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What is your favorite generation of gaming so far?

reinking

Gold Member
5th gen for me. I had a blast with the three major consoles, N64, Saturn and PlayStation. I also had the 3DO and Jaguar to mess around with and still had Neo Geo from the previous gen. It was not a bad gen for handhelds either with the GBC and one of my favorite handhelds of all time, the Sega Nomad. The Nomad gave me something that I had always wanted up to that point, a console experience on a handheld.
 
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i dont think PC gaming became commonplace until like 3rd gen with the 8bit microcomputers like ZX spectrum and commodore 64 so i guess that's where it started

but these days at the top end PC gaming is a generation ahead of most consoles, so 10th gen????

Dj Khaled Yes GIF by VH1
 

Fbh

Member
Probably Ps3/360.
I enjoyed to jump to HD, the easier online connectivity on consoles, we got a ton of cool new IP's (Mass Effect, Dragons Dogma, Bayonetta, Nier, Dark Souls, Uncharted, Arkham, Bioshock, Gears of War, Dead Space, Portal, Dishonored, Valkyria Chronicles, etc) and cool sequels (Red Dead Redemption, Halo 3, Skyrim, New Vegas, God of War 3, Yakuza 3-0, etc) and dev times and budgets were still manageable so projects didn't take 5-6 years. Plus it wasn't really until the final years that GaaS and extreme monetization started to kick in.

About the only thing I didn't really like from that gen was that Japanese devs struggled a bit. We still got good stuff by FROM, Mistwalker and Sega but companies like Capcom struggled, we basically had the downfall of Konami, Atlus released no HD Persona or Shin megami Tensei, Final Fantasy got turned into the Lightning Chronicles, etc.
 

Doom85

Member
the one with ps2

Stephen Colbert GIF by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert


As much as I enjoyed PS4 a ton (and Wii U or Switch? Not sure which counts for that gen), a previous thread where I listed all the great games for the PS2 gen (and I know I still missed quite a few), goddamn that gen was next level. And add in Gamecube games (and Xbox for its fans, though I did enjoy the first two Halos at a friend’s house), and there was just an insane amount of quality choice to be had.
 
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Rudius

Member
PS2 generation. 4 great consoles, one of them The best of all time, plus good portable gaming with GBA. PC was weaker, but had better exclusives than today. The only thing missing was VR, but that requires a lot of processing power to be really good.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Probably the 16-bit generation. Magazines were in full swing, E3 was actually awesome and full of surprises, the arcade industry was kickin’, and the SNES/Genesis/Turbografx were kick ass.

It was a fun time.
 

hinch7

Member
For consoles.. If we go by nostalgia PS1/N64. Co-op with friends with a load of classic games, multitap and all was my golden era of gaming. At a similar time Duke Nukem, GTA was out and Quake released on PS1 and PC.
Otherwise the PS3/360 in terms of quality games. Some of which I still enjoy replaying today, whether through remasters or on PC.

Going by PC, first half of 2000's with Half-Life 2/CS Source and World of Warcraft (2004).
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
hard to pick between PS2/XB/GC and PS3/360 era. nothing beats the days of youth and the joy it brings. it was like a magical period.
I'd been full grown for a long time when the PS2/XB/GC generation started and it still brought me joy. It was the last time creativity was given any priority by the big players. The best stuff happened that generation. PS360 was when the formulaic stuff became the norm. There's not much we're getting today that's different from what we got during the PS360 generation. It's kind of sad, really.
 

ACESHIGH

Banned
In theory it should be the sixth gen. But when you think of it. Xbox was niche almost everywhere but in the US. Dreamcast was great but just for 2 years, GameCube bombed... PS2 was great but I hate the fact that that console had abysmal IQ even for it's day.
Sixth gen also started the gray/brown era. Lots of shovelwhere on PS2. JRPGS started losing their mojo.

I think it's the fifth gen: The shift from 2D to 3D. You had to be there. CD audio quality games became more popular. Long gone the annoying chiptunes.
Peak survival horror, peak JRPGS, lots of variety. And the goat year of gaming 1998.
Plus the golden age of PC gaming. I have fond memories of that era.

But in general I think all eras were great. Nowadays we have a lot of reasonable complaints about the state of the industry but PC gaming is more accesible than ever. You even have pocket gaming PCs for a decent price. Even a cellphone can be one heck of a retro gaming machine.
 

Bakkus

Member
16 bit maybe. I kinda liked how the same games could be so different on SNES/Genesis
Then you would love the movie tie in games from 01-05! For example, Harry Potter, LOTR, and Spider-Man games had like 4-5 different versions across each game.
 
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intbal

Member
PC gaming - From Quake to Morrowind. Those two titles bookended my favorite era of PC gaming.
Console - 6th gen by a large margin
 

op22

Member
This one because games went from being a low-brow, anti-social hobby for nerds to a medium creating challenging, yet-profitable bestsellers like Cyberpunk 2077, which is far superior to current bestselling movies and books designed to appeal to a low IQ audience.
 
