icemann on 9/12/2015 at 07:30
I would say that certain genres were in their golden age during the 90s. Not so much others. A few that were:
* Dungeon Crawlers (Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, Might and Magic etc).
* Flight Sims (X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, Wing Commander etc).
* Isometric Action Games (Crusader No Remorse etc).
* JRPGs (Secret of Mana, Chronotrigger, Phantasy Star etc).
* RTS Games (Command and Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft, Dark Reign etc).
* Simulation (ala Sim City).
Thirith on 9/12/2015 at 07:49
Some of my favourite games came from the '90s - but I was a different person back then, I played differently, and gaming had a different significance in my life. There are several games from back then that haven't been matched since, I'd say, but there are equally many games these days that couldn't have existed back then, for various reasons.
Melan on 9/12/2015 at 08:09
Quote Posted by Starker
For me, there are two periods (1991-1994 and 1997-2004) when a lot of my favourite games came out that I'm still playing today, so these are my golden ages. I think the last couple of years starting from 2012 have been pretty good as well, so there just might be a third one on the horizon.
I agree with this post. The 1991-1994 period was excellent because the PC became a strong gaming platform, and it had an incredible variety of genres, styles and approaches. The late 90s-early 2000s produced most of the games TTLG is about. And in the last few years, things like crowdfunding are once again making it possible for smaller and mid-tier projects to receive funding and experiment more than AAA titles.
That doesn't mean all good games came out in these years, but the business environment was more open to risk-taking and creating new types of products - which is how innovation happens, which is followed by a lot of imitation and refinement. The 1991-1994 period ended when the executives smelled the potential to make tons of money with Doom ripoffs and interactive movies, and killed off a lot of the diversity that was around. The same happened at the end of the early 2000s, with attempts to reach massive audiences through excessive simplification. I think the current Kickstarter-driven environment is simultaneously powered
and limited by nostalgia, since it provides good opportunities to relaunch old properties, but it doesn't foster radical innovation. What we need more of are investors willing to bet on the odd, awkward, ugly ducklings so that one out of ten or twelve becomes a swan.
henke on 9/12/2015 at 08:13
Quote Posted by Manwe
Now we're so spoiled with great games that they barely even register on our radars.
Indeed. This year I've played more new releases(a bit over 20) than ever before, but still haven't had time to play everything I wanted(Batman, Mad Max, Just Cause 3, Her Story, Invisible Inc., Westerado, Trine 3, Talos Principle, among others, are still unplayed). Not sure when I'm gonna be able to catch up either since there's always new awesome stuff coming out!
icemann on 9/12/2015 at 08:33
I would say that we're in a 2nd golden age at present. So many great games coming out.
GMDX Dev on 9/12/2015 at 08:58
Wow, there are people asking this question here, and those that are denying it too despite all the factors.
Yes, the '90s were undoubtedly the golden age, and here's why:
A Whole New Dimension
3D gaming happened. This gave us new genres and a whole lot of creativity. Nothing was set in stone, so we got a wide variety of products/genres, many of which are dead now because it is all about the big bucks. Additionally, games were typically made to be hard, and if like me you really enjoy that old standard you were in paradise and little today can satiate that ongoing hunger except by playing more old games!
Infancy of Business in the Industry
Experimentation was happening here too, and while trends were followed and sly business practices were partook in, it was far from modern times. Now we have season passes, on-disc DLC, DRM'd PC games, and the marketing...oh god I hate the aggressiveness of AAA marketing. That's where a large portion of the budget goes these days.
Graphics are Expensive
Budgets have increased considerably. AAA game budgets have seen around lets say a rough 5,000% increase (compare SS2 to Skyrim). In the 90's we got reasonably good graphics (and developers getting creative with the budget & engine limitations) without it notably impacting other fields of game design. Rather graphics improved gameplay (we couldn't see damage decals on doors in UU but could in Arx as one simple example). It's expensive mostly because you have to hire a massive, costly art team. And speaking of massive teams:
Team Size Influx
What it is they say? A crowd is dumb? A crowd is not company? Good luck having a tightly-knit team that is wholly on-board with the design vision & where creativity can flow. And with such a huge influx you also need more overseers to manage and coordinate the project. Hell, shit is so often outsourced these days. Good luck getting Ling & his team from china 100% on board with the design vision.
Bigger Budget, Bigger Risk
Everyone plays it safe because a financial failure could kill a company outright with no chance of recovery. There's too many games that attempt to cater to such a wide audience and are pretty damn brainless. The industry is bankrupt in creativity as developers are on a leash.
