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Title: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Lucas on August 06, 2011, 04:05:53 AM What's your most beloved "gaming era", if any?
Inevitably, it might be related to your age at that particular moment: so, beside choosing one from that angle, what do you consider the most innovative, interesting one? I think it's also stimulating (well, at least from a "mid-summer lazyness" heat-inducing lazyness point of view :P) to try splitting them somehow. I already wrote a list, but some of them intertwine, as expected. From what I know, before 1977, gaming hardware and software was pretty sparse, so I think we should start with the rise of Intellivision/Colecovision/VCS (atari 2600). 1976 - 1983: The beginning and the Apex of Atari 8-bit systems 1983 - 1987: Commodore 64/128 rules supreme 1987-1991: Amiga vs Atari ST (and Amstrad and Spectrum) 1988 - 1994: consoles and other, "smaller" gaming devices are born (from Sega Megadrive to the birth of Playstation 1) 1990 - 1995: the "PC" becomes a "true" gaming machine: from Origin's Wing Commander, to Civilization and the golden age of Adventure Games 1996 - 2001: "interlude" era for the PC, rise of console gaming (Playstation 2 and XBox) 2000 - 2007: "modern" PC gaming is born. from Voodoo 1 video cards to Crysis 2007 - today: new business models (birth of "DLCs", gaming devices and "social gaming". Of course I approximated (err, does it exist as a term? :P) the dates, I'm no historian :P (for example, I think Voodoo Cards vs. Matrox G200 and 400 started before 2000, right? What about the first "consoles" as we intend them today?) What do you think? Want to have a try at a better classification? (yes, there is no mention of MMOs, because that would mean an entirely different discussion, from BBS gaming, telnet, to MUDs, other sub-genres and the birth of "modern" MMOs with The Realm, M59 and UO) Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Malakili on August 06, 2011, 04:20:33 AM 2010 - Era of Hats.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Amaron on August 06, 2011, 04:59:28 AM I think you'd have to put down that companies started ignoring non MMO PC gamers for a while there and that we are now seeing some sort of resurgence again thanks to things like Steam.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: ezrast on August 06, 2011, 01:26:20 PM I have a huge amount of nostalgia for the SNES era which is very weird given that I wasn't actually old enough to have much of a clue about games beyond Mario and Commander Keen when it was going on.
I also actually really like where gaming is going now with digital distribution allowing small indie studios to coexist with big publishers. It's a brave new world where 1- and 2-person projects can be bona fide hits right along with AAA titles, and it will be interesting to see how the backlash against the increasingly corporatized "traditional" side of the game industry plays out. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Nebu on August 06, 2011, 02:08:52 PM My fondest memories come from Mountain Dew filled evenings playing Intellivision and Atari computer games (like Star Raiders) with friends. I'm guessing that's around 1979-1980 or so. The Commodore 64 era (Archon, Mule, etc) is a very close second.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Strazos on August 06, 2011, 02:55:17 PM 90s and early 00s for me - some great SNES/Genesis material, then transitioned to PC. Pretty sure stuff like Fallout and Baldur's Gate sold me on the PC, even before I played EQ.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Selby on August 06, 2011, 02:57:12 PM The mid-late 80's up through the very late 90's and into some part of 2000-2002 was my heyday for computer gaming. Game companies still made games I wanted to play and play I did!
