What was the "Golden Age of Gaming?"

AlbinoNinja

AlbinoNinja

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During what generation was gaming really (or will be) "at its peak?" I'm not talking about sales, or industry, or technology, just quality.

For me, this generation was the best, although i was a wee lad during the infamous SNES-Genesis years. Two of my favorite systems, Dreamcast and Playstation 2, both enjoyed their time in the limelight (Dreamcast giving me cheap-yet-classic games after its untimely demise, and Playstation 2 doing more than enough to amaze me whenever I was looking for fun)

So, CAGs, what generation will you (or do you(or do you think you will)) look back on with the most fond of nostalgia?
 
Nintendo 64 era for me. After playing OoT I realized how games are more than just games. The music, the storytelling, and an immersive environment...everything. Lots of fond memories playing Mario Kart, Goldeneye, WCW vs nWo (My friend and I probably put in over 100 hours into this), Wave Race. So many fun games. Maybe it was because I had no responsibility back then and all I did was goto school and hang out with my friends afterwards and play games.
 
For me, it's not really about the games, though there were some great, great games back in the NES/SNES days. I picked the SNES age for the simple fact that I was able to enjoy it more. I could sit around as a kid all day and play video games. Since I skipped the N64 age, the SNES lasted me a good ten years.

Games are great now, and that's only from the ones I've played, so I'm sure I've missed a ton of even better games, but I just don't have the time to enjoy them or even play them.
 
I think it is whatever age you were in when you where around your young to early teen years, those where the years when you could just play a game and not be ridiculed by others. For me that would be the N64 and playstation era.
 
How can there be a golden age at all yet? The industry's still young, there's a strong possiblity that the golden age hasn't come yet.
 
Being that I'm 27 years old for me it has to be between 1985 - 1995. Of course I still think the best is to come though.
 
For me the Golden Era was actual PC Gaming for the most part 1994 to 2000, so many incredible games:

Warcraft, Starcraft, Master of Orion, MechWarrior Series, on & on. so many incredible games with good storylines, engrosing gameplay, and expierences that have for the most part yet to be replicated on either PC or Console as of late.
 
[quote name='Moxio']I've seen most of the gaming age, and I still think the best is yet to come.[/QUOTE]
bah, you say that now, but when Playstation 5, XBox 5000, and the Nintendo AAAAAAA! become so powerful that they take over the world, you'll be begging to change your vote...

Its a sick society... one where games play you!
 
Ah, Nostalgia. SNES days were the greatest. No jobs, no real responsibility; just spending a rainy summer day playing DKC 2, Super Mario World, Earthbound...:cry:.
 
[quote name='AlbinoNinja']bah, you say that now, but when Playstation 5, XBox 5000, and the Nintendo AAAAAAA! become so powerful that they take over the world, you'll be begging to change your vote...

Its a sick society... one where games play you![/QUOTE]

LOL@YOU

I will be with the games!

MIYAMOTO-BOT ATTACK!
 
To me, the golden age was the time i bought my C64 and later Amiga. So many good games and time to spend on.
Of course also the SNES, which was my first console.
 
[quote name='Moxio']I've seen most of the gaming age, and I still think the best is yet to come.[/QUOTE]

I'm with you, Moxio... I've been gaming since the "Atari Age," and every generation just gets better and better. Sure, the NES - Genesis/SNES years were all a lot of fun, but this past gen was an absolute riot for me and my friends, and we're all really looking forward to the Wii.

Never quite understood the nostalgia merchants. I'm always wanting to push forward.
 
The NES era, although I'd say more the golden age of 2D gaming, 1985-1995. I play games from that era more than any other, even though I enjoy Atari and more modern games as well. Sadly, I think we'll never see another system with as many quality games as NES had, and probably never another system that had the beginnings of so many of the most popular series to this day.
 
It's a matter of perspective.

