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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Have we reached the golden age of gaming, 2015-2020 and beyond?

 

2014-2020 and beyond the golden age of gaming...

Yes. 9 16.67%
 
No. 40 74.07%
 
Maybe, I haven't though much about into it. 5 9.26%
 
Total:54
gergroy on 05 May 2018
John2290 said:
I had no idea this would be so divisive, I thought everyone was having a blast this generation more so than generations past. It saddens me a little to see I am among the few who see it this way.

I have honestly loved a lot of games this gen, but for me it is nothing like the last gen.  Early 360 years were incredible and late ps3 years were also incredible and the Wii was a completely new experience.  This gen feels more like treading water to me.  Honestly not really looking forward to anything right now except Anthem, which is like a year away still.  Hopefully E3 has some interesting stuff to show...



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flashfire926 on 05 May 2018

Honestly even though 2017-present has been pretty great, it just can't top the seven year period from 2000-2006, at least for me.



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contestgamer on 05 May 2018
Angelus said:
BraLoD said:

You shut up 'cause you almost exploded of joy with LoD, Shenmue and Halo back in the day.

Haha ya, I did. And if I was that young right now, playing some of the current games coming out, I'd exploding with just as much joy for those. It's pretty hard to get excited about anything as much as I did in my early teens.

contestgamer said:

You're essentially equating bigger screens, HD and other technical aspects with movies being better. These are all superfluous. It makes me think your some kind of Marvel fan that cares CGI and spectacle more than actual script and acting. Tell me that Jurassic world is better than JP? New alien better than original? There's virtually no remakes I can think of that approach the originals in quality, and it all comes down to script, pacing and acting.

Maybe those things are superfluous to you, but they're definitely not to most people. Movie going is, and always has been, an experience. All those things you call superfluous matter. 

You seem to be really caught up on Marvel movies, and Jurassic World. This is the second time you've mentioned them already. Tell me, is there a reason you don't want to talk any recent quality movies like Dunkirk, Three Billboards, Get Out, etc? No, please tell me about how Hollywood cashing in on some remakes of classic movies aren't as good the original. That's weird. People usually never think the originals of anything are better than the lazy offspring they eventually spawn at some point down the line. But by all means, lets use those, and other formulaic blockbusters, to denigrate todays movie makers as a whole. And while we're at it, lets talk down at anybody who might dare enjoy any of those movies. What simpletons they are. Don't they know how much better Godfather was than anything else ever? Don't let the fact that something like the Lord of the Rings trilogy wasn't even remotely achievable back in your personal so called golden age of movies distract you from the how incredibly right you're obviously not

LOL at mentioning get out as a "great" movie. It was good. All time great? Hell no. Hmmm. Ben Hur or get out? God father or get out? Cant decide... Three billboards and Dunkirk were very good, but they weren't on the level of all time great movies from the 70s, 80s 90s. Raging bull or Three billboards? Apocalypse now or Dunkirk? Heck Dunkirk doesnt even crack the top 5 war movies of all time list. So far it seems more in this thread itself agree that past movies ere better than today. Most of the IMB ratings agree in fact with old movies dominating the rankings. 



CrazyGamer2017 on 05 May 2018

Since I never had such a huge backlog of games I am very interested in playing, I should say yes, we are in a golden age of gaming.
I only game on PS4 and I never had that many games to be excited for, even in previous generations when I had more than one system I did not have so many games to go for.



contestgamer on 05 May 2018
John2290 said:

