Best generation of games consoles

[Serena]

So, the recent release of Xbox One and PS4 has spawned yet another new generation of games consoles. But are the newest games consoles always the best, or do you prefer the simpler 16 Bit times of old?

Which generation of consoles had the best variety of games, and the perfect balance of technological advancement and addictive game play?

In my opinion, recent consoles focus too much on online gaming or novelty features. I don't want a complex entertainment system, I don't want to play with all my friends and family swinging my arm around in the air...I want to sit in my bedroom biting my lip totally immersed in full concentration on Ocarina of Time. I also prefer the cartoonish graphics of the SNES / Megadrive era to the realistic graphics of nowadays. Am I the only gaming dinosaur who can't keep up with the changes?

What is the best generation of games consoles?

 

[Lottie.]

I am caught between the Playstation 2/Sega Dreamcast/Gamecube/Xbox generation and the PS3/Xbox 360/Wii generation.

Don't get me wrong, I love the new consoles that are out atm but I do have a major soft spot for old games. Perhaps that is due to my childhood and spending time on them with my brother. I totally agree that all the latest consoles now have the online gaming feature which I don't tend to bother with. I want to sit on my own playing a game and having fun, trying to work out puzzles and getting stressed that I can't do them (yes, Tomb Raider, I am looking at you!)

The realistic graphics are great but sometimes I want a bit of nostalgia knowing how simplistic games were designed 'back in the day'.

If I had to choose though, PS2/Dreamcast etc. era for me. Tbh they are the consoles I do tend to play a lot atm. Even if I have got the PS4 today, but you know, I like to vary the consoles I play.

 

[Darren B]

Xbox 360 and PS3.

I've had both, and these were the first consoles that blew me away, in graphics and in realness terms. Of course all through my childhood I've gone from console to console, and everyone of them has given me special memories. Road Rash and Fifa 1994 on the Sega Mega drive, WWF Smackdown on the PS1, Amazing games!

 

[DelPiero]

I've gone with the PS2 option.
Certain games in the SNES/Megadrive era are iconic and i have great memories of some of them.
But the PS2 gave me some of the best times of my life. A friend and I spent many many days playing Capcom Vs SNK, and had some unbelievable fights. I miss those days, they were amazing. That was definitely the most played of all the consoles I've had.

 

[furie]

Am I the only gaming dinosaur who can't keep up with the changes?

I suspect I'm one of only two gaming dinosaurs on the site, ECG being the other :lol:

I'll keep this brief.

I've almost seen the lot. From a consumer point of view, I have. I had a Binatone entertainment system and a simple Pong rip-off machine as well - which were essentially the first mass consumer home consoles. No cartridges, just a couple of paddles (and a motorbike throttle actually) and some big metal switches to change the game.

I also used to play a huge number of the LED/LCD game devices. Mini Munchman was great, but the LCD version of Zaxxon (which I gave to Big John as a wedding present) was brilliant.

I learnt to code as well as game in 1981 on a TI 994A. It had both tape and cartridge and the absolute best version of Space Invaders ever. Seriously, get a TI99 emulator and find a ROM of TI Invaders - it's sublime. I also used to play on a neighbour's ZX81.

Really, in the UK at that time, it was all about home computers. The Atari 2600 was okay, but the joystick ripped your palm apart and the games were incredibly blocky and simplistic. Compared to the might of the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum - it was a wood panelled monstrosity.

It took years until the NES hit our shores, and by then we'd glimpsed the Amiga and Atari ST - showing what a home computer was really capable of. While the NES (and a little later the Master System) had some great little titles, the better versions could usually be found on a home computer. Even with the advent of the Megadrive (Genesis) and SNES - the Amiga could still out power and was still being programmed significantly better. The real games were there on the home computers.

