When I reminisce over the games I have played, I can never disassociate them from the machine that they were running on. So here are the machines that I have played games on over the years. I have used many more but I am limiting this list to the ones I actually owned.
Tandy TV Scoreboard (1978-1983)
Even as a kid I was aware this machine was a cheap imitation of something else (i.e. Pong). It was always difficult to get rigged up to the TV and the games were either too slow and boring or so fast they were impossible to play. I fear this device was used more as the flight deck of an imaginary spaceship or a control for a death ray than playing games. 1/10
Commodore 64 (1983-1988)
I wanted a ZX Spectrum but my Dad said, "No, we're getting something better." So after a trip to Dixons our family were now the proud owners of a 64 complete with off brand tape deck, a Commodore joystick and a copy of Stella Wars. I played loads of games on this machine and I even began to learn BASIC. However, we never did get a disk drive or any exciting peripherals. I can still feel the crushing disappointment of spending all my birthday money on Commando to find that A) it was not related to the Arnie film of the same name and B) it crashed after 30 seconds. By 1988 things were moving on and the first sight of Rocket Ranger was enough to convince us to sell the 64 and move on. 8/10
Commodore Amiga 500 (1988-1994)
I've never worked out how my brother assumed sole possession of our Amiga but despite it being firmly established in his room, I did get to use it. I have memories of the afore mentioned Rocket Ranger, along with Karate Kid II, Parallax and Speed Ball. The text to speech function must have been used by every child in the land to generate expletive riddled nonsense and Deluxe Paint was fun. Demo disks were pretty cool for a short period but my interest soon waned. Extra disk drives and a printer began to compliment the basic set up and this was the first computer I actually used to study and generate written work for college. Despite using it a lot, I never warmed to the Amiga and it never fulfilled its potential in my hands. 7/10
Windows 95 PC (1995-2003)
My first PC had a 1mhz processor, a 1 gig hard drive and cost me a small fortune. This is when computers became serious things and gaming wasn't my priority. However, Theme Hospital, Discworld II, Duke Nukem 3-D and Command & Conquer were early PC favourites. As time went on and I moved to upgraded machines and newer versions of Windows, I played most of the Tomb Raider series and would occasionally pick up titles like Medal of Honor (sic) or Operation Flashpoint to see the new and inventive ways in which games could crash the computer. Keeping up with graphics card advancements, RAM capacity and the processor speed required to run games became unbearable. The final straw came when Halo was ported to the PC and, having spent hours updating drivers and tinkering with settings, I couldn't get it to stop crashing halfway through the game. As no amount of service support could help I took the game back to the shop and walked out with an Xbox instead. I have never looked back. 4/10
All hail the messiah! The PlayStation 2 remains a great console, but back in 2000 it was AMAZING. I remember standing in a shop watching Gran Turismo 3 running on a large CRT TV. A beautiful purple TVR was blasting around an oval race track at night and I thought it looked stupendous. Not only was this the most advanced games machine available it was also a DVD player! This was a big selling point for me at the time. On receiving my PS2 I promptly sold all of my VHS collection and began to spend lots of money buying the same films on DVD. Happily I had enough money for Grand Theft Auto III and Gran Turismo 3 which I played for many many hours. There were so many great games for the PlayStation 2 that I was spoiled for choice. My biggest regret is that I never ventured into online play or tried the EyeToy. I gave my PS2 away in 2007 but purchased another in 2019 for the princely sum of £15. The eBay auction never mentioned any games, so I was surprised to find 5 or 6 games in the box. I was even more pleased to see a copy of Silent Hill 2 which seems to be fetching 2 or 3 times the value of the console on eBay at the minute. A great machine that is in use to this day. 9/10
