- Atari
- 2600 - Sure, why not
- 5200 - Nah
- 7800 - Only for Ninja Golf
- Lynx - Awful physical experience; emulate it if you must
- Jaguar - Not worth the money; emulate it for some interesting stuff though
- Jaguar CD - See Jaguar
- Nintendo
- NES - Nostalgia and speedrunning
- GB - However you do it, just make sure you get the display right
- SNES - 100% original, 100% awesome
- VB - Must be experienced; nothing else like it
- N64 - Original, FPGA, or emulator; all good
- GBC - Meh
- GBA - Yup
- GC - Meh; get a Wii
- DS - Yup
- Wii - Original hardware or Wii U for everything except Metroid Prime 3
- 3DS - Must be experienced; nothing else like it
- Wii U - Missed potential; leave it be
- Switch - Stellar platform
- Switch 2 - Waiting for a better display
- SEGA
- SG1000 - What
- Master System - Meh
- Genesis - Generally better on emulators
- Game Gear - Awful physical experience; emulate it for some interesting stuff
- SEGA CD - Seriously underrated
- 32X - Missed potential; leave it be
- Saturn - 100% original, 100% awesome; get a Satiator
- Dreamcast - 100% original, 100% awesome; punched way above its weight
- Sony
- PS1 - Get a PS2
- PS2 - Yup
- PSP - Sure, why not
- PS3 - Yup
- Vita - Sure, why not
- PS4 - Yeah, but get a PS5 with a disc drive
- PS5 - Yup, see PS4
- Microsoft
- XBOX - Yup
- 360 - Yup
- XBOne - Kinect only
- Series - Sure, why not
- Misc.
- Intellivision/ColecoVision/Odyssey - Meh
- Vectrex - Must be experienced; nothing else like it
- 8- and 16-bit computers - You're a special kind of nerd, and that's alright
- Neo Geo - Totally fine on emulators, but original hardware is so cool
- 3DO - Pretty good, but most of it's also on PC and better there
Interesting that the vast majority of these classic platforms really only have 20 or so exclusive games worth playing; everything else has a comparable port elsewhere or a PC version. Most people just wanna experience cool art though, and that's never been easier than it is right now - almost all of this stuff can be fully enjoyed on a $20 thrift store computer. I hope collectors have fun and enjoy the hunt though, and speculators can get bent.
Anyway...
Forgot about this: https://circuitbeard.co.uk/2017/08/28/tomy-turnin-turbo-dashboard-outrun-arcade/
DOOM: The Dark Ages going eldritch horror is rad, and way better than whatever that floating mancave in Eternal was supposed to be. Finished the game and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Finally started Jedi Survivor, and yeah, I'd missed this.
Prime Hunters is kinda meh, though still impressive for the DS.
Picked-up Looney Tunes: Sheep Raider for too much money (but less than the going rate), Game Builder Garage and Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom (360) for a reason able amount of money, and then decided to finally dig further into Fable II because it's supposedly works well enough on Xbox One, and... It hasn't aged as well as I'd hoped. I really enjoyed the first game on PC - small and flawed, but overall fun and well-built - but II just kinda feels like a slog of navigating eggshells and busywork at the cost of some pretty janky system implementations. It's still fun and interesting, and sports great performances; but then the menus are just infuriatingly unpolished, the moral choices lack nuance, and the writing is questionable - and none of that is a 2008 thing like the bloom, or the motion blur, or the combat system, or the animations, or the dialogue timing, or the checkpoints... Really though, I just wish it ran smoother.