Sadly Serena, they pioneered today's titles you dislike :lol: While there were numerous arcade titles - rinse and repeat type of games (where you tend to do the same levels over and over learning movement and enemy patterns by rote) - they also gave us the future. Geoff Crammond with his F1 games and the superlative (and best ever link up game) Stunt Car Racer. Dungeon Master which was the forerunner of FPS and modern adventure games like Skyrim (with a little advancement). Psygnosis constantly pushing to bring games out that wowed visually (Shadow fo the Beast), but also produced some of the most playable titles ever (Lemmings - OMG ).

The Commodore/Spectrum era showed that two sweaty teens in a bedroom could produce highly complex and highly playable games. With the power of 16 bit - that with just a great imagination and a bit of technical skill, you could cement your place in history by producing brand new genres of games people couldn't even start to conceive of (Peter Molyneux inventing the God game for instance).

That period between around 1986 and 1991 was like the explosion of evolution in the precambrian seas.

I'm not forgetting that Sega produced some of the world's greatest fast paced and imaginative arcade games. Or that Nintendo forged and perfected their own platform and adventure brands. The fact that the consoles killed off home computing (though the expense and lack of power of the fledging gaming PC master race helped as there wasn't a stop gap between the 16 bit computers and a descendant) is testament to that.

It was so exciting to go into an arcade over the weekend, and then play an almost pixel perfect version of it on the Mega Drive or Snes. Such an exciting period of gaming to have lived through, with the coming together of arcades and home, as well as the pinnacle of home computer creation.

It's massively ironic though. I used to sit for hours in front of games like Corporation, Powermonger, Megalomania, Indy 500, Kick Off 2, Star Glider, Elite, the game sI mentioned above and so many more I can't even think to put a list together. Games which required a massive amount of time and effort to not only learn to play and master, but to work through and complete. More than equal the AAA titles we see today. Yet what I wanted was to play Altered Beast, Space Harrier or Super Mario Bros as close to the arcade original as I could. The arcade games ate my 10p pieces and I wanted to have them to love and adore in my house. I couldn't afford a console and a home PC though (I did have a Master System for a while though), so was stuck with these massive, innovative, incredible, imaginative, fantastic games instead :lol:

I used to play on friend's consoles though, so it was all good

It's so weird though, the goal then was "arcade perfection", yet what was on offer instead was "game play gold".

The irony continues in that what I want to play now, are exactly those kinds of games I was "forced" to have on the home computers. I like games which do things differently. I like games where I don't know quite what to expect. I like games which make me smile and almost giggle with glee (and I'm not a big one for giggling :lol: ). I like games that make me forget to breathe. I'm not talking about being awed by graphics (though back in the day I was), but just by how clever and engaging a designer can be.

I first really experienced it (after the home computer era) on the PS2. There were games on there which were like nothing else. Even early release titles. Then when games like Rez (I know, it's Dreamcast originally), Ico and Shadow of the Colossus hit, I was in heaven. I also love my racing games (have from the original Sega Monaco GP top down thing) and I've loved to see the genre develop and become something else entirely, so GT3 was like nothing I'd ever experienced - fantastic.

I'd tried the PS1 and hated it. I played on the N64 and found it a bit flat. The PS2 though really captured me with the wonderful Japanese games which told fantastic stories, or presented entirely new playing concepts to me. There was a lot of dross too mind, but that generation (including the Dreamcast, Gamecube and original XBox) set entirely new standards in what gaming could achieve. So for me, it's that generation. It was when gaming became a true "medium" finally. A way of presenting what had been a little boy's time waster into something else entirely. It was the home computer era grown up and come back with a 18 degrees and 6 phds. Doctor Console Era.

You ave to remember, I spent the years from roughly 1980 to 1989 moving bits of crap graphics from side to side, or up and down. Or pressing a jump button at the right time over and over and over. Those Mega Drive/Snes and even PS1/N64 era games for me were just more of the same with better graphics. I spent a decade fighting with bad collision detection, unfair deaths, weird crashes and game breaking bugs. What I want from games is what they can achieve - perfection.

