What 3 year period was your gaming's "Golden Years"

[Anthony1]

Basically, what I'm asking with this question, is what 3 year period of time, was your particular "Golden Years", in terms of being a gamer.


For me, I would have to say that 1989, 1990 and 1991 were my "Golden Years". These were the years that I transformed from a casual gamer who mainly only played sports games, to more of a die hard game enthusiast. It was also the years that I made the transition from the 8-bit NES to the TurboGrafx and the Sega Genesis, and then later the Super Nintendo. During this time is when I played the original John Madden Football for the Sega Genesis, which to me, at that point in time, was a total revolution in sports gaming. And with the arrival of the Super Nintendo, came Super Mario World. A game that had me in a trance for what seemed like 6 or 7 months.

It was just a great period of time to be a young gamer.

[Raedon]

i'd say from 85-93 was my best gaming time. From C64 to SNES. Somewhere around DOOM II I took a break from gaming. Don't think I did much until Half-Life came out and then Zelda:OOT then Everquest.

[NE146]

5 year period for me and was definitely arcades golden years from about 79 - end of 83.

After that videogames took a 4 year hiatus while I indulged in my high school social scene (and the console/arcade scene was pretty much dead anyhow).. Then college came around and thus started the NES generation in 1988 and my "second wave" which has continued until now.

[Tritoch]

If it's limited to just three years, then probably 1994-1996. I got my first after-school job in 1994, and could finally start buying my own games instead of waiting for Christmas/birthday. I got into RPGs during this time period (to this day my favorite genre), and it also featured the launch of the first two consoles I bought with my own money: N64 and PSX. So not only did those three years feature the end of the glorious 16-bit age and games like Final Fantasy III, Chrono Trigger, and all the rest I couldn't afford before, but it also marked the beginning of the 3D revolution and life-altering experiences like WipEout, Suikoden, and Super Mario 64.

I've been gaming since the late 80's, but no time period was as magical as that one. Before the games were too far and between due to limited funds, and since graduating high school in 1996 my free time has rapidly diminished (thus dampening my enthusiasm somewhat).

[Aswald]

3-year period of time?

Mid-1982 to 1985. In all ways, including video gaming (all), this was the best time of my life.

[nesman85]

end of 1991 - end of 1993. didn't get my NES until christmas 1991, and had never had a system before that. ahhh.. good memories. :)

[Oberfuhrer Hamm]

Hmm, my personal 'Golden Years of console gaming' would probably be about 1993 to hmmm, maybe 1999 or 2000. (I cannot restrict the period to 3 years)

In 1993, I got my SNES. Up until then, all I did was half-heartedly play games sometimes because I was too young. After the day when I got it, I really started to play on my consoles a lot more, frequently playing games to death.

The real peak of my console gaming was around my Goldeneye days in 1997. In those days, even school was a distraction from playing games (OK, OK maybe not, but I did play a lot of games.) Heck, I use to binge-play games for 18 hours straight on Friday afternoons to Saturday mornings. Almost every weekend. After over 24 hours without sleep Saturday, I would either collapse with exhaustion or my N64 would overheat and shut off, whichever came first.

My golden years came to an end around the time I sold about half my N64 collection (of a dozen or so games) to get some cash around '99 - '00. With the cash, I bought Majora's Mask (Which I hated) and FF7. Majora's Mask was my first real costly gaming failure; and what made me pack up the N64 from it's permanent hookup to the TV. Pretty much from this point on, the amount of time that I devoted to playing on my consoles dropped slowly until one day, they all were put away. (With the exception of my PSX disks, which are sitting beside my computer where they can be played on an emulator.)

Nowadays, I am solely playing computer games. Recent consoles are a little out of my price range to get back into console gaming, and besides the games released for them are just the same old stuff with a few exceptions.

That is the end of, well heck, an entire gaming history for me. Kind of interesting when I think back.

[omnedon]

'79 thru '82 . Seemingly endless innovation, and schoolyard arguments over which was better, the Atari 2600, or the IntelliVision.

:-D

[chevy_chase]

'88 till '91, somewhere in period of time i started to play games (i was about 8 years old back then).

