dtown8532
New member
- Apr 10, 2012
- 1,685
- 0
With the upcoming release of the XBox One and PS4 along with the currently available Wii U, I'd like to share some of my thoughts of this past generation. I invite you to do the same as well. Since I did own, at some point or another, the PS3, XBox 360 and Wii, I'll give some thoughts on my best and worst experiences (oh, man. I hate that word) with these systems.
1. XBox 360 - I bought this one about a month after its launch at the now long gone Circuit City. Unfortunately, in less than a year I started seeing issues with the console. I remember the early release Prey crashing a couple times leading to some initial frustration. I borrowed GTA4 from my brother and gave up after a couple hours of play due to crashing and lock ups. Don't get me wrong. Most games played fine on my 360. Its just that the more hardware intensive ones caused issues. Funny, though, that I never had an issue with Bioshock 1 or 2, two other games that I thoroughly enjoyed. That leads me to my fondest AND most frustrating experience on the 360, Fallout 3. Needless to say, I loved this game. The setting, story and the GIANT map populated with real life locations. I was all over Fallout 3 and put over a hundred hours into it. BUT, it crashed my Xbox over and over and over again. Save early and save often was my motto while playing Fallout 3. Eventually, it Red Ring of Death'd my, at the time, over three year old and out of warranty 360. I took the initiative and performed the "fix" of tearing the system apart and applying new cooling compound, new nuts and bolts with rubber washers, over heating it and, voila, had a working 360 again. At least for another year until it RRoD'd again. I managed to get it working to erase the hard drive and sold it on ebay as a "well, it's working now but no guarantee it will stay working" system. Unfortunately, some kid who had obviously saved up to buy one, bought it. He was local and I met him and his mother at a nearby Target where he paid in cash. I did tell his mother that, like I said in the description, the past history of this console and there wasn't a warranty. If I remember correctly I think I sold it for about $180.00 which was way higher than I expected. Well, before the end of the day, I got a call from this kid's mom telling me that the system broke. I told her to meet me back at the Target and I returned her son's money and took the system back. She apologized and thanked me for doing this, even though I said they're wasn't any warranty. I ended up putting it back on ebay and sold it as a non-working unit for about $80.00 and had no further issues. And thus ended my relationship with Microsoft.
2. Wii - I had this baby for about a year till selling it to a friend for his sister's kid. I really liked the Wii at first. The motion controls were pretty cool with some of the games and my girlfriend really liked it due to its ease of use. While Mario Galaxy was great, Punch-Out was my fondest memory of this system. As a child, I loved Mike Tyson's Punch Out on the NES and the Wii update was a ton of fun to play. Then I finished it and lost interest. Unfortunately, nothing else for the Wii really kindled my interest as much. I let it go and haven't looked back.
3. PS3 - In the interest of full disclosure I am on my second PS3. My first was a 40gb fat boy and my current is a 160gb matte black slim. Though I show a lot of hate for Microsoft, Sony is not without fault and I MF'd them a lot when my fat boy got the Blinking Red Light of Death, or whatever it's called. I will give Microsoft some credit. The 360 is easy to disassemble. The PS3 is a b!tch. I didn't even bother. I was able to erase the hard drive and sold it as a non-working unit and bought the slim. The way I see it is if you ain't going PC, you gotta own one of them and Sony wins in my case. Now that the negative is out of the way, I'll give you some positives. I had more fond memories with the games of this system than either of the other two. Portal 1 and 2, all three Uncharted's, Killzone 2, Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim (after it was, finally, patched) and currently, GTA5. Along with those were several downloadable titles like Limbo, The Unfinished Swan, Flower, The Walking Dead and the incredible Journey. But I'd have to say that my most memorable game of this past console generation was The Pinball Arcade on the PS3. I remember getting it in early 2012 for my long gone 4g ipod touch and really enjoying playing tables that I, either never played or haven't in a long time. It was fun but somewhat lacking. The graphics were decent but flat without any dynamic lighting and the now, excellent, touch screen nudging was not in place yet. Then I downloaded it on the PS3. Wow, it looked good. Early titles like FH and CV really popped like the mobile versions couldn't. And I could nudge properly. It was the PS3 version that rekindled my interest in pinball. Though there have been ups and downs with the releases since then, I still like playing the PS3 version over my ipad. Bring on the PS4.
