Game Consoles You Always Wanted but Never Owned

The NEOGEO AES might be my second choice. I remember learning about that one walking home with some kids from school. There was a rumor that someone in town had gotten one and how amazingly expensive it was. A few weeks later, we were in an EB or Babbage's at the local mall and they had an AES and some games (or we may have just been continuing the conversation there, my memory is murky), but the guy working there started telling us about all the arcade ports and the prices and how incredible the thing was. We tried to figure out who in town had it, but we never did. Could have all been just a rumor...

So, judging by this post and your intro post, you own the LaserActive! Is it really as awesome as it seems?

Welcome StealRUSH! Cool list.

I remember hearing and reading about NeoGeo. It was like reading about a Ferrari or Lamborghini. No one I knew had one. same thing about turbo grafx 16, no one I knew had one of those either.

I never knew anyone with a TG16 until it was either discontinued or about to be. The nice thing about the TG16 is that it's not terribly expensive to get one now, especially if you go the PC Engine route, which is what I did not that long ago when I picked up a few PC Engine Core units of various types. I love the design of that system as well as the HuCards. It's amazing how unattractive they made the US version. Great hardware though.

Oats, nice analogy comparing the Neo to exotic cars. It certainly felt that way to me at the time as well. Back then, the idea of games costing as much as a Genesis or SNES was enough to keep me from dreaming about it too much. The good thing about the Neo Geo is that most of its best games would be available to play on other systems over the years.

I think at this point, I have all of the game systems I wanted as a kid. I think the first system I REALLY wanted that I didn't get as a kid was a Sega CD. I was a little late to the 16-bit era and purchased my Genesis in like 1995. Even before I bought it, I knew I wanted a Sega CD. I didn't have a PC at the time either, so FMV games were like "whoa". Interestingly enough, I still enjoy them quite a bit, though they can be frustrating to play these days. But anyways, I kept saying I would save up my money and get a Sega CD. And then I started looking at the PlayStation. So I bought a Saturn. No, really, that's kinda how it happened. I was all set on the PlayStation, but when Sega was packing in 3 games with the Saturn around Christmas 1996, I couldn't resist. And boy was that a great decision! The Saturn ended up being one of my favorite consoles of all time and I still play it regularly (working on Dragon Force right now).

Around that same time, I was really intrigued by the 3DO. I figured for the price, it HAD to be good, right? Well, that's not exactly what I thought, but it did have a couple of games I was really interested in: Gex and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. I played Gex a bunch in Wal-Mart and I would drool over the then-exclusive console version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo. And the cover art was killer too. If you put Akuma on the cover of a game, I'm pretty sure I want it. But as I said above, I went with the Saturn and that was that.

I have since purchased both of those consoles and have enjoyed my time with them. Although it's not retro, I'm interested in picking up a Vita. There are some pretty cool looking exclusives that might finally get me to plop down the $200 for it. Just what I need, more RPGs, yeah!