What's Your Golden Age of Gaming?

[Zipa]

This is it right now, for all people bitching about various publishers and all the DRM we have to put up with this is the golden age. The technology is at a point where it no longer limits what a dev team can do. I mean this is the only generation where we get games like mass effect 3 that have made people so immersed into them and the universe that they are willing to throw more money at EA to change something they don't like. Like it or hate it but it takes something quite special to get that kind of reaction.

 

[TehCookie]

This gen, because you can still play all the older games on top of the newer ones. The only time gaming is going to suck is when you're not able to go back and play old games. If I had to choose a year it'd be 95-05 but I can still play all of the ones I loved and ones I missed now.

 

[Wdbisl]

I would have to say in between the years of the ps1 & N64 and ps2 & gamecube lifespan. There were lots and lots of memorable games coming out during that timeframe for many systems and when you bought one no excuse to not give a full game because of downloadable content.

 

[dimensional]

hasnt been one yet even looking at my favourite games (top 10) they span from 1985 to 2011 so I cant really name a golden age (unless you are going to count 1985 - present as one) as such, there has always been good and crap games.

 

[OldDirtyCrusty]

To me there`s none other like the current gen. There are a few old titles i can still play, but i mostly wish for remakes in current gen graphics and animation.
Yeah, i`m a fast food gamer with a hunger for light good entertainment and i try to avoid most of my oldest favorite titles since i don`t want to loose my pink glasses on those memories.

 

[Vuliev]

IMO, hasn't happened yet. Gaming's too young to have had a true "Golden Age," and we have as yet nowhere near the perspective to see one.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

The SNES-Playstation era of role-playing. Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasies IV-IX, Xenogears, Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross, Secret of Mana, Grandia... I could so on, but SO MANY AWESOME GAMES.
There were some awesome ones on PS2 as well. FFX, FFXII, Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, Shadow Hearts and SH: Covenant, P3 and P4, Digital Devil Saga, Rogue Galaxy...

 

[Easton Dark]

2000 - 2006

So many good games for the Gamecube, Xbox, PS2, without so much bullshit that's happening today.

I think the end came around when Dead Rising was totally unreadable on a non-hd TV.

 

[Lunar Templar]

the Snes/PS1/PS2 generations.

i occasionally still find good games i missed for those to

 

[Rack]

We're living it. If I were to compile my top games of all time only a handful wouldn't be from the last 5 years.

 

[mega48man]

ah yes, my first console; the xbox 360. now while i had been a gamer at heart, my parents never got me a console until i decided to get one for myself. i was 14, i think, so the year had to have been 2007. i guess i was a gamer waiting to happen as i played the crap out of my first few games;

-halo 3
-guitar hero 3 (i f**kin owned number of the beast)
-Tom Clancy's Endwar
-modern warfare 2

Endwar blew my mind with the microphone thing, i just loved the simplicity of it (even though i thought it was so complicated, but easily mastering that "complicated" stuff made me feel so friggin awesome)

 

[Grygor]

When Gran Turismo and Spyro the Dragon could both sit side by side as blockbuster titles for the system, rather than being the niche genre titles that they are today.

GT5 sold over 7 million copies - how is that in any way "niche"? And the last Spyro sold 2.5 million, which is quite respectable as well, even if it doesn't get the same press coverage as other games.

Back then, greed still hadn't overtaken creativity and ambition in the industry. Publishers were happy to invest in all sorts of titles, as long as it looked like they'd make a return on investment. We had Squaresoft making tactical-strategy games that actually worked on a console (Final Fantasy Tactics).

That's really not particularly creative - the Tactical RPG has a long and storied history stretching back to the NES - FFT just looks innovative to you because so few of them were seen outside Japan.

We had Hideo Kojima completely redefining the nature of interactive storytelling with Metal Gear Solid.

"Redefining the nature of interactive storytelling"? You have got to be kidding.

I don't think there's ever been a period where developers exhibited as much fearless creativity as in those days. Since then, it's been a process of refining and polishing what already came before, not trying to find new territory anymore.

With all due respect, you were 6 when the Playstation came out - perhaps you lack some perspective...

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

1990's made gaming the force it is today. Without it we'd never have the games or consoles like we do. Esp. the late 90's when the PC 3d card was introduced... ahhhh the Voodoo/Nvidia wars...

To be honest, there is a lot of nostalgia involved in that assessment. But still I do go back and play a lot of the "Golden oldies" of yesteryear and find myself loving the simplicity behind those games' storylines/narrative yet the gameplay is superb.

Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure was one of my top 10 games of all time. PC only, released in the mid 90's, Relentless was one of the first 3d-rendered games I played. Sure it was a little primitive as far as 3d goes, and the camera was fixed isometric (now a staple/genre of its own thanks to Diablo). And now that GOG has it, I'm happy. I loved the large scale of this game, because at the time there weren't a lot of long adventure games with semi-open world status. Most games of the time were more or less hand-holding adventures or level based.

Quest For Glory 1-5: The Pentultimate RPG series, that in my opinion defined puzzle/rpg/adventure games. Ok maybe I'm just being nostalgic on this one, but I feel the QFG series showed RPGs can be non-linear adventures without mindlessly grinding levels, and that story arcs can indeed be dragged across multiple games without screwing the pooch. Also, character transfer... what other game prior to this ever even considered this? Please name me some other games (.Hack does NOT count...) that offered this.

 

[Irridium]

Well for consoles, the golden age for me (relating to consoles) was when shit just worked. When I just put the game in the console and played and didn't worry about firmware updates, game updates, account creations, account hackings, or my console crapping out due to red rings/yellow lights/E74 errors/whatever the hell else consoles these days die of. Last generation was also great for games. The games looked good, but were cheap enough so that many could afford to make them, and which allowed more experimenting. Though in retrospect there really wasn't much of it, but there was more than there is now. Not much but it was still there dammit!

Good times.

Primary reason I went back to PC gaming actually. If I have to put up with the crap of PC gaming I'll do it on the PC, where I can at least get the perks of PC gaming.

As for PC's, I wouldn't say there ever was a golden age. Each "age" just had different problems.

 

[omicron1]

The best years for gaming (IMO) were:
* 1997-2000 - Age of Empires, Thief, Half-Life, System Shock 2, Thief 2, Homeworld, Starcraft, etc.
* 2003-04 - WoW, HL2, KotOR, Rome: Total War, Prince of Persia, Beyond Good and Evil, etc.
* 2007 - Crysis, Portal, TF2, Bioshock, etc.


It is interesting to note, right now we're seeing a LOT of series from the '90s and early '00s reborn. Deus Ex, Syndicate, XCom, Thief, Max Payne... it's a gaming retro period, of sorts. Not so much cool new stuff presently, though.

 

[PPB]

1995-2005

Blizzard: Warcraft II & III, Diablo I & II, Starcraft, World of Warcraft (a gaming phenomenon, whether you like it or not)
BioWare: Baldur's Gate series, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic
Black Isle: Icewind Dale series, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1 & 2
Bethesda: Morrowind
LucasArts: Jedi Knight series, adventure games
Consoles: Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye

And probably many others that I haven't played or don't remember right now.

I honestly don't think anything can topple those years.