The Greatest Era in video gaming?

[icest0rm]

When was the truly greatest era of gaming? Or are we presently in the greatest era of gaming right now?

For me, the greatest or "golden age" of gaming was the Nintendo/SMS era. It was the era that really got me into video gaming personally. In my opinion, the original NES library beats out all other gaming libraries of the past and now. Only the SNES library comes close.

[Chunky]

I still say 80's If you count an arcade on every corner.

[icest0rm]

I still say 80's If you count an arcade on every corner.

Ahh, yes arcades. I miss them.

[game_trek]

A lot depends on when you were growing up. For me, mid eighties thru the early nineties were most memorable. I still remember vague early atari moments, but NES basically jumped a dead battery and its been running ever since. Much Props to the NES.

[nesman85]

the nes era is definitely my favorite, snes/genny era would be my second choice.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

For me, the 70s/80s epoch of Atari. A lot of times the graphical finesse wasn't there to make people say "Well, the game play sucked, but it's one of the best-looking games ever for that platform!" - it was all about the game play. If it looked cool, great, but if the game play wasn't addictive, it was a train wreck. (This, incidentally, is also why Pac-Man doesn't really belong in the 50 worst 2600 games ranking, but more on that in the relevant thread later.)

It was the era when anyone could walk up to an arcade game and pick up the basic mechanics from one or two viewings of the attract mode. You didn't need to be a concert pianist to handle their controls (though there were exceptions - i.e. Stargate).

It was the era when home games were a lot like that too. And you didn't need a strategy guide that cost half the game's price extra to get through the first level of the bloody thing.

I miss that.

[sniperCCJVQ]

I most say the late 70's until the very late 80's (around 1989, the year in my opinion where the arcade industry begin to fall).

In that time, there was no internet, so when a new game hit the shelve for a console or a new arcade arrive at the local amusement center, it was always a new adventure. Tips to beat the game was always came from a friend who heard from another friend how to do this and that.

[gamingguy]

The 80's as a whole were the most creative. Almost every game we play today is based upon one of those classic games from the early/mid 80's.

I can't vote for Nintendo though. For me, NES games were just upgrades on classic Atari concepts. Even the ever popular Super Mario 1/2/3 were just extensions of Atari classics Super Mario Bros and Pitfall 2. And, the most creative games of the late 80's were not on NES. They were on the Commodore 64 platform. Where else but C64 could one command a Naval Attack Force of Aegis Battlecruisers (StrikeFleet), relive the days of 1500s pirating on the high seas (Pirates), and pretend to be a trader along interstellar space lanes (Elite)?

Unfortunately, C64's not listed, so I'll cast my vote for Atari instead.

[Happy_Dude]

Oh man I loved Elite :D
I have find a copy of it now :D :D :D

[kainemaxwell]

My first choice is the NES/SMS era, followed by SNES/Genesis. For me, the NES era did it since Nintendo revived the industry and showed everyone that video gaming wasn't a dead fad. SNES is my 2nd choice cause Nintendo, and Sega took what they learned and had and ran with it, much to the joy of gamers.

[robot717]

Impossible to say.For me it's a tie between the Atari 2600 and the NES Eras

[Aswald]

If you count variety and the excitement of new gaming ideas (e.g. Zaxxon and Q*Bert), definitely the "Atari Era."

[Six Switch]

For me it is a tie for the SNES/Genesis or the PSX era.I was born in the late NES era so I wouldn't count anything before that. :D :hmm: @_@

[IGotTheDot]

YOU CAN"T BEAT OLD ARCADE GAMES! Arcades now are crap. I don't want to bounce up and down while I play some stupid game. I want to pump quarter after quarter into a machine just to see the next level. The 80's where the best!!!

My2Cents and I am right!!!

[slapdash]

I suspect that most people are going to be biased by the period that they first got into gaming, and I'm no exception...

I voted for the Atari era, but not just for nostalgic reasons. I think that it earns the title "greatest era" because it was all so new. Any post NES eras can't say this, and it's hard to make this case even for the NES era, because gaming in general was so widespread. But the 70s were all about the birth of videogames, and that is something you just can't recapture, no matter how cool or new the system. Even VR & holography gaming are still going to be similar enough to videogaming that they probably won't feel as fresh as they should. Gaming is an industry now, not just experimenters building a business.

[Sylentwulf]

SNES, The best of 2-D role playing and other fine games.

[portnoyd]

The SNES/Genesis era. The last great cartridge era. You'd think I'd say NES era, but the SNES/Genesis brought out too many games I worship. My top 10 list is half 16 bit games. (Toe Jam N Earl, Landstalker, FF2, Secret Of Mana, Super Metroid)(The other half is Pilotwings 64, Zelda 1, BBBB, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and Juno First). The NES will always be my favorite system, but things got even better once the Sega/NOA competition heat up.

dave

[congobongo]

I'd put another point in there between the first and second, call it "mid eighties" (C=64, Atari 8-bit, 5200) and select that one.

[Arqueologia_Digital]

I think SMS/NES era, but here in Argentina SNES/Genesis era is more important than the first one.

[Britboy]

PS2 easily qualifies as the best. At least until ah gets me a holodeck.

