What Will This Gen Be Remembered For?

[boozi2]

Probably Halo and GTA

[Aussie2B]

Well, I'm going to personally remember it for reasons that may not be great concerns to others, but are quite depressing to me...

The death of 2D gaming and the death of Japanese gaming in the US.

The constant stream of mergers: Square and Enix, Sega and Sammy, Namco and Bandai, etc.

Nintendo giving away nearly all their big franchises and mascots to be developed and used by other companies: F-Zero by Sega, Star Fox by Namco, Zelda by Capcom, Smash Bros. by Hal, Mario Party by Hudson, etc. What the hell did Nintendo personally make besides Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine and a few odd titles here and there? Thank goodness they still have their Intelligent Systems team working on Fire Emblem and Paper Mario.

[evildead2099]

Just where did this "Sandbox" term come from? I've never seen/heard it mentioned prior to visiting this particular thread

Anyway, yes, this generation will be remembered for popularizing the concept of making games substantially open-ended ala Grand Theft Auto 3 (Even though older games, like Fallout 2, feature comparable non-linear gameplay).

Unfortunately, this generation also marked Sega's withdrawal from the hardware division.

[THATinkjar]

Just where did this "Sandbox" term come from? I've never seen/heard it mentioned prior to visiting this particular thread

Think single-player without any real objectives. Strategy games have "Skirmish" modes. Unreal Tournament's sandbox mode is effectively "Instant Action". You could possibly call Animal Crossing one big sandbox, I suppose.

[evildead2099]

Just where did this "Sandbox" term come from? I've never seen/heard it mentioned prior to visiting this particular thread

Think single-player without any real objectives. Strategy games have "Skirmish" modes. Unreal Tournament's sandbox mode is effectively "Instant Action". You could possibly call Animal Crossing one big sandbox, I suppose.

Yeah, I get the concept of a "sandbox"; I just wanted to know where/when that term originates from.

[Slave to the Parasites]

It will be remembered as stage 2 of a 3 part series called The Graphics Era. "Remember when we used to think easter egg hunts were fun?" "Yeah, what idiots we were!" "What the hell were we thinking?" And we all will have a nice laugh at how awful the games were back then.

[Tan]

i think it'll be remembered, but perhaps not acknowledged as the years that North American/European games and franchises finally distanced themselves from Japanese ones and proved they could be every bit the equal. Especially rpg's and action/adventure games

not to mention the lack of platformers, well i shouldn't say lack of, how about defining and/or memorable ones

[Chrome]

Maybe the death of 2-D games? Okay, well maybe they aren't dead, but what about the "terminal illness" of 2-D games? I can't really see any new 2-D games emerging on any of the new systems (besides the handheld market).

Later,
Chrome...

[Fighter17]

This generation will be remember when video games turn gangta!

Also this generation cause many fans of it to be very biased towards 2D gaming and anything that's old.

Also this generation will be remember as the generation that EA turn into the devil!

Also this generation cause many people to to believe that Graphics are better than gameplay (Black anyone?).

Also this generation will be remember when I stop playing PS2 games for a long time and stwiched to classic gaming.

I rest my case.

[christhegamer]

when nintendo lost popularity, sony became a media whore and every clueless "ghetto" kid could now drop F-bombs online using their $300 x-box

[keiblerfan69]

I say it will be remembered for the death of Sega and the entrance of MS.

[diskoboy]

-The death of Sega.
-Consoles going online
-Nintendo's fall from grace.
-The birth of the Halo franchise.
-And the hard drive becoming a must-have for consoles.
-Grand Theft Auto. And some really hot coffee.
-Nintendo getting some real competition in the handheld market.
-EA getting the critical smackdown from a little game called NFL2kx. And then, monopolizing all of the NFL in retaliation.
-The retrogaming craze
and last but not least Jack FUCKING Thompson.

