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Simple topic really. Considering we are already at the 8th Console Generation, I'm curious to know what era was the best one for you. (and if you want, what console or PC if you have always been a PC player)

Myself, it's a mix between the 5th Generation (Sega Saturn / Playstation) and 6th Generation (PS2).

I had a Sega Saturn and my favourite game of all time is Shining Force III, a tale so epic it was told in 3 games (Europe / NA only got the first one) and you were supposed to transfer the save between games. Bioware wasn't the first to do epic tales, oh no. Panzer Dragoon Saga and Guardian Heroes are some of my best memories so I have a mighty special place in my heart for the SS.

But, tbh, the 6th generation (PS2 for me) is the special era: I think there never was so many amazing games as there were for the PS2/ Dreamcast / Xbox / Gamecube. There was something for everyone, the games could be from the most serious business to the wackiest. Hell, last year I've finished yet another amazing PS2 game (Project Zero II) and that got me craving for more, like "Rogue Galaxy" or giving "Shadow Hearts" a try. To boot, it's that sweet spot in terms of graphics: It's not as bad as the very early 3D was (5th Generation), it's actually something I look at today and go "Say, this looks pretty good" and some of them are just mind-blowing good: Okami is one such example.

So, I've set the stage, share away

There is no "Golden Age" LET THIS ELITIST bs DIE.

Uh, yes there is. This is MY opinion, and I wanted to know other people's opinions. Yours I now know, thanks Can we at least know a favourite console?

KKND.

Red Alert 1

Settlers II - III.

Warcraft II.

Civilization II - III.

Baldur's Gate II.

Planscape Torment.

My fondest gaming memories, not sure on the era ('95 - '00). Titles can probably be found on GoG. I've never owned a console.

90s - 2002

During this period we had Fallout, Duke 3d, Blood, Doom, XCOM, System shock and the C&C games. Nice time for PC gaming. Afterwards...eh.
Got some nice releases here and there after wards, but it just wasn't the same, you know?

I think the 90's were pretty grand, if only because it was all so new. Vastly new experiences and innovations in design and style came around every other year. Genre's were just beginning to form. Trends were starting.

Today seems so much more, less adventurous, if only because there's so much less new ground to cover.

My favourite time was probably the early-mid 90's. Between the ages of 10-15 I had a Megadrive, a SNES and a ZX81(?). Loads of great memories. Joe and Mac, Donkey Kong Country, Kid Chameleon, Super Monaco GP, Street Fighter II, Super Mario Kart, Golden Axe II, Sonic The Hedgehog, Mortal Kombat, the list just goes on. Oh, and GamesMaster on TV

I don't think we've even seen a "golden age" for video games yet. I've been playing on one console or form of personal computer for over thirty years now, and every year, games just get better and better.

Right now, games are being released with budgets that exceed that of Hollywood films from the 80s. They pay closer attention to plot, story, voice acting, etc. Many of the "best" games are akin to interactive movies, touching on concepts and events that have taken place in the real world, commenting on real-life issues, in the way that all good fiction can.

We're beginning to move into new forms of technology for video games, what with wearable devices in the prototype and first-gen stage (like the Oculus Rift, for example). Stuff like this may change the way we play video games in general, or introduce new kinds of console/PC peripherals that enhance immersion into the game worlds.

We've seen video games go from being a "nerd hobby" enjoyed by a relative few to being one of the most-popular hobbies in the world. Now, it's hard to find someone who doesn't play some form of video game. It's become water-cooler conversation topics. Where once you had games that supported, at best, four players, now we have games played simultaneously by thousands, if not millions, of people in shared worlds and experiences.

The Golden Age of gaming hasn't happened yet.

SNES/Genesis.

But to be honest, I think many "retraux" games today are just as good as games back then, and computer games are better still. Mostly, I think, nostalgia goggles are affecting me-- because if I'm honest, I wouldn't give up what I have now to go back to those days. Dark Souls and Wargame and Supreme Commander nad so many other thigns-- wouldn't give them up for SNES/Genesis era games.

