So, I’ll start. I have 3 devices that I’d say are tied for best
First, my n3ds xl. Beautiful handheld, clamshell, just a nice piece of hardware. If the cstick didn’t suck itd be the sole winner. My 3ds has served me very well
I also like my rp4 pro, just a great all round emulation machine. And a functional second analog stick, its almost like analog sticks are meant to be sticks and not pencil top erasers
I also like my ambernic sp, got it recently. Looks cool. And clamshell so yippee
As for the worst, I have a few:
Mandatory jab at the switch. Not awful but cmon, the controls suck
The leapster explorer. Shitty dpad. Insane power consumption, it s afun gimmick, jut kinda useless.
Then I had this little system from lexibook, the “compact cyber arcade” or something. Was silver and white, appeared to be 16 bit. Really shit controls. Buttons weren’t even labeled. It also just randomly died after about a decade, but I can’t fault it for that I guess.
I also hate tiger handhelds with a passion. Like ignoring the awful game, the controls just SUCK I didn’t even pay for the one I do have and I still feel scammed
Going to stick with portable systems, because a box is a box is a box, even if some are cooler than others (PS2 slim with attached screen, and N64).
#3 Gameboy Advance SP
Loved the compactness of the clamshell design. So much more portable than other systems at the time.
#2 Steam Deck
Windows games on a Linux handheld, plus it runs old games that Win 10 can’t.
#1 PlayStation Portable
This was and will always remain my favorite gaming system. So many great games, movies, a cool disc/cartridge hybrid media format, SD card support for all sorts of stuff, custom firmwares… man, such an amazing system.
Steam Deck. I haven’t been this excited for a console since the original Xbox. I play a lot of games that I would otherwise avoid on my gaming rig, and it’s excellent for traveling.
Steam Controller. This one was worth the effort to get used to, and it introduced me to gyro controls and paddle buttons. Also, it was integral to the Steam Deck’s control scheme design.
Least favorites:
Wii. There were a few good games, but the controllers sucked ass. GameCube was better.
Game Gear. Screen was a smudge-fest. Any kind of motion was super hard to see.
Gen 1 Xbox controller. That thing was massive and awkward.
DS Lite: maybe it’s because it was my first gaming console I bought with my own money as a kid. But this thing is such a trooper. Looks beautiful clamshell and the battery some how is still good today, almost 20 years later. Works real well with game carts too!
GameCube: I’m such a sucker for Nintendo but this thing was so portable and had a phenomenal wireless controller if you had it. I loved this console and the mini disks were so fun until I lost my case full of them.
Switch Lite: I know this isn’t a common one but the weight and the power behind it is amazing to me. I’ve always wanted a super portable console that doesn’t weigh a lot. The regular switch hurts for me to hold too long even with grips.
Least Favs:
PS2 slim: this little shit barely worked. At one point the slim would stop working where I’d have to open it, spin the disk like I was pull starting a lawn mower. It also scratched half my disks for no reason. The OG was a tank.
OG DS: bulky pain in the ass. Felt like holding two GBAs glued together.
Nintendo DSi - The DS just had such an incredible library, with tons of unique titles you could never experience elsewhere. Though the sad thing about how unique it was is that… you can’t properly experience a lot of these titles elsewhere. Emulation just isn’t the same. While it came out very late and wasn’t worth upgrading to if you already owned an earlier model, the DSi was a very nice and sleek evolution on the hardware. Much more softmod-friendly too.
Miyoo Mini Plus - Bought this last year on sale as an impulse buy. Ended up liking it so much I wish I’d bought a more expensive model with analog sticks. My ultimate dream is to someday get something that runs SteamOS in this form factor.
My custom built fightstick - Put this together last year to replace my old Hori RAP4. Really happy with how it turned out! Love the GP2040-CE, I used to have to go through an adapter to use the HRAP4 on Switch and I can feel the difference not having that added latency anymore.
Hard for me to name least favorites, because I haven’t owned a system I actively disliked, and I don’t wanna just say CD-i or N-Gage or whatever. But I guess I’ll list ones that I have mixed feelings on:
Wii - The Wii had a few great games. It also had a lot of duds. The saddest thing about it is how many games had to shoehorn waggle gimmicks in, and how few of them actually did it well.
Steam Deck - As a Linux nerd that wants to see the platform grow, I love that the Steam Deck exists. It’s arguably the most important thing that has happened to Linux gaming. It just isn’t for me at all. It’s too big to be a handheld, I grew up on a Game Boy Color and I still love curling up with handhelds in bed, but this doesn’t feel cozy to play with at all. I do occasionally use it + dock as a portable setup I can take to FGC events, or when I have guests I’ll sometimes hook it up to the TV for Jackbox, but it mostly gathers dust the rest of the time.
Switch - Great library, and the hybrid form clearly worked out for Nintendo just because they don’t have to divide their output between two platforms. But like the Deck, it’s not what I want in a handheld, mine doesn’t leave the dock. It’s also rather frustrating how many bad ports the system got, I wish developers would simply stop trying to port games it clearly can’t handle - especially when there are plenty of older titles in their back catalog that I’m sure could have good ports but get overlooked. And don’t get me started on JoyCons!
