Gamer83

@Tibob
It really is annoying. These days, a lot of my favorite franchises in games, movies, etc, are controlled by fools with no understanding of the IP. Keep hoping that will change soon.

We human beings are definitely a bizarre breed sometimes.

I like her PDZ look best but I don't mind the new one. It's a first person game anyway. I'm more concerned about if it's going to be fun to play. I like what I saw but the proof will be finally getting to play it which is probably quite a ways off.

I forget if it was Christmas 1991 or '92 but my parents got me the Game Boy, obviously bundled with Tetris, and also a copy of Blades of Steel. That was an awesome day, a great week off from school and one of my favorite holiday season memories. The GB itself was a better system than it had any right to be given the areas the hardware lacked in but the extremely talented teams that worked on games delivered in spades.

I'll say Shinobi III but, I never played any of the Shinobi games after the Genesis era.

@Chinesus
No 'reasoning' is needed. Don't like the content of the game? Play something else.

I remember not being completely sold on the game when I first saw it (also didn't help that I wasn't the biggest fan of the previous console entry in Double Dash) but it ended up being my favorite game in the series and one of my favorites overall on Wii. It was also one of the first competitive online games I played consistently. Lots of fun. It's since been replaced as my favorite Mario Kart game by 8 Deluxe but I'll always have fond memories of this entry and that era of gaming in general.

I've said it plenty of times, I'm all for games doing wild stuff like this but to get me to buy it there needs to be substance to back it up. If the core gameplay sucks, I don't want anything to do with it.

No Western release, of course.

If I could only pick one I'd say Genesis/Mega Drive Mini 1. When combined with the Mini 2, it becomes a fantastic compilation that nothing else is close to.

1. Super Nintendo
2. Switch
3. Gameboy Advance
4. Wii
5. 3DS

It's close but SNES edges out Switch, imo. That console's library is filled with all-time classics, the vast majority which still hold up well today.

Typical Sega blunder. My favorite game company of all-time, but it makes some really, really dumb decisions even at its peak. Not having Ayano Koshiro lead development on SoR 3, after 2, is one of those moronic missteps.

I'm in the States, loved the first PSP Ridge Racer but we never got this one, it's great to be able to play it now with the added bonus of a graphical facelift on modern PS consoles (side note: this is exactly how the Premium tier of PS Plus should be used and hopefully this is just the start). Looks great, plays fantastically and I'd recommend to anybody who misses arcade racers. This series is sorely missed, hope if the PS Plus re-release garners enough interest that Namco will make RR 8 for PS5.

Forza Horizon and Sleeping Dogs were the two surprise hits that year. Excellent games, especially Forza Horizon. The other game I played a lot of was Halo 4, which had great gunplay and at the time I didn't mind the story but looking back... It was the start of very bad decisions by 343i.

I'm happy this didn't happen because the PlayStation we got is where I've done the majority of my gaming, especially since the PS2 era. On the other hand, Sega is my favorite company of all-time (mainly because of what it did in the late80s-mid 90s with Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Gear and even Sega CD) and it would've been interesting to see how this could've played out. One thing is for sure, Sega's Japanese bosses should've listened to Tom Kalinske on this one just like when they gave in and allowed him to pack Sonic the Hedgehog with Sega Genesis consoles.

I still think there's a little more life to get out of the Genesis/Mega Drive era. There's some Sega CD and 32X games that could use a re-release and even still a few Genesis games. If Sega wants to move on though, Saturn definitely deserves some love.

My favorite console of all-time. Sonic the Hedgehog was the reason I got a Genesis but it was the Streets of Rage series, particularly SoR 2, that was my favorite on the platform. Just excellent games. Two had the perfect mix of gameplay, level design, graphics and music. Even the limited amount of story was the best. Just a pure and simple game that was a blast, especially with friends.

Mine just arrived at my house. About to set it up and start playing. What I'm real happy about is the inclusion of Sega CD games. I had that system but never played Silpheed or Final Fight on it so I'm looking forward to seeing how those versions of each game are.

Congrats on the launch. Another game website to visit daily along with NLife, PushSquare and Pure Xbox. This being a retro site makes it even better, I still play my old games quite a bit.

Seemed like a bad idea from the start and my interest dropped when it was stated the system would have no M-rated games. Just dumb to limit the library like that.

I love the Dreamcast almost as much as the Genesis and I'm a collector so a DC mini would be a day one buy.

When I was real young and starting to truly appreciate gaming, GameFan was in my top 5 favorite mags. I didn't subscribe like I did to EGM and GamePro but if I was in a store that happened to have the new issue I'd definitely buy it. The style, the layout was different but there was something about it I enjoyed a lot.

@Andy_Witmyer
That'd be a fantastic interview. Chris Slate also was Editor in Chief at PSM for a long time. Would be interesting to get his take on the whole Nintendo-Sony rivalry from his perspective as a journalists at the time it started and later on when he flipped sides and ended up at Nintendo Power.

Didn't want to make the last comment too long, so broke it into two parts. I love making lists, this is my top 10 favorite PSP games:
1. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
2. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
3. God of War: Ghost of Sparta
4. Resistance Retribution
5. Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
6. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
7.Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (one of the few FF games I really enjoyed)
8. Burnout Legends
9. Tekken Dark Resurrection
10. Lumines

Honorable mentions:
Ridge Racer, Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, The 3rd Birthday, Twisted Metal Head-On, Killzone Liberation, God of War: Chains of Olympus, GTA: Vice City Stories, GTA: Chinatown Wars, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters.

There's many others I haven't listed. What a system the PSP was. Nothing but great memories of it. Still go back from time to time to play some of these games.

@Damo Thanks for the article, this was a great read.

We'll see if my mind changes when the Switch's run has come to an end but right now, the PSP still stands as my favorite portable system ever. So many good games, and it was a versatile piece of hardware. I don't watch them anymore, but I did have several movies on UMD and I still use the PSP as my MP 3 player. It's funny, much like the PS3 it sold over 80 million units but is definitely considered by many to be a 'failure' no doubt due to the incredibly impressive success of the DS. Still, I loved the system and it's a shame Sony didn't really build on the success it found when it came time for Vita, but I attribute a lot of that to Sony being in a bad spot as a company back around 2012-14.

@Nintendofan83
The Wii U was a poorly designed console, no doubt about that, but I do think it's unfair to say it was simply an add-on. It was more than that, but Nintendo blundered big time with its messaging. People should've been able to tell the gamepad wasn't just an expensive accessory for the original Wii but Nintendo's marketing team, which did an excellent job in the Wii era, failed to get that across somehow. I wouldn't put it in nearly the same category as Sega's Genesis/Megadrive add-ons though. Took any and all goodwill the company had, threw in the garbage and there was no chance of regaining consumer trust. Nintendo's failures haven't sunk it.

@dizzy_boy
I agree Sega would still be out of the hardware race. Too many screw ups and too much dysfunction within the company. But I'm not sure we'd have the Xbox if things didn't play out as they did. I've read articles, and I'll try to find links later, that state MS got into the console business having seen Sony's success and were looking to take the PS brand out. I actually think it's great how everything went down. Nintendo would be much different right now, PlayStation would be and there's a good chance there'd be no Xbox. In fact, if the Nintendo/Sony partnership happened and was strong, you'd be looking at a monopoly and a look into the past of Sony and Nintendo and its dealings with other companies, that wouldn't be a good thing for anybody. I wouldn't even want to imagine pricing plans on consoles.

I remember not being overly impressed when I first heard about the game. Then the months went by and I got more hyped and when I finally got to play it, well, it quickly became my favorite 'kart' racer. Probably still is.