The last good console generation...

[Lord Helmet]

I love 'em all. This gen included. In fact, I like this gen better than the previous.

[Rex Dart]

The last generation could have had a few more years in it, at least the Xbox could have. It really felt premature when it was discontinued.

 

 

That's for sure. I was working at a Gamestop before & when the 360 launched, and we had so many people come in looking to be the old Xbox. All we could do was to offer them used bundles, since MS had stopped shipping the original unit to stores by then. And then the 360 launched with a bunch of games that'd clearly been developed for the old hardware & shoehorned into the 360 just so it could launch with something. Didn't see any real next-gen games until Assassin's Creed, I thought.

[jhd]

I also voted for the Sixth Generation.

 

The PS 2 is the most recent console I own and I it!

 

I have absolutely no interest in online play or DLC. I have yet to see anything for the current generation that would make me have to go out and buy someting newer.

 

Sate-of-the-art graphics are not really an issue when I am playing 1980s arcade games.

[rxd]

I am slightly interested in the Xbox 360 just to see what I'm missing out on, but the reliability issues keep me at bay. Anyone know if they more or less nicked that problem with the slim?

 

The Xbox 360 issues were all fixed long before the slim came out...

[CGQuarterly]

I think this gen is great. Mass Effect, Gear of War, Dragon Age, Oblivion, Fallout, Halo, Uncharted 2, Zelda on Wii, Bioshock, Batman Arkham Assylum, Red Dead Redemption, Assassin's Creed, Heavy Rain, Super Marion Galaxy, Fable, Call of Duty, etc.

 

Great games coming like Portal 2, LA Noire, Crysis 2, Deus Ex, new Zelda, Last guardian, Batman Arkham Assylum 2, coming soon,

 

I think as some people grow older, they become more jaded and nostalgic about what they think is good. Then there is the other extreme (me) who are 40 but will still be grabbing the 3DS at launch because if it's video games, and it's new, I must have it, and I will find a way to love it. I think the added peripherals of this gen made for some fun party games too. Kinect is fun when people come over, and wii has been the party / everybody can play system since launch. I am loving this gen.

 

But hell, I love every gen...

 

Atari is my youth.

Nintendo is my teens

Genesis / SNES is my college years

Saturn / N64 was that weird time between college and officially growing up. Roomates, illegal activity and Mario Kart made up many a Saturday.

PS1 / Dreamcast when I finally grew up and got married

Xbox and PS2 living the DINK life

360 PS3 and Wii family, house, playing with the kids.

 

It's AAAAALLLL good.

 

I agree with this. There are still plenty of great games being made, so there is no reason not to be excited about modern gaming. I also look at each generation of consoles in relation to where I was and what I was doing, so I can't pick one over another. They were all great. I'm not quite as old as you are, Red, so my associations are off by about one generation, but otherwise your analysis is spot on. Is DINK "dual income, no kids"? That's where I'm at!

 

Chris

[Vic George 2K3]

This generation may arguably be the last good generation for video games. I'm just not sure how the next generation, whenever it will come, will top what's currently available, whether it will be a big enough leap from this generation or just a short hop.

[xg4bx]

I think the biggest difference between this gen and the last for me is that I don't love any of the games. There's stuff I like but I don't love it. Other than stuff like the fallout games I honestly haven't found much that's worth keeping in my collection, whereas id rather lose an arm than give up my copy of freedom fighters or rogue trooper. Each time I play those it feels like the 1st time all over again.

 

This may be a controversial statement but I think things like achievements ruined games,at least for me. Its a psychological thing like "well I got the achievements, why would I want to go back through the game?" It makes a 2nd playthrough feel like an empty experience. I know its all mental but its hard to break that carrot/stick mentality.

 

The emphasis on wannabe cinematic storytelling also ruins the experience. It feels more like watching a movie over and over. I'm tired of being constantly interrupted and taken out of gameplay because some budding david fincher wants to tell me his hack, horse crap story. That wasn't such a problem last gen,any story elements were quick and relatively unobtrusive.

 

I guess it boils down to gameplay,gameplay,gameplay. It feels like most games this gen do everything in their power to disguise the fact that there's not much going on. They try to turn a standard cover shooter into an epic experience, its graphics engine masturbation disguised as a game. We've got great tech demos this gen but the games are suffering for it.

 

Basically, I think games aren't much fun this gen.

Edited March 20, 2011 by xg4bx

[Video]

While I love the current generation, I liked the last one better. The graphics from last generationto this generation are not much different, there are some, but for the most part, without a side by side, you won't notice them (especially with the Xbox) They hadn't set up all this online BS, so you didn't have to "update" every other game just to play it... there wasn't all this "buy digital you don't actually own anything" crap either. I liked that.

 

Xbox just kicked ass, and was the last console I genuinely felt excited about constantly, the last one before it was the SNES. Handhelds, the GBA was where it was at.