[Raccoon Lad]

The early 80's!

This is the era when innovation was everywhere. Modern genre's didn't exist yet, and just about anything could show up in the arcades next!

[Nature Boy]

"Greatest Era" can mean anything, so I decided to chose the current generation. After all, console installed bases are in the millions like never before, and games that were sold individually in earlier generations are now just one small part of party games (and I always secretly wished that games like Adventure wouldn't look so convoluted back in the 70s, and they most certainly have come a long way since then). Plus the competition currently raging seems to have made purchasing new games cheaper for me. That is grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeat!

If I were to chose "Favourite Era" I wouldn't count the current one because I think you need to be out of an era before it can count for faviourite anything. So I'd chose the first era, which, as has been illustrated, was the era in which I started playing, so no big suprise.

[YoshiM]

For me it was the NES/SMS era. I played the 70's, I played the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision and it was good. When the NES hit, there was no turning back. While it can be said that the games that were released are based on the games of the "Atari" era, they were improved on with so much style that you could call it brand new. This era was also the time when the videogame industry was jump-started back to life and has been going strong since.

[RetroYoungen]

I have to say the early 90s, Genesis/SNES fight. I grew up that era, but still, "Nintendo Is What Genes-isn't" and "Genesis Does What Ninten-don't." Gotta love it.

[z28in82]

the SNES/Genesis days rocked for me, that was the end of grade school/start of highschool AKA never cracked open a book once. So I had so much time to play nothing otehr than games. Still remeber gettin 2-3 friends over and playin an entire season of NHL 9x in the span of a weekend, all 82 games. Ahhh the good old days back when not sleepin in a weekend was quite alright and still feasible

[dreamcaster]

I was four years old when we got our 286 PC in 1989, and I loved it. Games such as F-15 Strike Eagle 2, SimCity and Captain Comic were my favourites.

But the second I laid my hands on a SNES controller I was hooked for life. Since I got my SNES in 1995 (yes, I was a late starter), I've been playing console games ever since. And since the SNES was my first console, this was easily my favourite.

As such, I voted for the 16-bit SNES/GENESIS era.

[Alex Kidd]

I liked around 1989-1995
When the 16 bit-ers ruled.

I must admit that while the NES had some good game CONCEPTS, the games themselves just weren't good enough, but I feel if a lot of them had been put on the 16 Bit system (and some were) they could have lived up to their potential.

Plus the lat e 80' brought us a another japanese fever which was settled by the early 90's so there were a lot of RPGs, Cyberpunk, and RoboMech type type games around with Japanese origins.. and I don't know what it is, but any game with a Japanese orgin usually seem THAT much better...
Plus you gotta love the anime cutscenes and art!

In fact, I believe my whole fascination with anime stems from the fact that so many SMS games (my first and fav system tied with the genny) were Japanese games with japanes art, and then when I'd watch an Anime show it's feel like I was watching a Sega Game! and then inversly when I'd play a sega game it felt like I was playing a cartoon!

Alex Kidd

[Aswald]

Today's gamers have one big advantage over us "Grandpa Gamers"- thanks to emulators and second-hand stores, they have both the modern and (most) of the old games.

Can you play Pulsar and Snap Jack on an emulator anywhere?

[death1024]

Gaming to me will always be the late 70's early 80's. Nothing compared to the feeling of something new. Video game technology was new and fresh.
New games rely more on graphics then game play.

[Drexel923]

I think my favorite era and the one I voted for was the NES/SMS. I started with Coleco/Atari but the NES really cemented my love of videogames and its been full force ever since.

[Walter Simard]

Few things get better with time, not music, TV, or film, but video games certainly do, and so I have to say the greatest era for gaming is right now, and next year will be even better.

[Dirty Tiger]

My PS2 brings me more pleasure as a 29yr old than my Nintendo did as a 13 year old.

Yet my Nintendo brings me more pleasure NOW than it did then??

I may be a dork but games like GTA and ICO make me feel like this is the best time to be a gamer untill.......

[Miguel_The_Machine]

NES and SMS, these are the system's i grew up playing and plus i was alot younger back than and i could play almost any game and get ammused.

[Miguel_The_Machine]

NES and SMS, these are the system's i grew up playing and plus i was alot younger back than and i could play almost any game and get ammused very easiely.

[NintendoMan]

To me, the best gaming era would definatley have to be the NES (late 80's era)!!!! That is just were I started gaming, and those 8-bit games are just so fun!! To the remark of an earlier statement of someone saying NES games are just an upgrade from the SMS, I think that is only about 10% true.
NES games were BETTER everything, and new ideas and concepts were developed.
The early 90's (SNES/GENESIS) is definatley by far my second best gaming era! :D

[SegaTecToy]

The SNES/Genesis era was great IMO because the competition was almost 50/50 with Nintendo and Sega fighting each other for every consumer (NEC was only a blip on the radar screen) and not just an one-sided competition like the Atari/NES times.

