Which Console should I buy?

[shadowlight]

I personaly have played the GC a lot at my buddies house, and the only game I can play on it for any length of time is Rocky. Get a PS2 or an X Box if you can...

Give Super Monkey Ball 2 a try if you get a chance. It's a HOOT!! (you will actually hoot from having a heart attack while playing)

 

[dagger]

Of course the sports games are fine on all the systems including GameCube.

 

[drothgery]

Of course the sports games are fine on all the systems including GameCube.

... but the Sega/ESPN games aren't available on GameCube, and the XSN Sports line from Microsoft is, of course, Xbox Exclusive (though the conventional wisdom is that only the Top Spin tennis game is a standout). EA games are only online on PS2, which is one reason why Xbox fanboys tend to favor Sega/ESPN.

 

[stevelabny]

I never remember to look in this forum, video games should be lumped in with the tv, movies and books forum. having 3 forms of media together and the fourth seperate is silly.

so i'll jump into the fray late:

xbox: dont own one, dont have friends who own one. played it at an xbox launch event. the controllers are BRUTAL. the most uncomfortable controller ever. would rather play with an atari 2600 box-with-button-and-stick controller. As far as I've heard and read the only must own games for Xbox are Halo and Knight of the Old Republic. Halo eventually hit the PC, KOTOR hit it a few weeks after console release, so right now, there is NO reason to buy an Xbox in my eyes. I see absolutely NO xbox-exclusive games that excite me. NONE. On the plus side, you dont need a memory card so you save 20 bucks. This isnt a big deal, for my Gamecube I have ONE huge memory card that saves everything. Unless you save multiple sports games by season, you only need one big one.

ps2: firends have them. you still need a multi-tap to play with 4 players. With backward compatibility, the system has a huge library but for a long time, all the games sucked. Luckily, this has gotten MUCH better lately and theres actually enough PS2-exclusive games to make this system worth buying. Might have to get me one soon. I really want to play Kingdom Hearts and the upcoming sequel,and both Jak and Ratchet games. The controller is acceptable but small and I dislike double shoulder buttons.

Gamecube: I have one of these. I feel that Nintendo has dropped the ball with this system. No online play. No backward compatibility. Too many sequels and not enough NEW games. And dropping the world's BEST controller (N64s) for an adequate one but moving the perfectly place N64 z-trigger button to the shoulder positon. Ugh. All that said, you still cant go wrong with the Nintendo-exclusive franchises being the best games around. Mario games, Zelda, Metroid, Starfox, Donkey Kong. They kiddy image is a myth as Eternal Darkness is the best "mature" game I've ever played and Nintendo now also has the Resident Evil series (which I personally never got into) . When it comes to PARTY games where you actually have 4 people in your house Mario Kart, Mario Party,Super Smash Brothers Mario Golf,and the eventual release of Mario Tennis along with the Super Monkey Ball series make this THE system.

Gameboy Advance: the best selling system with the largest library of games. Everyone should have one.

As for long-term use, everyone should know by now that systems have a 5-6 year life span. Period. Expect new systems from all three companies in 2005.

JRRNeiklot seems to doubt his reflexes but wants games with depth. Stick with your PC and CRPGs. Otherwise, I'd suggest a gamecube/gameboy combo for you as there are simpler games and lots of old school rpgs available on gameboy.

For Biggus Geekus, he needs to abandon DDR and get a gamecube for the multiplayer goodness.

As for the Final Fantasy series. In American numbering:
1 was a solid generic console RPG
2 was the best console RPG ever until LUNAR: SILVER STARY STORY came out and thats only because Lunar had great voice acting and two songs. FF2 had some great characters, a great story, great music and one of the greatest death scenes of all time. I almost cried. On second thought, FF2 is still the best.
3 was still solid but HARD. The beginning of the end was seen here as they battles were already getting overly-complicated.
7 is supposed to be really good, but I actually have never played it. I got a PS1 very late in its life span and still have games sitting here that I havent played (inlcuding a borrowed copy off FF7) I've still heard that the battles are too long do to magic but not as bad as the monstrosity that was..
8 SUCKED. I actually gave up on this game 1/4 though. The battles were endless. I hate RPGS where you START with hundreds of HP and finish with thousands. Its ridiculous. Someone needs to take a lesson from the mario and luigi gameboy rpg. SMALL NUMBERS. The story was boring, the characters were BRUTAL, boss fghts would take hours. I watched my gf toil through the rest of the game and wondered where Square went wrong.
From what I hear 9 and 10 werent as bad as 8 but were still worse than the rest. I can see just by looking at x-2 that I have no interest.
This series completely fell apart when they went from sprites to actual grapchics.

But then again, so did the entire industry.

 

[Tsyr]

Yeeeesh. Negative much, Steve?

The default x-box controller is a matter of taste, I suppose, but I've never (personally, that is) met someone who didn't like them. I think a few people early on took exception to them, and a lot of the hate towards them is me-too-ism and bandwagon hopping... I blame Penny Arcade in part for that. In any case, it's a moot point... The S-Controller is much smaller (For all you lil-handed folks).

If you want to talk about "worst controller ever", lets talk Gamecube, shall we? The thing looks like it was designed by the imbred, drunk, insane, mentaly retarded cousin of Picasso. It's tiny, the buttons are awkward (The main shoulder buttons have far too long a draw, and that purple shoulder button is hard to hit... And the green button dominates the controller... And that controller is near-impossible to combo-press certain buttons on, making it useless for fighting games, the D-pad is microscopic...) I could go on, but that should suffice.)

