Current Events > C/D: The GameCube/PS2 era was the Golden Age of gaming

(+) Yeah! (+)

C. I'm particularly fond of the early 2010s era of Steam and PC gaming as well.

Nah it was the ps3 era for me. Trey 4 life

95-2005 give or take a year.

That plus the gen after.

We are in the golden Age right now. This is by far the best year for gaming yet

The golden age of gaming began with SMB3 and ended with the horse armor.

No. It was 90-2005 give or take a bit with games like Thief 1 and 2, Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament 99 / 2004, System Shock 1 and 2, the Ravensoft Star Wars games, StarCraft Brood War, Diablo 2, Quake 3 Arena, Doom 1 and 2, Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, list goes on.

Though I do agree, I always feel like everyone's golden age of gaming will always be that time period where they were old enough to enjoy games with their friends alone - but not old enough to have any real responsibilities.

Even though I consider the past few years a new one, definitely. I think it's because game costs weren't so absurd that companies just wouldn't take risks.

Like if a game like Katamari Damacy got pitched for the first time today I absolutely guarantee we would never even hear about it, unless it got put up on some Kickstarter or Early Access program.

We really are in the golden age, but it's definitely the runner up. GameCube was too good

D SNES/Genesis era

PS2/GC/XBOX is a close second though.

Nah it was the 1980's.

You had The Atari 2600, NES, Master System, a plethora of computers to game on and the golden age of amusement (video game) arcades.

Oh I miss those days of gaming on my Atari 2600 and then going to the arcades and playing all those amazing games they had there.

Don't forget the OG Xbox

Amped
Crimson Skies
Halo
Kung Fu Chaos
Midtown Madness 3
Whacked!

etc.

It's the last time AAA games were truly diverse and experimental on a consistent basis. Present day does deserve credit for having a lot of absolute bangers, especially indies, but it's hard to ignore all the homogeny and bullshit holding back most of the biggest budget games.

I suppose they would depend on ones age for most.

I think each gen of gaming has been a golden era for many, with some dud systems here and there. If it'd only gotten somehow progressively worse most would have stopped. Something is being done right.

For me.. well, probably PS1/64 I have the fondest memories like overall. But I have so many fond memories from each gen.

PS2 had a crazy amount of really solid games. Don't think we'll ever get back to that, AAA games are so much bigger and more expensive and time-consuming to make now.

Thank God for the indie scene.

Yes, but only because this era also includes the Dreamcast

having ps2, Xbox and GC and Dreamcast
was goat tier i feel like gaming has been chasing that type of high for a while

stuff like
Vice City
Halo 2
Metal Gear Solid 2
Super Smash Bros Melee

the gamecube had some of nintendo's weakest mainline games

I think we had a major publisher golden age from like the 90s to the mid-2000s and now we're in an indie publisher golden age (many of which play like the games from the 90s to the mid 2000s).

Deny.

Yeah, it was definitly a great time, but cutting of the games before that, just because of some console generation feels wrong.

If we are talking about a "golden age" it should not be limited to some 5 years or a single gen.

PS1/N64/DC for me, but PS2/GCN/XBox came close second.

DC/PS2/XBOX/GC was a quadruple banger, hard agree.

CassandraCroft posted...

Nah it was the 1980's.

You had The Atari 2600, NES, Master System, a plethora of computers to game on and the golden age of amusement (video game) arcades.

Oh I miss those days of gaming on my Atari 2600 and then going to the arcades and playing all those amazing games they had there.

I agree with this

The 80s also had the PC Engine with CD games featuring voice acting, CG cutscenes, high quality music, etc. Which sadly didn't catch on again for another half a decade.

deny
take off the nostalgia goggles

C. 3D gaming was more polished than the previous gen and graphics had advanced to the point where several games still look great even now, but development costs were still low enough that companies could afford to take risks and be experimental, leading to a ton of variety from both big and small developers, and games were still generally complete on release instead of being patched later.

sfcalimari posted...

PS2 had a crazy amount of really solid games. Don't think we'll ever get back to that, AAA games are so much bigger and more expensive and time-consuming to make now.

PS2 had the overall best library of games of any console.

I said the early 90s to mid 2000s because back then, there were a lot of a
l time great PC exclusives designed with PC in mind, then the consoles had all the Japanese games, and there was little overlap. You got games back then you simply wouldnt get now, because consoles are where the money is. Yet you still had all the great console games too.

The price of gaming was much much more reasonable

That's an easy yes. Games shipped whole, had an actual art direction, often had fun connectivity like the gba-gbc stuff, could pop the disc and play without worrying about updates and so on.

Yes modern games might look great but they often feel shallow, especially open world games where it seems they dropped random points of interest on a pretty yet shallow world.

C, although I'd say the golden age is 4th through 6th gen, with 6th gen being the peak imo.

D) I prefer both the 90s (SNES & PS1) and the later 00s (360/PS3) over the PS2 era.