If I have to try and leap from one platform to another while the camera spins oddly and I keep missing - I don't want it. I completed Manic Miner, I've done my hard time platforming. If you can produce the perfect mechanism and present it well (NSMB for the former, Puppeteer and Ico come to mind for the latter - both flawed but offering so much beyond the bad jumping :lol: ) then I'm happy.

I've wandered from place to place for days upon days of my life trying to find a secret pixel that will unlock a puzzle, or get past an aggravating enemy to complete my quest after finally working out where on the bland, obsucre map I need to go. I've read 2,000 books' worth of speech and plot in badly formed text in a low resolution. I don't want to do it any more. I've quested to a point that even Ulysses is thinking I'm a little crazy. If I need to do it without a decent map, log book and spoken (skip-able and/or short) dialogue then I just don't care. Engage me in the way I'd be engaged in an film if you're trying to tell me a story, or don't bother.

I'm a miserable old dinosaur, but gaming has made me that way over the years. I no longer have the patience I had at 15 to learn every move set for Mortal Kombat. I have different games to pay which challenge me in new ways, why should I want to repeat something over many hours (most of which I don't have any more) that I did once, championed and moved on from?

So I love modern gaming. I love that it's kept fresh and engaging. I don't like the whole repeat thing, but there's no difference between COD/MOH/Battlefield repeat ad nauseum and Mario, Zool, Magic Pockets and James Ponds 1,2,3,4..89.

Give me Tokyo Jungle*, Alan Wake, Journey, The Walking Dead, Portal/2, Flower, Hard Rain and Catherine all the time please? Or not, because I want something new instead

That's what the Dreamcast/PS2/Gamecube and Xbox era gave us, and it delights me


*This is exactly the kind of game Sega should be making. It's a modern twist on a very simple arcade style game. Don't remake Sonic and try to do what you did in the early 90s - work hard to produce a fun and playable arcade game that does things in a new way.

 

[LiveForTheLaunch]

The only generation I really played video games in was the Sega Genesis and Playstation 1 generation, so I'd have to choose those. I have an Atari but I'm not a massive fan. Sega was where it's at.

 

[MouseAT]

I've had to put in a vote for the SNES / Megadrive era, but I should probably add that I've never actually owned a console. I started out on an Amiga 500, progressed onto PC in the early 90s and have been a PC gamer ever since. I have had the opportunity to play on various consoles over the years, and see what each generation had to offer.

I suppose my choice boils down to the point before the PC really took off as a gaming platform, with a healthy dose of nostalgia mixed in. Coming from the Amiga with the joys of Lemmings, arcade ports such as Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands and New Zealand Story, Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 and so many other games that I've long since forgotten, I still remember looking back at some of the interesting console games at the time and thinking "wow, that looks like fun". I'm sure if I'd got into console gaming back then I'd have had a great time playing the games of that era.

Instead, I went down the PC route. First person shooters, role playing games, real time strategy, racing games such as the previously mentioned Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix series all held my interest. Friends of mine owned later consoles such as the Playstation, and I spent a lot of time playing games on the PS1, but to be honest there was nothing that I can remember standing out that wasn't also available on the PC.

Once I'd gone down the PC route, there was no going back. Most of the games I play just don't translate well to a pad. I absolutely refuse to play FPSs on a game pad, because I'm used to a mouse and the limited movement of the stick just annoys the hell out of me.

The modern console generations are also responsible for ruining far too many PC games that could otherwise have been great, largely because the game has been crippled with an interface designed for a console pad rather than a PC. It's possible to create a game that works incredibly well on both, such as Skyrim or Deus Ex Human Revolution. It's also far too easy to mess up the game completely, as in the case of both Max Payne 3 and Deus Ex Invisible War.

In short: The Megadrive and SNES were the last generation I feel really had something unique and worthwhile to offer. After that, the PC could generally do everything the consoles could do (usually better than the consoles could), and could do a lot of things that the consoles couldn't.