Many years ago, a science fiction writer named Damon Knight was being interviewed. Before becoming successful as a writer, Knight had been very prominent in SF fandom as an organizer of clubs and conventions. One of the first SMOFs. (Secret Master of Fandom) Among other works, he wrote the short story that became the classic Twilight Zone episode 'To Serve Man' which in turn led to a classic Simpsons Halloween segment.

The interviewer went in for a cliche and asked, "What was the Golden Age of Science Fiction?" thinking Knight would provide a lot of material regarding why the late 30s and 40s were such a fertile period. Instead Knight's answer was "Twelve." Old enough to follow a technical description of a problem but before cynicism has set in.

Gaming is like that. A kid today may be playing a lot of the same games his elders did a decade or more earlier but on a newer platform. Super Mario Bros. will engage young gamers a century from now. There will be far more dazzling and complex choices but what was fun will always be fun. It may get a new paint job once in a while, ala Mario All-Stars but beyond that it will just keep being a good game like the board and card games that have endured millenia.

It can be a lot harder for a kid today to appreciate some of the classic SF stories. So many anachronisms for stories in what is still the far future. So many writers thought we'd be traveling between stars by now but didn't have a clue as to the role cheap computers would play or how in 21st Century life.
 
Reality's Fringe;1907252 said:
Ah, Nostalgia. SNES days were the greatest. No jobs, no real responsibility; just spending a rainy summer day playing DKC 2, Super Mario World, Earthbound...:cry:.
Click to expand...

Same here.
 
I think gaming and all other forms of media are continually evolving and getting better. Technology improves and new ideas are constantly being thought of. I put no emphasis on nostalgia and I'm sure my current favorites will be surpassed. The PS3, 360, and Wii will be better than the current generation and their successors will undoubtedly be better than them.
 
I think it is bad to judge a work in progress.

I really cannot choose. I would think that to judge a video gaming era you would have had to play a wide majority of the games and have played on all of the systems. I do not think that many people meet these criteria. I certainly do not. I will wait several years before voting in this thread to give a better opinionated response.

At any rate, I am a big fan of the Genesis/SNES era as well as the current era. The N64/PS era was not very good, many many bad games with only a couple dozen amazing games. The Atari and before era was held back be technology and it is hard not to judge the lack of depth in them but by todays standards most of them are just games you play for several minutes, not hours. The NES age was pretty decent but it did not have enough outstanding games as the Genesis/SNES era, although it was close. The current era has many innovative games built on old franchises. Still, I think I am just being bias since I started gaming in the SNES/Genisis era and really got into it in the current era.
 
Ok this is a pretty loaded question. The golden age is pretty much whatever time you were 10-15 years old. So it's a different time for everyone.

Though I started with the Atari age. I hit my sweet spot right between the NES & SNES/Genesis/TG16 days. Those days were "my" golden age.

So many memories. Also the SNES helped my lose my virginity :lol:. So it has a special place in my heart:p.
 
[quote name='epobirs']The interviewer went in for a cliche and asked, "What was the Golden Age of Science Fiction?" thinking Knight would provide a lot of material regarding why the late 30s and 40s were such a fertile period. Instead Knight's answer was "Twelve." Old enough to follow a technical description of a problem but before cynicism has set in.[/QUOTE]

This is the correct answer.
 
I'm nearly 23, and my fondest memories of gaming go back to the SNES.
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy III (VI)
Secret of Mana
Super Mario RPG
Mario Kart
NBA Jam
Legend of Zelda: Link To The Past
Super Mario World

I remember the expectation of coming home from school and playing my heart out for the hour of free time I had before homework. Ahh, fond memories.
 
The 'Golden Age' of something usually refers to the first great age to that thing. The golden age of film was the 30's and 40's. The golden age of comicbooks was the 40's and 50's.

Therefore, the 'Golden Age' of videogaming by default, is the Atari 2600 age. And that includes the C64, and whatever other systems were out at that time. That Golden Age has a marked ending with the crash of 82/83. And the rise of the NES represents gamings second great age, or its 'Silver age'.