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Reg on August 06, 2011, 02:59:08 PM The first game I ever played seriously was Bard's Tale on the Commodore 64. I had it all mapped out on graph paper and everything. It's amazing the crap I was willing to put up with in those days.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Velorath on August 06, 2011, 03:16:50 PM Your "interlude/rise of Console gaming" era has a time span that encompasses both Diablo games, Starcraft, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, both Baldur's Gate games, Planescape Torment, Half-Life, Team Fortress, Myth 1 and 2, Quake 1-3, Master of Orion 2, Fallout 1 and 2, Grim Fandango, the first two Thief games, Unreal and Unreal Tournament, Age of Empires 1 and 2, Alpha Centauri, Everquest, Ultima Online, the Sims, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm leaving out.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Malakili on August 06, 2011, 03:41:21 PM Your "interlude/rise of Console gaming" era has a time span that encompasses both Diablo games, Starcraft, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, both Baldur's Gate games, Planescape Torment, Half-Life, Team Fortress, Myth 1 and 2, Quake 1-3, Master of Orion 2, Fallout 1 and 2, Grim Fandango, the first two Thief games, Unreal and Unreal Tournament, Age of Empires 1 and 2, Alpha Centauri, Everquest, Ultima Online, the Sims, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm leaving out. This also reminds me what I wanted to add earlier but didn't have time to. I generally think of eras in a game-based way rather than a system based way, especially after say, the mid nineties. I might be worth compiling a list of important games released year by year if we are serious about this. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Tale on August 06, 2011, 09:57:18 PM Quote 1987-1991: Amiga vs Atari ST (and Amstrad and Spectrum) Amstrad and Spectrum were really players in the Commodore 64 era, not the Amiga and ST era. The C64 competed with the ZX Spectrum and whatever model it was that we just called "an Amstrad". The 80s were my teenage years. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: UnSub on August 07, 2011, 01:03:50 AM I think the true eras of gaming are:
Games I Grew Up With Age: AWESOME AGE! Games Currently Coming Out Age: SUCK AGE! Games Coming Out In Future Age: DOOOOOM AGE! A major issue with gaming is that there are so many ways to come at it - did you start on consoles or PCs? Handhelds or larger? Strategy or platforming? - that classifying these kinds of time periods either requires you go very granular or miss out on lots of titles / genres. My personal history included lots of time in arcades as well as x286s, x386s, Commodore 64, Amiga 500, several PCs, Xbox, some time on friends NESs, but not a lot of time on handhelds or core Nintendo titles (e.g. the last Mario game I really put time into was Mario 64). I think the very first gaming 'machine' I had was a Colecovision (or something like that) and I spent a bit of time playing on the Atari 2600 too. ... I seem to have forgotten the original question. :grin: The Amiga was a kick-ass games machine. It's sad that not as many people remember it - probably because it never really did well in the US versus the PC. As for the best age: now. You have more options than ever to get games and prices are going down. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Azazel on August 07, 2011, 01:41:49 AM I had great fun in the ages of SFII and it's sequels, Bomberman and Mario Kart on SNES, and then later with Twisted Metal II on PS1.
I also played through the Golden Age of EverQuest with a largish chain-group of friends and family that took us up to the point of raiding and all that jazz, along with Battlefield 1942 and Desert Combat through into BF2. BUT. I still have my SNES, my arcade joystick made with real arcade parts and the SNES carts. I still have TM2 and my PS1. I still have my EQ accounts and a half-dozen copies of 1942 floating around. Fact is I don't play any of those old games anymore. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, but those friends and relatives have almost all moved on in one form or another with only a few of us left in the group. I still have those games, and I choose not to play them anymore. I play "modern" games that range from 5-year-old MMOs to 6-year-old RTS' to 2011-release 360 games. For me it'd be the last 10 years, with an emphasis on the last 5 - since I'm still playing those games. Modern games are the ones I'm playing by choice. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Ruvaldt on August 07, 2011, 02:10:09 AM What about arcades? They seem to be sorely missing from that list. I think more people participated in gaming in arcades than on Commodore 64s between '83 and '87, for instance, even though arcades were in decline by '84. In fact, I'd say '80 to '84 was the golden era of arcade gaming, and a substantial resurgence occurred in the early 90s with the advent of popular fighting games, which ended up driving a considerable portion of the console market during that time and in the mid-90s.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Margalis on August 07, 2011, 03:47:08 AM 1976 - 1983: The beginning and the Apex of Atari 8-bit systems 1983 - 1987: Commodore 64/128 rules supreme 1987-1991: Amiga vs Atari ST (and Amstrad and Spectrum) 1988 - 1994: consoles and other, "smaller" gaming devices are born (from Sega Megadrive to the birth of Playstation 1) 1990 - 1995: the "PC" becomes a "true" gaming machine: from Origin's Wing Commander, to Civilization and the golden age of Adventure Games 1996 - 2001: "interlude" era for the PC, rise of console gaming (Playstation 2 and XBox) 2000 - 2007: "modern" PC gaming is born. from Voodoo 1 video cards to Crysis 2007 - today: new business models (birth of "DLCs", gaming devices and "social gaming". This seems to be in a curious middle ground where it's kind of detailed but leaves out super duper major stuff like the console crash / NES recovery. The NES came out in 1985 in the US. For consoles I would probably go something like: Pre-Atari Atari / Colecovision / Up to console crash NES - Genesis - SNES Playstation - Wii Launch Post Wii Launch And here's why: Atari / Coleco / whatever else (there were like a million systems back then!) were all kind of similar in what sorts of games they played. Then you have the complete market meltdown and the introduction of the NES, which in many ways is still the template for modern console gaming Playstation introduces the disc-based era, FMV, etc Post-Wii includes the Wii as well as stuff like widespread adoption of DLC, downloadable games, XBox live, etc. I think around the time the Wii launched is when this gen became different than last gen in significant ways other than graphically, and the Wii is just a good dividing line even though it's not directly related to some of that stuff. Now Playstation all the way to a few years ago is a huge span but I don't think there were fundamental market or content changes in those years. Not in the same way the NES came in and completely revitalized a dead market. Also I think it's a little hard to factor PCs and arcade gaming into the same timeline. Especially PC gaming. Due to the nature of PCs there haven't been a lot of huge discrete hardware-level changes. The intro of the 3d card maybe? Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: sinij on August 07, 2011, 09:39:51 AM We now have technology to do reliable motion capture from just a couple regular cameras placed in the room and all of this can be processed real-time using modern technology. This should be the future, or even present, instead we are stuck with games designed for vacuum lamp-era console hardware and further dumbed-down to work with awful console controllers. To make matters worse publishers discovered that it is even more profitable to design 5$ games for mobile phones and shrinking investment in console market.