 

[ECG]

There's not a whole lot I can add to furie's post. I too have become a "miserable old dinosaur" for the same reasons, yet I love modern gaming as well. The only real issue I have with modern gaming is the rehashing of game types and franchises, but I understand that today's games cost so much to develop that companies have to stick with proven formulas in order to stay in business. The first few iterations are usually good due to better graphics or gameplay, but usually after version 4 or 5 there is no real gain with just a few gimmicks added. My beloved Gears Of War even fell to this with the latest "Judgment" release, as did Splinter Cell with "Blacklist". The only exception seems to be the FIFA franchise, which has managed to add improvements, in addition to new rosters, year-in and year-out.
I'm also not one to want to "sit on my own playing a game", so the era of on-line computer gaming will forever remain my favorite. I'll never forget the pure delight in firing up my PC, launching DOOM, hearing my modem shake hands and then blasting a friend to smithereens over and over again. Then the games went from 2D to 3D environments, which only added to the delight. Of course this was in the days of DOS (before Windows) and you had to be a bit of a computer geek just to keep the games running optimally. The ushering in of 3D games also meant that you had to constantly upgrade your video card just to play each new game that was released.
So as much as I like the ease of play, the realistic graphics and complexity of today's multi-player first-person shooters, the time spent playing Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, Heretic, System Shock, Descent, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake and Unreal will forever remain my glory days of video gaming.
In the meantime I'll hold off casting a vote until I've had the opportunity to try out the latest generation of consoles.

 

[tomahawk]

I grew up with the following systems:

-Intellivision (94-00)
-Sega Genesis (91-97)
-Nintendo 64 (97-04)
-Xbox (02-05/6)
-Xbox 360 (06-current)

From those, obviously 360 is my current favorite, but I still pull out the N64. My niece and nephew saw it and wanted to play it, so after three hours of Diddy Kong Racing, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, the love was reborn. Watching them enjoy the games I enjoyed when little was awesome, despite them loving Skylanders, Halo, and basically anything I play.

Intellivision is fantastic, simply for the fact that you are nearly in control of everything, especially with the sports games, and it was something I was able to enjoy with my dad.

Overall though, I have to say, nostalgia wise, N64. Game wise and my level of appreciation, Xbox 360. I can't wait to get the Xbone, probably sometime next summer, unless my amily shocks me and gets it for Christmas, but I am impressed with the possibilities of it, and I will use it as the all in one it is, which so many people have a problem with.

 

[Mike]

Sonic 1, 2, 3, 3D and Sonic & Knuckles were pretty much my childhood, whilst games like Street Fighter II, Theme Park and Aladdin were also very fun to play. All on the Mega Drive, as apart from the Game Boy, my family never owned a Nintendo console until the GameCube.

My nan used to have an Atari 2600 which I played, although I can only remember Q*bert from it.

In the second half of the 90s, the PS1 was dominating, with things like Final Fantasy, Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Command & Conquer being household favourites. This theme continued to the PS2, although I was a lot more into the sports games on this console.

I loved Super Monkey Ball on the GameCube. but can't remember playing too many other games on it.

I never got into the Xbox because I despised the bulky controller and massive amount of buttons, although my brothers enjoyed the console.

The Wii was fun, but we had an extremely limited number of games for it. We've just bought a Wii U, but don't have any games for it yet and use it for the original Wii games.

The only reason I wanted to play the PS3 was for Final Fantasy XIII, but after I heard poor reviews for it I never bothered, so I've never played on the PS3 or Xbox 360, although both are in my house.

For a mix of nostalgia and great games, I'm going to go with the Mega Drive era as the best.

 

[Screaming Coasters]

When the SNES came out, I was probably one of the only people to get an Amiga CD32. I've always gone against the grain with trends, but I've always gone with "the better system". Egg was in my face as the better games were on SNES and the Playstation, but I enjoyed some of the CD32's better graphics and more complex games. It was the first 32bit console I believe and being a Commodore fan, I HAD to get a CD32.

