90s

90s for me but the 2000s would be close.

Easily the 90's for me.

A tie between the 90s and the 2000s for me! I just can't choose between the two

90s and 2000s because Deus Ex development started in 1998 and released in summer of 2000.

90's for me, golden era of PC gaming, PS1, N64, SNES, SEGA was still going, 3D, VGA, SVGA ushered in, sound cards became a thing, analog stick rises to glory, mouse with optics rather than wheel comes to life, windows start working with games (!).
Nothing even comes close for me.

My vote would honestly go to the 80s because the 80s for arcade and classic PC gaming alone were amazing. But the Atari 2600 (my first console as a toddler), was very good for it's time, and the NES was absolute king of the decade. In fact, NES is my vote for best console of all time, period.

But, I'll say 90s, for the simple fact that the arcades were still going strong in the 90s, and the one on one fighting game genre became a thing thanks to the success of SFII. Also, while the NES was an 80s console, honestly, some of it's very best games came out in the latter years of it's life, from 1990-1994.

Some of the releases on NES in that era alone were amazing: Double Dragon 2, River City Ransom, Super C, Final Fantasy 1, Ninja Gaiden 2 & 3, Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers 1 & 2, Duck Tales 2, Battletoads and Battletoads/Double Dragon, Crystalis, Castlevania III, Little Nemo, Dr. Mario, Mega Man 3-6, Star Tropics 1 & 2, TMNT 2 & 3, Adventure Island 2 & 3, Monster in my Pocket, Bomberman 2, Yoshi, Dragon Warrior 2-4, Gargoyle's Quest 2, RC Pro Am 2, Kirby's Adventure, Mighty Final Fight, Bonk's Adventure, and of course....Super Mario Bros. 3.


And that's to say nothing of how great the Game Boy, SNES, and Genesis were. Nor PC releases. Nor, naturally the Saturn/Playstation/N64. Pretty solid decade all around.

1996 - 2005 (it's also a decade)

• switch from 2D to 3D and boom of 3D acceleration (both on PC + home consoles)
• CD + DVD allowed bigger games, prerendered videos, full voicing  (both on PC + home consoles)
• PS1 (most launch games and 1995 games were "meh", it boomed in 1996/1997 with Crash Bandicoot, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, FF7)
• N64 (finally better control of 3D games thanks to analog stick, Sony also upgraded their PS1-pad)
• Gameboy Color (finally some color on handhelds!)
• DreamCast
• PS2
• GameCube
• Gameboy Advance
• PSP (bigger games on a handheld device)
• Nintendo DS
• Xbox 360 launch
• RARE at its height (Donkey Kong Country 2 + 3, Killer Instinct 1+2, GoldenEye 007, Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, Conker, Banjo Kazooie/Tooie, Kameo)
• LucasArts still great (The Dig, Curse of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, great Star Wars series: Jedi Knight, S.o.t.E., Rogue Squadron, KotoR, Battlefront...), even if their best games were in the previous decade
• Naughty Dogs rise (Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter)

nothing beats the 90s we went from SNES to Dreamcast

'90s, and it's not even close even if the early 2000s have a couple of my (highly ranked) all-time favorites.

Everything and everyone was just at the top of their game, classic after classic. On consoles, on PC, on handhelds, it didn't matter. So many new things, new advancements and large leaps forward in both gameplay as well as hardware. 1998 was the peak, 1993-2003 was the golden era.