What's your favourite era for video games?

Era can be defined as a console generation, a decade, one specific year, whatever you want. I’d encourage you to give a list of your favourite games from the generation of choice and why it was the best to you. Nostalgia is a totally viable reason too.

I’ll go first. For me, the 360 era is my GOAT. As someone in their 20s, I grew up with the 360 so nostalgia is definitely a big factor. But on top of that, I still feel like the games during that time were some of the best we’ve had. 2011 alone was a fantastic year, with Dark Souls, Skyrim, Portal 2 and many more great games. I was going to list out my favourite games from 2005-2013 but I love so many it would be far too long of a post.

I’d love to hear some of you talk about your favourite time period of games too, whether it’s agreeing with my choice or giving different opinions

captain_aggravated ,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

for me there was a peak in the late 90s. Ocarina of Time and Half Life in 1998 alone.

TalesOfTrees ,

I think most eras were decent. I'm especially keen on everything post 8-bit, but pre-"everything is a monetized DLC; fuck you pay me" era.

CatZoomies , (edited )
@CatZoomies@lemmy.world avatar

Totally agree with the modern gaming landscape. It’s exhausting dealing with all the predatory tracking, root kits, privacy invasion, heavy monetization, broken games with promises to “do better”, etc. Thankfully there are many games out there to enjoy that don’t do these things.

Personally I love the option of devs selling DLCs where the value is there: it has a reasonable price and it expands the game in a level that I’m comfortable paying for. I will happily buy DLC of games I love.

What I can’t stand, and absolutely am repulsed by, is games that have kill switches or can be taken away from me without my permission. If when I buy the game, if the button says “Buy”, then I should own it. If they’re going to have kill switches or activation server shutdowns that render my game unplayable, then they should change the button to “Temporarily pay to lease it for some time where we will later take this game from you without your permission”. I’d at least appreciate their honesty that way.

Ever since Ubisoft warned it would shut down activation servers for my Wii U copy of Splinter Cell Blacklist where I paid full price for all the DLC (since I loved that game so much), I discovered I wouldn’t be able to play my DLC. Thankfully due to significant complaints from gamers, Ubisoft backpedaled and decided not to… for now. But now that I’ve seen that, and continue to see this predatory behavior happening to this day (e.g., The Crew, Helldivers, etc.), I am much more hesitant when it comes to buying video games.

mindbleach ,

Late 90s PC, because anything was possible. 2D? Yeah, go wild, it'll be fast. 3D? Software rendering is the wild west! Voxels, polygons, texturing, raycasting, every game looks unique because they're all making it up as they go. Even consoles were on PC because emulation was faster and better than owning a PSX or N64.

These were not the best games of all time. Most sucked. You can get a taste of that in PC Gamer demo discs, or like half of Civvie11's videos. But it was an era where nothing was easy, so people reached for the fucking stars.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

'96 to 2014 or so fucking ruled.

Though it's much more heavily concentrated in the 1997-2003 range.

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

Any particular favourites in the 97-03 range?

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Too many to name individually... I played pretty much everything at that time. Ultima Online, Quake 2, everything on the Build engine (Duke3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, etc), GoldenEye, Ocarina of Time, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid... Shit, I think most of the franchises that continue to exist today started in that period or have some of the biggest hits from then, like FF7, 8 and 9.

Ashtear ,
@Ashtear@lemm.ee avatar

It's an overlap between the back end of the fourth gen (aka 16-bit) era for consoles and then a full pivot to PC gaming in the years after. I really didn't like the move to early 3D on consoles with their abysmal framerates and load times. I felt then (and still think today) it was a generation too early.

Marking the starting point is easy: 1994. An insane year for the SNES, Donkey Kong Country, Final Fantasy VI, Mega Man X, and Super Metroid all came out in North America that year. That run continued on the SNES until Yoshi's Island in 1996. I did pick up a PlayStation but I wasn't thrilled with it. There are some personal favorites from this time, too, but they still had the sprite art I was desperately missing: games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Suikoden, Symphony of the Night, Xenogears.

