The middle class of consoles are all ones that I have some fondness for, but if they went away, I would probably be ok. As usual, the points are determined by having 10 points for a perfect/iconic game, 5 points for an excellent game, and 1 point for a good game. Our cutoff point comes after the Mobile phone, which was the last denizen of the I'm Pretty Sure I Should Own This tier. We pick up our coverage with the...
Xbox 360 (37 points):
Good games:
Army of Two
Bastion
Dynasty Warriors 8
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2
Guitar Hero: World Tour
Lego Batman
Lego Batman 2
Excellent Games:
Grand Theft Auto 5
Halo 3
Lego Marvel Super Heroes
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
I probably had about 80% of my Xbox 360 experience during a brief 9 month window where I was living with my future wife's parents and me and her brother played on his a ton. I enjoyed it, but really haven't explored the console further. I tend to default to the PS3 for this generation because I adore the DualShock 3, but this may be the technical wrong answer.
Playstation 3 (37 points):
Good games:
Mega Man 9
Mega Man 10
NCAA Football
Skylanders: Swap Force
Tekken Tag Tournament 2
Batman: Arkham Origins
Excellent Games:
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Batman: Arkham City
Mass Effect 3
Ni No Kuni
Street Fighter IV
The Last of Us
Speaking of the PS3...this is my Batman machine! I really like the UI and controller on this bad boy. It had a bunch of other really good games, too. Like the 360, I've barely scratched the surface of the library to boot.
Sega Genesis (38 points):
Good games:
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Comix Zone
Disney's Aladdin
Road Rash II
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist
Vectorman
X-Men 2: The Clone Wars
Streets of Rage
Excellent games:
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Gunstar Heroes
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Streets of Rage 2
I sold my SNES to get a Sega Genesis, and I couldn't have made a worse mistake. Well, I guess I could have bought the Jaguar or something. Luckily, I've made up for it later on in life. However, I still love the Genesis! There's a ton to experience on this console yet - I've never done the deep Genesis library dive that I've devoted to the SNES and NES. This one may pull up in the rankings over time.
Nintendo DS (41 points):
Good games:
Children of Mana
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance A2
Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
New Super Mario Bros.
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum
Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's World Championsship 2011: Over the Nexus
Excellent games:
Advance Wars DS
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time
Mario Kart DS
Pokemon Black/White
Pokemon Black 2/White 2
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Of all of the inhabitants of the Console Middle Class, this one is probably the one I've spent the most time with. A marvel of design and concept, the DS rules. Having a slot on the bottom for GBA games put the icing on the cake for me, as I could retire my old GBA and have a beautiful, backlit screen to play GBA games on instead (I had not yet been exposed to the glory of the GBA SP 101 yet). I feel like there's a lot to experience on the console yet, though. I didn't have hardly any money back then, so I didn't buy much new. Emulators for it didn't exist until somewhat recently, and I've been too busy to dive in to more than a handful of games in that fashion. Now, hard copies of a lot of the games I want are simply too expensive in the box, so I don't have a great collection of many of the vaunted RPGs on the system. This one could definitely move up. I'll get there!
Gamecube (42 points):
Good games:
Donkey Konga
Donkey Konga 2
Pikmin
Super Mario Sunshine
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Luigi's Mansion
Excellent games:
Mario Kart: Double Dash
Mario Party
Animal Crossing
Perfect/Iconic games:
Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour
Super Smash Bros. Melee
This is the first console on this tier list to have two perfect/iconic games, and I stand behind both of them. Melee is literally my favorite video game of all time, and the Mario Golf entry on the Gamecube stands alone as the best Mario sports title, ever. It has given our family countless phenomenal hours of fun, still looks beautiful, and has incredibly designed courses. I feel like there's still a lot more to be experienced here, too. I have a bunch of Cube games I've never tried before, and if I could just get my console working properly (dead laser), I'd totally do it. Eventually.
Game Boy (43 points):
Good games:
Pokemon Trading Card GamePokemon Trading Card Game 2
Super Mario Land
The Final Fantasy Legend
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
Yoshi's Cookie
BurgerTime Deluxe
Kirby's Dream Land
Excellent games:
Kirby's Dream Land 2
Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
Tetris
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
Perfect/Iconic Games:
Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
My first handheld, and a true legend. This beast, utilizing dated hardware even for the time, proved for the first of many times that gamers care far less about performance than they do about quality game play. Its many competitors, from the Lynx to the Game Gear to the Wonderswan, came and went, leaving a footprint far less lasting than their technologically inferior ancestor. I feel like there's a ton more to experience here, too - this one may be going up in the rankings next time.
That will do it for the Middle Class. There's a lot of quality here, and a lot of potential for growth in most of these. But I can't bear to put the next few consoles in the Middle Class, so I'll arbitrarily make the cutoff here. See you soon!
