Which was the "Golden Age" of gaming?

64 (32) bit

1996 was just awesome! Tomb Raider, Diablo, Super Mario 64 (and the N64 itself) and so many others.

And it lasted until the Dreamcast end, I believe.

In this era you have the best platformers, the best fighting games, the best racing games... No stupid trends like in the last 5 years or so...

 

Now that I've thought about it, there's really two things that make the 16-bit era the golden age, and which the 32-bit era changed by inflicting a slow-moving cancer on video games: the first is that games and controllers weren't needlessly complicated and mired down in stuff like unlockables. Back then you could just put a game in your console and start playing it, no need for your gameplay to be paused by endless tutorial windows, and you never had to wonder in the heat of the action whether X+LT was Butt Stomp or Butt Charge. This also means that the first several hours of every game is practically a tutorial you have to wade through to get your abilities.

The second was that the technology didn't allow real cutscenes in games, so the story had to be kept to a minimum. The 32-bit era meant that developers could really go hog wild and assume everyone wanted to watch your cool cutscenes and cared about your cliched anime/action movie bullshit story. This creates a double-edged sword when playing games today: on the other hand nobody over 14 really cares about the story since you've seen it all before and can probably guess what happens next if you've ever seen a movie before, so you really want to skip all the cutscenes, but on the other hand, there's a significant amount of time spent watching them and games are expensive.

 

It's subjective. And everybody is generally swayed by their own nostalgia. To me, there is no "Golden Age" Games from 20 years ago are just as enjoyable as current games to me.

I for one LOVE cutscenes. And I love games with extra emphasis on plot more than any other type of game. And there aren't many games like that from 20 years ago.
But those games are enjoyable for entirely different reasons. If you can't keep an open mind. Then you shouldn't be judging it at all.

Because it's not like there wasn't 10 shitty games for every good game back in the day. Or that every other game was a platformer or some other derivative game. It's hardly any different than today

 

I'm w/ 7Force. That's probably why I stuck to Cave games for the last 10 years or so and rarely try the new ones. I miss the days of booting up and playing a new game and being able to basically figure it out in about 10 seconds.

 

Hehe, i always get amazed whenever i get my TG16 out to play some Sidearms. As soon as you power it up the 'press start to play' is already here. Basically you power the console and press start nearly at the same time and you are shooting stuff in under 100 ms

 

A friend of mine told me the exact same thing the other day: cutscenes aren't bad but the problem is this tryhard thing some studios do to make the game more serious and badass, but it turns to this lame-ass poser fest that you have to force yourself to believe.

MGS is the worst offender IMO: the latest games were just fucking retarded, MGS4 had a fuckload of cutscenes and the ending was the biggest trolling ever in the history of gaming. MGS2 made it impossible to take the story seriously, but 4 sealed the deal

 

thats exactly what put me off the Metal Gear series.

 

Can't say.
all gens have good games, but my favorite systems are definetly more on the modern side: Dreamcast, N64, PS3 and maybe Amiga, if you only count it's few true gems which i feel stood the test of time. (C64 aswell, but it has horrible loading times)

Most stuff of the "32 bit" era and before has aged pretty badly for my taste:
really don't feel the urge to ever play most of the VCS, MSX(2), NES, Master System, PC-Engine Mega Drive, SNES or PSX (to name the more 'important' systems) games again for more than 5 minutes, except maybe one or two games, even though i really loved playing them back then

I really like to see tho when someone has hooked up a VCS (or other truly oldschool console) to a CRT as his only gaming device, it is just not for me anymore lol.

 

Going to say the 16 bit era here. For starters, technology had finally advanced to the point where games weren't as restrained as they were previously. It was now possible to actually have things roughly look like how you wanted them to look instead of being constrained by the limitations of the system (take the famous story of the origin of Mario's design for example) and it was actually possible for music to use sounds that sound like real instruments, instead of all beep and boop sounds.

But one of the biggest innovations was the ability to save. Now games were no longer short, arcade imitations, they could now tell epic, sweeping tales that spanned hundreds of hours of gameplay, the type of thing that would be impractical for an arcade machine. I'm mostly taking about the SNES here, the Mega Drive seemed to be trying to capture the arcade experience in most of their games.

 

For me personally Metal Gear Solid was one of the golden games of its era, it's why I hold the 32bit systems so highly in regard. I think MGS was one of the first games that truely mastered what the Playstation was capable of, with detailed 3D environments (for the time), innovative camera and player controls, tactical gameplay, engrossing action, cinematic cutscenes, I can't put into words just how impressed I was with the game and how it was unlike anything I'd ever played before.

It was innovations like these that really made this generation what it was, especially after two generations of endless platformer and RPG games it was great to finally get something new that really pulled me in. I remember getting up at five o'clock in the morning to play this game before school and running straight up stairs at four o'clock when I got home, I don't think any other generation has got this kind of response from me.

 

Part of the issue here is that depending on where in the world you were is how the industry fared. That nobody mentioned the Spectrum at all, despite it being a huge deal in europe, is indicitive of this. Likewise, in the US, you have the gaming crash in the early 80s that wasn't really salvaged until the NES popped up. Nothing of the like in Japan.

The 2600 was, well, okay. It was fun, usually, when you find those few titles that actually ran properly on it. Then again, it's often cited as one of the reasons for the US gaming crash, in the general mess of Atari's insane policies. Actually, I still own one of the knockoff machines. Sadly, I've lost my 'rapid fire' plugin.