I had been toying with the idea of getting an Xbox for a while but the incident with Halo and my PC pushed me over the edge. For some reason I also wanted Midtown Madness 3 which was an Xbox exclusive and came in a bundle alongside Halo. However, I have never warmed to the smoothed graphics of the Xbox and it wasn't a DVD player out of the box. Once I had finished Halo my interest waxed and waned. I enjoyed Project Gotham Racing and Rainbow Six 3 but Knights of the Old Republic and other much touted games left me a bit cold. I still have my original Xbox (and a spare lying around somewhere) and play them occasionally - but the games look so much better when run through a 360. 6/10
2007 represented a sea change in my life and my purchase of an Xbox 360 (Arcade) remains indelibly linked to the events of the year. With this console I finally began to play online and do revolutionary things like download movies onto my console. Halo 3 was all conquering and I loved it. As I purchased the cheaper of the two consoles I had to steadily upgrade to a hard drive, chatpad, headset and WiFi adapter, but I eventually decided to go all in and buy an Elite with its bigger hard drive and HDMI connection (and red ring of death as it turned out). When I bought this console I devoted more and more time to gaming. I subscribed to games magazines (the internet didn't rule back then) bought countless games and consumed digital content in a way I never had before. I've owned four 360 consoles over the years and a couple of newer S versions are still in use. My favourite by far. 10/10
Clearly my love of the 360 led to keen interest in its successor. I remember watching the console being announced (I streamed it on my phone having timed my break at work to coincide) and felt strangely disappointed. The console was being flouted as a multimedia device that would be 'always on' and have to be connected to the internet if you wanted to play a game. I seem to remember there was something about licensing that meant second hand sales of games would not be possible too. In short, it was a mess. They tried to repair the damage at E3 and whilst I remained unconvinced, I thought I could always jump ship when the PlayStation 4 came out. At launch I purchased COD: Ghosts (great online but nothing special to look at) and Forza 5 (just rubbish). Unfortunately I didn't have any time to devote to gaming from 2015 and besides Fallout 4 the Xbox One didn't get much use for a few years. In 2019 I bought a second hand copy of Halo 5 on a whim and began to get back into gaming on the One. Whilst I like the console, I never quite trust it. I have 3 of these original machines and invariably one of them always seems to have an issue. 8/10
The impending release of the PlayStation 5 brought a yearning to go back to Sony and relive the glory days. Watching YouTubers play Gran Turismo Sport finally pushed me into purchasing a PS4 Slim to satisfy my curiosity. I had become so accustomed to the Microsoft way of doing things and thought it would be good to experience a different OS and play some of the exclusive first party titles I had been missing out on. After a lukewarm start with Killzone: Shadow Fall I began to enjoy the updated Ratchet and Clank and once I played its predecessors, I even began to enjoy Uncharted 4. I'm currently playing The Last of Us Remastered but have yet to fully explore the range of titles available. Whilst it does crash out of games occasionally the PS4 is less flaky than the Xbox One and it has some nice touches. 8/10
PlayStation 5 (Original Disc and Slim Digital) (June 2021 onwards)
Having decided that the PlayStation 5 would be my choice for the ninth generational of consoles I had to wait eight months before I could actually buy one. Early titles like Ratchet and Clank and Astro's Playground looked amazing but were relatively short. It wasn't until games like Horizon Forbidden West and Astro Bot were released that the PS5 began to shine. I like this console so much I subscribed to PS+ and even bought a second 'slim' console. The new DualSense controller is simply streets ahead of any controller that has been made before. Have no doubt, the PlayStation 5 is the daddy.
Xbox Series (X) (Aug 2023 onwards)
Let's face it, the Series X is a disappointment. The specifications for the console are good, but the games are verging on disastrous. One of the first titles released was Halo Infinite and I found it totally uninspiring. Other flagship titles like Forza Motorsport or Indiana Jones and the Great Circle were also deeply disappointing.
I actually bought a Series X primarily to play Starfield and I was also keen to see Forza Horizon 5 running at a half decent frame rate (the Xbox One couldn't cope with it). Whilst both of these games are excellent they don't really justify buying a console that is nearly £500. The controller is pretty much the same as the one launched in 2014 and most of the games seem to be stuck there too.