Those are my best and worst memories about the PS3, XBox 360 and Wii. What are yours. Oh, and I don't want to hear any crap about how they're still new games for the 360 and PS3. That they're not, technically, "past generation" yet. It's more about the memories you've had with these systems. Not about whether they're still "current."
1. XBox 360 - I bought this one about a month after its launch at the now long gone Circuit City. Unfortunately, in less than a year I started seeing issues with the console. I remember the early release Prey crashing a couple times leading to some initial frustration. I borrowed GTA4 from my brother and gave up after a couple hours of play due to crashing and lock ups. Don't get me wrong. Most games played fine on my 360. Its just that the more hardware intensive ones caused issues. Funny, though, that I never had an issue with Bioshock 1 or 2, two other games that I thoroughly enjoyed. That leads me to my fondest AND most frustrating experience on the 360, Fallout 3. Needless to say, I loved this game. The setting, story and the GIANT map populated with real life locations. I was all over Fallout 3 and put over a hundred hours into it. BUT, it crashed my Xbox over and over and over again. Save early and save often was my motto while playing Fallout 3. Eventually, it Red Ring of Death'd my, at the time, over three year old and out of warranty 360. I took the initiative and performed the "fix" of tearing the system apart and applying new cooling compound, new nuts and bolts with rubber washers, over heating it and, voila, had a working 360 again. At least for another year until it RRoD'd again. I managed to get it working to erase the hard drive and sold it on ebay as a "well, it's working now but no guarantee it will stay working" system. Unfortunately, some kid who had obviously saved up to buy one, bought it. He was local and I met him and his mother at a nearby Target where he paid in cash. I did tell his mother that, like I said in the description, the past history of this console and there wasn't a warranty. If I remember correctly I think I sold it for about $180.00 which was way higher than I expected. Well, before the end of the day, I got a call from this kid's mom telling me that the system broke. I told her to meet me back at the Target and I returned her son's money and took the system back. She apologized and thanked me for doing this, even though I said they're wasn't any warranty. I ended up putting it back on ebay and sold it as a non-working unit for about $80.00 and had no further issues. And thus ended my relationship with Microsoft.
2. Wii - I had this baby for about a year till selling it to a friend for his sister's kid. I really liked the Wii at first. The motion controls were pretty cool with some of the games and my girlfriend really liked it due to its ease of use. While Mario Galaxy was great, Punch-Out was my fondest memory of this system. As a child, I loved Mike Tyson's Punch Out on the NES and the Wii update was a ton of fun to play. Then I finished it and lost interest. Unfortunately, nothing else for the Wii really kindled my interest as much. I let it go and haven't looked back.
3. PS3 - In the interest of full disclosure I am on my second PS3. My first was a 40gb fat boy and my current is a 160gb matte black slim. Though I show a lot of hate for Microsoft, Sony is not without fault and I MF'd them a lot when my fat boy got the Blinking Red Light of Death, or whatever it's called. I will give Microsoft some credit. The 360 is easy to disassemble. The PS3 is a b!tch. I didn't even bother. I was able to erase the hard drive and sold it as a non-working unit and bought the slim. The way I see it is if you ain't going PC, you gotta own one of them and Sony wins in my case. Now that the negative is out of the way, I'll give you some positives. I had more fond memories with the games of this system than either of the other two. Portal 1 and 2, all three Uncharted's, Killzone 2, Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim (after it was, finally, patched) and currently, GTA5. Along with those were several downloadable titles like Limbo, The Unfinished Swan, Flower, The Walking Dead and the incredible Journey. But I'd have to say that my most memorable game of this past console generation was The Pinball Arcade on the PS3. I remember getting it in early 2012 for my long gone 4g ipod touch and really enjoying playing tables that I, either never played or haven't in a long time. It was fun but somewhat lacking. The graphics were decent but flat without any dynamic lighting and the now, excellent, touch screen nudging was not in place yet. Then I downloaded it on the PS3. Wow, it looked good. Early titles like FH and CV really popped like the mobile versions couldn't. And I could nudge properly. It was the PS3 version that rekindled my interest in pinball. Though there have been ups and downs with the releases since then, I still like playing the PS3 version over my ipad. Bring on the PS4.
Those are my best and worst memories about the PS3, XBox 360 and Wii. What are yours. Oh, and I don't want to hear any crap about how they're still new games for the 360 and PS3. That they're not, technically, "past generation" yet. It's more about the memories you've had with these systems. Not about whether they're still "current."