Gaming future looks fairly grim from where I stand. You better like Angry Birds-style gameplay, because that all we are going to get for another decade. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: CmdrSlack on August 07, 2011, 09:48:36 AM Did you know that you can get Angry Birds on Steam now?
It's true, I checked it out myself. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Kail on August 07, 2011, 10:29:56 AM Also I think it's a little hard to factor PCs and arcade gaming into the same timeline. Especially PC gaming. Due to the nature of PCs there haven't been a lot of huge discrete hardware-level changes. The intro of the 3d card maybe? Yeah, it's definitely harder to discretize the history of PC gaming. The launch of Steam (in 2004) and rise of digital distribution in general would probably be a good place to start the "modern" era for PC gaming. Maybe '92 or '93 (release of Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM respectively) as the dawn of the modern FPS genre. Otherwise, yeah, the only real major hardware distinctions I'm seeing are the advent of 3D cards in the nineties and maybe the whole cga('81) ega('84) vga('87) svga ('89) progression. Nowadays you could probably tie PC "eras" into console ones, though, because there's a lot more in terms of shared titles. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Strazos on August 07, 2011, 10:33:11 AM Gaming future looks fairly grim from where I stand. You better like Angry Birds-style gameplay, because that all we are going to get for another decade. There will always be a good market for "full" games. Take books for instance - sure, tons of trashy love novels sell, but there's still a market for authors who actually want to make something good. Same thing with cars with econoboxes vs higher-end models. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Sky on August 07, 2011, 12:48:50 PM The high tide lifts all boats.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Ratman_tf on August 07, 2011, 01:01:01 PM Platinum Age: Games written on mainframes. Sometimes involving punchcards. Most people didn't have access to them, so It's kind of a restricted set. Still had some influential games, like Space War, and so deserves a reference.
Golden Age: Atari and Intellivision. Colecovision. Hand held portables that used single bulb LED's. Silver Age: Apple IIe, Commodore 64, the original Macs. Bronze Age: Nintendo Entertainment System. Notable for being the rebirth of consoles after Atari killed the market. The 90's: SNES, SEGA. The rise of the PC as a gaming platform, with the introduction of CDs and sound cards. The age of autoexec.bat and config.sys. Mid 90's sees the breaking of Nintendo's dominance with the introduction of the Playstation. the 00's: Gamecube and the Xbox. Console gaming starts to build up steam towards what we know of it today. Now: PC is holding on, but consoles are starting to take over some of their functions. Gaming online is the paradigm now. 2015: Apes take over the planet and introduce the Monkeysystem. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Paelos on August 07, 2011, 01:12:28 PM I like today's era honestly. We've had more and more sandbox open world games, good shooters, strong strategy titles, and great independent movements through Steam. The options are so much greater than back in the 90s and the nostalgia factor is what drives most of the love of that era.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Furiously on August 07, 2011, 01:41:51 PM I think games have moved from a "Book" type experience where your mind is filling in a lot of the details, to a movie like experience where you don't get to do that.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Paelos on August 07, 2011, 03:20:54 PM I think games have moved from a "Book" type experience where your mind is filling in a lot of the details, to a movie like experience where you don't get to do that. I'm not sure I follow. What are some examples of that progression in games that you liked? Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Amaron on August 07, 2011, 04:33:45 PM I think he's saying you'd never imagine this in you 16 bit Mass Effect rpg:
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Ghambit on August 07, 2011, 05:17:56 PM My fondest memories are on an old Tandy 1000 EX (IBM compatible) rig around 1986. I was around 8-9 yrs. old I believe. MS was simply DOS and "Flight Simulator/sopwith camel." Q-Basic was the closet coder language of choice.