Friends of mine owned a c64,
a nephew had a ZX spectrum,
and another nephew had a atari 2600
and i had a brand new atari ST with streetfight 1, 1942 (or 1943, cant remember) gaunlet , operation wolf and loads of other games.

This was the goldenage for me, cause i played computer games all day...
before i got my comp. i use to play on the c64 all day at my friends house.
And ofcourse played soccer and "ninja" with my friends outside (hey i was a 8 year old for christsake) but in terms of computergaming that was the best time in my life.

[Alex Kidd]

I would have to say 1992-1995

My SMS (which I had only 9 games for) had just been ritired for the Sega Genesis. I was 11 years old and relatives were giving me money for odd chores and stuff so there was money to buy more games and such.
Plus in 1994 I got my PC and was introduced into the "PC Only" genre of games at the time such as FPSs, Graphic Adventures and RTSs.

Many a friday afternoon at school was spent not being able to wait to get home, the idea of being able to go home at 3, start playing, go and eat supper around 5 and THEN be able to play games ALL night... no bedtime (i hated that term then and I still do now; school nights I had to be in bed by 10:30), no study time, just games ALL night.

Shining Force I/II, Command & Conquer (the original in 320x200) Willy Beamish, Mortal Kombat II, Doom... these games... I should really make a list of all my games I used play back in the day... I'm sure there's many I just won't remember untill I actually think hard....

Alex Kidd

[digitalpress]

Three years: 1978, 1979, 1980.

It isn't so much that the games of this era are anything to crow about, in fact they're overall pretty weak compared to what would come out in the following 3 years, but it was the early Atari 2600 games that really got me excited about video gaming. Before then, it was dedicated Pong variants, and though I really did enjoy them, nothing quite matched up to the vibrant colors and "programmability" of the Atari 2600's earliest years.

As ridiculous as it may sound to someone who didn't experience games like Flag Capture, Outlaw, Combat, Superman, and of course Adventure, or the Activision originals like Fishing Derby and Dragster "in their time" probably wouldn't understand what a huge leap in gaming technology that was, and how exciting it was to see it all happening right there on our own TVs.

[TheJuggala]

98-2000. Those were my golden years, just because i remember nearly every weekend me and my friends would get together and play video games(FPS, and Wrestling). Now that were all going to college we almost never get together.

[Ed Oscuro]

I wasn't gaming like I am now until more recently, but if I had to select a number of years from which I enjoy games the most I'd have to follow my reasoning through like this:

There are good games every year, so I say there are no Golden Years for myself. I like lots of games from the 1985-1987 with all the good Konami MSX2 and some of the earlier Famicom games as well as the FDS itself; from 1988 to 1990 the final years of the NES (as far as most people are concerned; 1994 was the date that game system pretty much was done) brought some highly polished games as well as the introduction of the Mega Drive/Genesis.

'91 and '92 don't really set me on fire even though the SNES appeared in those days...actually, it's BECAUSE of that that I don't like those years too much: too many games felt simply like NES games with more color in those years. There were a lot of good Famicom titles as well as some nice re-releases of FDS games in Japan to cartridge format, but that's just nice for the collection. '93 and '94 are two of my favorite years for all the great PC titles as well as a couple excellent Akumajo Dracula games (the x68K one and Rondo of Blood both appeared in 1993). That's about enough typing right now ;) I still like games and in fact I'm very fond of some recent years, but that covers me on the classic side.

[Arqueologia_Digital]

I think that my golden years were 1992-2000 (i can´t reduce to 3 years), because i played a lot of games during this time...starting with the PC (Kyrandia, Doom I & II, Jazz Jackrabbit, Warcraft I & II, Captain Comic, Blackthorne, etc.) and i knew a lot of new consoles (SMS, Genesis, NES, SNES, etc.), i was only a child and didn´t understand nothing...i only played...

[Tempest]

For me it was late 1981 to early 1984. Most of my favorite games came out in that period (both arcade and console).

Tempest

[dr mario kart]

I may be in a the middle of a late blooming right now. Since launching the mario kart challenge about a year ago, the project has grown to massive proportions which i could not have forseen. I cant find any record of an individual doing what I'm now doing on such a large scale. I'll actually be part of a gaming related TV show here in Austin during the fall.

