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My very early days of gaming were spent on the Atari 2500, but I'd say my formative gaming years were spent on the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis. I continued playing video games quite a bit until the current generation. With two young children at home my time is pretty short and my Xbox One collects a lot of dust.
When I have time I really like going back and playing some of my favorite games from the past, as well as playing some that I missed along the way. One thing I've noticed is that I gravitate towards the SNES. It is my contention that the 16-bit generation has aged better than any other, and that this will probably be true for a long, long time. I'm including more recent systems such as the PS3/Xbox 360 in that assertion. I would also add that I feel that NES has also aged well, just not quite to the same level as the SNES.
I think there are a few reasons for this.
1. Games were 2D, and I think 16-bit graphics were perfect in two dimensions. When I go back and turn on Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, or Earthbound, the games still look beautiful and fresh to me. Going back to any 3D game from a previous generation I think the games generally look terrible and don't age well at all.
2. The controllers become more advanced than the 8-bit generation. With more buttons as well as the shoulder buttons added it was easier to build in more control.
3. Gameplay still had to be a main focus due to the limitations of technology.
4. The 32/64-bit generation was the real beginning of 3D gaming on consoles. When I go back and play some of those games the controls feel clunky and the camera placement is often awkward.
Really think it's the PS1. This was the first generation where you had a lot of adult themes, with the graphics and music and immersion to make the games seem logical and real.
Really think it's the PS1. This was the first generation where you had a lot of adult themes, with the graphics and music and immersion to make the games seem logical and real.
I concur.
This was the beginning of 3d gaming as we know it.
I'm also curious to know how old everyone is and I wonder how that might affect opinions. The 16 bit generation peaked during my later childhood and early teenage years, so that may be part of the reason I have such a fondness for it.
I'm also curious to know how old everyone is and I wonder how that might affect opinions. The 16 bit generation peaked during my later childhood and early teenage years, so that may be part of the reason I have such a fondness for it.
I had an NES and SNES as a kid. Don't remember much of anything about the NES era and the SNES era slightly.
I'm 30 now and was 10 when Super Mario 64 came out. Got a PS1 sometime after that and started playing all the JRPGs. I played Chrono Trigger on SNES, but that, Donkey Kong, and the Mario World games are the only memorable games there for me.
As someone who was "of age" (i.e. not a little, early elementary school kid) during all three generations (and to some degree even during the Atari 2600/Intellivision era, which peaked when I was mid-to-late elementary school), I'd say the 16-bit, Genesis/SNES era. The 32/64-bit era was the first to largely use 3D graphics (though there were a couple of 3D titles in the 16-bit era, like Virtua Racing for the Genesis and Star Fox for the SNES), and graphics have obviously improved dramatically over the last three generations. That era also introduced more complex game play that reduced the "pick up and play" qualities of the previous generations. On the other hand, the 16-bit era games looked much better than 8-bit era games and in most cases had more depth to them. It was also during the 16-bit era that sports gaming really became a major genre, largely due to Electronic Arts and the companies that competed with EA, particularly Sega. There were good sports games before the 16-bit era, but generally there were only 1-2 games on a given system for a particular sport during the entire era (both NES/Sega Master System/Atari 7800 era and Atari 2600/Intellivision/Atari 5200/Colecovision era) that were reasonably good, if that. In the 16-bit era, or more specifically by about 1992 or 1993, excellent sports games were coming out every year, including multiple good games for multiple sports many years.
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