PC and Consoles in Unison
Do I need to waste time in explaining this? Sure consoles were already financially dominant over the PC even then, but there was little crossover or conflict, and when there was crossover it was usually a good thing: PC games ported to consoles AFTER the PC game was made and saw success for example, and vice-versa. Simultaneous mutliplatform development increases budget and workload further still.
Additionally, consoles have little to no worth to a gamer now. They are just shitty PCs with no real benefits of their own. This was not always the case.
So the '90s (and early '00s) were undoubtedly the golden age? But you didn't rule out the decades before the 90s!See: "a whole new dimension" and "graphics are expensive".
Quote:
There's was some great stuff that came out in the 90's but as a whole it was probably my least-favorite decade in gaming.
And the first half of it seemed like a big blur of shitty fighting games, if I'm totally honest.
Play moar old games. 1990-1995 were outstanding years for both PC and console gaming. Hello, you're on TTLG? There's Ultima Underworld and System Shock, for two. Don't get me wrong there was a lot of shovelware, but there always has been.
Quote:
Hmm.. can't say I agree. A lot of my all-time favourites like Silent Hill were console games. NES, SNES and PS had some amazing libraries. Parasite Eve, Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country...
Yes. PC and Console gaming were in their creative prime. This will never be replicated, but one can always go back and play the games at least.
Fucking
Pokemon on the Gameboy (JRPG with children as the primary demographic) was more hardcore than the WRPGs and action games aimed at adults of today. 2007 onward I noticed a considerable decline in quality, but before then was a glorious creative paradise.
How can this not be perceived here of all places when System Shock -> Bioshock. Deus Ex -> Invisible War/Human Revolution. Morrowind -> Skyrim. Thief -> Thiaf. :confused:
Quote Posted by "Heywood"
I think there was a golden age of PC gaming, from the early 1990s through the early 2000s. But not a golden age of gaming in general.
Then you likely were only playing PC games and don't know what the fuck you are talking about.
Malf on 9/12/2015 at 11:55
I think "Golden Age" is only useful in business terms when talking about games.
As demonstrated by the other posts in this thread, definitions of quality are purely subjective. Personally, I have favourite games from all the platforms I've played over 30+ years of gaming, and saying that one particular decade had better games than others strikes me as somewhat artificial and facile.
In addition, my touchstone games vary MASSIVELY from the Americanised definition of what gaming consisted of.
Coming from the UK, Nintendo had a far smaller impact on my gaming life than that of my American contemporaries, until the N64 came out.
My platforms in order of purchase were Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Megadrive, Jaguar, Playstation, Mac, N64, PC, Gamecube, Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, PS4. I also dabbled in handheld gaming, but later on, starting with an Atari Lynx, then a Gameboy Pocket, a Gameboy SP, a DS and now my Vita.
So Zelda, Mario and Metroid had no impact on my life at all until Ocarina of Time, Mario 64 and Metroid Prime.
To that end, when I go back and play supposed "Classics" for the first time as suggested by people who define eras as being driven by Nintendo (or A N Other platform), it's with an entirely subjective approach. And I often find those games wanting. For example, I came late to Monkey Island, first playing it when it came out on the 360. And I thought it was pretty bland, and very rote. But mention Delphine's ST point & click adventures to me, and I'll go all misty-eyed.
Games are intimate, intensive experiences, so remembering and replaying them has connotations not just associated with gaming. Playing a game you last played twenty years ago will hook in to who you were at that point and who your friends were, help you remember old flames, remind you of where you were and basically just give you a warm, fuzzy way-back-when moment.
The actual game itself may be comparatively primitive by modern standards and maybe even not that good, but you're judging it with the associated experiences, and those are priceless.
Except for Dungeon Master of course. That's still the best game ever, and anyone who says different is wrong.
;)
Thirith on 9/12/2015 at 12:37
You're being entirely too reasonable about this, Malf, as well as entirely wrong about Dungeon Master (which I never got into). I challenge you to a duel: drawn Archons at dawn.
GMDX Dev on 9/12/2015 at 13:02
Quote:
definitions of quality is purely subjective.
No. There's degrees of subjectivity and objectivity. A broken game hinders the overall quality of it objectively, for example.
Thirith on 9/12/2015 at 13:04
So many of the great RPGs I can think of were objectively broken in various ways, yet I'd call them better games than a number of unbroken shooters. Same is true for the Stalker games. Broken or unbroken sometimes mean absolutely nothing with respect to how much I enjoy a game.