Best machines ever is still my Amiga 1200 lol

 

[Youngster Joey]

N64 was my first console and Still holds my all time favorite game and some others in my top 10, but the combination of Mario Kart Double Dash, Super Smash Bros Melee and Mario Sunshine on Gamecube, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, and Sly Cooper on the PS2, and Halo 1&2 as well as Star Wars Battle Front 2 and Morrowind on the Xbox makes that my favorite generation on consoles

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

I loved my PS1 and PS2 and played them all the time. I've have a Wii, PS3 and XBOX 360 but I don't play them often. Therefore my favourite generation will have to be PS2 as I played that the most.

 

[nadroJ]

I'm not a HUGE gamer, but there's no denying that this sound:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekqYhP8PhMg[/youtube]
is amazing <3 Sends shivers down my spine, I love it.

I only ever really played (and still do play) platformers like Croc, Crash Bandicoot, RayMan and stuff like that (i.e., easy games ;]).

 

[furie]

-Intellivision (94-00)
Intellivision is fantastic, simply for the fact that you are nearly in control of everything, especially with the sports games, and it was something I was able to enjoy with my dad.

LOL - you're doing my head in Tom. I looked and thought "Intellivision? That was a 70's/80's console wasn't it, competition to the Atari?"

I assume you do mean the paddle and pad system? Can't believe you were still playing that in the 90's :lol:

When the SNES came out, I was probably one of the only people to get an Amiga CD32. I've always gone against the grain with trends, but I've always gone with "the better system". Egg was in my face as the better games were on SNES and the Playstation, but I enjoyed some of the CD32's better graphics and more complex games. It was the first 32bit console I believe and being a Commodore fan, I HAD to get a CD32.

Best machines ever is still my Amiga 1200 lol

Commodore suffered slightly worse than Atari on this front sadly. Though this exact period killed off both companies.

Both the Amiga and ST (as I may have mentioned somewhere ) dominated a huge part of the games market. I think the problem was that neither company actually knew anything about games. Atari did with their arcade division, but the home computer division didn't have a clue. Everything great about those two systems were brought along by third parties.

Both companies knew that they needed to upgrade, as the latest consoles were beating them massively on specifications - which back then really was a nerd joy of comparisons. The trouble is, they're producing "computers", not consoles. They don't want to ditch backwards compatibility because they also want a slice of the "business pie". So they're trying to produce powerful computers that can run networks, prior bedded in software, printers, work tools AND games. Games designers just see the same hardware essentially with a few extra bells and whistles.

Why create new software when you can just port your old stuff? That's exactly what happened with the A1200, Atari TT, CD32 and Atari Jaguar. Nobody wanted to commit to fresh new games over just sticking their popular titles on the system. Why learn the new hardware and make an effort when Lemmings would sell by the bucket load anyway?

Ironically, the A1200 was left behind in terms of power by the 3DO and Jaguar. The 3DO selling point was the interactive movie capabilities. The Jaguar the fantastic (for the time) 3D modelling. The problem was, both were too early in those markets. We see things like Heavy Rain and Beyond doing the Interactive movie in ways the 3DO could only dream of. The Jaguar was 3D, but systems like the SNES and Megadrive (and CD32) were producing games with 2D objects in a 3D space which looked better. The 3D capabilities of the Jaguar were astounding for the time, but they looked awful to the consumer. It wasn't until the Playstation arrived that people actually went "wow, this 3D stuff is actually really good".