Anyways, Sierra Games and Microprose were king... "kings quest, space quest, LSL, silent service, starflight, f-19, f-16, etc." 5.25's in a bag, secret ink game hints, cust. serv. game help via phone, codewheels, and on and on. I used to cut lawns and then run to the "computer store" with a few bucks. Game designers back then were veritable gods of coding; doing so much with so little. As a 10 yr. old I'd pretty much mastered stealth fighter tactics, submarine warfare, and basic air-air dogfighting to go along with being able to build/upgrade my own IBM-compat. rig. Games like f-19 came with a 300 page manual and you had to read Jane's. Real printed maps and keyboard overlays were nearly all you had. (sigh) miss it I do believe there will be a renaissance in gaming very soon. A return to a more "visceral" experience. This dumbed-down style of gaming wont last much longer, or at the very least we'll see more meaningful choice. Part of the problem is visibility though. There's still quality software out there that goes largely unseen. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Merusk on August 07, 2011, 05:49:20 PM My fav is the "Golden Age". There was just this huge array of high-quality games of all different genres and mechanics. It's been sad to watch them all funnel down to a few distinct types as they rush to meet bloated art budgets and cannibalize from each other to a more homogeneous experience.
Indys are bringing some of that old flavor back, I hear, but I just don't have the time to explore them. I go for the games I hear are good experiences or good values when there's none of my favored types available. Yet another reason I'm finding I spend more on eating out than games these days. Those tales are getting fewer and fewer. I blame you all. :grin: Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Ginaz on August 07, 2011, 05:52:27 PM I never had a computer when I was younger so most of my video gaming was done in arcades, with an Atari and various Nintendo systems at home. My all time favourites were Tecmo Bowl and NES Pro Wrestling ( :heart: Kin Corn Karn) and the wrestlers had more moves than John Cena ever will. :rimshot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzfd3rxW9qY&feature=related Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Margalis on August 07, 2011, 05:54:34 PM Starman for life! :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: UnSub on August 07, 2011, 06:04:07 PM Gaming future looks fairly grim from where I stand. You better like Angry Birds-style gameplay, because that all we are going to get for another decade. So gameplay that is easily understandable, absorbing for what it offers, fun, accessible to a wide audience and available cheaply? The future is indeed grimdark. I played Worms, Scorched Earth and Lemmings. Angry Birds doesn't strike me as much different from that. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Merusk on August 07, 2011, 06:29:51 PM Hotseat Scorched Earth whiled away many hours between me and my friends freshman year in college. Oh MIRVs, how painful you were.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Ratman_tf on August 07, 2011, 06:39:09 PM (http://www.halolz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/halolz-dot-com-fpsmapdesign-1993-2010-doom.gif)
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Morfiend on August 07, 2011, 06:57:16 PM (http://www.halolz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/halolz-dot-com-fpsmapdesign-1993-2010-doom.gif) I was playing through Singularity, and I realized that there is no way, and no direction indicator. At first it made me confused but after an hour of play I totally didnt miss it, and I felt I have got more out of the maps than any recent FPS game. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Azazel on August 07, 2011, 07:12:20 PM Gaming future looks fairly grim from where I stand. You better like Angry Birds-style gameplay, because that all we are going to get for another decade. So gameplay that is easily understandable, absorbing for what it offers, fun, accessible to a wide audience and available cheaply? The future is indeed grimdark. I played Worms, Scorched Earth and Lemmings. Angry Birds doesn't strike me as much different from that. :rimshot: Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Velorath on August 07, 2011, 07:40:01 PM Starman for life! :awesome_for_real: King Slender was pretty much cheat mode in that game. You only had to press one button to do his backbreaker. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: sinij on August 08, 2011, 09:40:30 AM Gaming future looks fairly grim from where I stand. You better like Angry Birds-style gameplay, because that all we are going to get for another decade. So gameplay that is easily understandable, absorbing for what it offers, fun, accessible to a wide audience and available cheaply? The future is indeed grimdark. Simple things amuse simple minds. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Vaiti on August 08, 2011, 09:49:59 AM You're so deep. :oh_i_see:
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Malakili on August 08, 2011, 10:12:16 AM There is nothing wrong with simple, there is however wrong with boring. Simplicity makes for better games than complexity.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Vaiti on August 08, 2011, 10:17:48 AM Pretty sure he damn well knows that and is just being being contrary for the sake of being contrary.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Rasix on August 08, 2011, 10:46:19 AM Heh, going back to the "Your Top 20" (not updated with any recent changes to preferences), just about everything for me fits between the ages of 15 and 29. I suppose that was my Golden Age.
