Sure games have lost a lot of the challenge to them, and I'm not alone in thinking that. But there's something else...
It's like devs and designers used to make the best out of the technological limitations of the day, which often yielded brilliant results.
gif related. Notice how they take advantage of the stationary camera to scare us with dogs breaking in through windows really close to where the camera is stationed. This is just an example of cleverly taking advantage of the shit technology.
Now it's like technology is just taken for granted. Was the 90s the golden age of video games, or am I just a nostalgia fag?
Nostalgia. Everyone thinks the video game era from when they were kids was the best.
>>330555774
No, it was [when the person reading this was 12].
>>330556069
I'm open to recommendations. What would you say are absolute essentials that have come out since 2014 and after?
>>330556189
I suppose so. Older people will likely say the golden age was the arcade pre-console era, others will say it was the NES, etc.
>>330555774
Yes. Developers had the most freedom and projects could be carried out with a relatively small team.
Vidya is all about maximizing profits ran by gigantic companies. The soul of vidya has long been siphoned away.
Early 2000s could potentially compete, but for me it was the 90s
>>330556069
I don't think anyone will remember call of duty and it's clones as the pinnacle of anything.
>>330555774
I feel ya anon. I'd think it's nostalgia but I recently started playing ps1 games that i never got to play as a kid cause I had an n64 back then, and I'm having a blast.
Got through Silent Hill, Castlevania SoTN and Metal Gear Solid and they don't make them this good anymore.
>>330558621
>SoTN
Now I wanna go back and play that one. Thanks m8.
>>330558373
>The soul of vidya has long been siphoned away.
It all happened so fast, though. And it's kind of a recent development. Indie games are just not as good either. They're mostly clones of the old stuff, or money cows made to get your average mobile game-playing joe addicted.
I don't mean to sound like a tinfoil or anything, because there's still gems being made. It's just so hard to find them, though.
I'm guessing this is also related to the fact that it's much easier to make a game now than it used to be. Anybody can be an indie dev now. It used to require engineering/technology know-how, and now anybody can get access to a game engine and make something.
>>330559776
That's not tinfoil at all anon. It's true.
>>330555774
Silent Hill was better than Resident Evil.
Wasn't there is guy who's been gaming since the Atari 2600 era that gave his explaination on why the 90's was the golden age of gaming?
The 90s were great but PS2 golden age was peak vidya. Shit started getting going downhill around seventh gen.
>>330555774
>was the 90s the golden age of vidya?
Yes.
>It's like devs and designers used to make the best out of the technological limitations of the day
That's exactly what happened. Strict limitations tickled creativity, and each improvement and innovation was actually a big thing. Something as minor as being able to flip light-switched in Duke3D was mindblowing.
>Now it's like technology is just taken for granted.
It is. Especially kids born very late 90s / early 00s can't even recall or imagine having to memorize some (very basic) DOS commands to browse folders and launch executables. Or having to actually go out to buy games, and either figure things out on your own, or buy a game magazine / guide book with instructions for the hard part.
>Was the 90s the golden age of video games, or am I just a nostalgia fag?
You're not. Where as mid 1980's re-vitalized the gaming industry, the 90's not only perfected many earlier genres, but also spawned tons of all new ones. The jump from 2D to actual 3D was HUGE thing for one.
It was also a time when nothing was set to stone. Devs were not tied by some set "standards" like nowadays, when every other AAA game uses the same control scheme and design as in CoD/AssCreed/FC/Halo...etc. There was a wide variety of totally different kind of games, something for everyone, instead of horrible mixtures trying to appeal to everyone at once.
Pic quite related; whenever I hear of someone suffering of the "tired gamer syndrome", I whip out this image, and send them off to recover using some of these games. So far, the results have been great as well, though I know the low-res graphics can be the nasty part of this medicine for some to swallow, at first.
>>330561261
not OP, and I agree with you.
However, it's pretty clear that without RESI coining the basics, there would not be SH as we know it. Originally, Konami only wanted to get on that money-printing survival horror boom Capcom had started, even setting up a very hastily put together team to create it.
Luckily, the team did not agree on just taking random yank horror B-movies and making a game like that, but did instead seek inspiration from some classic horror books and urban legends. The result was this much more creative and mature, psychological horror trip.
This again demonstrates how great the 90's were: new features and fads were born and perfected, in a relatively short period of time. The 6th console gen pretty much continued the 5th one's working ideas, with greatly improved tech.
>>330561261
Dino Crisis AND Silent Hill shat on Resident Evil on so many levels.
>Resident Evil
>the puzzles consist in "fart around and pick up keys"
>by the end of the game you have something like 8 red+green herbs and 70+ spare shotgun rounds
>Silent Hill/Dino Crisis 1
>puzzles consist in riddles that require you to think and decoding shit
>if you play in hard mode you have to manage ammo and healing REALLY well
>>330556069
Will kids think that the 2000s were the greatest decade for games?