[Petran79]

I forgot to add:

 

One experienced gamer mentioned that every player is marked by the games he first started playing and his opinion is shaped by this. He had started with text adventures in the 80s.

 

I vote the older generation till 1985 taking into account economic and social factors, rather than the change in video games per se and my personal preferences.

 

Because i know that had i a ps3 or xbox 360 as a kid i would be in ecstasy. As an adult i felt i played all this before, even without 3d and hd

[godslabrat]

I've enjoyed gaming from every generation, even this one. But, my vote goes to the SNES/Genny generation. Not only did that generation define a lot of what I personally see as being "what gaming is all about", but the stuff that happened in the next generation would eventually sour me on the industry as a whole. Namely, a departure from 2-D to 3-D, hyper-commercialization of games, games being sold as "interactive movies" rather than friggin' games, and Nintendo having a good system turned into a mockery over some misguided-but-reasonable-at-the-time decisions.

 

It seems like when Nintendo and Sega were fighting it out, the customer always won. Now that Sony and Microsoft fight it out, it seems like nobody wins.

[Mendon]

I'm not sure its a generation as defined by this thread, but I enjoyed the days of the Saturn and Dreamcast the most.

 

Man, Sega was just so willing to expand gaming, innovate, and take chances back then. On the Saturn, they introduced browsing the internet, sharing of Game Saves with the ability to download them from websites, and online gaming with the NetLink. On the DC, they expanded on that by adding broadband, multiplayer online games, the first console MMO (Phantasy Star), and tried out entirely new types of games, like Seaman. On both systems, they not only had incredible games, but gave away games like Christmas Knights for the Saturn and Sega Swirl for the DC.

 

I love the days of Atari - Intellivision - Odyssey - Colecovision, but I think I had the most gaming fun of all with my Saturn and Dreamcast. So put me down for that generation

 

 

Mendon

Edited March 21, 2011 by Mendon

[keilbaca]

Definitely the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox/Dreamcast generation.

 

Today's games are nice, but I just don't see myself really sticking to a game, other than Pinball FX 2.

 

I just can't seem to really love any games like I did on the Dreamcast/PS2 consoles. Even Smash Brothers was better on the NGC.

 

Zero Gunner 2, Ikaruga, Burnout 3, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Psychonauts, the list goes on.

 

Today is all about online play. Which is nice to its own degree, but not for me. I'd rather compare scores online and not actually play anyone. Even Marvel vs Capcom 3 already lost interest with me.

[Red 5]

I agree with this. There are still plenty of great games being made, so there is no reason not to be excited about modern gaming. I also look at each generation of consoles in relation to where I was and what I was doing, so I can't pick one over another. They were all great. I'm not quite as old as you are, Red, so my associations are off by about one generation, but otherwise your analysis is spot on. Is DINK "dual income, no kids"? That's where I'm at!

 

Chris

 

DINK is double income no kids, and enjoy the time! You will love having kids (if you do) but you will mis the $$$. I switched over from buying everything in sight to a 3 games out at a time GameFly plan. Also switched to playing whenever I wanted to playing from 8PM to Midnight. (I'm playing Bulletstorm and Homefront right now which is not exactly good for my 7 years olds eyes, so only after they are in bed.) Of course we can play Kinect and Wii games with the kids.

 

Enjoy your DINKhood. My wife and I were just laughing about how one weekend we decided to go to Vegas out of the blue. We went to Paris because we found cheap airfare and left a week later. That ... well... let's just say that doesn't happen anymore. But we do have an excuse to go to Chuck E Cheese, so ... well... yeah...

[SlowCoder]

I don't know if I'll really stop at any particular generation. I buy games and consoles because I enjoy playing. With everything that's happened in the last generation, which I heartedly disagree with, I still don't think I'll stop. But I'm not a "buy every current gen console" guy either. And if I still want to play my older games, well, I've got them too.

 

I buy game systems so that I can play games. Up through gen 6, I could just plug in a game and play. If there are bugs, you're pretty much stuck with them. But as long as the games play well, that's cool with me.

 

I rather enjoy online gaming. I've made friends online that I really look forward to playing with.

 

I don't mind realistic gameplay either. I figure, if I can't race my car through a big city in real life, why not do it virtually? Hopefully in the future, before I get too old to stand, I will be able to envelope myself into a 3D fantasy world, where I can truly mentally escape the real world, and explore.

[toptenmaterial]

I think that their should be a distinction made between "last good generation" and "favorite generation". I think that a lot of folks who get particularly nostagic for a certain console or era don't give up when that time passes.

 

For me, I have been extremely impressed with Nintendo's offerings this recent gen. You have the DS and Wii, which both take old school, balls to the wall platforming to a whole new level. No complaints here!