A better name for this thread would have been what was the 'greatest' age of gaming, or what was your favorite age of gaming.
 
the golden age for me was the nes games. Too young to remember playing our atari and intellivision, the NES era had the greatest impact on me as a gamer. My personal favorite was the SNES era, but nothing matched the NES era for the impression it left on me.

Everything i love about games was etched in stone way back then.
 
Truth will be coming at you with extreme action fists as soon as this sentence is over.

Since this whole "video-game" thing is a work in progress, I don't quite believe that "the best is yet to come" is a topical option. (Remember 1983-1984.) The stage was set back then, and it could happen again, although this time around electronic industry is not going going to somehow exclude North American involvement. To make a joke, I think it's safe to say that Xbox and PlayStation had forever merged computer illiterate fans of "the Greek System" with titles like GTA3 (which was so astonishingly "real" in a hip hop sense, that you have to have to buy crack for continuing enjoyment thereof) that I do not see this thing dying anytime soon. In other words, the competition has been becoming more fierce than ever, and despite the fact that Nintendo Witnesses go door to door with their little WiiTower pamphlets, I see more and more discussion of things like "gameplay," a notion that I previously only entertained in the depths of my imagination.

With that in mind, I wish to point out that PC gaming has made it's way just around the infamous "video game crash of 84" (which made it extra hard to price those games accordingly). I know this isn't a place to mention Space Quest, Freddy Pharkas, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and Leisure Suit Larry... But it is the same frustration that so many of us have felt when we talk about Final Fantasy games (could be any series that packed some impact, however), to find that a "fan" thereof knows only of FF7 and FFX and yet considers himself worthy to share his/her opinion about the past, present, and future of videogames. I guess our "bug" is contagious after all.

Forgive me, I only write long posts because I have a shitty job.

My point is: when discussing film, music, or anything else that can be at least by design considered an "art" form of sorts, you can not say that "the future will be better," because that is a fairly simple-minded argument. Yes, we will be able to increase the floating point variables more, we will have more polygons, we would get our hands on new types of controllers, and perhaps even on some new gaming genres that do not involve shooting or a first person perspective. But whereas technology will grow "newer," we will grow "older." And when you get to a certain age, you simply can not fight nostalgia.

But if I had to choose "The Golden Age" of sorts, I'd have to use a criterion that is at least somewhat legitimate and consistent. And in video games, I was mesmerized by how much was done with so little during the first Famicom system, and was stuck in a spectacular awe with Super NES titles. If you were to look at Space Quest III screen shots, I doubt you would be able to guess that it was a simple 16 color game: it looks much better than you'd ever expect from a game like that. With relatively "primitive" tools in their hands, many game designers have really pushed the limit (literally) in terms of what was possible and how it was accomplished.

I consider the late 80s - early 90s era to be my favorite. Of course, my age has a lot to do with it. And I'd like to add to my "vote" that PC games of that era are nothing short of brilliant, despite the fact that a lot of you would want to play something that is in 320x200 pixel resolution. I'm not hating here: I don't want to play too many games like that that I have not played back then. Some, sure. But playing Lure of the Temptress is painful at this point.

I hope someone has misunderstood this post and will say something stupid, because I'd rather be in character.
 
I'm being optimistic and saying "The Best Is Yet To Come" but I'll always love the NES/SNES/GEN days... (N64 too)
 
I was young when the N64 came out, and so I could blissfully play without any worry in the world. It seems like when you're younger, you can't tell the difference between a good and bad game. I do miss those days.
 
I haven't read all the posts, but I have to go with the Super/Genesis age. That was the age when games were played on their merits - graphics became more like a cartoon and less like moving blocks. The genre's differentiated themselves and began to take on status on their own (RPG's, Puzzle Games, Action/Adventure, etc.). Stories, Gameplay, and Graphics all became major points of quality in games, and drove development of great games much more than "shock" (though shock value also began to truly emerge during this time as well).