[captain nintendo]

I voted for the NES era. I love the arcade games from the 80's as well.
Of course most gaming ideas came from the previous era's.... But its how that next set of platforms bring those ideas foward that counts. Arcade games have gone in the shitter IMO. The NES had lots of great new Ideas that are still being expanded upon today :) That is the mark of a great peroid :P

[Aswald]

The Atari era, for sure. The games were many, VARIED, brighter, and it seemed as though every month gave us something new and different.

[NintendoMan]

I picked the late 80's NES era, but I would also pick the early 90's with the snes too.
There are too many night I remember staying up with my best friends playing games all night on the nes. Then one of my friends got the snes when it came out, it was the coolest thing ever!!
Then we moved on to playing that, and alittle genesis as well, can't forget that system! We still played the NES too though! :-P

[supahzonik]

[size=12][size=18] i'm so got dang glad that i joined your union :D
the 16-bit era began in 88, months after my birth, with (go on 'head and go 2 sleep!) -_- some dumb system called tg16- and a whip :bad-words: system called the genisis. who won that racket? genisis: :fist: , :texaschain: , :cheers: and :snipersmile: . tg16: :puke: :bullshit: , :smash: , :shameful: , *_* and :duh:! how bout those apples

[Oobgarm]

:?

(see above)


I voted for NES era, can't deny my formative years that made me what I am today.

[Red Warrior]

I voted for the SNES/Genesis era, but I always tend to include the NES era as well. Growing up, I was into any and all video games I came across... whether it was arcade, Intellivision, or Atari... but it wasn't until I first played the NES that video games had me hook, line, and sinker. Although my favorite games of all time came outta the 16 bit era, I consider 1985-1995 to be my golden age of gaming. It'll never get better than NES, SNES, and Genesis.

[gamergary]

The 70's because those are from when my only video game catalogs were from until somebody threw them away.

[calthaer]

I think that the era of MS DOS 5.0 - 6.22 gaming is the golden era of all gaming, bar none. Some of the greatest and most innovative ideas of all time came out then...the beginning of the FPS genre, the RTS genre, the adventure genre reached its peak before it died, too.

I think Commander Keen 4-6 was way better than most platform games available for NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. Ultima Underworld, Daggerfall, Ultima IV-VII, Command & Conquer, Warcraft II, the original System Shock, the Immortal, Syndicate, Myst, the Wing Commander series, Lemmings, Populous, Sim City, and lots of others that I can't remember right now. There were lots of innovative ideas happening at the time, too. Shareware titles were actually worth paying attention to.

I guess I'm just not as much of a "twitch" gamer. The consoles have some good gamez, and I enjoy them, but I see the Atari / NES days as just a necessary step towards something better. I think that right during the MS-DOS 5.0 - 6.22 era, games were beginning to become an art form. They had meaning beyond mere mindless movements.

Then the marketing fiends came in and whored that art out wholesale to turn a quick buck.

Now PC games as a whole are a dying breed. Only EA has enough marketing hype to get people drummed up about a crappy game, or a sports game that is exactly the same as the one you played last year.

But...if the answer has to be about consoles only, then I guess the SNES era was better than most others.

[Sand_monkey]

The early 70's without a doubt...

It was in 1972 that the FIRST EVER games system was realeased.

The Magnavox Odyssey was the first home video game system, invented by Ralph Baer, who started work on it as early as 1967. It was then launched in 1972 at the end of which over 100,000 units were sold.

This system is very basic, having no CPU, score mechanism, colour or sound. In fact there were only 40 diodes and 40 transistors inside. You could only actually play about 12 games on it. But my god it rocks. If anyone ever get's the chance, try to play on one of these. It's the the mother of all videogame systems.

Then in the mid-70's things like the Tele-Spiel ES-2201 and the Channel F
started to be realeased. Then in 1977 we where blessed with the VCS 2600, without these the world today would be completely different.



So I would definatly say the 70's

[punkoffgirl]

I have to vote the Atari Era. It'll never be replicated.. the excitement, the innovation, and the fun.

[VG_Maniac]

Hands down the 16-bit era. Although I considered it to last longer then just through the early 90's. Even though the 32 bit era started in the mid 90's...16-bit games were still going strong during that time thanks to big titles like Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Yoshi's Island, Chrono Trigger, and Super Mario RPG.

[Jumpman Jr.]

The NES/SMS era to me is the best. I was born in '85, and thats really what I was born playing. Not so much the Master System (hell, I had never even heard of it until I started collecting O_O ). But the NES is what solely got me into gaming. My next choice would be the SNES/Genesis era. I loved both of those consoles... but not as much as the NES.

[chuckwalla]

No debate here. I side with the late 70's and early 80's gamers. I spent the better part of my afternoons at the 7-11 after school (along with the usual crowd) observing and playing the classic arcade games, which at that time, was the ONLY place(s) you could play video games. [I also agree that most of what's been 'produced' since those times are just take-offs of those classics - the best video games ever made]. Being 10 years old and experiencing the first home video gaming systems (atari 2600 for me) was like a dream come true - actually PLAYING video games AT HOME; something the following generations of gamers have, unfortunately, never experienced. I remember being at our local Toys R Us and seeing and talking to adults who were atleast as excited as I was to get a system and games to play at home. That time when the consumer electronics market started to blossom was the BEST!