What Is Your Favorite Console Generation?

[Magmavision2000]

It can be for any reason from "I like the games from this generation", to " the color of this console is good".

Edited November 22, 2019 by Magmavision2000

[Flojomojo]

I like good games. I don't put much stock in the concept of "generations," particularly as listed on Wikipedia, well-meaning as it is. 

[adamchevy]

I like good games. I don't put much stock in the concept of "generations," particularly as listed on Wikipedia, well-meaning as it is. 

Same. I understand grouping them by relative processing power and chip architecture, but the games are all that matter to me. In some ways the 2600 feels very modern to me. Especially with the continued Homebrew/indie scene. It’s just as vibrant as other current consoles, and sometimes more so. You can chat directly with the developers of most games that you purchase, and be a part of the development if you really know your shit. I’ve so far owned and played consoles in every generation. I can say that I like all of the great games I’ve played on each system:

[Flojomojo]

Also, I play a lot of old games on new hardware. The lines between old and new are blurrier than they used to be. 

[syn]

I had to pick all as there are some great games from each, fond memories from each as I grew up with each.

 

Still working on the growing up part!

[chuckwalla]

1 hour ago, Flojomojo said:

I like good games. I don't put much stock in the concept of "generations," particularly as listed on Wikipedia, well-meaning as it is. 

Wikipedia was good initially but has been a fountain of misinformation and is very political (and "politically correct" in their minds).

 

In terms of video game generations, these are the types of games and systems I treasure the most (Atari 2600 not pictured but very much included).

 

[Tanooki]

I don't remember which number is what as they're in many cases blurry.  I couldn't in good conscience vote anyway.  The 8bit or 16bit console era would be it, just not sure I think which I'd put on top but if I had to I'd lean towards 16bit despite growing up more on the 8bit side of things (16bit was high school.)

[BassGuitari]

What Is Your Favorite Console Generation?

 

Yes.

[derFunkenstein]

To quote Michael Bolton from Office Space, “I guess I sorta like ‘em all”

 

I mean, I’m Sega Genesis all the way but it’s hard to limit myself. As much as I love the 16-bit era, I’m spending so much time with the Switch and PS4 these days. Every generation in between, too. 

[pablum]

Not so much a fan of games having "generations" labels, but the 16-bit era was where I thought the sweet-spot was in terms of graphical fidelity, sound, and gameplay.

[Tales from the Game Room]

Personally, I am always fond of the Atari/Intellivision/Colecovision era.  I enjoyed not only the games of the era, which were simplistic, creative, original, and easy to pick up and play.  But the fact that that they all competed with the goal of bringing the arcade into your home.

 

If you are into video games, then the early 80's were the best time to be a teenager!

Edited November 22, 2019 by Tales from the Game Room

[Flojomojo]

^^ this too

 

but like pop music, the "best" is often linked to what was popular when you were 12-16 years old!

[digdugnate]

i like... games?  there were great games in every generation and sucky games in every generation.  naturally i'll gravitate towards the ones that i liked. 

[VectorGamer]

2 hours ago, Tales from the Game Room said:

Personally, I am always fond of the Atari/Intellivision/Colecovision era.  I enjoyed not only the games of the era, which were simplistic, creative, original, and easy to pick up and play.  But the fact that that they all competed with the goal of bringing the arcade into your home.

 

If you are into video games, then the early 80's were the best time to be a teenager!

This. To me the classics of the 70s and early 80s are where it's at.

[TheCoolDave]

All of the above.  I've played 1000's of games, I've owned/still own, pretty much every system out there from 1975ish to current.  They all had their gems, and their crappy games.  I am into games, not really what generation it's from.  I will go some days playing the new Modern Warfare, to SNES Super Mario land, or even 2600 Yars' revenge.

 

I could never decide on the best Generation of consoles.  Could it be the NES, SNES ?  I remember having 10+ friends over my house in my room playing Mario Cart and compete till we have a winner, this was a regular thing... Or Neo-Geo fighting games ? Who knows, I had a blast through all of them and still enjoy them. 

[adamchevy]

All of the above.  I've played 1000's of games, I've owned/still own, pretty much every system out there from 1975ish to current.  They all had their gems, and their crappy games.  I am into games, not really what generation it's from.  I will go some days playing the new Modern Warfare, to SNES Super Mario land, or even 2600 Yars' revenge.   I could never decide on the best Generation of consoles.  Could it be the NES, SNES ?  I remember having 10+ friends over my house in my room playing Mario Cart and compete till we have a winner, this was a regular thing... Or Neo-Geo fighting games ? Who knows, I had a blast through all of them and still enjoy them. 

 

 

 A lot of retro podcasters and youtubers like to aggrandize the 16bit Generation of consoles. I don’t think they had anything the 8bit Generation didn’t already do gameplay wise. I think there were some evolutionary leaps in most genres during the 16bit generation, particularly in the RPG and fighting game genres. But the same could be said for every generation of games up to where we are today. I think the creativity can never be understated when you talk about the 8bit Generation. It was the birth of the whole gaming industry. They were creating genres as they went along. I do believe that the entire gaming industry owes almost everything to Ataris genesis and game creation genius. In that sense it will always be my favorite generation. If the same company that Nolan founded could have held together with the same great talent. I think they would be a driving force today in the gaming industry . Especially on the hardware side. I think Nintendo would have been a better company with that kind of competition.

 

 

[BydoEmpire]

These days it's almost all 80s 8-bit consoles: Atari, Inty, CV, 7800, with a little SMS thrown in.  I don't know what generation numbers those are and I don't really care.  Mostly pre-crash, but the 7800 and SMS don't fit that.

 

If I had to pick one generation's native library to live with forever it'd probably be the 16-bit era - just a little bit more variety - even though I don't play them much anymore.