As for "Must Own" games... Meh. I've always thought that was a misnomer. One of the big "must owns" for Gamecube is Metroid Prime, but I think it's a pile of festering cow dung. Likewise, while Halo is good, I don't consider it a "must own" by a long shot.

 

[stevelabny]

I'm not negative, just brutally opinionated.

Although I will admit to having heard MANY people bash the Gamecube controller which I think is OK and the N64 controller which is my favorite ever, I must say I've NEVER heard anyone say they like the Xbox controller. I've also never heard anyone bash Metroid Prime, one of the best-looking games ever that made a shooter FUN.

So we must be coming from two different worlds.

 

[LightPhoenix]

3 was still solid but HARD. The beginning of the end was seen here as they battles were already getting overly-complicated.
7 is supposed to be really good, but I actually have never played it. I got a PS1 very late in its life span and still have games sitting here that I havent played (inlcuding a borrowed copy off FF7) I've still heard that the battles are too long do to magic but not as bad as the monstrosity that was..
8 SUCKED. I actually gave up on this game 1/4 though. The battles were endless. I hate RPGS where you START with hundreds of HP and finish with thousands. Its ridiculous. Someone needs to take a lesson from the mario and luigi gameboy rpg. SMALL NUMBERS. The story was boring, the characters were BRUTAL, boss fghts would take hours. I watched my gf toil through the rest of the game and wondered where Square went wrong.
From what I hear 9 and 10 werent as bad as 8 but were still worse than the rest. I can see just by looking at x-2 that I have no interest.
This series completely fell apart when they went from sprites to actual grapchics.

I never thought I'd be saying this, but...

So basically what you're saying is you've played through three games of the eleven (not counting FF11, Tactics, Adventure, MQ) game series, and making broad generalizations about them all. Right.

However, if you feel like emulating, check out FF5, I think you'd like it a lot.

And FF8 did suck verily.

And I do agree 4-6 were the best of the FF games.

However, FF overly-complicated? Er, no. Get in battle, pick best skill, press A. Repeat, ad nauseum, for the entire game. Virtually no strategy involved. If anything FF is under-complicated.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I'm not negative, just brutally opinionated.

Although I will admit to having heard MANY people bash the Gamecube controller which I think is OK and the N64 controller which is my favorite ever, I must say I've NEVER heard anyone say they like the Xbox controller. I've also never heard anyone bash Metroid Prime, one of the best-looking games ever that made a shooter FUN.

So we must be coming from two different worlds.

Personally I'm just used to the PS controller, so using other ones is awkward at first. However I never really liked the N64 controller - what was the point of the whole left side? I mean, what games didn't use the analog stick? And the far yellow buttons (on the right) were just a pain. On the other hand, the Z-button rocked hardcore. Perfect placement.

I don't like PS2's extra shoulder buttons either - they're hardly ever used and it's easy to hit the wrong ones. If they really wanted extra buttons, they should have been on the bottom, like the N64 Z-button.

Like I said at first though, controllers just need getting used to - every time I pick up an X-Box controller, it feels weird, but it's only because I don't use it often.

 

[stevelabny]

Original American releases were 1,2,3,7,8,9,10. I played 4 of the 7. And Secret of Mana even. I have another in my possession and as a gamer I've read/heard a lot about the others. I don't need to actually experience FF X-2 to know it sucks since it involves scantily clad girls playing dress-up. Not the kind of fantasy I want in my video games. So I wouldn't call my opinion of the series a broad generlization. Especially since most who have commented so far agree with me.

However, FF overly-complicated? Er, no. Get in battle, pick best skill, press A. Repeat, ad nauseum, for the entire game. Virtually no strategy involved. If anything FF is under-complicated.

Ok, I'll admit to poor wording here. The complication is merely a ruse. By allowing all sorts of different magic upgrades/combinations/joining yourself with other beings/etc it gives the illusion of complication but is in reality just annoying. The battles are as you said, straight-forward BUT when casting a spell or using a special ability automatically brings up an unstoppable cut-scene thats 30 seconds long EVERY TIME YOU USE IT thats just tedious and unforgiveable. I know 8 is the worst offender on these charges but it is proof that the developers have left behind FUN in favor of flash.

 

[Tsyr]

I must say I've NEVER heard anyone say they like the Xbox controller.

I think some other people in this thread have said they liked it.

My like for the 'box controllers can be summed up thusly:

• Size. I can conceal a PS-2 or Gamecube controller in one of my hands. It's so nice to finally have a controller that I don't feel like I'm having to contort my hands to grasp comfortably. The only other controller I can say this of (And not to the same extent even then) is Dreamcast controller.
• Control Arangement: No strange angles. No buttons in unusual places. Everything is very basic, and it works.
• Quality of Construction. I give to the X-Box controllers the same award I give my old IBM metal clickey keyboard . I've been using the same keyboard for many, many years, on many different computers, and it was many, many years old when I got it at a hospital auction for 2 dollars. And every key still works just as well as the day it came off the factory. That's quality. I feel confident I could beat a person to death with this keyboard, plug it back in, and it would still type just fine. Same thing with the X-Box controllers.

I've also never heard anyone bash Metroid Prime, one of the best-looking games ever that made a shooter FUN.

...but...it just...you know...I mean... come on... it really wasn't all that fun... not really... actually... to be honest... it was boring... add in the fact that in general I think FPS games on a control-pad are an abomination, and that Metroid Prime seemed bad even by those standards, and even the halfway decent graphics (It's no Halo, though) couldn't save it.

And as long as I'm on the subject, Smash Brothers isn't all that fun either. Actually, it's kinda stupid.

So we must be coming from two different worlds.

Evidently.