Games that will be remembered -

All of the GTA's from 3, up.
Halo 1 and 2
Resident Evil 4
God of War
Shadow of the Colossus
Gran Turismo 3
Ninja Gaiden
Katamari
Madden 2k1
SOCOM - Navy Seals
NFL 2k1 (Finally, a Football game that could take down the almighty Madden. And yes, I'm including the Dreamcast)
Chu Chu Rocket (Because it was the first commercialy successful online game)
Shenmue (An RPG with a totally different feel)
Crazy Taxi (how many imitations did this game spawn)
Jet Set Radio (We were all introduced to a technique called cel-shading)

I'm sure there are a ton more, but my hands are tired.

[cyberfluxor]

Because I've only been working for 3 years now this is the generation I finally got to buy games for myself and start collecting. Although my friends grew up playing the latest game consules, I was the one playing with computers and emulating. Although I never actually HAD big gamming back when I was kid there were things I followed up and watched over time through magazines, commercials, and what my friends rented. This is where things have changed to me though:

1) Sega steps out of the consules production. It's sad but at least they lasted this long and gave us some great times and games!

2) Microsoft enters. Very good to me personally to see because I can see later down the road them changing some ways consules work and gamming that will breakthrough somehow.

3) I haven't see as many people renting video games. It appears to me as though more people just buy the games rather than rent, but I could be wrong.

4) Violence increases, just as in any generation of games. Although this one finally was graphical enough to make some of it too real for parents and politicians to handle. GTA obviously being the biggest player in this change, although I still think Postal should get a louder aplouse.

5) Handhelds becomming more sophisticated than even previous generation consules. Wireless makes it more amazing for multi-player capabilities.


Well, there's a ton of things that happened but only time will tell what people really remember most and think was just OMG at the time.

[SirDrexl]

Hmm, this is an interesting thread. I remember it from last year but I never posted my comments for some reason. Anyway:

-"Retro" gaming. This generation is when retro or classic gaming became a fad, with a lot of major companies putting out compilations, not to mention all the plug and play devices and "know your roots" stuff being bandied about. Granted, compilations have been released for a long time, but not in the kinds of numbers we're seeing these days. The popularity of emulation probably has something to do with this. Also, we're seeing more gamers grow tired of the complexities of today's games and want something simpler.

-Consoles as multimedia devices. This idea has been tried in the past with the 3DO and CD-I (which didn't have the games and the mega popular video format to support them) and to a limited extent with the CD audio capabilites when CD-based systems were released, but this generation is when they really came into their own. From built-in DVD playback to advanced modding capable of turning the Xbox into a full-fledged networkable media center, this is when the "set-top box" started to become a reality.

-Celebrity voice acting. Due in part to increased budgets, this is the generation where many games started to feature well-known actors as voices in games. Again, not entirely a new thing but it happens a lot more now. Although this has been done some in the past, this generation has been notable as we've seen more well-known actors do voices for original game characters (Michael Ironside in Splinter Cell, the actors in the GTA games and Halo 2, etc.) or as themselves (Fiddy Cent, Tony Hawk), rather than just revoicing their parts for movie-based games (which previously wasn't too common either). Of course, we've seen more and more actors doing the voices of their characters in the tie-in games than before (LOTR, Spider-Man). Even Sean Connery voiced James Bond in a game. Some of this may also have to do with the popularity of games in general and the technology allowing for more and clearer voice, but the bottom line is that the previous generation didn't have nearly as many recognizable voices in games.

I don't think the "graphics better than gameplay" applies to this generation in particular. That has been going on for a long time. Every generation has had its share of games that had great graphics and lousy gameplay.

I'm torn on the violence issue. I don't know if the games today necessarily have more violence than in the past, or if it just seems they are more violent because the systems are capable of rendering that violence in a more realistic way. Depending on how you look at it, a game like Mortal Kombat, where the blood was over the top, could be considered more violent than a modern game where the blood is shown more realistically. Then again, that very realism may be what people consider more violent. Also, many games in the past had simple gameplay where you just shot anything that moved. Now, we have more games where players have to strategically plan their shots, work as team members, and/or accomplish objectives that may not involve killing. We have more games that deal with the consequences of violence. People who find it fun to run around shooting people in GTA (not my thing, but I know some like it) at least have to deal with the authorities, and in a game like Morrowind, you can't just kill a person without a good reason unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences. Again, maybe the realism of it is what makes it seem more violent.