Games Freezer | Retrogaming, Indie Games and Games Culture: ☆ Try My Retro Console Top Trumps

Do you like video games? Do you like Top Trumps?

Have you ever wondered why there aren't video games related Top Trumps?

Specifically, I'm thinking Retro Console Top Trumps...

Imagine a deck of cards with all your favourite consoles rated so as they can go head to head!

It's been something that I have thought about quite a bit and now I've decided that I will make my very own set of retro console cards and share them with the good people of the Games Freezer.

Which Consoles Qualify?
Where shall we start? Well, let's first work out what the consoles will be.

In a standard deck of Top Trumps, there are 30 cards. Therefore we need 30 consoles/video games computers.

I've sat down and come up with the following list of eligible consoles/video games computers.

Card #	Machine
1	Atari 2600
2	NES
3	SMS
4	SMD
5	SNES
6	N64
7	SATURN
8	PS1
9	PS2
10	XBOX
11	Atari 7800
12	C64
13	Spectrum +2
14	PC Engine
15	BBC
16	ATARI 800
17	Game Cube
18	Gameboy
19	Dreamcast
20	Game Gear
21	Lynx
22	Amstrad GX4000
23	Amstrad CPC
24	Jaguar
25	Virtual Boy
26	Vectrex
27	Amiga
28	Atari ST
29	NEO GEO
30	Game & Watch

Notice that I have included consoles, handhelds, video games computers and LCD display video games in my list. I chose this list based on the most popular video games machines over the last 30 years and have gone as far as including the original XBOX.

Ratings Categories
As we all know, Top Trumps cards have different rating categories for each type of deck. I tried to take some inspiration from the days of the video game reviews in Mean Machines and broke it down into the following 5 review style categories for each console.

Power - A measurement of the console's power in terms of BITS/CPU Power

Games - How many great games does the console have

Graphics - Generally how good are the graphics on the console / what is it capable of

Sound - How good is the sound considered to be on the console, which is generally determined by a sound chip

Overall - Put all the above together and come up with an overall score (non-scientific but fun!)

All the above categories are given a rating out of 10 so as we can have a standardised rating system on all the categories.

How Did Each Console Rate?
After following the rating category guidelines and a bit of head scratching and pondering I came up with these ratings for each of the consoles:

Card #	Machine	Power	Games	Graphics	Sound	Overall
1	Atari 2600	1	8	3	2	7
2	NES	4	10	5	5	9
3	SMS	4	7	5	4	6
4	SMD	5	8	7	6	8
5	SNES	6	10	8	8	10
6	N64	7	8	8	7	8
7	SATURN	8	4	8	8	6
8	PS1	9	10	9	8	9
9	PS2	9.5	10	9.5	8	9.5
10	XBOX	10	8	10	9	8.5
11	Atari 7800	3	7	4	2	6
12	C64	4	9	4	7	7
13	Spectrum +2	4	9	4	5	7
14	PC Engine	5	5	7	6	5.5
15	BBC	4	3	3	3	5
16	ATARI 800	4	8	4	3	5.5
17	Game Cube	7.5	7.5	8.5	7.5	7
18	Gameboy	3.5	10	4	5	8
19	Dreamcast	8.5	7	8.5	7	7.5
20	Game Gear	4	6	6	4	6
21	Lynx	5	5	7	5	6
22	Amstrad GX4000	4	1	4	3	2
23	Amstrad CPC	4	8	4	4	6.5
24	Jaguar	6.5	1	6	7.5	2
25	Virtual Boy	3	1	2	3	3
26	Vectrex	1	5	2	3	6
27	Amiga	9	10	8	10	9.5
28	Atari ST	7	7	7	6	7
29	NEO GEO	8	9	8	7	8.5
30	Game & Watch	1	7	1	1	5

Let's Create The Cards!
Now the fun part begins. We have a consoles list and the ratings populated for each of the chosen categories and now it's time to actually create the cards.

I'm going to use Inkscape to try and create the cards and i'll add the image of each card to this article as I go along.

Here goes.....

ATARI 2600