Sony Playstation PS1

General Details
Graphics: 3D Geometry Engine, with 2D rotation, scaling, transparency and fading and 3D texture Mapping and shading
Colors: 16.7 million
Sprites: 4,000
Polygons: 360,000 per second
Resolution: 640x480
Sound: 16-bit 24 channel PCM


Sold over 100 million units

Machine: Sony Playstation
No# 9



My 9th machine, and one of the very few I purchased at launch. This was almost a surprise even to me after the bad taste the Jaguar left. Still, this machine turned out to be awesome. I ended up with quite a few games, and clocked up an impressive 80+ hours on one game (FFVII)


Favorite Game
Final Fantasy VII






Other games I enjoyed
Blood Omen - Legacy of Kain
Breath of Fire III
Destruction Derby
Legend of Mana
Wipeout
And many others...


Milestone Moment
Playing a game for 80+ hours


Rating:
8 / 10

Atari Jaguar

General Details
CPU Motorolo 68000 (64-bit system)
Released: 1993
Units Sold: 500,000

Machine: Atari Jaguar (The last Atari I owned)

No# 8

My 8th machine, and a strong contender for the worst machine I ever owned. It certainly was the biggest waste of money. Unfortunately, I convinced two friends to part with there cash and buy them as well. The system did have one good game, "Aliens Vs Predator". The controller was something else, and not user friendly at all. I'm glad Atari left the market after this machine. I had been very loyal to them (this being my fourth Atari made machine) but the damage was done here.

Favorite Game:
Aliens Vs Predator (Easy decision to make)

Other game I enjoyed.
Doom ... Yep that's it.


The infamous Atari Controller



Milestone Moment
Releasing I had made a huge mistake buying this machine.
I did however have a great time playing AvP over and over and over again...

Rating:
3 / 10

Super Nintendo

General Details

Processor: 16-bit 3.58 Mhz

Available: 1991

Units sold: 49 million

Machine: Super Nintendo

No# 7

My 7th machine, and it took this little wonder to get me back into console gaming. It was nice to be back into instant loading games again. Most of my friends had gone the Sega Megadrive route but for some reason, I just prefered the Nintendo machine. I thik it was more powerful, and I am attracted to power...mahhahaha.

Favorite Game

Final Fantasy IV (RPG)

Other games I enjoyed

Breath of Fire (RPG)

F-Zero (Racing)

Kick Off (Sport)

Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen (RPG)

Secret Of Mana (RPG)

Street fighter II (Fighting)

Super Mario World (Platform)

Milestone Moment
Discovered Japenese Roleplays were actually really cool, and got totally hooked.

Rating:

Overall 7 / 10

Amiga 500

General Details
Released: 1987
Memory: 512kb
Processor: 7.09 mhz


Machine: Amiga 500
No# 6


My 6th machine. This was the first time I got involved in system wars, and wanting the most powerful of the current generation. I sold my Atari ST, and bought this instead. I can't say I really noticed that much difference between the 2 machines and probably wasted my money come to think of it. Still, I enjoyed the system for a while. My love for roleplaying games, and strategy games got a nice fix.


Favorite Game: (Tie)
Might and Magic II, and Populous II



Other games I enjoyed.
Barbarian
Barbarian II
Battle Chess
Captive
Druid II
Elvira
Exploding Fist
Eye of the beholder
Laser Squad
Might and Magic II
Pools of Radiance
Populous II
PowerMonger
The Settlers
Super Hangon
Test Drive
Worms


X-com








Milestone Moment
The Amiga was pretty uneventful machine for me. This was the first time I bothered with format wars, and I have always favored a machine since this moment.

Rating:
Overall 8 / 10

Atari ST

General Details

Released: 1985
Memory: 512 KB
Processor: 8 Mhz

Machine: Atari ST
No# 5

My 5th system, and a real jump in graphics and sound from the Amstrad CPC 464. Also went from the dreaded tape to floppy disk which seemed impossibly fast (at the time). My programming kind of died down during this generation, and never really recovered as such.

Favorite Game: Dungeon Master (Best selling game on the system)




This game and I have some history, as I will mention in my milestone moment.



Milestone Moment (2)
Dungeon master is responsible for both milestone moments related to the Atari ST.

This is the first game I ever played through and finished more than one.
By now I had been gaming close to 10 years, so that is worth mentioning.

