all cheap.
If you want a new system, then go PS2, it's got the PS1 library behind it, and the PS2 games are decent to.
Gamecube rules for parties.
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ATARI JAGUAR!!!
(http://www.silicium.org/images/catalog/consoles/atari/jaguar.jpg)
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Don't knock the Jaguar, it had AvP and.........ok, knock the Jaguar.
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I borrowed my friend's jaguar back when it was the cool system to have (you remember those 10 minutes, right?) I was about 14 or so. I played the three games he had for it, then actually went out of my way to bring it back to him the next day, even though he said I could borrow it for a week.
Here's the kicker; I return his gaming system early, and he looked DISAPPOINTED! He seemed genuinely sad to have it back in his home again.
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Gran Turismo series (any of them, really... but 4 is probably the nicest)
If you like the Gran Turismo series (or any other racing sim as opposed to more of an arcade racing game) I'd recomend TOCA Race Driver 3. It has a wider variety car types. It's also available on PS2 and Xbox.
Some people here might enjoy Makai Kingdom, others won't. I do like it and recomend it but it's almost seems like a very niche video game.
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KATAMARI DAMACY!!!
That's the reason to get a PS2. I can't believe I forgot to mention it above.
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Wow, I wasn't expecting this much of a response!
I guess I really shouldn't be surprised though, there are some crazy gamers on here. Thanks guys!
I will definitely check out getting a PS2. I definitely don't have a ton of money to burn, so it'll be fun to be able to buy lots of games to enjoy. I might hold off until summer, just because I know my classes would get neglected by my excitement of owning an actual game console.
And X-box was the other system I was considering (at least, I've played it a few times and liked it), so I'll probably look into that, too.
Dreamcast/Genesis/Super Nintendo. All three together cost less than a new system. They also have some fantastic games (Genesis and Super have the best game library ever, and Dreamcast has some damn fine games as well).
I would love to own these as well, I've loved all the old-school systems I've played. But where would you reccomend I look for these? I've been looking for a Genesis for a while (to give to a friend) and haven't been able to find one.
Also, would you guys reccomned buying games online? If so, would buying them on eBay be a bad idea?
Haha, I am so clueless.
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My former roomie would get some really rare titles from EBay at really good prices. Also, sometimes people want to clear out a bunch of games, so they just slap a low price on the package, and if you bid at just the right time, you can get a bunch of choice games for a ridiculously low price.
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Well, I don't know where you live, but Cash Converters always has one or two in stock...which is why I own 3 Genesi and 2 SNES's. Basically any place where you can trade stuff in is a safe bet.
As for games, online is fine, also check out video stores and non-major game sellers (ie not EB or Babbages), they usually have like, 10 Genesis games for $15 or something.
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Wow, I wasn't expecting this much of a response!
I guess I really shouldn't be surprised though, there are some crazy gamers on here. Thanks guys!
I will definitely check out getting a PS2. I definitely don't have a ton of money to burn, so it'll be fun to be able to buy lots of games to enjoy. I might hold off until summer, just because I know my classes would get neglected by my excitement of owning an actual game console.
And X-box was the other system I was considering (at least, I've played it a few times and liked it), so I'll probably look into that, too.
Dreamcast/Genesis/Super Nintendo. All three together cost less than a new system. They also have some fantastic games (Genesis and Super have the best game library ever, and Dreamcast has some damn fine games as well).
I would love to own these as well, I've loved all the old-school systems I've played. But where would you reccomend I look for these? I've been looking for a Genesis for a while (to give to a friend) and haven't been able to find one.
Also, would you guys reccomned buying games online? If so, would buying them on eBay be a bad idea?
Haha, I am so clueless.
Yeah, the Xbox is actually better than the PS2 if you just look at the current gen offerings, but I figure the added (and superior) PS1 library makes the PS2 a better choice. However, if you can afford both, do it. I did. As for the old-school systems, I can't help you on availability, I got my SNES back in '94, and my Genesis about three years ago (just to play General Chaos), back when 16-bit stuff was still sold in GameStop stores. Nowadays it seems to be harder to manage. I would definitely suggest going for the SNES, as it is my all-time favorite console. But it will likely be harder to find, and more expensive, than a Genesis is, so you'll have to decide if it's worth it.
As for Ebay, I've used it to fill in a few gaps in my game collection, and so far I haven't had any bad experiences (although I've also made sure never to spend more than 50 dollars in one auction, in case someone did decide to rip me off). Every game I bought came in the condition promised, and I was never cheated. Prices vary depending on game availability, my suggestion is just to do an Ebay search for any title you really want, and see what the average going price is, and then decide if it's worth it to you. You don't usually see much variance from auction to auction, in the end the game will go for about the same price every time. If possible, go for auctions that are selling multiple games for one price, it's usually a better deal.