What's your favorite era of gaming?

1. Late 90s
2. Early 00s
3. 2016-onwards

2007 - 2012 was worst era in gaming.

dumbing down of FPS genre, every game or FPS use regen health, only 4 5 hours campaign and focus on MP, influnce of COD in every FPS.

things get better after the faliure of Medal of honor warfighter and release of Dishonored by arkane then follow by Doom 2016 to get gaming closer to late 90s/early 00s.

For me it was the end of the 80’s and into the 90’s. The arcades were really hopping in ‘89 when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first hit then Street Fighter II soon after. The SNES was one of my all time favourite systems with so many fantastic games from Nintendo, SquareSoft, Capcom, and Konami. With a few notable exceptions like Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII, and Metal Gear Solid I was kind of hesitant on the transition of 2D to 3D. Was actually kind of worried about 2D games disappearing.

Voted 90’s.

Late 90's to early 2000's. So many amazing games. Gameplay was the primary focus, and 3D graphic technology was still younger, so graphical improvements were much more noticeable. DLC wasn't a thing, instead we had actual meaningful expansions that had substance on pc, and sequels were needed to expand the story on consoles. People weren't worried about how many shadows and beams were being reflected off a surface.

80s no question is my favorite. 2010-2020 is my least favorite.

Lets go deeper. 2022 was your worst year in history, just like Xbox's.

All of 2022 was a complete dumpster fire. 2010-2022 pales in comparison to the 80s.

No doubt the 80's were the best, especially when considering Video games were something new and so it was much simpler and so, Soo much fun, i was also a kid in that time which made it even better at least. NES had many fun childhood games, Shigeruo Miyomota is one of the most influential person in gaming, that time the graphical phedalties weren't that much impressive but the competition between Nintendo and Sega was withe thing that started to make all companies try to be the best at all aspects especially graphics and performance. Sucks to grow up with Sega. Though i played Sonic on Sega Megadrive.

Yeah, everyone up and forgot in a hurry what is important with games.

I've been gaming since the mid to late 80's so it's hard to choose if I would base it off pure nostalgia it would probably be the early to mid 90's because of the amazing arcade days and the fun 16 bit consoles games. But in terms of gameplay with some nostalgia of course it would be 00-09. The variety of games that era had was something else. For me it was console and PC gaming at it's prime along with multiplayer gaming too.

Also I agree OP it was amazing to see the switch from 2-D to 3-D gaming it was ground breaking we will never see anything like that again. I'm so glad I was able to experience it along with the early to mid 90's arcade scene it was dope AF.

I went with the 90's, but it was more like '91-'04.

90s and early 2000s

80's-2010. With very few exceptions, I haven't enjoyed a game since then. 90's is my favorite, but I wish I could pull Diablo 2 and Halo CE in.

For me it's the SNES/N64/PS1/GC/PS2 period .. 16 bit 2D gaming was awesome .. transition to 3D was amazing especially games like Mario 64, Zelda OOT, Metroid Prime, MGS 1/2/3 among other fantastic games .. those were the best times as I was in school and university afterwards with little to no responsibilities 🥹

Don't get my wrong I enjoyed gaming afterwards and continue to do so but that period was awesome 👍

Easily generation 6 or early 2000s for me. GameCube PS2 Xbox etc. In my opinion things were still too primitive in the 90s, the constraints of the systems didn't allow for developers to get really creative imo. It wasn't until good old gen 6 we started to see the best of games. Of course, some of this boils down to personal preference but man I loved good old gen 6 and still do.

Voted 90s.

Really just a non stop stream of awesome from the late 80s through about 2005.

Part of it's the games, part of it's the youth, but really just loved how everything was always new, new, new. The hardware, the genres, the wacky controllers, the tech leaps, experimentation and rapid refinement.

So many things having their own distinct feel. Smaller teams and quicker turnarounds, nobody really settled on checklist of best practices, or overly concerned about what might be initially unintuitive. Hard to explain, but often felt like the devs were having fun too.

This is it, exactly. Devs didn't give a f_ck. They did what they wanted to, and as a result, shit was an unending bucket of fun.

The era RARE used to release one banger after another.

