Gaming "eras": your opinion?

[sinij]

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.

[Vaiti]

You're so deep.

[Malakili]

There is nothing wrong with simple, there is however wrong with boring.  Simplicity makes for better games than complexity. 

[Vaiti]

Pretty sure he damn well knows that and is just being being contrary for the sake of being contrary.

[Rasix]

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. 

[Sky]

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

[Yegolev]

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.

[tgr]

I liked the eras where they weren't so blatantly viewing customers as nothing but dumb cash cows.

[Azazel]

So you hate gaming? We've always been seen like that by at least some of the producers.

[Yegolev]

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.

[Amaron]

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.

[Ginaz]

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.   Most frustrating game I've ever played.  I only managed to beat it once.

[Sjofn]

The first game I can remember playing was 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!

[Sheepherder]

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.

[Ingmar]

The very first game I ever owned was a C64 cartridge game called Castle Hassle, 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.

[Azazel]

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.

[tgr]

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 ), 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.

[Vision]

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.

[Sheepherder]

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 ), 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.

[Mosesandstick]

My golden age was when I was young, stupid and didn't know what to do with my free time.

[Sky]

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.

[Sjofn]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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.

[Malakili]

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.

[HaemishM]

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.

[Sky]

It was a long time before my friends realized my awesome text adventure games were literal copies of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books 

[Morat20]

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.

[Yegolev]

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.

[Amaron]

Speaking of missing out:  Amiga

That thing was truly amazing for it's time and had some really great games.

[UnSub]

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.

[Paelos]

My "Golden Age" would have been when the N64 came out and we could play Goldeneye. GOLDEN!

[Morat20]

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.

[Azazel]

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').

[Vision]

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.

[Sjofn]

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.