Seems to encompass three major time periods for me (skewed toward my love of RPGs): SNES era - Classic RPGs like FFVI (III US), Earthbound, etc. PC / PS2/GC/XBOX1- Infinity Engine. The last great JRPG platform (PS2). Classics like Deus Ex and System Shock 2. PC gaming for me really started here. So, what came previously in PC gaming is completely lost to me and my attempts to play most of it has not turned me around to the previous era. Modern Consoles & PC - Still a having a lot of fun here. Less outstanding gems, but still a enough high quality releases to keep me busy. I end up just not playing a lot of stuff now that I'm interested in playing. So my view of this area now, while more complete early on, is becoming a bit more myopic. I just can't keep myself diversified like I used to. Just not enough time. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Sky on August 08, 2011, 11:54:07 AM The golden age of gaming was run off a mainframe. Personal computers have totally dumbed down the entire experience.
There have always been great games out there to play, and there always will be. Not sure how I can sit down and play Just Cause 2, Amnesia, Fallout:NV and even Civ V in one day and call that a doomsday of gaming. Because I'd kill a homeless guy to have had that kind of gaming when I was a kid. Things change, big whup. Change is good. My highlights would be: Mainframe era - ADVENT and that star trek game - two great games before PCs, hell before most gaming platforms existed. Arcade era - mashing the shit out of summer olympics, doing co-op with gauntlet, the endless hours with Double Dragon with my singer, chasing that elusive "one quarter playthrough" (that we kept messing up because we'd get into a friendly fire brawl halfway through) C64 era - Ultima 4/5, Racing Destruction Set, Leaderboard Golf, Infocom stuff, so many great titles (fast forward through gypsy era, only ad&d) Sega Genesis era - lots of Joe Montana Sports Talk Football, also Battlemaster and Golden Axe PC Gaming era - started with Dune 2. Too many good ones to list, you know the deal. Ultima 7/7.5, System Shock, Terra Nova, etc ad nauseum Xbox/GC era - 2k football, KotOR, Jade Empire, Resident Evil remake and Zero, the cartoon Zelda Online era - Ultima Online, EQ, SWG, PS, EQ2 and also Battlefield 1942 Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Yegolev on August 08, 2011, 12:18:34 PM I liked the eras where I didn't play a game while thinking the developers could have tried harder. These seem to coincide with my innocent youth, but I'm not ready to draw a correlation.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: tgr on August 08, 2011, 01:30:20 PM I liked the eras where they weren't so blatantly viewing customers as nothing but dumb cash cows.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Azazel on August 08, 2011, 05:15:55 PM So you hate gaming? We've always been seen like that by at least some of the producers.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Yegolev on August 08, 2011, 08:35:47 PM Right, draw the line between Developer and Publisher. One of those makes games, the other makes money. Sure, a long time ago there were not too many money-grubbing publishers but times are different now.
But not that different, in case anyone has managed to forget E.T. on the 2600. I sure as fuck haven't. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Amaron on August 08, 2011, 08:43:43 PM PC Gaming era - started with Dune 2. Too many good ones to list, you know the deal. Ultima 7/7.5, System Shock, Terra Nova, etc ad nauseum I think you meant to say it started with Star Control. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Ginaz on August 08, 2011, 09:08:48 PM Right, draw the line between Developer and Publisher. One of those makes games, the other makes money. Sure, a long time ago there were not too many money-grubbing publishers but times are different now. But not that different, in case anyone has managed to forget E.T. on the 2600. I sure as fuck haven't. E.T. :ye_gods: Most frustrating game I've ever played. I only managed to beat it once. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Sjofn on August 08, 2011, 09:22:52 PM The first game I can remember playing was Gorf (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorf) on our totally high tech Vic-20. We also had Donkey Kong but I sucked at it. I think I was 6 when my dad bought it. I should ask him how much he paid for it, see if he remembers!