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sachos

Member
6th Gen for sure. The amount of variety is insane, plus i agree with OP take, its the perfect mix of arcade like experience with "cinematic" gaming for AAA games. PS2 library is so full of hidden gems its insane, just take a look at any MetalJesusRocks video, there is so much stuff to find in that library. Or you can browse a games list like GameFaqs https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/games...&list_type=rate&view_type=0&dlc=0&min_votes=1 i always end up finding something i never heard of. Gamecube and Xbox got some gems too of course.

Arcade racers peaked in the 6th gen, so much variety and so much split screen support. In fact, there is split screen support for pretty much every genre in that generation its so cool.

But i agree with some other posters that 8th Gen has been pretty good, with the rise of Sony exclusives or Souls games for example and some insane remakes like SotC or RE2.

So my ranking would be 6th > 5th > 8th although i think the 8th can be second if we take into account how many games from the 5th gen aged poorly since devs still were figuring out 3d controls.
 
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DaGwaphics

Member
OG Xbox (and the other also rans of that gen). Most played in hours would be the 32bit gen, without question. Spent an unhealthy amount of time on the PSX.
 

Arachnid

Member
That's a hard choice tbh. PS1 and 2 eras gave me the GOAT survival horror games like REmake, Silent Hill1-4, Fatal Frame, Clock Tower, and Siren. This gen and this past gen really only have Alien Isolation and the RE games competing. On the whole, my favorite series are scattered across all the gens. I haven't played an RPG I like as much as the Mass Effect trilogy from 360 or action horror like RE4 or Dead Space from gamecube/PS1 and 360. Bloodborne is top 5 of all time and that came from PS4 era.

I'm a horror junkie through and through, so I'll probably have to go with the PS2 era. Hard choice when factoring in other genres though.
 

BlackTron

Member
5th gen. It was the biggest generational jump ever in gaming, and the multiplayer memories alone I think cannot be matched.

JFC, on N64 alone, there was Goldeneye, Smash, Kart, Starfox, Perfect Dark and Snowboard Kids. This is back when the biggest problem all my friends had was all getting to the same house with our controllers ready. But the system delivered earth-shattering single player too like OOT. Around the same time, games came out on PC like Half-life and Starcraft. Leading to our crazy LAN setup adventures where some nerds played console games while waiting for the bigger nerds to make the ragtag LAN work, and some people ended up using a milk crate as a chair, but everyone was eating pizza. Holy shit, on the portable side, this is when Pokemon was big with the original games. I don't really remember ever having as much fun playing games with people as this era.

While "on the cusp" as it came out in '99, it did show up during this gen and Dreamcast annihilated me with Sonic Adventure, Soul Calibur, Grandia II and GOD DAMN Phantasy Star Online.

Even if something was objectively done better later, 5th gen did everything first within the context of the 3D revolution. From standard platform games, to online RPG, to legit arcade games in your house, to standard 4 player local multiplayer, this is the gen it all happened first, and in a 3D environment, and was therefore utterly mind-blowing. I didn't even mention PSX yet lol.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
The PS360 era was my jam. Even the third party stuff tended to fire on all cylinders at that time. It was also the first time consoles had a real online presence that rivaled the kind PC gamers had been enjoying for years up to that point. Hell, better in some respects.
 
Elden Ring and BotW are my favourite games of all time but these aren't titles that I feel like replaying all the time between modern releases.

I find myself replaying these games alot:
Doom 1-2-3
Heretic
Hexen 1-2
Splinter Cell 1-2-3-4
Leisure Suit Larry series
Gabriel Knight Series
Final Fantasy IV-VI-VII-IX
Resident Evil 1-2-3-4
Zelda 1-2 Nes and Zelda Snes


So...you tell me.
 

kunonabi

Member
If we're talking a whole generation it has be N64/SS/PS era. It was the one gen where I really needed every console.

PS2/DC obviously has a lot going for it but I just didn't get much out of the Xbox and GC personally.
 

Daneel Elijah

Gold Member
Nothing beats the Gameboy/Gameboy Color as a kid in my opinion. PS2 for the huge number of games series that began/ became popular like MGS2,GTA,PES,GOW...
For PC the "first gen" of kickstarter games and indies like FTL, Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy, Minecraft...
With PS3 era and most recent gen we have been accustomed to long cross gen periods and lots of "weak year". Sony does end his consoles with greats hits but fail to be good on year 2/3 in my opinion. And we do not often get a GTA4, Witcher 3 or Elden Ring type of mega hits to conpensate. No idea about Xbox. I suppose the 360 was the best one and the Series will be better by the end of this gen?
 
Probably the generation with the Dreamcast/PS2/XBOX/GC. There was imo better variety, imaginative and innovative games. Japanese games actually had a really strong presence as well with some ground-breaking titles.
 
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