>>330563114
This is already a popular belief, even on /v/. Keep in mind that people born in 1996 are adults now.
>>330562960
That said I wouldn't want to go back to the 90s. Military vehicle sims and tactical shooters (RO2, Squad, etc) are more alive now than they have ever been.
I would say that the Golden Age of Gaming wasn't just one Generation, but spanned across multiple Generations. I think that the Golden Age started mid-late in the NES's lifetime, somewhere around the time the Sega Genesis came out, all the way to the end of 2007 in the Seventh Generation.
>>330555774
Programmers might not normally push it to the limit because they don't have to, and map design + other small details may have become a lost art by now. But we have some cool shit we didn't have before, too.
There is no boogieman here, only nostaligafagging. Well, that's what I want to say, but there's just some shit they don't make anymore.
>>330563114
I turned 12 on the year 2000. So I was kinda young in the 90s, but had older siblings who introduced me to vidya. I played more games in the 2000s than I did in the 90s, and although the 2000s holds a special place in my heart, I still feel the 90s was better.
In the 90s, games still were considered to be a thing of nerds and outcasts. Like it was ok to say you had played a game, but I remember making an effort to not talk too much about them because being a "fan" was kinda looked down on.
Naturally, games were made by people who were fans of games... They'd play lots of Magic: The Gathering, D&D, and other games/vidya. It took people like that, who on top of that also had to have technology know-how, that made games.
>>330563602
Early 90s-2007 sounds about right, I agree.
>>330564074
Certain things have gotten better, I'm not going to deny that. The voice acting in RE1 was atrocious, for instance. Now most AAA games have actual quality actors working for them.
>Programmers might not normally push it to the limit because they don't have to
It wasn't just programmers, though. It was designers too. Though I guess back then, to be a designer, you had to be a programmer as well. Maybe not the star programmer in your team, but a programmer regardless.
Either way, everything just feels recycled. Nothing is as surprising as it used to be in the 90s-early 2000s. Maybe I'm just old and jaded now.
Nowadays every game seems to have an orchestrated soundtrack.
>>330556069
>>330555774
At least they tried new stuff then.
Everything is exactly the same now.
It gets dumb having the EXACT same game over and over with no new game-play, just with better graphics.
>>330564875
You're only seeing what you want to see. If you actually look you'll see there's still plenty of innovation in video games.
>>330564793
Orchestral music is the easiest way to make something seem intense or emotional so that's no surprise.
>>330564940
Can you give a few examples?
>>330555774
pic related
>>330565015
This. I'm more than open to suggestions.
>>330564940
>inovation
>games
kek
>>330555774
I would argue ps2/gamecube/xbox was the best, I remember the first time I saw a cutscene after years of psone/n64, the mouths on the characters actually moved in sync to what they were saying. I was hyped as fuck.
>>330564940
VR will give some creativity but companies are too worried about a failure to try something like Resident Evil these days.
The best games now seem to be the ones that allow modding.
Dayz was the best thing to come out of Arma 2/3.
And Arma in general is good because they spend time developing it, and building on the past game instead of re-inventing the whole engine so they can say 5 STAR GRAPHICS
LOOKS SOOOOO REAL
If I want something that real I'll go the shooting range buddy.
>>330565697
>Dayz was the best thing to come out of Arma 2/3.
Drink hydrazine on livecam.
>>330565850
I mean as far as something new and creative.
Now its stagnated and everyone has a fucking survival zombie game out.
>>330565410
That's a good point. I'll say the golden age lasted until the xbox 360 generation.
>>330566014
It wasn't even that new and creative either as zombie missions existed since circa OFP. The new thing it brought to the table is a shitty PvP "survival" mode in which the zombies have been a nonfactor since almost the beginning. Oh and irreparably ruining a community that wasn't that good to begin with.
>And Arma in general is good because they spend time developing it, and building on the past game
Arma in general is pretty fucking pisspoor from the technical standpoint, and it's still pretty clunky considering that it's the 4th game in the series.
>>330555774
Yeah. Big companies back then were willing to experiment and could actually innovate.
Anyone who just says "le nostalgia" is just an 15 year old moron.
>>330565141
>Turned the serie in pachinko
Dead alongside twinbee, castlevania and Gradius
Fuck you , Konami!
>>330558373
Yes they do. Go look at any COD comment section on youtube. People are fucking nostalgia wanking over MW2 like it was the good old days for christ sake. They'll be doing the same for Black Ops 3 in 5-6 years.
>>330566934
And Bomberman as well
Double Fuck Konami
>>330567075
But that could mean things are just getting worse every day...
>>330555774
The golden age started with the snes/genesis and ended with the ps2/gc/xbhueg.