DS-i: just a lot worse than the lite imo. The camera and the few dsi downloadable games were not worth losing GBA back compat
PlayStation TV: had potential but was just a worse vita and mediocre streaming box.
Piboy: a weird raspberry pi 4 based handheld I had by a company called experimental pi. It was actually kind of cool, but they had their own custom software needed to run on the screen and they were really bad about getting fixes out, and some patches would brick the machine iirc. The company seems to be defunct now. The website is a 404 now
Favorite: Steam Deck, it’s my favorite piece of gaming hardware I’ve ever owned. The controls are fantastic, it’s now frustrating to use other controllers that don’t have back paddles, gyro, or track pads.
Least favorite: cheap off-brand controllers, with bad tactile buttons, sticking buttons, analog sticks that drift, analog sticks that only register 8 directions, etc.
Also, Wii U. I have some mixed feelings on it because I have some good memories with the system, but the hardware never paid off. Their were almost no games that made use of the gamepad screen in a way that wasn’t just a gimmick, generally the only real advantages of it were being able to play on a handheld screen while the TV was being used (a feat that the switch and steam deck so far better) and being able to have split screen multiplayer where the players can’t see each other’s screen (limited because you only have 1 game pad, and the deck struggles to do two different rendered screens for many games, with games like Hyrule warriors having to cut the enemies in half when doing split screen).
DSi introduced region locking to Nintendo handhelds. I stopped buying them at that point. The next Nintendo system I bought was the switch, which was no longer region locked. The DSi kicked that off, so it might be my least favorite.
Favorite hardware is a much tougher nut to crack. Could be my first console, n64, or my first gaming apparatus, the Gameboy Pocket. But the PSVR1 blew me away and made me a little less into flat games. The PS5 has everything I love from PS4 onward (and does VR), and the Steam deck streams my PS5 from bed while also playing pc, retro, and Xbox games and being a full on Linux machine.
Home consoles were region locked based on physical barriers in the slots that would block a cartridge from a different region. You could just extract those barriers and the console could play any cartridge from any region, though. Handhelds had been different, though. Up to the DSi, you could buy a handheld cartridge from any country and it would plug in and play no problem.
Favourite: Steam Deck, hands down. It has totally revolutionised the way I play games. I very often choose to play games on my deck instead of on my far more powerful pc.
Least favourite: Smartphone. The closest I’ve come to having an enjoyable traditional gaming experience on a smartphone was Sky: Children of the Light but even then I was constantly getting frustrated with the touchscreen controls and dealing with my phone getting as hot as the surface of the sun. Its also just not a comfortable shape to hold while you game.
Least favorite - Joycons. They make my hands ache, and I hate that to enjoy my switch I have to have a 3rd-party grip.
Favorite - my Lenovo legion laptop, which has given me for excellent years of service. I’m going to upgrade to a newer model later this year and keep this one, install Linux on it, and make it a Linux-only machine for better privacy in using the Web.
I ran a dual boot Mint install on my main PC for two months and it was just too buggy. I had to switch back to full Windows, but I know it’s an issue with Nvidia and some distros have been Nvidia compatibility, so when I make the switch again I’m just going to use a different one.
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Going to stick with portable systems, because a box is a box is a box, even if some are cooler than others (PS2 slim with attached screen, and N64).
#3 Gameboy Advance SP
Loved the compactness of the clamshell design. So much more portable than other systems at the time.
#2 Steam Deck
Windows games on a Linux handheld, plus it runs old games that Win 10 can’t.
#1 PlayStation Portable
This was and will always remain my favorite gaming system. So many great games, movies, a cool disc/cartridge hybrid media format, SD card support for all sorts of stuff, custom firmwares… man, such an amazing system.
It physically hurts me to see so many other people loved the PSP as much as me, and we’ll never get to go back.
This made me sad so I went on AliExpress and got a usb to psp charger cable…
https://i.imgur.com/oymTIzG.jpeg
Favorites:
Steam Deck. I haven’t been this excited for a console since the original Xbox. I play a lot of games that I would otherwise avoid on my gaming rig, and it’s excellent for traveling.
Steam Controller. This one was worth the effort to get used to, and it introduced me to gyro controls and paddle buttons. Also, it was integral to the Steam Deck’s control scheme design.
Least favorites:
Wii. There were a few good games, but the controllers sucked ass. GameCube was better.
Game Gear. Screen was a smudge-fest. Any kind of motion was super hard to see.
Gen 1 Xbox controller. That thing was massive and awkward.
Dishonorable mention. One of those “99 in 1” things with the weird LCD. Really shit dpad, the thing didn’t even have tetris
Favorites
Steamdeck: Such a great way to game at home or on the go, and I have access to a ton of games via my account
N64 controller:
That thing was such a comfortable controller.
Not so Favorites:
Switch controllers:
Hopefully, they will fix them for the second version because the drift is unbearable at times. I bought kits to fix them, but come on man
Dreamcast.