My "golden age" just in terms of fascination with computer games even existing (the holy crap this is awesome! years) was during the Space Quest/Quest for Glory/SimEverything years, whenever the hell that was, on computers my father built himself for fun. I also have extremely fond memories of the N64, because for the first time ever we had something that all four of us (I'm the oldest of four kids) could play at the same time. Crazy! I also remember feeling extreme satisfaction about the one and only computer I built with my own two hands. Mostly played the Sims and my old MUD on that. DAoC too, thinking about it, as it moved from NJ to CA with me! I had a nice game-y upbringing, though. By the time I moved out (later in my life than I would've liked but hey), all four of us had built a computer for ourselves eventually and they were networked and it was fucking sweet as hell because we could play shit like Age of Empires against each other when we were all home. Good times! Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Sheepherder on August 09, 2011, 12:09:39 AM As far back as I can remember the first computer my family got came with a copy of Ultima VI and Wing Commander on the same disc. Thus ended any chance of my being an Olympic athlete.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Ingmar on August 09, 2011, 12:45:50 AM The very first game I ever owned was a C64 cartridge game called Castle Hassle (http://www.gb64.com/game.php?id=13061), but my favorites were the EA games that came in those skinny folder packages: Seven Cities of Gold, Archon, STUART SMITH'S ADVENTURE CONSTRUCTION SET (the first 'star' game designer?), etc.
Ah, the good old days. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Azazel on August 09, 2011, 03:31:07 AM But not that different, in case anyone has managed to forget E.T. on the 2600. I sure as fuck haven't. Heh. The exact example I was thinking of. Also, anything by THQ during the SNES era. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: tgr on August 09, 2011, 03:53:22 AM So you hate gaming? No, I do not. I dislike the path certain aspects of it is going, but I don't hate all gaming.We've always been seen like that by at least some of the producers. Not to the extent it has been the last few years, in my opinion. There's a difference between "I hope the game sells well" and "It's a failure unless it sells multi-million units", combined with actively trying to stop us from modding them or playing them "the wrong way", requiring developer/publisher-side resources for playing online (or even offline :awesome_for_real:), etc.As for my personal impression ages of gaming, I tend to think of the ages as such: 1) back in the day when C64 etc was the king of the hill 2) the sierra/myst/simeverything age 3) the FPS/driving age, i.e. wolfenstein 3d to quake 3 or maybe as far as doom 3, indycar racing through grand prix legends, nascar racing 2003 and finally live for speed and richard burns rally. 4) The console/moneygrabbing/indie age I also tend to think of 2) and 3) as the golden ages, 2) for tons of the ideas they had and 3) for the combination of technology, gameplay and moddability. I wasn't really into RPGs or strategy games at that point, so I'm not sure how they line up. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Vision on August 09, 2011, 04:57:24 AM I would say my golden age ranges from warcraft 2 until doom 3 on the pc, which in my mind was the beginning of the medicore remake genre which included all the UTs after 2003. There are big exceptions especially when it comes to the Half life episodes but I guess I would say from 96 to 04.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Sheepherder on August 09, 2011, 05:54:10 AM Not to the extent it has been the last few years, in my opinion. There's a difference between "I hope the game sells well" and "It's a failure unless it sells multi-million units", combined with actively trying to stop us from modding them or playing them "the wrong way", requiring developer/publisher-side resources for playing online (or even offline :awesome_for_real:), etc. You might want to look into the effort required by the Nuvie, Exult, and Pentagram teams to access game data. Developers are remarkably less hateful cockmunches nowadays I find. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Mosesandstick on August 09, 2011, 06:15:24 AM My golden age was when I was young, stupid and didn't know what to do with my free time.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Sky on August 09, 2011, 06:38:40 AM I think you meant to say it started with Star Control. My highlights would be: So...Dune 2 was the first "PC" game I played (x86). Played it with a high score list pinned to the wall next to my ex's father's computer. Her dad, uncle, brother, and me all competing.Ingmar, good call on 7 Cities. That was a really cool game, the exploration was great and probably why I love the early parts of Civ best. "You have discovered a great river!" Or the war drums when you start to piss off the locals. A lot of these "golden ages" before "games were just rehash money grabs" are showing how young some of you are :) As I said, the high tide lifts all boats. You only have yourself to blame if you're so pissed by Big Budget Game 4: the Payday that you miss Awesome Indie Game: the Awesoming. Gaming is as good as it has ever been, and there are more ways to get your game on than ever. I would've shaved hairy babies for cancer wigs for the chance to play something like TOR in 1977. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Sjofn on August 09, 2011, 07:16:13 AM Well, for me personally, my "golden age" was specifically that period of time before I started taking gaming for granted. That's probably not the best way of putting it, but that's the best way I think I can put it. When I first played Space Quest 2 (and my dad TOTALLY PIRATED it you guys), it was sort of amazing to me that people could make computers even do that shit. Now I still get excited for games, but I don't generally have a sense of wonder about them, if that makes sense.
