When do you think Gameings Golden era was? or is it yet to be? Do you think all the old Retro Classics from Commerdore 64 and Specturm are deserving? or has it yet to come from the likes of PS4 and the Sega Unlimited?

Do you think we will ever get to the ' Golden Days of Gaming' again? and why not? is the industry chaning for the good or the bad? Can 3d Really Stand up against 2d?

Basicly, when where games at their Finest?

We can all mention a " golden age of gaming" but its based on silly nostalgia more than anything else (maybe not for Joe though)

Every month when a AA title is released is the Golden Age for me, Ghost Recon and Oblivion within a month of eachother, very cool indeed!

When you actually have enough time and money at the same time to play games, that' s were my golden ages are.
Sadly it goes like this: When you' re young you have lots of spare time but no money. When you' re old you have lots of money but no spare time. *Sigh* I guess that' s why I only play the PSP nowadays. On travels or when I' m waiting for something.

I think the " Golden Era" of games was when we didn' t have to rely on astounding graphics to wow the consumers, and developers could spend more time on original and compelling games. as opposed to the 6 month' s in development, spend 1 week on the shelf crapfests. (endless handheld movie tie-ins, i' m talking to you!)

Now, I' m not saying that now there arent any good games out now, far from it, but there' s more bad games than there are good. Some of this stems from the fact that it' s so much cheaper to produce a game now than it was, say 10 or 12 years ago. But i think most of it comes from the fact that dev' s spend too much time on graphics, and not enough time on content. (or in GTA' s case, less in both graphics and gameplay)

When you see reviews of games, when have you ever seen a game get a 2 out of ten, when the gameplay was excellent, the plot was engaging and the music was good, but it just didn' t have the graphics... never. On the other hand though, there are too many that get 1' s or 2' s with great graphics and no content. if we can ever get back to that " Golden Age" of design, thats when the " Golden Age" of games will be.

ORIGINAL: Eddie_the_Hated

Now, I' m not saying that now there arent any good games out now, far from it, but there' s more bad games than there are good. Some of this stems from the fact that it' s so much cheaper to produce a game now than it was, say 10 or 12 years ago. But i think most of it comes from the fact that dev' s spend too much time on graphics, and not enough time on content. (or in GTA' s case, less in both graphics and gameplay)

Depends on your perspective there. Perhaps the words you used aren' t the best. Very rarely do I come across a " Bad" game. I' d say most games out there are " good" solid titles - they' re just not awesome/amazing/life-completing (like Oblivion). They do what they set out to do and give us a few hours of fun. Nothing " bad" about that. The last truly " Bad" game I bought/played was Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance - and that was a few years ago at least.

I don' t think it' s cheaper to develop games today than it was 5-10 years ago. Game devs regularly spend $10 million while producing a game these days - and garage games are almost an extinct species because of the prohibitive publishing costs. The only feasible way to get a taste of being a game dev is to hit the modding scene - but even then it' s not necessarily the same as making a whole new game with a couple of your mates in your garage. Much more work is required overall to get a game up and running to " todays" standards.

Currently I don' t think we' re in the golden age of gaming. The industry is actually going through a very hard time at the moment. I' m more interested in what' s going to happen once the industry sorts itself out and what will result from it. Like someone said before me - nostalgia will blur our vision as to what we think the golden age was. I personally would say the days of the NES were my golden age of gaming.

For me it was the 8-bit and 16-bit generations. The Saturn sure had its moments as well as the Dreamcast. basically anything that' s not Gamecube/PS2/Xbox is the golden age of video games.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the 16-bit era: Genesis/SNES/Turbografx-16/Early Neo-Geo... That to me was the real Golden Age of gaming simply because arcades were thriving and a steady stream of quality games were being released for both arcades and consoles. And also, consoles were capable of doing some pretty decent ports of a lot of the arcade offerings.

For me it was the 8-bit and 16-bit generations. The Saturn sure had its moments as well as the Dreamcast. basically anything that' s not Gamecube/PS2/Xbox is the golden age of video games.

you never really liked this generation of games Joe, how come? is it the endless stream of fps or the sequal to the game that should have never got past the drawing board in the first place? ... or is it the fall of Sega? [becuase you love them deep down]

This genertion has been better than last gen, ps1/n64/saturn had some ammount of complete junk, at least the junk that comes out today is easy on the eye..

When you' re young you have lots of spare time but no money. When you' re old you have lots of money but no spare time.

So true, I think the golden age for me will be this and next year. For the first time in my life I have the money to buy any game I want for a system that belongs all to myself. I look at my 360 and all the games slated for release I look at my bank account and my schedual and its like the fucking stars are going to align very soon. In a few months I will be in gaming heaven.

I' ve almost killed myself in my job that I' ve been slaving in for the last 18 months but I will quit in June to go back to College and finish my DEC in Social Science. And since I will most likely only be doing the three courses I failed when I dropped out, for the first year I will have all the time in the world.

Where i live tuition is paid for by the province, so the only manditory expenses for the next two years will be for my bus pass and books.
So yeah, thousands of dollars+xbox 360*2 courses per semester=golden age of gaming.

However if we are talking about the golden age for everyone, i think its only getting better and better. As someone mentioned nostagia poisons our perception. Sure Sega, Atari, Nintendo were all great but they arn' t comanding much power anymore. The ones that are in control these days are the game creators that are pushing the limits of technology. The simple truth is that games these days are more complex and just better in every mesurable way then they were in the past and this trend won' t stop until we max out the limit of computer proccessors.