[Flojomojo]

1 hour ago, adamchevy said:

 A lot of retro podcasters and youtubers like to aggrandize the 16bit Generation of consoles. I don’t think they had anything the 8bit Generation didn’t already do gameplay wise.

I think it's because of when they grew up. The stuff from when you were a kid will always have a special place in your memories. 

[adamchevy]

I think it's because of when they grew up. The stuff from when you were a kid will always have a special place in your memories. 

 

A lot of the ones I listen to are atleast my age(38) and older. Most are in there mid 40s and grew up with Atari 2600s and Nes consoles. I’m not sure why they hold so strictly to the 16 bit generation. The

Retro hour and the Retro game club both refer to the Genesis and the Snes in a very special way.

[Flojomojo]

Being born in 1981 or so makes them tweens at the height of SNES/Genesis. Seems about right to me. 

 

I know that I wouldn't have any special affection for Atari/Intellivision/Colecovision had I not obsessed over them at that age. 

[adamchevy]

I was in my tweens during the Ps1 era and I can’t stand that generation. I’ll play the occasional Dreamcast game, but I haven’t played an OG playstation game in many years.

I’ll even tell you that Final Fantasy 7 was the greatest RPG I’ve ever played. But I don’t want to ever play it again.

[Flojomojo]

8 minutes ago, adamchevy said:

I was in my tweens during the Ps1 era and I can’t stand that generation. I’ll play the occasional Dreamcast game, but I haven’t played an OG playstation game in many years.

I want to hear more about that. I grew up with Atari and limited computer resources, where "flight simulators" had crappy jaggy graphics and single digit frame rates. The smooth, textured 3D of the Playstation, which generally ran at technically acceptable frame rates, was like the realization of ancient computer game dreams. The stretch between 12FPS, low-poly stuff like StarFox on SNES and the 1995 Playstation felt like decades, not mere years. 

 

But now, most OG Playstation games look like ass. Is that what you mean? Just that we've moved on?

[adamchevy]

I want to hear more about that. I grew up with Atari and limited computer resources, where "flight simulators" had crappy jaggy graphics and single digit frame rates. The smooth, textured 3D of the Playstation, which generally ran at technically acceptable frame rates, was like the realization of ancient computer game dreams. The stretch between 12FPS, low-poly stuff like StarFox on SNES and the 1995 Playstation felt like decades, not mere years. 

 

But now, most OG Playstation games look like ass. Is that what you mean? Just that we've moved on?

 

Yeah I mean they haven’t aged well. For some reason the 2600 looks like HD in comparison. I can’t stand the 3D early polygons. I would rather play 16 bit games than have to look at the 32bit generation of graphics for more than 5 minutes. I wish the 2d sprite based developers would have harnessed the power of the PlayStation like indie developers have done over the past few years. Shovel Knight would have been an awesome Playstation 1 game! Super Meat boy would have been great as well! Or games done in the 3D dot game heroes style. I really can’t go back. I’ve never seen PS1 upscaled to native 1080p, but I bet the jaggies would make your eyes bleed.

[Ramses]

5 hours ago, adamchevy said:

 

Yeah I mean they haven’t aged well. For some reason the 2600 looks like HD in comparison. I can’t stand the 3D early polygons. I would rather play 16 bit games than have to look at the 32bit generation of graphics for more than 5 minutes. I wish the 2d sprite based developers would have harnessed the power of the PlayStation like indie developers have done over the past few years. Shovel Knight would have been an awesome Playstation 1 game! Super Meat boy would have been great as well! Or games done in the 3D dot game heroes style. I really can’t go back. I’ve never seen PS1 upscaled to native 1080p, but I bet the jaggies would make your eyes bleed.

I generally feel the same way. I can only go back to the few sprite based games on PS1. For me, it's mostly because of the ugly 3D texturing of that era and the weird distortion of the polys when they get close to the camera. I will add that I don't mind modern low poly games if they have a nice aesthetic, so it's not really the polygon count in itself that bothers me.

[BassGuitari]

20 hours ago, adamchevy said:

 A lot of retro podcasters and youtubers like to aggrandize the 16bit Generation of consoles. I don’t think they had anything the 8bit Generation didn’t already do gameplay wise. I think there were some evolutionary leaps in most genres during the 16bit generation, particularly in the RPG and fighting game genres.

 

I agree with this assessment, for the most part. My experience and recollection of the 16-bit era was that the games were fundamentally more of the same, but bigger, prettier, and more refined, and that certainly wasn't a bad thing. I think Exhibit A of this is all the 16-bit sequels to 8-bit titles/series. Exhibit B would be the back-ports of arcade titles that had already come out on 8-bit hardware that wasn't quite up to the task. And naturally, new games that came out on both 8- and 16-bit systems were always superior on the 16-bits, while the 8-bit versions were regarded as watered-down "poor man's" versions.

 

On the other hand, there was also visible progression. We started to see stuff that 8-bits couldn't do, like the SuperFX and Mode 7 stuff on the SNES, or FMV on the Sega CD, which may have been an evolutionary dead end but nevertheless provided another new way of approaching game design. As mentioned in above posts, the fighting and RPG genres really took off.

 

As for the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Dreamcast...I love those old bastards*, lol. I will say that a CRT or some kind of upscaler is almost required equipment for these, though. They look horrendous on big modern LCD TVs (Dreamcast looks pretty good, or at least good enough, but PSX and N64 look awful). Can't argue with the game lineups, though!

 

(*Apologies to the Saturn, which is no doubt a great a system...but nobody frickin' had it BITD and so my experience with it is much more limited.  But I do enjoy my itsy-bitsy Saturn collection!)