What video game generation do you think was best time to be alive?

[theflea]

I agree with everything said here, everyone will have their pick for the best generation of gaming.

For me it's the 90s. When SNES vs. Genesis was the big deal. The SNES especially is one of those consoles that never gets out dated. I love the N64, but early polygons look really bad today, and while the NES days are cool it doesn't quite hold up with it's limited graphics. I find it funny so many new games that come out today look like they could be made on the SNES' 16-bit Sprite graphics. A few try and recreate the 8-Bit era but no one tries to recreate the 32 & 64-bit polygon era look. lol

Games today look great, and I play them all the time. But most I beat and shelf them. A classic SNES game I pull out over and over and never tired of it. I never find myself thinking, damn this game looks like crap now. lol

I have pulled out the old consoles for the younger generation and with NES they think it looks ancient, on PS1/N64 they usually think how ugly the graphics look, while the SNES they think is awesome. Probably because so many newer games look like it does. I also find that SNES is the hardest system to find at garage sales. Most of the time I hear "I have a Super Nintendo but my son still plays that". I find more people are willing to part with NES, N64, PS1, PS2 then they are the SNES.

To this day I always say when asked "What is the best gaming system ever made" I say the Super Nintendo.   

[gf78]

I completely flubbed on the Saturn Dreamcast part, lol. The Dreamcast, by far, had the worst controller setup of all the consoles I ever played.

It wasn't that bad. The xbox controller is a glorified dc controller anyway.

The Dreamcast controller had a lot of good ideas, but two glaring problems that made it garbage.

1)  The controller cable was not only too short, it came out of the bottom of the controller...so you lost a half-foot extra because it had to loop around.     You basically had to sit 3.5" from your tv.

2)  Only one analog stick.  PS1 already showed that dual-analog controls were becoming a must, and trying to play something like Unreal Tournament, Quake III or Virtual-On on the Dreamcast was an exercise in frustration with one stick.

These two things completely destroyed this controller for anything but side-scrollers and fighters.

[telly]

I completely flubbed on the Saturn Dreamcast part, lol. The Dreamcast, by far, had the worst controller setup of all the consoles I ever played.

It wasn't that bad. The xbox controller is a glorified dc controller anyway.

The Dreamcast controller had a lot of good ideas, but two glaring problems that made it garbage.

1)  The controller cable was not only too short, it came out of the bottom of the controller...so you lost a half-foot extra because it had to loop around.     You basically had to sit 3.5" from your tv.

2)  Only one analog stick.  PS1 already showed that dual-analog controls were becoming a must, and trying to play something like Unreal Tournament, Quake III or Virtual-On on the Dreamcast was an exercise in frustration with one stick.

These two things completely destroyed this controller for anything but side-scrollers and fighters.

Also, in my opinion, using the D-pad was like paying with a razor blade, and all the VMUs and stuff made the controller very top-heavy. It always feels like the controller is pulling downwards, at least when I pick it up 

EDIT: Also forgot to mention the lack of buttons. The PS2 controller, for example, has 5 more buttons than the Dreamcast controller. Granted not all of them are used in every game but it's nice when you have a game that needs them.

[stealthrush]

I would say 2001-2005 when Underground-Gamer was online. It was a private torrent community sharing entire libraries/catalogs of games for majority of consoles at the time. I've burned and played hundreds of imported ps1, dc, saturn, pce games back then. Great time for a fan of 32-bit games to be alive. It also helped I just graduated high school and had a lot of free time to play many unattainable gems I couldn't possibly imagine playing before. I understand they are still available now , but when that debuted it was spectacular and well organized compared to recent torrent websites.

[nesternator]

Every generation has offered me something awesome and classic. NES started it all and it still has the best and most fun games, I think. SNES offered the best RPG's, PS1 had Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy 7-9, PS2 had the Grand Theft Autos, PS3 had Red Dead Redemption...so every new console offered new classics. Still I gotta say the machines from your childhood are the best, there's just a special place in your heart for them.

[alamoatari]

80s kids, they got to see the real good stuff

[gf78]

I'm going to amend my previous assessment.  I have to say that right now is the best time to be alive and gaming.

Think about it.  We have the modern consoles, pushing graphics to places where us old-timers never though would be possible.  You can game online with a group of players from all over the world, instantaneously interacting.  And we still have our classic legacy systems.  Every console that has come before and all of those games?  We can still play them!  Whether through the original consoles and their carts/discs, systems like the Retron 5, virtual storefronts or emulators...all of the classics are available today.