In my view, video games traversed their adolescence during the Super/Genesis era - that brief period of time when everything is exciting, new, and fresh. While the generations to follow were great as well, you just can't re-create the innocence of youth. The "golden age".

Perhaps at some point the interactivity between game and player will push video games into a new and different realm that has not already been explored. But until then, the SNES and Genesis will always be the first systems that experienced the merger between technological feasibility and developer creativity that drove games into the world they exist in today.

I see the "shock" of boobs and murder and gang banging, etc. as a sometimes desperate grasp at re-creating the newness factor that has already been lost.

Not that all of these things haven't existed and been tried since the 2600 and probably even the ancients before Atari, but SNES and Genesis were the first to really succeed at doing it well - which is why SO many of those games are still being ported and copied today.
 
As much as I loved the SNES... I never really got into gaming until the 64 and PS1. Back when I was young, my brother had both a NES and SNES and would be a real ass about when I could play. I had to ask for permission to play anything on the system and he played my games first.

But then my DAD bought me a PS1 and it was great at first but didn't really have to many games. Then came FFVII and gaming became a hobby for me, especially RPGs which ultimately led me to buy my own SNES to play FFIII and CT amoung other classics.

So I'd have to say the PS1-64 era. Even though the SNES had the top two RPGs of all time (CT being 1st, FFIII being 2nd), the PS1 still has the largest library of worthwhile RPGs while the N64 has my favorite game of all time (LoZ: OoT).
 
I went with the current age. Gaming became more mainstream/acceptable/profitable during this age, and more quality systems and game were on the market. I'm also biased to the current age because I actually had a job and money during it.
 
I'm all about the early to mid '90s for my "Golden Age of Gaming." The arcade scene was huge and I was happy to be a part of it. I was the little kid who quietly waited his turn and then whooped everybody's (mostly everybody's) ass once I had my shot. It was all about the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat series for me. Another honorable mention might be Killer Instinct.

I'm still all about fighters, so once I get Xbox Live back up and running I need some Street Fighter III: 3rd Stirke competition, please!
 
I can't speak for the rest of you's but my golden age of gaming was when I was 7 - 11 years old, sega genesis, super nintendo, old pc games like duke nukem, adventure quest point and click games... etc, those were the days I had the MOST fun with gaming, my golden age :)
 
[quote name='Puffa469']The 'Golden Age' of something usually refers to the first great age to that thing. The golden age of film was the 30's and 40's. The golden age of comicbooks was the 40's and 50's.

Therefore, the 'Golden Age' of videogaming by default, is the Atari 2600 age. And that includes the C64, and whatever other systems were out at that time. That Golden Age has a marked ending with the crash of 82/83. And the rise of the NES represents gamings second great age, or its 'Silver age'.

A better name for this thread would have been what was the 'greatest' age of gaming, or what was your favorite age of gaming.[/QUOTE]
Yes, but there were movies in the 20's and 30's that were popular, however still in an experimental stage. Although 2600
was lots of fun, I certainly wouldn't consider gaming a "golden age" at that time: the industry was poorly managed, even before the great gaming crash, and if you give someone a 2600 game now, odds are they'll play it for a bit (a half an hour tops) and quickly become sick of it, whereas the comic books and movies of the "golden ages" are still enjoyed by millions.

According to your definition, I would consider the NES age to be gaming's golden age, and the atari to be the more experimental age, when gaming was still being mastered.

And if you don't buy that, just ignore the definition and consider it an alliteration. Doesn't the name "Golden Age of Gaming" just roll off the tongue?
 
Wow, I guess I'm in the clear majority. Playing SNES was the bomb.

I came into this poll with a date in mind: 1995. That's when I think the golden age of gaming peaked.
 
I guess i am in the majority also but i was a Genesis player. Though I am thinking the WII might change my mind about the golden age of gaming.
 
I completely hear what your saying. My intention was not to piss on the thread or play the semantics game.