[christianscott27]

i'd have to say 83-86, i was a late starter due to my mom waiting for the fad to pass :) it sort of worked out for me, i got a nifty sears video arcade II instead of a woodgrain. at first i played games with all of my neighborhood pals until my mom moved us to this childless region of portsmouth RI. it was there in an area where i had no kids to hang around with that i really got into games. it was also the post crash era, this made it possible for me to get 4 games a week on my $5 allowence! two neighbors even gave me their atari and colecovision set ups, i still have all of those items today.

my second gaming era is ongoing, its not quite the same but when i get a good playstation game i really get into it. its just that the objectives are so different, i played atari games just for the challenge and hi-score, now i play games to see the next level and find out how the story ends.

[Rogmeister]

This is tough as I had two really big periods...one was the Atari Age but I don't remember those exact years. I remember my little nephew coming over and he was always bugging me to plsy "'tari".

I guess I'll have to go with the Renewal Age, though, the three years beginning in the fall of 1993. At that point, I hadn't been playing video games for awhile and, for some reason, got interested in them again...at least enough to buy a new system. I chose a Super Nintendo and I would never stop playing again. I found out about gaming mags (of course, I had read Electronic Games in the old days but now there was a lot more to read) and would even buy another system the following year in the Atari Jaguar and a Playstation the day after that, resulting in the snowball effect.

[Oobgarm]

While I was weaned on the 2600, my "Golden Years" lie beyond that. I'd have to say 1988-1991. That marked the peak of the NES for me, and the beginning of the SNES. I can vividly remember going over to a friends house (Who had imported a SNES) and standing there, mouth agape, at F-Zero, Super Mario World, and Pilotwings. I long for those days, when a new game console could blow you away like that.

1996-1998 was my "Second Renaissance". That was when I picked my PSX, and was also heavily into Goldeneye for N64. The "Second Renaissance" continues to this day.

[liquidmetal]

97-00 for me, im only 14. It had to be when n64 was popular. In my town goldeneye and super smash brothers tournaments were frequent, and fun. Every week was a big tourny. THen perfect dark came and more tournys!

[FrankLee]

Hmmmm 1996 till 2000 When i got my Nintendo 64 and PSX wonderfull wonderfull times.

[Dobie]

92-95 was it for me. The SNES was going strong, and pumping out some excellent titles.

[Ed Oscuro]

Better change that to Best 4 Year Period...everybody's listing four year periods o_O

[YoshiM]

Only 3 years? While my NES years were good, I think my true "Golden years" as it were (in a 3 year time frame) was 1990 to 1992. I had a NES, a SMS, a brand spanking new Genesis, a TG-16, and then an IBM Clone 8088 PC. This was the time I really kept a pulse on all things video game and then computer game. With liquid cash, no girlfriend and a bunch of friends who were rabid about gaming as I was, yeah, this would be my "golden years". This was also the time I got bit by the VGA bug-256 colors never looked so good. By early 1993 and for a few years I pretty much left the consoles behind and jumped into the world of PC gaming-until about 1996 when I discovered a little system called the N64.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I'd be in the 81-83 camp too, for much the same reasons as Tempest's, though it's also when I got into computers and strarted programming my own outlandishly amateurish stuff in BASIC. Those were the days.

I'd like to tack on 2003 as a "renegade golden year" though. Four new systems, lotsa new cartridges (including some personal holy grails), and the hotel reservation and plane tickets I just bought for Las Vegas. Yes, it was a very good yeeeeeaaaarrrr...

[XJR15]

Definitely 1992-1995... there was a lot of great games and systems that came out....

[NEOFREAK9189]

1989-1997 was my best gaming time. :roll:

[jose.yoshitake]

To me there was a trilogy of three year sequences:

82-84 "The great Odyssey^2 years"

Pure Odyssey^2 addiction.
I was the Timelord.
I was the Powerlord!
I was the Turtles! Master.

89-91 "NES years"

Without any doubts, these were THE GOLDEN YEARS!!!!
To say in just two words: "NES YEARS".

01-03 "Collecting years"

Started to collect the jewels from the past. The fact is: there is no games today like in back days.

[boatofcar]

For me it's 91-94. In that time I went from an Atari 8 bit to a NES to a SNES, all in those 3 years. Best gaming years (and overall years, probably) of my life.