I'd been a PC gamer for a while, but I started moving more towards the platform with Blizzard's ascendancy with Warcraft II in 1995 and Diablo in 1996. I'd finally get a dedicated GPU in 1998, and what a year for it: Half-Life, Thief: The Dark Project, Unreal, Tribes, Freespace. The less-demanding games of the year were no slouches either: Starcraft, Baldur's Gate, Fallout 2. With a similarly impressive console lineup, it's no surprise many consider 1998 the best year ever for video games.

The endpoint is harder to pin down. Maybe the death of the space sim genre with Freespace 2 in late 1999, or Blizzard's last landmark game before the MMO era, Diablo II in mid-2000. At the very latest, a new era for me definitely began with the release of the Game Boy Advance in 2001, where I shifted mostly to PC + handheld platforms, where I'm still at today.

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

That was a great read. As someone born within that timeframe I didn’t really live through it much, so I don’t have much experience with it, but I like to get a glimpse at what it was like through comments like yours!

Quazatron ,
@Quazatron@lemmy.world avatar

My first machine was a ZX Spectrum.

I love the 8 bit games I grew up with but I'm not stuck in that timeframe. I appreciate that I can still play all my old games and the new ones.

I just wish I had more time to enjoy them.

Excluding the 8 bit games, the games where I spent more time are: Doom, Half-life, Portal, Bioshock Infinite, Skyrim.

If I had to choose one, it would be Doom. Such a simple game, so much brainless fun, so many great mods.

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

I still regularly play the original Doom on my PC. A couple years ago a friend and I found an RTX mod for it that we played a ton. I still play that all the time

Quazatron ,
@Quazatron@lemmy.world avatar

Try the Brutal Doom mod if you haven't already for an added dose of violence and gore. Combine it with mods like Eviternity for huge new maps and enemies. Enjoy!

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

I’ll take a look, thanks!

toxicbubble ,

'95-'05 with the advent of 3d gaming

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

Definitely a pivotal moment in gaming for sure

SatansMaggotyCumFart ,

I've been working my way through Atari 2600 games right now, they have over 500 to choose from!

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

There’s some great games for that. My friend’s dad had one we used to play on as kids, and always had a great time. Got any favourite games?

Essence_of_Meh ,

Probably fifth and sixth gens (PSX-PS2 era), for three reasons:

  • graphics - there's something about art styles used at the time that aged surprisingly well and is just pleasant to look at, even compared to later games.
  • variety - both gens were filled with mid budget titles trying out new, often weird ideas that didn't always work but can be really interesting even to this day (as long as you can overcome jank usually present there).
  • (least important point) there's a lower chance I'll find games from this era to be too old-school for me. I have a high tolerance to old game design but I'm not immune to it. Sometimes there is such thing as "too old" and that's alright.
cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

Do you have any favourite games from those console gens? My first console was an original Xbox but moved on to the 360 very quickly so I don’t know too many games from then, especially not on the PlayStation

Essence_of_Meh ,

Couple of disclaimers to start with: I'm primarily a PC player, even most of the console games I played happened via emulation so I'll drop stuff from both. I'm also really fond of games willing to try something different, even if they end up mediocre or bad - these ain't GOTY material.

With that out of the way, here's a short list of titles I really enjoyed:

  • Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (PC, PSX, Sega Saturn) - 3D platformer with relatively slow and clunky gameplay (kind of similar to classic Tomb Raider games). Colorful, cute and simple.
  • Kao the Kangaroo (Dreamcast, PC) - series very similar to Croc though might feel a bit less polished at times. Don't really care about the sequel even though it's not a bad game.
  • Parasite Eve (PSX) - JRPG set in 1990's New York. Interesting combat system focused on guns and positioning, great art and fun story.
  • Gothic I & II (PC) - German RPGs with a unique atmosphere and world. Surprisingly open-ended with some of its quests. Has an unusual keyboard-centric control scheme.
  • Sheep (Mac OS, PC) - game about herding sheep through various wacky levels. Lots of humor.
  • Metal Wolf Chaos (Xbox) - crazy story about an American president fighting FOR DEMOCRACY in a mech suit, created by From Soft. Has modern ports for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
  • Oni (Mac OS, PC, PS2) - the best Ghost in the Shell game without actually being one*. Third person action with a great melee combat, big empty levels and rough difficulty spikes. Has a community made "Anniversary Edition" with fixes and access to mods.