My favorite, or 'golden' age of gaming if you will... ;) would be the NES era. Making maps on graph paper, writing down those cumbersome passwords (is that a G or a 6?), leaving the system on all night while you slept, and then waking up to finish playing the game... those great moments of my, and alot of peoples childhoods will probably never be surpassed.


[quote name='AlbinoNinja']Yes, but there were movies in the 20's and 30's that were popular, however still in an experimental stage. Although 2600
was lots of fun, I certainly wouldn't consider gaming a "golden age" at that time: the industry was poorly managed, even before the great gaming crash, and if you give someone a 2600 game now, odds are they'll play it for a bit (a half an hour tops) and quickly become sick of it, whereas the comic books and movies of the "golden ages" are still enjoyed by millions.

According to your definition, I would consider the NES age to be gaming's golden age, and the atari to be the more experimental age, when gaming was still being mastered.

And if you don't buy that, just ignore the definition and consider it an alliteration. Doesn't the name "Golden Age of Gaming" just roll off the tongue?[/quote]
 
The NES age for me. The 2600 was my first console, but it lacked the ability to keep me glued like the NES did. I did my time with Mario/Duck Hunt before my folks let me buy other games. Zelda and Castlevania were incredible, I couldn't stop until they were defeated. Then, as I got older and played more sports, winter was filled with hours of Double Dribble, Temco Bowl, and Baseball Stars. I still remember taking the time to create the New York Yankees but only having 6 letters for the names. There were other types of games we were introduced to as well, like Tetris and FF.
Although I believe the best is yet to come, I think the NES set the table for all that follows.
 
SNES/GEN by far.

For one, arcades were still alive and well. You could go to the arcades and get something that was FAR superior than what was on the home consoles, but the home consoles were very adequate and enjoyable.

I think the death of arcades has changed the way we perceive home consoles, and for the worse. The Gameplay from arcades was often transfered to the home consoles, and arcade gameplay was about skill. When the arcades died, games became more like movies, and skill took a back seat to story.
 
"Golden age" is kind of a vague term. Some people consider the golden age to be whatever the "first age" was - in this case, it would be early arcade/Atari (you could make a case for Nintendo as well, as some people may consider anything pre-crash to be a non-factor). Some people consider the golden age to be the "best" age, which is when it just comes down to opinion. For games, I'll go with the latter definition.

[quote name='mr ryles']I think it is whatever age you were in when you where around your young to early teen years, those where the years when you could just play a game and not be ridiculed by others.[/QUOTE]

I've been playing since the Atari era (5200 for me), and I somewhat agree. I did vote Genesis/SNES era; I was in 6/7/8th grade when the Genesis was kicking ass and the SNES showed up. However, I don't think that was the only/main reason I voted for it. I think the current (PS3/360/Revolution) era (due to the non-game innovations being offered...XBL, Nintendo's new controller, etc) is right behind it. I also enjoyed the hell out of the NES era and I probably played games the most during that time.

I voted for the Genesis/SNES era because it produced the most fun products and teased technical innovations that we'd be seeing more often in the future (Sega CD playing disc-based games, TeleGenesis modem offering online play, etc). We'd still get the occasional NES hit, the Genesis was going strong, and the SNES pumped out must-play games early and often...plus, both systems were affordable....not to mention the NES-to-Genesis leap seemed a LOT bigger than, say, the Dreamcast to XBox 360 leap in terms of gameplay and graphics. Time has shown me the 8-bit to 16-bit leap wasn't as big as I thought, but I'd still say it was more noteable than any other recent generation-leaps.

The most overrated era for me was the 32/64-bit era. I bought a Saturn loooong after launch (during the VF2/Virtua Cop/Daytona pack-in), was disappointed by it aside from the Capcom 2D fighters, then bought a refurbished PS1 even later after that and was only mildly impressed by even the highest level titles like MGS. Not to mention the fact that the Nintendo 64 was the first machine where I thought gaming actually took a step backwards.
 