I gotta go with late 90's early 2000's. Every month was multiple new IPs. Developers experimented with games and took risks, no DLC/season pass/monthly subscription/live service bullshit. Games also didn't have day 1 patches and released broken. It was the Golden Era of gaming before corporate influence and monetized bullshit poisoned games like raisins in a Hamburger.

Yup. Still see that spark in plenty of games these days. Lot of indies and AAs are similarly positioned to the "AAAs" of that previous era.

Hard to play something like Shovel Knight, Hades, Hollow Knight, SoR4, etc. and not see the love poured into them.

But definitely see a lot more decidedly soulless games. Assembly line shit. Usually scales that way with bigger budgets/teams. Feels as if no individual really had a voice, joyless.

Sometimes even in instances you wouldn't expect. Like with NSMBU, technically a good platformer, but feels like it's made by a Nintendo brand robot. Then you get Sonic Mania and it's like oh yeah, there's that spark. Not commenting on which is a better platformer, just one obviously oozes more creative expression.

Anyways, tangent. Just yeah, in general felt like that used to be the norm, even with the biggest games. Especially with the biggest games now that I think about it. Even fucking sports games had more heart. 😂

96-2006 was likely the best decade for gaming. soo many classics released in this period and so many technological shifts

2000-2010 for me... most of my favourite games came out during that time.

But that doesn't mean I don't like the other periods, including now.

Everything after the 90's is a waste of time.

90's because of my biasness for being born in that generation. It's where my passion for gaming first sprouted.

What always causes me to turn my head is when someone tells them they grew up playing Minecraft. Lol. I'm like, oh boy! How old am I? Lol

Yeah, those are great. Sometimes what happens though, not with these games necessarily, is that you get this contrived feeling, like they're trying to emulate the golden days. I wouldn't say that ruins anything, though.

Broadband started the decline, DC started the internet bollocks.

16bit era (4th gen) with my nostalgia googles on, but the right answer is today. Gaming is always getting better.

I don't know. I thought these were okay.

Right now, as I can still play older games if I want.

Good point.

I have been gaming since the 80s. I think 2000-2010 was the best decade. That is when 3D gaming really started to hit its stride and there were a lot of great games and a lot of franchises started in that decade.

Half-Life 2

Battlefield

GTA in 3D

Red Dead Redemption

Halo

God of War

Bioshock

Portal

Max Payne

Alan Wake

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Mass Effect

Jade Empire

Gears of War

Batman Arkham

Ico

Shadow of the Colossus

Uncharted

World of Warcraft

Jak

Ratchet and Clank

Sly Cooper

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Forza Motorsport

Project Gotham Racing

Test Drive Unlimited

America's Army

COD4:MW

Killzone

Deus Ex

Splinter Cell

Assassin's Creed

Farcry

Crysis

Metro

Singularity

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

Beyond Good and Evil

Starfox Adventures

Kameo

Fable

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Super Mario Galaxy

Metroid Prime

Dead Space

Demon's Souls

Darksiders

Sure, 90s and 00s are the top 2 decades, but I'm surprised that popular opinion has the 90s above the 00s. The 00s is truly king I don't think it's even close.

1. 1990s

2. 2000s

3. 1980s

For me, it was definitely the 90s, it was when I discovered Nintendo 8 bit and Super Nintendo. The immersion you had in the games, even though the graphics are nowhere near what they are today, can never be regained. As a child you were totally sold and followed everything slavishly. Donkey Kong and Super Mario were even idols and I even had a crush on Super Mario

Early 90s to early 2000 for me.

90's > 80's > 2010's > 2000's

90's we saw perfection of formulas started in the 80's. We also saw the dawn of competitive gaming with titles like Street Fighter 2, StarCraft and Quake 3 Arena. Early 3D also meant a lot of experimentation and innovation. This is the era that gave us OoT, SM64, MGS, Doom, Quake, Half Life and more.

80's was a prime time for innovation, unfortunately, the first half wasn't that great. There plenty of hits of course, ranging from pacman to ultima to donkey kong.

10's might seem like an odd choice to put over the 00's but the indie scene is booming. AAA gaming may be a joke, with games like Dad of War 2018 being a representation of everything wrong with gaming. But the indie scene is huge, and provide gem after gem.