Not so much it was a bad system, Sega just abandoned it like hot potato. The controllers sucked though from what I remember. Really bulky.
Favorites:
DS Lite: maybe it’s because it was my first gaming console I bought with my own money as a kid. But this thing is such a trooper. Looks beautiful clamshell and the battery some how is still good today, almost 20 years later. Works real well with game carts too!
GameCube: I’m such a sucker for Nintendo but this thing was so portable and had a phenomenal wireless controller if you had it. I loved this console and the mini disks were so fun until I lost my case full of them.
Switch Lite: I know this isn’t a common one but the weight and the power behind it is amazing to me. I’ve always wanted a super portable console that doesn’t weigh a lot. The regular switch hurts for me to hold too long even with grips.
Least Favs:
PS2 slim: this little shit barely worked. At one point the slim would stop working where I’d have to open it, spin the disk like I was pull starting a lawn mower. It also scratched half my disks for no reason. The OG was a tank.
OG DS: bulky pain in the ass. Felt like holding two GBAs glued together.
Favorite:
Hard for me to name least favorites, because I haven’t owned a system I actively disliked, and I don’t wanna just say CD-i or N-Gage or whatever. But I guess I’ll list ones that I have mixed feelings on:
Favorites
Least favorite
Favorite: Steam Deck, it’s my favorite piece of gaming hardware I’ve ever owned. The controls are fantastic, it’s now frustrating to use other controllers that don’t have back paddles, gyro, or track pads.
Least favorite: cheap off-brand controllers, with bad tactile buttons, sticking buttons, analog sticks that drift, analog sticks that only register 8 directions, etc.
Also, Wii U. I have some mixed feelings on it because I have some good memories with the system, but the hardware never paid off. Their were almost no games that made use of the gamepad screen in a way that wasn’t just a gimmick, generally the only real advantages of it were being able to play on a handheld screen while the TV was being used (a feat that the switch and steam deck so far better) and being able to have split screen multiplayer where the players can’t see each other’s screen (limited because you only have 1 game pad, and the deck struggles to do two different rendered screens for many games, with games like Hyrule warriors having to cut the enemies in half when doing split screen).
Favorite: Nintendo 3DS XL. I never would have thought a resistive touchscreen would last that long. What an absolute beating that thing took.
Dogshit: Microsoft Sidewinder Game Pad Pro (1999 edition). Motherfucker didn’t know up from left.
My 3ds has taken a beating too. Those things are champs
DSi introduced region locking to Nintendo handhelds. I stopped buying them at that point. The next Nintendo system I bought was the switch, which was no longer region locked. The DSi kicked that off, so it might be my least favorite.
Favorite hardware is a much tougher nut to crack. Could be my first console, n64, or my first gaming apparatus, the Gameboy Pocket. But the PSVR1 blew me away and made me a little less into flat games. The PS5 has everything I love from PS4 onward (and does VR), and the Steam deck streams my PS5 from bed while also playing pc, retro, and Xbox games and being a full on Linux machine.
Oh. I thought older stuff was locked too. Aren’t nes/fc carts non compatible? I likely wrong.
Yea, lots of good hardware over the years
Home consoles were region locked based on physical barriers in the slots that would block a cartridge from a different region. You could just extract those barriers and the console could play any cartridge from any region, though. Handhelds had been different, though. Up to the DSi, you could buy a handheld cartridge from any country and it would plug in and play no problem.
Favourite: Steam Deck, hands down. It has totally revolutionised the way I play games. I very often choose to play games on my deck instead of on my far more powerful pc.
Least favourite: Smartphone. The closest I’ve come to having an enjoyable traditional gaming experience on a smartphone was Sky: Children of the Light but even then I was constantly getting frustrated with the touchscreen controls and dealing with my phone getting as hot as the surface of the sun. Its also just not a comfortable shape to hold while you game.
Yea, phone games have awful controls. But at leasts its not a shitty proper stick
Fortunately no stick drift
I have a drifting pair. Even without drist the ergonomics are bad. But I’ve seen worse
I only have one, a 16 inch, 120hz, 16GB RAM, 1660 Ti laptop, so it’s got to be that. I do like it, though.
Wow that’s powerful. My laptops at epretty weak
Virtual boy fits in both best and worst 👍
O see the worst but how is it the best?
At the time it blew my mind.
Favourite: PC Least favourite: Nintendo switch
Least favorite - Joycons. They make my hands ache, and I hate that to enjoy my switch I have to have a 3rd-party grip.
Favorite - my Lenovo legion laptop, which has given me for excellent years of service. I’m going to upgrade to a newer model later this year and keep this one, install Linux on it, and make it a Linux-only machine for better privacy in using the Web.
Yea, joycons are the worst bit of the switch.
Also if you want I can give you some advice with linux
I appreciate the offer.
I ran a dual boot Mint install on my main PC for two months and it was just too buggy. I had to switch back to full Windows, but I know it’s an issue with Nvidia and some distros have been Nvidia compatibility, so when I make the switch again I’m just going to use a different one.
Oh oki :3