I certainly like the "now" period the best in terms of "games I want to play," but it's no longer my little secret magical hobby. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Lantyssa on August 09, 2011, 07:49:37 AM My Golden Age never ended. There's always been something out there I thought was fun and cool.
I do have a lot of nostalgia for things like Zork and Wizardry though. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Malakili on August 09, 2011, 07:55:32 AM I think the early 2000s were very solid. Tribes 2, Counter Strike, TFC, Quake 3 and UT. Its really been downhill since then, at least in terms of shooters.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: HaemishM on August 09, 2011, 08:43:19 AM I probably have some distinct gaming eras in my personal history.
Paleolithic: The Pong machine with two paddles on one console game we got from Sears. That goddamn thing was multiplayer and it was AWESOME. BEEP BOOP Bronze Age: Radio Shack's TRS80 and the Atari 2600. I didn't have an Atari, but played the shit out of it at friend's houses. I did own a TRS80 and discovered both cartridge ripoffs of good games like Space Invaders and program it your damn self and store it on a cassette tape text DND adventures. Golden Age: My mom started teaching computer classes in my 8th grade year, and we got a PC that dualbooted to a Apple II. This lasted from about 1984 to 1991. So many good, interesting games - Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, Starflight, Wasteland, Earl Weaver Baseball. I played some NES at friend's houses, but never owned one. Post Golden Age Glow: From about 1991 to 1996, when I finally actually owned consoles of my own - the Sega Genesis and the SNES. Discovering Final Fantasy II on the SNES, playing flight sims like Lucasarts Secret Weapons of the Luftwauffe and Tony Larussa Baseball on the PC. The Online Age: Starting with Dark Sun Online on the TEN and moving into Everquest in the late 90's, this was an age of the discovery of online gaming. Skipped the PS1 completely. The New Console Age: Started with my brother-in-law moving in with us and bringing his PS2 with him. Also started because of my burnout on MMOG's. Got my own X-Box and a PC that could play decent games. The HD Age: Like now. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Sky on August 09, 2011, 08:48:44 AM It was a long time before my friends realized my awesome text adventure games were literal copies of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books :grin:
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Morat20 on August 09, 2011, 12:24:13 PM Mine? Probably the 90 to 96 PC time-frame --Alpha Centauri, Dune 2, Warcraft, Civ (and Civnet, which meant I could play Civ against friends!), Space Quest, Pirates, X-Wing, X-Com....lots of good titles, unique genres emerging and getting established.
Heck, I remember enjoying the heck out of Star Flight 1 and 2, and Castles. :) After that it was a wasteland of "I can't afford a new computer" and "I've never liked Consoles" until I got into MMORPGs and got an Xbox360. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Yegolev on August 10, 2011, 05:49:23 AM I am thinking a lot of you missed out on some things. I also did, sure, if you count Oregon Trail and a few other PC games, or that whole C64 thing (I had a C16). I think I would maybe be a very different gamer if I had not played Super Metroid or FFIV+VI. Even taking youthful view into account, those games had certain elements, tangible and intangible, that I measure today's games by.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Amaron on August 10, 2011, 06:13:27 AM Speaking of missing out: Amiga
That thing was truly amazing for it's time and had some really great games. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: UnSub on August 10, 2011, 06:39:41 AM Speaking of missing out: Amiga That thing was truly amazing for it's time and had some really great games. I bought the extra 512k for $100 so that I'd have the full 1MB RAM. And then used it to play King's Quest V. Which came on 10 floppies. There was a lot of disk swapping with that game. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Paelos on August 10, 2011, 11:23:45 AM My "Golden Age" would have been when the N64 came out and we could play Goldeneye. GOLDEN!
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Morat20 on August 10, 2011, 02:17:35 PM To me, Oregon Trail is Apple IIe's, the school computer lab, and coming across the tombstones of 'Cock' and 'Balls'. Both of whom died of dystenary.
Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Azazel on August 10, 2011, 03:04:33 PM Speaking of missing out: Amiga That thing was truly amazing for it's time and had some really great games. We all missed out on some aspect of the early days. It's almost inevitable. I came via the C64->Amiga route and skipped consoles till the SNES and Megadrive. Hell, I skipped PCs until shortly after EQ1 came out. So while many of you have fond memories of early Megaman, Zelda, Exitebike, Mario et al, I was playing stuff by Bullfrog, Bitmap Brothers, Sensible Software and games like Kickoff Soccer, Speedball (both), Chaos Engine, etc etc. My "old golden age" would be the Amiga, I guess. But like I said before, I'm not playing my Ami games these days, despite still having it (or about three of four of them now - in boxes at my parents'). Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Vision on August 10, 2011, 05:20:22 PM Ill also remember the early 90s when my irresponsible father would let me sit in his lap and shoot demons in doom. That lasted until one night when I threw up all over the keyboard and he gave the PC to someone at work.