[Atariboy]

I've enjoyed gaming this generation quite a bit. So I can't say that I've been disappointed or haven't had a lot of fun.

 

But I agree that it's sad that development cost are so high these days that we don't get many of the niche titles that we used to be able to expect. Developers and publishers are forced more now than ever to craft their big projects for as large of an audience as possible due the economics of modern game development. There's less room now for risk and experimentation or trying to capture a small niche in the marketplace.

 

And I also think trophies and achievements are a bit of a double edged sword. They're so addicting that I find I'm not playing new games as often as I'd like since I'm wasting time doing things like being bored for 25 hours finishing up the last half of Forza 2 for the achievements long after I stopped having much fun. In a way, it's a great innovation since it's enjoyable to hunt them and it adds value to your games since you tend to play them longer than you would've otherwise. But I find I tend to play games less on other platforms like the original Xbox since I'm not being rewarded with achievements on them.

 

Maybe I'm getting better though. I think it's been a month since I last heard that achievement unlocked sound and I've been playing on systems without achievements or trophies.

 

At least he said NGC instead of GCN - a proper acronym instead of a codename. We don't call the gameboy a DMG now do we?

 

The GameCube's codename was Dolphin. GCN is it's official abbreviation in North America and Europe.

 

The graphics from last generationto this generation are not much different, there are some, but for the most part, without a side by side, you won't notice them (especially with the Xbox)

 

I sure can tell the difference. I kind of thought similarly early on this generation thinking games like RalliSport Challenge 2 weren't far removed from current generation games. But revisiting them now, it's quite a shock to realize just how far graphics have progressed from levels I once thought were amazing looking back in 2004 or so.

Edited March 23, 2011 by Atariboy

[Tr3vor]

Who needs achivements or trophies when I can beat my high score on Yars' Revenge? thats an achievment to me.

 

I don't get caught up in trophy hunting. I play they game untill I beat it, then I get the trophies that are easy/fun then I forget about the rest.

[Rex Dart]

 

At least he said NGC instead of GCN - a proper acronym instead of a codename. We don't call the gameboy a DMG now do we?

 

The GameCube's codename was Dolphin. GCN is it's official abbreviation in North America and Europe.

 

 

Eh, you know what I was getting at. By the way, that should be "its", not "it's"

[zylon]

I voted 6th gen. I love the xbox and kinda like the cube. As far as the 360 goes, the only games I liked on it were sequels and rehashes of past games. I've had it nearly 3 years and maybe put 40hrs total on it.

[CGQuarterly]

I agree with this. There are still plenty of great games being made, so there is no reason not to be excited about modern gaming. I also look at each generation of consoles in relation to where I was and what I was doing, so I can't pick one over another. They were all great. I'm not quite as old as you are, Red, so my associations are off by about one generation, but otherwise your analysis is spot on. Is DINK "dual income, no kids"? That's where I'm at!

 

Chris

 

DINK is double income no kids, and enjoy the time! You will love having kids (if you do) but you will mis the $$$. I switched over from buying everything in sight to a 3 games out at a time GameFly plan. Also switched to playing whenever I wanted to playing from 8PM to Midnight. (I'm playing Bulletstorm and Homefront right now which is not exactly good for my 7 years olds eyes, so only after they are in bed.) Of course we can play Kinect and Wii games with the kids.

 

Enjoy your DINKhood. My wife and I were just laughing about how one weekend we decided to go to Vegas out of the blue. We went to Paris because we found cheap airfare and left a week later. That ... well... let's just say that doesn't happen anymore. But we do have an excuse to go to Chuck E Cheese, so ... well... yeah...

 

We went to Hawaii last November on very short notice, so yeah it's nice. Kids are cool but they just aren't for us.

 

Chris

[Segataritensoftii]

Accidental doublepost.

Edited March 23, 2011 by Segataritensoftii

[Segataritensoftii]

I'd have to say it's the fifth generation for me. It just felt like the sixth was full of boring rehashes of the same old concepts and stifling development costs.

 

I think the arrival of game downloads in the seventh gen is a mixed blessing. You have less ownership of your games now, but there's much more variety and innovation in the download market than retail games in the sixth gen had.

[Bilnick]

For me, the current generation has always been my favorite, whether it is 1979 or 2011. Gaming has always advanced and improved over the previous generation in my opinion. Sometimes the improvements are small, like the NES/SMS era to the SNES/Genesis era. Sometimes the improvements are huge, like this generation over the Xbox/PS2/GC generation.

 

High def gaming, motion controls, a mature online experience, 3D gaming (on select PS3 games), casualgames, a larger selection of new games at a variety of price points. Gaming is more inclusive now than it has ever been.

[atarian63]

Fifth gen for me, other than Dreamcast each following gen is less and less satifying. Over commercialization and complexity have ruined gaming in many ways. I think I have more fun with my Android phone games.