I'd have to say the golden age was the Atari age.....and here's why:

Arcades drove video games, and video games were at their PRIME in the late 70's until about 82 or 83. Thats when arcades peaked and began to die off after the home market crashed. Video games were new, and took the world by storm...they were the buzzword, they basically helped usher-in the "electronics revolution" of the 1980's. Hence, thats when I think videogames were their most relevant.

While I think the Nintendo 8bit was a great time period (and I agree, it was the time of the Atari and Commodore gaming computers) it was also a period of decline as well....arcades started to dry up and all the first generation console manufacturers went belly up. Nintendo was basically the only game in town, unless you owned an Amiga or Atari ST in the late 80's (the 64 was dying by then).

I think the launching point of videogames was the most relevant.....but I think the golden age..per say...hasn't shown up yet. Since video games as a market keep growing......maybe its true golden age hasn't show up yet.

What was the golden age of TV? Most people generally refer to the timeperiod when TV's became a must-have product, so the 50's. WHen they became truly relevant. IMHO that time is the Atari age for videogames.....

Remember atari wasn't first...there were other systems out, Coleco telstar pong games and such..but Atari made them relevant.

PS: You guys who say arcades were still around in the 90's....that isn't the truth everywhere. Arcades were basically all but gone by the end of the 80's around here, with only a few holdouts in the malls. In the early 1980's, there were arcades and videogames EVERYWHERE.....I remember being sad as the arcades dried up in my area.
 
I think I'm in the minority here.

I grew up, and hit the critical 12-15 age range in the SNES/Genesis era. Yet, I think when we look back, this current era will be the Golden Era. 3 counsels dominating at the same time, with legitimate reasons to own each one (meaning that you are missing out on great games if you don't have access to each of the systems). Even though I have many more responsibilities now, I just don't remember a time when you could get so many great games, and so many on the cheap side.

There are many eras where the Ape Escape series would be a top of mind series. Yet, now with MGS's, Jak, Ratchet, FF's, MGS's, etc etc etc, it's easy to miss great games.

Put it this way, fans of the SNES/Geneis era have probably played every big game, and if you asked all its fans for a top 20, you would probably get consensus on the big 12-15 games on that list. I would be shocked if you could find consensus right now on more than about 5 games on the top 20 of this generation over a large segment of gamers. Some of that is that it's still new, but some of it is just that there are so many great games out right now.
 
[quote name='MarioColbert']
With that in mind, I wish to point out that PC gaming has made it's way just around the infamous "video game crash of 84" (which made it extra hard to price those games accordingly). I know this isn't a place to mention Space Quest, Freddy Pharkas, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and Leisure Suit Larry... But it is the same frustration that so many of us have felt when we talk about Final Fantasy games (could be any series that packed some impact, however), to find that a "fan" thereof knows only of FF7 and FFX and yet considers himself worthy to share his/her opinion about the past, present, and future of videogames. I guess our "bug" is contagious after all.
[/quote]

Ah, I completely understand. I didn't really play those PC games you mentioned, but I certainly know the impact they've had. I probably even knew of them growing up, just never got around to playing them. I sadly played none of them, but I think PC Gaming hit it's Age in the mid 80's to early 90's. I look at all the RPG's on it, and really wish I had the mindset to play them all without being picky about controls and "bad" graphics. For some reason I have a feeling that older RPG's are just better. They'd stretch out with description and gameplay that is lost now to flashier RPG's.

The Golden Age is mostly a nostalgic/best time for yourself. I picked the Snes-Genny time. I was hooked as a kid, no more then 4 or 5, on my NES. I had a fantastic time playing that growing up, with loads of memories. But, with the Snes came a time where games started having a story, and impacted me emotionally. If a game makes you cry, it's something else.

