If the 80's were considered the Golden Age of Gaming, then...

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

What would this current age be considered, brilliant games pop up often enough, but there is enough mediocrity and crap in this "era" that it all balances out, so.... opinions on what this stage in gaming would be dubbed as?

Also, as a note, I was born in the 90's, and looking back at the supposed games of the Golden Age is a bit disappointing, I'm not sure if its just due to me being spoiled by "better" games or if the era is almost always looked through rose-tinted glasses.

Also, follow up question, does anyone else feel a bit dissapointed when they load up a classic and find out that it doesn't hold up as well as you remember?-Recently happened to me with Fable TLC and Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King

 

[Pink Gregory]

That was the birth, the 90s were the renaissance, now we're dealing with the future.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I wouldn't say the 80's were the golden age. Most games were absolute shit in retrospect. Games were masochistic and not in depth whatsoever for the most part. I grew up in the 80's playing Atari, Intellivision, Calecovision, and NES. I would say we are in the golden age of gaming now.

But they did have quite awesome rpgs, such as Wasteland.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

Any generation refers to the time in which they were growing up as the "golden age". It's an entirely relative concept. Most of the people I know who are presently in their teens and twenties tend to look back upon the PS1 era as the golden age.

I don't believe that's any sort of coincidence. People just tend to naturally look on past times with fondness for one reason or the other and that logic applied en mass leads to a perceived golden age which in harsh reality, never actually existed.

 

[7thHanyou]

I don't think the 80s were the golden age at all. Consoles were dead for far too long.

The 90s were probably the golden age. Gaming saw significant innovation, and as far as consoles are concerned, the groundwork was laid for most of the best conventions that still remain in force today.

No idea what this age would be considered, but the past 10 years have been fairly uninteresting.

 

[veloper]

Is there anyone here who can make a decent argument for the '80s then?

It's the PS2 era for some and the late '90s for long time PC gamers like me, but games from before 1990 rarely even induce nostalgia over here.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

This, I don't know who would say the 80s when it's blatantly obvious that the 90s were the "golden age", specifically the late 90s, see here: http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/why-the-late-90s-are-the-golden-age-of-video-gaming/505424/
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/topic/27591165

A lot of gaming journalists/reviewers do, I think its an oversight, as memories of the 90's evoke feelings of satisfyingly shooting many a villain, whereas the 80's had no "successful game" formula(save for platformers).

EDIT: That is to say, the journalists/reviewers etc. oversee the goodness of the 90's due to nostalgia.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Is there anyone here who can make a decent argument for the '80s then?

It's the PS2 era for some and the late '90s for long time PC gamers like me, but games from before 1990 rarely even induce nostalgia over here.

The original Final Fantasy was pretty memorable as a kid. As was Super Mario Bros. Another gem not many know about is a Metroidvania style game before the style was even a genre really. It was called Clash at Demonhead and it was one of the most unique,complex, and awesome games ever made for the NES. I loved it.

*remembers Scott Pilgrim vs. The World*

Oh!I get it! It's a reference!

*Reference identification raised to 2*

 

[Jazoni89]

I wouldn't say the 80's were the golden age. Most games were absolute shit in retrospect. Games were masochistic and not in depth whatsoever for the most part. I grew up in the 80's playing Atari, Intellivision, Calecovision, and NES. I would say we are in the golden age of gaming now.

I agree, also the C-64...


Imagine having to do this everytime to play a game. I don't think any old school gamers get nostalgic about this aspect of gaming in the 1980's. Gaming in the 80's (or the 70's for that matter) was overly complicated and very user unfriendly. Also most of the games lacked any sizable depth, and more often than not the medium was hampered by a lot of technical limitations that made these games as basic as they were.

Personally I do think gaming peaked in the early 90's, as it became a more viable mainstream product that it is today. The era also introduced many aspects of the medium that are still a core part of modern games today. It's literally the time the medium came of age, so to speak.

 

[putowtin]

Who the hell decided that the 80's were the golden age of gaming?
Seriously I was there,

I had this, 30 minutes and 4 cassettes later, lemmings would crash and you'd be looking at your little sister playing with her barbie wishing you could be entertained so easily!

Imagine having to do this everytime to play a game.

I always ended up playing one of about five games that:
1) Loaded quicky
2) Pretty much never crashed

(For anyone interested the non crashing games were: Boulder Dash, Burger Time, Jet Set Willy, Rock Star Ate My Hamster and some text game I can't remember the name of!)

 

[Jazoni89]

That was the birth, the 90s were the renaissance, now we're dealing with the future.

No, we're in the renaissance now.

Lets make a little test. Could you get away with publishing a game like Journey, or Spec Ops The Line in the 90's? No? Then its not the renaissance.

The 80's was prehistory, the 90's was rudimentary toolmaking, the 00's were the Greek and Roman periods, now is the Renaissance.

What was the 70's then...The dinosaur era?

What about the 60's...the creation of the world? There were technically videogames in the 60's as well. Hell there was even prototypes of consoles being made in the late 60's, Ralph Baer was creating the Magnavox Odyssey at that time, which eventually saw a commercial release in 1972.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_H._Baer

One of the first computer games spacewar (1962) was manpowered by a whole room of computers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!

Gaming is a lot older than most think. We have a 90 year old German inventor to thank for the creation of videogames.

 

[Palademon]

I thought the thread title was going to end with "of music".

It always seems like the 80s is the Golden Age of everything.

My opinion is that it's just because we're at the perfect time gap for all the critics to be from that time, and all the people who support the claim either being from that time, brought up with things form that time, or just happen to prefer it so jump on the train.

However I can say the 90s did seem dull for a lot of things, but hey, we had good Sonic games and a great jump to 3D with medium defining games.

I think our current time will be remembered as stagnant but with mostly consistent quality games. But I think the people growing up in this time will unfortunately have nostalgia for many things we hated about this time.

 

[Vault101]

huh?

I thourght it was the 90's? or late 90's

 

[josemlopes]

I know that people dont like the typical modern FPS games but still, calling the 80's or the 90's golden age?

Have you guys seen how ambitious some games are now compared to what they were? Mass Effect series (decisions that spread through 3 games), Spec Ops The Line (deconstructs a genre), GTA (the fucking huge attention to make believable worlds).

I dont even think that we are at the golden age yet, there is still so much to learn and do, where is that big ass world with fully destructable enviorments and gameplay that isnt entirely based on shooting people. A game where you also do a lot of talking where the choises aren't A or B, driving the game to a unique experience each playthrough, where you can be a criminal (like a GTA game) or follow politics (like a Sim City game) or even start a business (like one of those Tycoon games) all in the same game, etc...

That shit right there is the golden age for me, and I expect it to take a shit load of time to get there.