Also, now I was approaching my late teens, I of course would stay up later. This game was the first that I burnt the midnight oil playing. As a true D&D geek (at the time, ahem), this game was sent from heaven.

Other games I enjoyed...
Afterburner
Black Lamp
Blodwych - A lot of fun
Buggy Boy
Championship manager
Falcon
Flood - Very original
Guantlet
Knightmare
Leisure Suit Larry
Lemmings
Operation Wolf
Populous - Loved this game almost as much as dungeon Master
Space Harrier
Speedball 2
Wizball

My Rating for this system:
Overall: 8.5 / 10

Amstrad CPC 464

General Details
Release Date: 1984
Memory: 64k
Graphics:
Mode 0: 160×200 pixels with 16 colors (4 bpp)
Mode 1: 320×200 pixels with 4 colors (2 bpp)
Mode 2: 640×200 pixels with 2 colors (1 bpp)

Machine: Amstrad CPC 464
No# 4

My 4th system, and perhaps my favorite of the 4 to date. I did a lot of programming on this system, and even completed my high school IT exam on it. A wrote a text adventure game with random combat roles, multiple character types, and objects. It only took 20-30 minutes to complete, but I was very proud of myself and it didn't crash either :)

Favorite Game: (Tie) Renegade and The Bards Tale








Milestone Momement: (2)

Writing my first 15 pages program. Also enjoying buying magazines with code you could type up, and seeing the end results when done. Some mags printed 5 pages of programming, good fun though.

Second milestone moment was playing a game that was just like Dungeons and Dragons role playing game. The Bards Tale cemented my love of RPG's.


Other games I enjoyed.
Get Dexter
Commando
Elite
Guantlet - Deeper Dungeons
Ikari Warriors
Out Run
Rampage
Roland on the ropes
The Bards Tale
Way of the Exploding Fist

My Rating for this system:
Overall: 9/10

Spectrum 48k

General Details
Release date: 1982
Processor: 3.5 Mhz
Memory: 48k
Graphics: 256x192

Machine: Sinclair Spectrum 48k
No# 3

My 3rd system, and by far the worst system I have ever owned in 30 years of gaming (yep I'm 37). I hated this machine, hated the slow load times (Tape vs cartridge on my first two), hated the terrible color clashes, and over heating problems.

Favorite Game:
None

Milestone Moment:
Throwing it in the garbage.



Example of games found on Spectrum 48k










My Rating for this system:
Overal: 1/10

Atari 400

General Details
Memory: 8kb (some say 16kb)
CPU: 1.8 Mhz

320x192 Monochrome Graphics
160x96 Color Graphics

Console: Atari 400
No#2

My second system. This baby got me into basic programming, although the keyboard would hurt my fingers after a while.

Favorite game
Defender.

I once invited a friend over and we would take turns to play. I had the game of my life and my friend waited 3 hours before complaining. I decided to end the game with over 3 million score, and over 10 lifes left.

I also enjoyed Dig dug, Star Wars, and bruce Lee.



Video of Pitfall II being played.

Milestone Moment:

Programming for the first time.

Knowing I wanted to work with computers for the rest of my life (Priceless)

My Rating for this system:
Overal: 8/10

Atari 2600

General Details
Units sold: Over 30 million
CPU: 1.19 Mhz
Best Selling Game: Pacman (7 million copies)

Console: Atari 2600

No# 1

My first ever console. This is where it all started with me.

This was when the controller only had one button, rather than the 5 million they have today.

I remember my grandma playing pong and thinking she was doing really well, she didn't realize that I had the other controller and was actually playing for her. lol

I see they have released a retro version with 30 games preloaded on it. Including some of my favorites. I am very tempted for this to be my sons first console too. Although he is only about 3, so might wait a little longer.

Favorite game

Combat.

Great with 2 players.

My next favorite was Adventure, which started me on the long and continuing love for RPG games. Recently a website listed this as one of the best 20 open world games ever.

Video of Adventure game being played.

Other games I enjoyed...

Asteriods

Space Invaders

Battlezone

Berserk

Centipede

Frogger

Missile Control

Pole Position

Pong

Raiders of the Lost Ark - Very good

Track & Field

Milestone Moment

Entering into video gaming for the first time.

My Rating for this system:
Overal: 8/10