Hell, I was only about 9 or 10, but damn FF3(6) got to me with it's ending, and I was glued to Chrono Trigger like a madman. But, with Playstation came MGS, Silent Hill, Legend of Mana...these games impacted me even more then the previous era. I may have experienced the funnest gameplay in the Snes-Genny era, but as for emotional impact, that is a growing curiousity for me.
 
I'd have to say the PS/N64 era. I didn't get Playstation until around mid-97 and I never owned an N64 though. There were so many good games on the Playstation alone its ridiculous. I got into RPG's around that time by trying and loving FFVII. Before that I thought they all looked stupid, where you just hit monsters and numbers pop out of their heads. I got the Zelda collection for GC and I really missed out on OoT, its awesome now so I would have been amazed then if I had an N64.

I agree with previous poster that whatever era you were in your early teens is probably the best, since you can hang out with all your buddies, generally don't have to work every day or all summer yet, and everyone plays games.

Funny story, I got my Playstation as a b-day gift early, with a few used games, and broke my wrist within a week of getting it, leaving me unable to play any games except Command and Conquer heading into summer vacation. I also let Castlevania: Symphony of the Night sit on my shelf for almost a year before I tried it because it just looked really cheesy on the back of the box, man was I clueless back then.
 
the SNES pinpointed gaming perfection for me and still does - simple, intuitive, creative and visually pleasing games.

i hated the ps1 and chunky 3d graphics when they came out.

my SNES still gets as much gametime as my ds or gc.

and i honestly doubt there will ever be a better set or RPGs as FFVI and Chrono Trigger.
 
[quote name='elprincipe']The NES era, although I'd say more the golden age of 2D gaming, 1985-1995. I play games from that era more than any other, even though I enjoy Atari and more modern games as well. Sadly, I think we'll never see another system with as many quality games as NES had, and probably never another system that had the beginnings of so many of the most popular series to this day.[/quote]

To me, the golden age occurs when innovation is at full throttle. Sometimes they aren't the prettiest games and sometimes their publishers innovation stems from starvation. So, I would say the Nintendo era '85-'90 (though not "just" the Nintendo machine) and the current/upcoming era.

I've been with every age since the Atari, and owned many consoles in every generation (still have a cabinet full of various hits and misses).

The '85-'90 era was the time when I first pulled out a huge inventory list from my gold Zelda box. "What the hell is this?!" I wondered. And then I started to get really, really excited.And from there I was switching over to some Icarus, Metroid, SMB, Contra, Castlevania, Punch-out - you name it. Nintendo was king - and Nintendo Power was an awesome magazine (and never biased;) ) .

Simultaneously, there was SO much innovation going on with small computer publishers that my PC was being kept happy as well.People that know me on this board know I'm a HUGE fan of Origin's adventure RPG, Ultima V (which I have actually never beaten ). This is when Sierra was cranking out these amazing adventure games, Police, Space and Kings Quests of note. I believe Lucasarts dropped Maniac Mansion and ZakMcKraken out at this time, as well. I was getting my arcade fix at the same time, at one point even strapping in to a 360 degree Afterburner coin-op... watching (literally) Dragons Lair, holding on to Crossbow, pressing the little red grenade button of Opertation Wolf, having my finger pinched by the trackball of Cabal.

And, at the end of this era I believe Wing Commander 1 and 2 came out. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! You that were there, and of the age, asked your parents for a soundcard. And games started sounding a whole lot better.

Now, I also feel complelled to point out that the "golden age" may certainly be upon us. I feel great about the games I'm playing right now. Between Oblivion and these cool DS games and various PS2, GC, XBOX games I have I'm very excited again, more than I've been in a while. Every once in a while I feel fourteen again, and it's great, I love it. Thank you VIDEO GAMES!

I'm REALLY excited about the Wii and also seeing what the powerhouse PS3/Xbox360s deliver to us. Here's to an optimistic future, for sure!:bouncy:
 
Anyone who says it's anytime other than now is just looking through some warped glasses. There is absolutely no question that the games we are making now are better than they have ever been before.
 
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