00's well... I like the early 00's but it was in this decade AAA gaming started going wrong. 2006's Oblivion showed how quantity > quality, and Gears of War in the same year popularized the cover shooter and the year 2007 introduced us to crap like Asscreed and Uncharted. 2008 was one of the dullest years I can remember. With MGS4's writing being offensively bad, and Rockstar inventing a digital sleeping pill known as GTA4. There were some positive things too. Microsoft started the Dreamspark initiative in 2008, Valve and Microsoft both opened the floodgates for indie devs with XBox Live Arcade and Steam respectively. While we did see some results. They would not manifest nearly as hard as they did in the next decade.

@Maroxad:

2000s is a toughie. The first 5 years were so good, with 2004/2005 being some of my favorite back to back years in gaming.

After that, yeah, a lot of gamings worst trends starting popping up. Previously strong franchises started falling off a cliff. No doubt still had some great releases in those years, but among so much bad.

Of course grouping by decade is a bit arbitrary, but damn that's probably the most uneven decade of the bunch.

2004 and 2005 were golden. I mean in 2 years we get

• Half life 2
• FEAR
• Splinter cell Chaos theory
• Doom 3
• Riddick EFBB
• Hitman contracts
• Call of duty 2 (when COD was actually good)

then people here also think late 00s or 7 gen was nostalgic lol. i remember during those times people complain about COD clones and dumbed down games and wanted 90s back but now i see them praise same years.

@ConanTheStoner: @ghosts4ever: If 2004 and 2005 (and 2000) were like how the entirety of that decade were I would have such fond memories of that decade, but alas. I mostly remember it for the Bioshocks, the CoD4s, Uncharteds, Oblivions (including the gun mod), Dragon Age Origins, Brawls and Asscreeds.

I remember some people talking about how we were in a golden era of gaming. And I picked up maybe one 2-3 games a year.

Looking back at how bad those years were, no wonder I was into MMORPGs.

exactly.

in late 00s or 7 gen

every FPS was linear 4 hour tack on with MP. Every game had regen health, every action game wanna be uncharted, every FPS wanna be COD.

nowadays compare to 7 gen FPS have more variety. no more regen health or 4 hour scripted campaign.

games like Doom, Eternal, Prey, Deathloop and even upcoming Atomic heart would not work during 7 gen.

even Doom was getting Doom 4 which was call of doom before they cancelled.

Nostalgically, it’s the GameCube, Xbox, and PS2 gen. I voted for the 2000s.

Logically, we are in the best era now, considering we have so much to choose from including the systems I mentioned.

The era before major corporations jumped onto the bandwagon. The era when many game developers were independently owned and ran and only needed help from a publisher.

TLDR: The era before microtransactions, loot boxes and battle passes.

I agree the 2000's where amazing for gaming both on console and PC. Sadly we will never have anything that good ever again because of corporate greed and lazy devs. The only hope now is full immersive VR gaming that is indistinguishable from reality. Like a lucid dream if you ever had one they are amazing that will be the next level shit IF it happens at all.

The era of the biggest bang for the buck in VG history; the era of GamePass. :P

The PS2 era. Before it, I didnt gave much of a rats a** about gaming. I played a game here and there but I wasnt in love with the medium. The PS2 era games I played were what made me fall in love with gaming to this day

A full 20h+ single player only game with no microtransactions, loot boxes, or any other form of nickel and dime scam we see in 90% of games these days is a "representation of everything wrong with gaming" to you? You may not like the game, fair, but when you have a vast number of games that implement a ton of nickel and dime systems in order to feed the greed of this industry, calling a game like GoW a "representation of everything wrong with gaming" is just being a moronic, ignorant idiot

Me too kinda I was in my early 20's around that time and I thought I was growing out of gaming because gaming was still mostly catered to kids there's some exceptions of course but it was mostly kiddie crap. GTA 3 on PS2 brought me back into gaming it felt like a rated R movie at that time. And it's funny I say that because I just came across a old article from a magazine scan about GTA 3 from that era not that long ago where the creator said they wanted to make games for adults and they where sick of kiddie games.

Anything after the 90s is a waste of time.

Just waiting for the clock to end.

after 90s we got best game ever made

released in 2000.

@ghosts4ever said:

@uninspiredcup said:

Anything after the 90s is a waste of time.

Just waiting for the clock to end.

after 90s we got best game ever made

released in 2000.

Meh.

Alex Jones imagination.