Don't have one.

The thing is, I've rarely until recently been able to afford new games. So I always bought games several years after they came out, which makes me associate games with different eras than the ones they were actually new in.

For example, Sim City 2000 came out in 94/95, but I never got the chance to play it until '98. Planescape Torment is one of my favorite games, but I first played it it 2005. Had never even heard of it before then. All these eras get mixed up in my head.

So, none of them, or all of them.

Right now. Steam greatly devalueing games making them available for very low prices and still being able to play the better games from the past at a discount without problems is a blessing. Not to mention all the lovely emulators and ROMs along with controller adapters to let you play your beloved blasts from the past with the original feeling you had back then.

In and around 2000.
Deus Ex 1, Age of Empires 1-2, System Shock 2, Morrowind, UT, AvP1, European Air War, Freespace 2, Star Wars Dark forces, Half Life1. The list goes on.
Whilst I have a special memory for the SNES/Genesis era, the games listed above are total classics imo. Still absolutely playable today with GFX mods etc.

Loving how the opinions are so varied

Balders Gate 2/ Shogun Total War/Original EQ 1998-2001. High points of gaming in my opinion although Skyrim still shines brighter than anything since EQ.

I think everyone has a prefernce for their teenage years, life was much more interesting back then.

I fething loved the early 90s, by brother bought a really gakky old 486 PC for his college, I think it was about 1993 or something. It was something ridiculous as well, like 1500 quid, and I remember he paid an extra 300 quid for 4 megabytes of extra RAM, taking it to a whopping 8 or something.

Anyway, I was 12 or 13 and I suddenly went from just the SNES, to PC games like Championship Manager, Wolfenstein, Doom, et al. A year or two later I got Command and Conquer for Christmas, and promptly never left the house for 3 weeks. I played it like a mad man, once I stayed up for about 21 hours playing it, and I remember laying in bed and being able to hear the fething noise in my head when the tiberium harvester drops its payload into your base, that sort of "tinkle tinkle tinkle" sound was rattling around my skull all night and I had the most bizarre dreams.

Ah memories.

Doom 2 was the same, and a really fething awesome FPS called Strife was released about the same time.

Obviously I would pick that era, but like other posters have said, I fear everyone has a special place in their heart for their teenage years.

I suppose logic demands I pick now. Much as I used to love going to the arcades with my dad on Sundays in about 1990, I cant say that there is anything better than being able to enjoy graphically intense games from the comfort of home.

Does anybody else remember the phrase "arcade perfect" by the way?

For me its a rather simple choice, it began around 1995 or 1997 and ended somewhere in the middle of the last decade. In those years we got master pices like Tiberian Sun, Heros 3 and upwards, alongside Baldurs gate and Icewind dale. We also got the last games produced by Westwood, whom signalled the beginning of the end for good RTs games in my humble opinion.

A Golden Age are Days of the past, so I'll pick the mid 80's.

Soo much unexplored and gaming wasn't in the Hands of a few big names.

Personally it was somewhere around when I was in high school, about 2007-2011.

Just got my PS3 around grade 9 and that was when the floodgates opened for me in particular with Battlefront 2 on the PSP giving me great times during lunch time at school, then splitscreen games like Warhawk when I got back home. Followed by GTA 4, Fallout 3 and me discovering steam with games like DoW 2 on the PC. It was also when I started playing vanilla WoW so it was the first taste of an MMO and all the fun things that being a newb in one entails.

Megadrive era has been my favourite. So much new stuff so many good games and it was a time when we would go over to friends houses to play, trade and loan games, was a lot more sociable imo. I know with online you can talk to friends without leaving your room, but nothing is more fun than seeing your friends face when their HQ explodes in Herzog Zwei

'98.

Half-Life came out.

The end.