I have trepidation about the viability of modern games down the road.  Will we still be able to play them when the updates and patches are no longer available?  A great number of games that we enjoy today will be unplayable because they are online dependent such as Destiny, Evolve and Star Wars Battlefront.  Will the developers release a patch to allow them to be played solo when they reach the end of their life?  A lot of unanswered questions in the back of my mind.  And of course, the looming threat that all games will go digital-download-only in the future which just sucks.

[rayne315]

I'm going to amend my previous assessment.  I have to say that right now is the best time to be alive and gaming.

Think about it.  We have the modern consoles, pushing graphics to places where us old-timers never though would be possible.  You can game online with a group of players from all over the world, instantaneously interacting.  And we still have our classic legacy systems.  Every console that has come before and all of those games?  We can still play them!  Whether through the original consoles and their carts/discs, systems like the Retron 5, virtual storefronts or emulators...all of the classics are available today.

I have trepidation about the viability of modern games down the road.  Will we still be able to play them when the updates and patches are no longer available?  A great number of games that we enjoy today will be unplayable because they are online dependent such as Destiny, Evolve and Star Wars Battlefront.  Will the developers release a patch to allow them to be played solo when they reach the end of their life?  A lot of unanswered questions in the back of my mind.  And of course, the looming threat that all games will go digital-download-only in the future which just sucks.

Think of all the money you will save though. If you are anything like myself you will never purchase a digital only game. how you will play them is when you get them for free or friends/family give them to you. I can honestly say that I will pirate digital only games before I will ever purchase them. (as bad as that may sound)

[gf78]

Think of all the money you will save though. If you are anything like myself you will never purchase a digital only game. how you will play them is when you get them for free or friends/family give them to you. I can honestly say that I will pirate digital only games before I will ever purchase them. (as bad as that may sound)

I'm with you.  I really do despise digital-only games.  I have them, but almost all of them are games I acquired through PS+ or some other method for free.  Sure, I've bought some apps and a couple cheapies on the PS3 like Tori-Emaki and Aquatopia.  But those were $1.99.  I would never in a million years spend $20 for a digital-only game, let alone $60!

Everyone wants to speculate and drive some agenda into the ground that this is the last console generation, or that the next gen consoles will be digital-only, etc.  I can honestly say I don't believe that and if some game company tries it, it's the end of my gaming with their systems/games.  Sony experimented with it with the PSP Go.  It was an abysmal failure and got dropped like a hot rock.  Some say it was because it was "ahead of it's time" with it's digital-download approach, but I think it's more because people want to actually own something tangible.  At the time of the Go's release, you could hit WiFi hotspots all over the place already so downloading the games wasn't the issue.  And the PSP-3000 continued to sell well even after the Go was being phased out.

Digital game sales account for a very small percentage of overall game sales.  I'm fine with developers and publishers offering games in both formats.  Those that want digital, go for it.  Those like us who want the physical game, we have that too. 

I think when the next generation begins, it will start with Nintendo.  They've filed the patents for a discless system, but that doesn't mean the NX won't have a drive.  But with how out of touch and boneheaded Nintendo has been this past five years (I'm being generous, more like 20 going back to the bone-headed decision to make the N64 a cartridge-based system), I wouldn't put it past them to try it.

Microsoft tried a DRM scheme to lock individual games to one user and it blew up in their faces.

Sony seems to be the one company that will test the waters without jumping in head first.  They try their hand at something and if it doesn't work, they drop it.  The PSP Go?  Wasn't popular so they stopped supporting it.  PlayStation Move?  Games weren't that big of a hit, stopped supporting it.  Vita not a huge hit?  Cut waaay back on support?  PS4 focused on disc-based games first and foremost?  WE HAVE A WINNER! 

[retroone]

For me it would be the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube/Dreamcast Generation. It was the time I grew up in and really got into video games. It was also the time when devs got really creative with the hardware and showed us unique experiences we would never see anywhere else. It was also the last generation before DLC and complete games thing.

[soera]

Its hard to pick an actual best game generation. Every generation so far has had its highlights and downsides. If I had to pick one, it would be now. Because of all the highlights and downsides from each previous generation, the current generation has more available to gamers than was every previously imagined.