That said, I would concider the arcade titles of that time far more innovative than anything you'd see until the 90s. In the US at least you had a very strong showing from arcade titles, and consoles were a bit laughable. That flipped after the crash and the NES popped up, and really wouldn't revert until you got into the 90s.
I wouldn't call the 8bit era terrifically innovative, but more building off a decent foundation with a steady rate of improvement. The two big companies of the time, BigN and Sega, really couldn't claim a decisive victory over each other.

Come the early 16bit era, and I'd say outside of a graphics jump you didn't see anything really innovative until about halfway through the cycle - the mid to late 90s. It was a three-pronged attack: interesting takes on old ideas, hardware and software pushed to their limits, and grand and sometimes impossible goals. Not just consoles, but arcade games of the era. Although PC hardware wasn't as capable at that point (win95->win98), you saw a lot of stuff that has cult followings to this day.
As a testament to the innovation of the time, take a look at the relatively non-existant state of 32bit gaming. It existed sure, but was competing toe-to-toe with their 16bit forebears and not doing that hot. The real influential jump occured straight from 16bit to 64bit.

That's when you get into the crazy fly-by-night stuff and pushing beyond your means. Whisked along by dreams of endless possibilities and no limitations, each company tried their best to do what, ultimately, would be impossible. Just look at what randnet was supposed to be: creating and trading user content which can be intercompatible between games, purchasing games online, networked game support not just between consoles but to PC and handhelds. You don't see inklings of this again until the end of the following generation.
Everyone was trying to use 3D in new and impressive ways. It didn't always work out well, and honestly in the end they started to borrow more and more from the PC gaming world. Eventually everyone got their heads out of the clouds or flittered away.

The problem with a golden age is you can only come down from the pinnacle. From that perspective, I'd say the later end of the 16bit world and early part of the 64bit generation was all-around a best moment for gaming generally, regardless if you're talking PC, console, or arcade. It was an exciting time, when you could look forward to something amazing or unique every month or two.
I can understand the early days of gaming from the perspective of all the new ideas and innovations, and it certainly was a great time for arcade games. However, the 2600 is the epitome of everything wrong with Atari's policies and everything that nearly killed gaming in the US, and everything that could seriously do the same thing globally in our own time if producer/distributor predatory practices aren't put to an end soon.

 

For me it was the 16 bit era due to my Sega Genesis playing all those Sonic the Hedgehog games. I was beating the complete Sonic 3 game 100% at the end of 1994 when I was 5 years old. Good old days. What have we come to now? It's for this reason I stick to classic games and consoles.

 

16 bit hands down, developers were coming out with amazing effects for 16bit, and honestly like gaijin said games you could just pick up in play. Snes games had a lot of unique soundtracks and the gameplay was topnotch and straightforward with interesting random twists you don't find in video games these days. Now there are games I pick up today and just loose interest cause of over complicated controls or tutorials that are just too long. Tried resident evil 6 out, my god when did the series become a complicated Gears of war rip off?

The controls on it are horrendous. I mostly have good memories of snes and genesis, plus pc engine cd and sega cd had some unique experiences for their time even though they were failures. Developers were willing to take more risks back then since costs weren't so high and market was more a specific audience. I think that's why gta has been such a success. One of the few games you can just get into right away without being over complicated while providing plenty of variety.

Don't get me wrong some new games are still fantastic, loved forza 4, and arcade titles bring new life to old games or allow releases for games that wouldn't be worth full price such as the afterburner arcade. I can still remember how amazing it was playing yoshis island and facing off against gigantic baby bowser.

 

I grew up on 8-bit, but I'd say 32/64. For me the gaming world peaked sometime between the release of the PS1/Saturn and the release of the PS2.

This is largely because I'm a big slut for the N64, but also other stuff from the period like the Marvel Capcom fighters, FF7/8/9, MGS, FF:T, Xenogears, Virtua ON, PDS, etc.

I feel like JRPG's peaked in the 32-bit era, so that's another reason I'm partial.

 

Cave shooters are a horrible example of something that can be figured out in 10 seconds. :tongue:


Someone could write freakin' dissertation on those guys' scoring mechanics.

 

Ps1-N64 era for me.

 

Golden age ? It's from late 8-bit to the end of 16-bit era for me. PSX/Saturn/N64/DC surely had tons of great games, but it was the beginning of downfall.

For really oldschool console stuff, i still have 2600 but i can count only ten or less games that really worth playing, and compared to arcade originals ports really sucked.

 

For me "Golden Age" is 1996-2002(I'm biohazard/resident evil fan).

 

16-32 bit eras then 128 bit to modern eras for me ! the first 7 systems/ handhelds i got to play before year 2000 were Master System ,Megadrive, and N64 and handhelds Gameboy,Gamegear ,Lynx and Gameboy color intresting times i have games for all these systems today lots of fun and they have more original ideas then what comes out today (= will never forget the first time i played a videogame Alex kidd in Miracle world on Master System such a great Platformer game shame Sega has Abandoned him i would like to see a Alex Kidd game made like Sonic Generations also wont forget the first time i played the N64 back in 1999 thought it was truly awesome to see a huge leap in graphics compared to the other 6 machines i played upto that point great memories and great games !.