I think I got a Snes after that. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Sjofn on August 10, 2011, 05:55:50 PM My "Golden Age" would have been when the N64 came out and we could play Goldeneye. GOLDEN! That was a family favorite, and so was four player Tetris (I think it was called "The NEW Tetris," which is the BEST version of Tetris, period). Assist training all our junk onto my brother because he got maddest about it was always a good time. They usually tried to assist train me instead, though, because I was better than them. :grin: Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Malakili on August 10, 2011, 07:21:21 PM 1998 - http://doublebuffered.com/2009/02/26/1998-was-the-best-year-in-the-history-of-gaming/
Quote 1080 Snowboarding: The first actually good snowboarding game Baldur’s Gate: Reinvigorated RPGs and launched BioWare Banjo-Kazooie: Huge selling 3d platformer Battlezone: The first First Person-RTS Hybrid I am aware of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped: Probably the best platformer for the playstation. Dance Dance Revolution: The first arcade release Descent FreeSpace: One of the last awesome space fighters (and lead to the better FreeSpace 2 the next year) Die by the Sword: Extremely innovative swordfighting game, and launched Treyarch. Falcon 4.0: Long awaited update to a key flight simulation series. Fallout 2: It’s awesome. Gran Turismo: Brought realistic car racing to consoles Grand Prix Legends: One of the most realistic racing games ever. Grim Fandango: Last of the LucasArts classics. Guilty Gear: First in a very successful series of fighting games. Half-Life: I hope I don’t have to explain this one. Jurassic Park: Trespasser: Not exactly a GOOD game, but way ahead of it’s time technically. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Arguably the single best 3d action-adventure game. Lineage: Launched the gaming culture of an entire COUNTRY. Mario Party: Ah Nintendo’s live of mini game collections. I sort of wish this game didn’t exist. Metal Gear Solid: Created the Stealth Action genre. Panzer Dragoon Saga: The Saturn’s last great game. Pokemon Red and Blue: US start of the monumental franchise. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Took tactical shooters to a new level, and launched the Tom Clancy gaming brand Resident Evil 2: Best-selling game in the series Shogo: Mobile armor Division: MECHS. Soulcalibur: Who doesn’t love Soulcalibur? Sonic Adventure: Considered by many to be the height of the Sonic series. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron: Made Factor 5 the king of casual space shooters. StarCraft: STILL the most played RTS game. Starsiege: Tribes: The first (and still one of the best) massive FPS. Suikoden II: One of my absolute favorite RPGs. Tekken 3: Arguable height of the Tekken series. Thief: The Dark Project: The OTHER game that created the Stealth Action genre. Unreal: Made Epic the graphical force they are today. Xenogears: The height of pretentious yet still sort of awesome Japanese RPGs. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: tgr on August 11, 2011, 12:55:51 AM Of those, I've played Baldur's Gate, Descent FreeSpace, Fallout 2, Grand Prix Legends, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid, Rainbow Six, Shogo, Thief and Unreal.
I'm glad GPL is still runnable, because it is one of 4 driving sims I can still actually stand, even amongst all the games I've tried that's been released the last 5 years. Title: Re: Gaming "eras": your opinion? Post by: Velorath on August 11, 2011, 04:13:25 AM Your "interlude/rise of Console gaming" era has a time span that encompasses both Diablo games, Starcraft, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, both Baldur's Gate games, Planescape Torment, Half-Life, Team Fortress, Myth 1 and 2, Quake 1-3, Master of Orion 2, Fallout 1 and 2, Grim Fandango, the first two Thief games, Unreal and Unreal Tournament, Age of Empires 1 and 2, Alpha Centauri, Everquest, Ultima Online, the Sims, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm leaving out. This also reminds me what I wanted to add earlier but didn't have time to. I generally think of eras in a game-based way rather than a system based way, especially after say, the mid nineties. I might be worth compiling a list of important games released year by year if we are serious about this. For a decent start Wikipedia has the history of video games broken down by years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_in_video_gaming), including notable PC and Console game releases for each year. Obviously there will be some omissions and people are going to have different opinions on what's notable, but it at least gets most of the basic stuff out of the way. |