My favourite games are scattered throughout 20 years, but most of them were 2000-2003 which is when I had a PS2 and XBOX. Sky Odyssey, Ring of Red, Mercenaries, and of course Halo 1 and 2 which provided endless fun with system linked multplayer

Great game have appeared in every generation since the late '70s and Atari VCS, but I think for me it was the early '90s, when the Amiga 500 and follow ups was up against the Atari 520 and its successors

Hired Guns
Eye of the Beholder
Dune and Dune II
Chaos Engine I and II
Zeewolf
Mega-Lo-Mania
K 241

were just a few of the highlights my dusty old brain can now recall. Everything was so sharp and colourful

Speedball 2, Project X, Dogs of War, Rick Dangerous, F15 SE2.....

Thanks and

The Settlers
Populous
Cannon Fodder
Alien Breed
Flashback

Actually Cannon Fodder was pretty much a golden age all by itself

Two golden ages
91-94

The golden age of DOS gameplay, when the technology was fairly basic but developed enough to allow very deep games:

Civilization - the first one
Master of Orion
Master of Magic
Darklands
Betrayal at Krondor
XCOM Enemy Unknown
Wing Commander
Wing Commander Privateer

I will also throw Doom in there.

The second golden age is about the turn of the millenia with new upgraded graphics full 3D but still more emphasis on good gameplay than on AAA graphics content. The last time when concentration of energy could be on something other than visuals fro mass market games.

Baldur's Gate 1 & 2
System Shock 2
Morrowind
Thief 1 & 2
Gothic 1 & 2
Diablo 2

Half Life gets an honourable mention, but wasn't really my sort of game.


We are no longer on the golden path, too much junk, but there are still golden games out there.

I feel like the golden age was the age where you had the time to truly dedicate to gaming. So for most guys late high school-early twenties.

That said I miss games of the calibre of Baldur's Gate, Westwoods Command and Conquers, Warcraft II, and Tie Fighter for my computer. Console golden years are a little different but man did I love the heck out of some NFL Blitz and NBA Jam

Probably the 90's. My family got our first computer in like 94 and I loved it. Darklands was one of the first games I got, and it rocked my socks off, then civilization and Warcraft 2. I played a lot of really good sega genesis games too - Toejam and Earl, Jurassic Park, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, General Chaos.

Ultima Online probably deserves a special mention too, my brother, dad and I all played it so we were constantly jockeying for the computer, especially since I was in the biggest PK guild and my dad and bro were in anti-pker guilds. It was the first MMO I played, back when no one really knew what they were doing. That was a lot of fun.

Bromsy wrote:
Ultima Online probably deserves a special mention too, my brother, dad and I all played it so we were constantly jockeying for the computer, especially since I was in the biggest PK guild and my dad and bro were in anti-pker guilds. It was the first MMO I played, back when no one really knew what they were doing. That was a lot of fun.

That game blew my mind when it was first released, think it was probably 94 or 95 when I started playing it. Grouping together with people from all over the world, then killing them and stealing all of their belongings - priceless!

Melissia wrote:SNES/Genesis.
But to be honest, I think many "retraux" games today are just as good as games back then, and computer games are better still. Mostly, I think, nostalgia goggles are affecting me-- because if I'm honest, I wouldn't give up what I have now to go back to those days. Dark Souls and Wargame and Supreme Commander nad so many other thigns-- wouldn't give them up for SNES/Genesis era games.

Probably for me too, although I wonder how much of that was down to the age I was! What I do know, is that nothing these days compares to the excitement I felt when I had a controller placed in my hands and a chance to play Mario Kart, or that lightning bolt and the ninja (with rock soundtrack!) in the opening sequence of Revenge of Shinobi.

First running around in 3D in Mario 64 probably comes quite close though, as does playing through the opening sequence of the first Mass Effect, and having the feeling that video gaming had finally become a mature story-telling medium.

Aye. Companies are still managing to do it. And let's face it, the "classic" products were pretty flawed, too-- it's just nostalgia goggles blurs those flaws over.

The best time I ever had playing vidya games was in college playing Morrowind or maybe while in law school playing FO3. Sure, I had vidya games from Way Back but I never enjoyed them more than when being in school collided fortuitously with Bethesda publishing sprawling sand boxes.