I don't understand. The indies today on PSN rival anything that was on consoles pre-6th gen and the AA games try their hardest to get quality above AAA 6th and 7th, some come close but the quality of AAA exclusives and some AAA multiplats, the odd few, that are releasing are so far beyond anything on previous generation in terms of quality. I think this is a quantity over quality issue or perhaps, people aren't looking at all platforms, including PC deeply enough...or maybe nostalgia plays into it.
Sure they're are some AAA companies that are screwing the pouch in some regards and releasing unfinished, microtransaction filled games but this is our own fault for giving into this shit all last gen. Hell, even if you're going for quantity you wouldn't have the time to play all games now from start to finish if you were playing 24/7 with some kind of godly insomnia power and you wouldn't end up playing games that are designed to be padded out or use gameplay loops of the same content to extend time instead you would play through finely designed content that can last dozens to hundreds of hours and never repeat the same content and to that point on the opposite end of things, you could play one game through the whole generation and still have fun with it such as Overwatch/destiny like games, and some people do.
Perhaps it's because the gen isn't over yet but I can't see why in 2021 we will look back and see this gen for the incredible, thing of beauty it has been. Warts and all.
There has never been so much choice of quality games in the history of gaming, it's never been so cheap or easy to buy a game and play it as your interest dictates. Millions of more people who never game or don't have the time now fill waiting time or stress relief with mobile games. We have three majour players, all with no clear fatal wounds and a PC ecosystem that the worst you can say about, is over saturated.
I just don't understand.

AND ... we can play all the games from previous generations if we so desire.

 

It's the opposite IMO. Due to the giant budgets of games and the the destruction of small/medium studios a few generations ago we now have an industry that doesn't take a whole lot of risks and keeps pumping out me-too games. You need to compare previous generations to the current one from the POV of being in the previous generation. OOT for those of us gaming at the time in 1998 or GOW4 today? OOT blew minds and shifted the entire industry in the process. Playing it back then was more enjoyable than playing GOW now. Mario World is still a better platform game than virtually any indie title has ever been since then. Goldeneye was such a revolutionary multiplayer and single player FPS that there was nothing that could touch it for years. Playing it back then was a much bigger mind blow than playing the latest iteration of COD today. And that mind blow translates to more powerful memories and enjoyment. MGS in 1998 was a revelation - new MGS4 and 5 might be more polished, but nobody that played the original on release is going o get the same type of emotion and enjoyment out of the new releases as they did out of the original in 1998.

What developers need to do is take risks and create experiences that can create the kind of monumental memories that the best games on the SNES/N64/PS1 did in their day. Today we have a lot of very polished games. But not many games that are going to stick in your memory the way Mario 64 or OOT did and it's regardless of the age you played them at.



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Zoombael on 05 May 2018

Latest Total War; AI is as dumb as ever

Golden Age Of Gaming



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The_Liquid_Laser on 05 May 2018
Arminillo said:
Angelus said:

People get too caught up in the nostalgia of experiences they have in their formative years. The quality of things is generally always improving, but because we've sort of "seen it all" in terms of the types of stories and such, many people will get hung up on the certain inevitable derivativeness of the things that come after to appreciate it.

It's just how we are. That's why every single generation is always on about "back in my day!" Everything is always better "back in my day."

No just look at the comic book ages. The "Golden Age" of comics is not the best per se, but the most innovative and legendary properties were released.

90's gave us the birth of GTA, Crash, Chrono Trigger, FFVII, Goldeneye, Pokemon, Quake, Age of Empires, the beginning of online gaming, Link to the Past, Mario kart, Smash bros., Star Fox, Ocarina, 4 player multi, Gameboy and more.

Now we have some fantastic games coming out, but they are built on the foundations of that golden age.

I agree with what you are saying here, but I think I would word it a little differently.  The "Golden Age" of comics actually did have the best comics as long as you put those comics inside their cultural context.  For example, Superman #1 and Batman #1 really were the two best comics ever written as long as you were alive in the 30's and 40's and read them when they were first released.  But if you are just picking up these comic books today, then they are going to seem pretty bland.  But to people in the 30's and 40's comic books were the best thing around.  In the 40's, at least 90% of people had read a comic book.  That means that comics were the most popular entertainment medium ever.  Comics in the 40's were more popular than movies, video games, tv or music have ever been, and that is because the comics of that era were exceptionally good in that context.

