The 10 Best Video Game Consoles

There’s nothing like the first time you bought/unwrapped one of the best video game consoles you ever owned. The new plastic smell. The feel of a brand new controller. The first hum of an unfamiliar start-up sequence. The experience of getting new video game consoles is a gamer’s nirvana. Let’s  look back and fondly remember all of the video game consoles that made us smile and/or cringe upon playing them. These are the Top 10 Video Game Consoles of all time.

Virtual Boy

Why is one of the biggest flops in video game history on this list? One word: Risk. Nintendo took a huge risk in putting a VR-goggled, red tinted mess out on the shelves, but that is what the video game industry needs. We as gamers need companies to continually take risks so that innovation will come out of it and give us truly unique gaming experiences. Without the Virtual Boy video game console, we might have not gotten the Wii.

TurboGrafx 16

This video game console had cards instead of cartridges. It had no third party games. But the TurboGrafx 16 was fun as hell to play. Bonk’s Adventure was just a solid platformer with a good time-span. The TurboGrafx 16′s library included a game for everybody, whether you liked four on four wrestling video games or strategy video games. Military Madness gave the strategy game a new place to go. Splatterhouse was a milestone in the survival horror genre and World court Tennis is still the only tennis game to have a career mode that felt more like an RPG than a sports game. All in all, the TurboGrafx 16 is a barrel of good times if you can get a hold of one.

XBOX 360

The XBOX 360 has XBOX Live, which is the best online community out of any console. It was the first console to be made with wireless controllers as the main controller. It’s powerful machinery-wise and also has one of the best game libraries of all time. If it wasn’t for the “Ring of Death” Fiasco, the XBOX 360 might have been at the top of the Best Video Game Consoles of All Time list.

Atari 2600

The Atari 2600 is the granddaddy of home consoles. Some argue that Intellivision had far superior graphics and that is true, but the Atari 2600 made everyone want to have a gaming console. Playability aside, it turned the tide in gaming and helped usher in a new era for consumer video games.

Nintendo Wii

The Nintendo Wii created feasible motion gaming, which is the next step in blurring the line between video games and reality. Looking back 50 years from now, the Wii may have been the starting point for Skynet’s robot uprising and inevitable takeover of humanity.

XBOX

The original XBOX is on this list for one reason…community. XBOX was the first console to truly embrace the idea that gamers NEED other gamers, and it showed through XBOX Live. The XBOX with XBOX Live  made playing your buddy 1,000,000 times easier and made playing a complete stranger even possible. Plus, I still can’t get the four TV Halo LAN parties out of my head.

Super Nintendo

First off, Super Nintendo had the first controller with more than three action buttons. CRAZINESS! But the SNES was also the easiest system to get lost in. When you started playing Super Mario World, you knew you were hooked. A Cape? 128 levels? Four different colors of Yoshis? You thought you’d never get enough of it. But you had to, because that Link to the Past cartridge had been staring at you from the EB shelves since it got there.

Nintendo 64

The N64 was the first console to TRULY capture the moniker “Next-Gen”. Mario Kart 64, Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time… No one had ever seen anything like it before and the system seemed to be capable of unexplainable power, perhaps to end world hunger and any sort of suffering or plight. Plus it had four controller slots built in. Go Play some Goldeneye if you don’t believe me.

Playstation 3

The PS3 is this high on the list because, at the time of this post, it is the most powerful and magnificent home console ever produced. Not only does it have a built-in Blur-Ray Player but it has a game library with some exclusive titles that have changed.

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

• If you are a gamer, you need no explanation. For you others, the NES is just simple and classic. Super Mario Bros., DuckHunt, RBI baseball, Castlevania, Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Mike Tyson’s Punch-out, Excitebike… The NES had the games that made gamers want to game.  Nuff’ Said.