* I haven't played all of the GitS games to back that up.

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

Metal Wolf Chaos sounds hilarious in concept. Will definitely have to check it out. I also own Gothic I & II and want to play them sometime. How do they hold up? I’m not too picky on graphics, but overly janky can be unfun sometimes for the modern gamer

Essence_of_Meh ,

Yeah, Metal Wolf is a cheesy action movie filtered through Japanese lens. It's crazy, stupid and unintentionally hilarious.

As for Gothics, I think they hold up really well as long as you can overcome a few things:

  • get used to the controls - they really aren't bad but they were created when standards weren't as established as they are now.
  • treat them as worlds you are a part of rather than games - it helps figure out alternative solutions to quests and avoid some unpleasant surprises (in universe, not bugs).
  • game world does not revolve around you - early on even basic wildlife will be a challenge, treat enemies with respect.
  • there's no level scaling - some areas will be unavailable to you until you're strong (or crafty) enough.
  • don't play Gothic II with Night of the Raven expansion installed from the start - it adds a bunch of difficult enemies available from the get go and will make the game way harder if you don't know how to avoid them.

I think some of those points might sound more serious than they really are but should make for a good primer anyway. There's a lot to like about those games (even compared to another titan of that time, Morrowind) so I hope you have fun!

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

I appreciate the help. When I decide to check them out I’ll be coming back to this comment. Thanks!

mister_newbie ,

Early-mid 90s.

The latter years of the NES, the entirety of the 16-bit console era (SNES/Megadrive ["Genesis"]), the golden age of PC adventure games & the dawn of multimedia (CD-ROM based games & talkies).

Just before the release of Doom, where FPS took over; and the PSX/N64, where (bad) 3D was teh hotness; is where it's at for me – likely why I love my MiSTer FPGA so much.

CatZoomies , (edited )
@CatZoomies@lemmy.world avatar

My favorite is the 3DS Era. I was a young adult then, and sure I could say I loved 16 bit, 64 bit eras because I was younger and had much more time to play video games. But I had so much fun with my 3DS.

Specifically - 3-D integration into certain video games introduced a new way to play them, and I enjoyed the new layer in puzzles for games like Mario 3D Land and especially A Link Between Worlds.

But what I miss the most about 3DS was StreetPass. How fun it was taking my 3DS everywhere and getting visitors in both my games plus in StreetPass Plaza! I loved the hell out of those mini games and would drive all over the place to different hotspots and collect visitors! Carrying it work and making friends over StreetPass was also such a nice bonus.

Gaming was so much fun in this era and on this console. Probably still my favorite console due to all these memories tied up with it. I could get in so many gaming sessions, and if I needed to handle something quickly I could just fold it shut and go about my day. The OG suspend lol.

P.S - Street Pass is of course officially dead along with many other features of the 3DS era. However, there are archival projects so you can at least get visitors to your console. It requires custom firmware, but look into StreetPass 2 for more details.

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

I loved my 3DS. I mostly played Pokémon on it but played other games on it too. I never took advantage of street pass but agree it was a great concept

tunetardis ,

In terms of consoles, I got the most enjoyment out of Super Nintendo. I think that's in part because my kids were still young at the time and we played a lot of coop mode games on it before they got older and their tastes started diverging from mine.

It was the golden age of platformers I guess, and the focus was still solidly on game mechanics over production. I especially liked Bomberman. The gameplay was just perfect the way the challenge scaled naturally even as you got upgrades or added a 2nd player. Literally a blast!

cod OP Mod ,
@cod@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve got a lot of fond memories playing DK Country on the SNES with my dad. Good times

BolexForSoup ,

Xbox 360 was a fun time. Gears of War is still striking today. Also, the best designed controller ever made

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