So, context is vitally important.  Pac-Man is not impressive today, but in the early 80's it was as popular and impactful as GTA V is today.  Retro gamers call the late 70's to early 80's the "Golden Age" of arcades, because there were lots of these phenomenons back then.  Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Galaxian, Donkey Kong, Tempest, Dragon's Lair, Dig Dug, etc....  There was at least 1 brand new IP coming out every year that had the popularity of GTA V or at least Call of Duty.  (Some years had multiple games like this.)  And there were lots and lots of other brand new IP that were moderate successes every single year.  A new successful game like Cuphead, or Hellblade or Nier:Automata would just be an average game by the standards of the early 80's arcade.  So that era can objectively be called a "Golden Age".

On the console side, there are two consoles that really stand out in a similar way: NES and PS2.  Both were hugely successful in their context and gave birth to lots of successful brand new IP (or at least old IP that reinvented itself like GTA 3).  Basically you can say the NES was the "Golden Age" and the PS2 was the "Silver Age" in a similar way to the Golden and Silver Age of comics.  These consoles were cultural phenomenons and their games are hugely influential.  For example, God of War 4 may be a great game, but that doesn't mean that the PS4 is a high point.  It means that the PS2 was a high point, because that is where the God of War franchise started. 

(Heh, and I know I quoted Armanillo, who already agrees with this, but I guess I am just saying this to everybody.  Not meaning to just "preach to the choir".)



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Angelus on 05 May 2018
contestgamer said:
Angelus said:

Haha ya, I did. And if I was that young right now, playing some of the current games coming out, I'd exploding with just as much joy for those. It's pretty hard to get excited about anything as much as I did in my early teens.

Maybe those things are superfluous to you, but they're definitely not to most people. Movie going is, and always has been, an experience. All those things you call superfluous matter. 

You seem to be really caught up on Marvel movies, and Jurassic World. This is the second time you've mentioned them already. Tell me, is there a reason you don't want to talk any recent quality movies like Dunkirk, Three Billboards, Get Out, etc? No, please tell me about how Hollywood cashing in on some remakes of classic movies aren't as good the original. That's weird. People usually never think the originals of anything are better than the lazy offspring they eventually spawn at some point down the line. But by all means, lets use those, and other formulaic blockbusters, to denigrate todays movie makers as a whole. And while we're at it, lets talk down at anybody who might dare enjoy any of those movies. What simpletons they are. Don't they know how much better Godfather was than anything else ever? Don't let the fact that something like the Lord of the Rings trilogy wasn't even remotely achievable back in your personal so called golden age of movies distract you from the how incredibly right you're obviously not

LOL at mentioning get out as a "great" movie. It was good. All time great? Hell no. Hmmm. Ben Hur or get out? God father or get out? Cant decide... Three billboards and Dunkirk were very good, but they weren't on the level of all time great movies from the 70s, 80s 90s. Raging bull or Three billboards? Apocalypse now or Dunkirk? Heck Dunkirk doesnt even crack the top 5 war movies of all time list. So far it seems more in this thread itself agree that past movies ere better than today. Most of the IMB ratings agree in fact with old movies dominating the rankings. 

Way to miss the point entirely

And if anything is "LOL" worthy here it's your readiness to ride the train of popular opinion when it suits you, despite stating many times in this thread how much you despise a whole bunch of things currently popular. The irony is real

Miss me with your deliberately ignorant method of arguing.

Last edited by Angelus - on 05 May 2018

StuOhQ on 05 May 2018

I wouldn't go so far as to say we are in a decline, but this generation certainly has not truly made its mark yet. I'm also a little biased...

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smroadkill15 on 05 May 2018

7th gen was the peak of gaming for me. A good balance between plenty of great new IP's, established franchises, and good online play. This gen has been good but lacks the number of good new IP's compared to previous gens. Plus Lootboxes and other microtransactions have become way too much of a focus. There have definitely been some gems this gen and online play in general is way better than before, but not enough interesting games.