Incredibly poor software support and pushing new technologies that nobody wanted/knew how to use killed them all off in favour of the console owned developers at Sega and Nintendo. Look at the Atari Lynx (I know we covered this briefly on Facebook Erol :lol: ). Incredible specification for a handheld at the time. It was costly though, and Sega had a massive number of Sega arcade games. As I said in the huge post above - that was what everyone wanted. They wanted their favourite arcade game as closely reproduced as possible on a handheld. At that time, Sega owned the arcades, so they owned the home versions too. Atari had completely lost their way in the arcades, and it showed with the small offering of titles on the Lynx. They also hadn't invested in plumber beating original IP. Atari never had a Sonic or a Crash Bandicoot. Neither did Commodore - they never had a clue when it came to the games industry and it cost both companies their futures.

 

[Pierre]

I probably enjoyed PS1 the most but for all the wrong reasons. PS1's were so easily 'chipped' and with the games being available on CD-R's the games were so easily accessible too.

But I have voted this era also because of Mario 64 which is without doubt the best Mario game I've ever played. Me and my friends used to always have a right laugh on Diddy Kong Racing too. Also we played four players on WCW Nitro and used to all pick random wrestlers with the TV switched off and set the entrance order to random (this way there was no way to tell who was P1, P2, P3, P4) and then had a bit of a laugh trying to first figure out who we were then secondly figure out who everyone else was.

The PS1 though, such amazing memories;

Metal Gear Solid
Crash Bandicoot (three, time warp, was the best)
Fifa 98 Road to World Cup
Croc
Rayman
WWF Smackdown Just Bring It
Tomb Raider
Resident Evil
Driver
Crash Team Racing
Crash Party (think?)
Destruction Derby 1 & 2
Twisted Metal 2

My gaming history has been

C64
Spectrum
Master system
Super Nintendo
PS1
N64
PS2
Gamecube
Wii
PS3

 

[furie]

My gaming history has been

C64
Spectrum
Master system
Super Nintendo
PS1
N64
PS2
Gamecube
Wii
PS3

Slacker!

Time to get out my virtual gaming knob... Four of them to begin with actually:

Tele-Games Motocross from a second hand shop in Runcorn, along with a

Binatone
Texas Instruments TI-994A
Zaxxon Handheld
Amazone Handheld
Mini-Munchman Handheld
ZX Spectrum +2
Vic 20 (borrowed for extended period)
Dragon 64 (borrowed for extended period).
Sega Master System
Sam Coupé (no, you probably haven't heard of it. I used to sell these )
Atari STe
Commodore Amiga A500 (borrowed for extended period)
IBM PC compatible (XT)
IBM PC Compatible (AT)
Sony PS1
Gameboy
IBM PC Compatible (AT with 3DFX GFX - upgraded and replaced to modern day)
SNES (Madame_Furie's really, but it's in the house)
PS2
Sega Dreamcast (borrowed for an extended period)
Gamecube
N64 (Somewhere was selling them refurbished with games and stuff for about £20)
Atari Jaguar (finally got my hands on one!)
Sega Game Gear (sold quite quickly because it ate batteries and was turd)
DS
Wii
PS3
PSP
PSP Go
3DS
PS Vita
XBox 360
Wii U
PS4

They're all the systems I have spent considerable "personal" time with gaming. I've also spent many hours on other systems at friend's houses, like the NES, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Amstrad 464 and Sega Megadrive. I've also used emulation to play arcade games using MAME.

Probably some other stuff too I've forgotten or is even more irrelevant

 

[Pierre]

To be fair I left my handhelds out

I have had;

Gameboy
Gameboy Color
Gameboy Advance
Nintendo DS
PS Vita.

I also owned an Xbox360 for one month then sold it (I won it on an arcade machine).

 

[furie]

FFS - I'd forgotten my three Sony handhelds :lol:

 

[AirtimeFreak]

I'm not a HUGE gamer, but there's no denying that this sound:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekqYhP8PhMg[/youtube]
is amazing <3 Sends shivers down my spine, I love it.

Havent heard that in such a long time!

N64 was probably my favourite console but i played FIFA on the xbox one earlier and it really is another level. Along with Forza.