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YOUR favorate game era.

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Reply 20 of 62, by gerry

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I don't think i have one game era above others as there are fun games in all

I do think overall games have become better over time, but not in line with technical capacity and not without some losses

the 'era' i suppose is more a condition - that the game can be played without needing to be online either for installation or for play (unless its online multiplayer of course!)

Reply 21 of 62, by rmay635703

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Anonymous Coward wrote on 2021-09-02, 11:46:

Anything before 1995 is okay by me. I prefer 80s games.

Depends on which system

I was Channel F and NES in the 80’s lots of fun to be had with both

80’s computer games were more creative but I rarely got to play them until the 90’s :0

Reply 22 of 62, by creepingnet

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If I had to pick an era, it 1981-1997. Basically, everything from the 8088 up to the 486, with some Pentium thrown in. Honestly, I don't find any nostalgia in anything beyond that because I spent the better part of the 2000's fighting with so called "Geeks" and "Nerds", some with merit being Network or Systems Admins, over how "useless" that old hardware was - met with rebuttals like "What are you going to do with it? Play Pong? Write Snail Mail?". So from PII to about Pentium D era, it's not nostalgic, in a way, that was the "enemy".....and I felt like that's when hardware really lost it's "soul". Those old machines had some crazy personality to them, and there was almost an interesting informercial-meets-ham-radio-hobbyist vibe to them that I always thought was incredibly cool, add to that all the constant media brag about "scientific technological advances" and then "XT/AT/286/386/486/Pentium" tied to it, and it makes it cool. Plus the fact nobody was talking about brands on the scale of now when it comes to everything gives it a fun mystery to figure out.

When it comes to games, the first PC game I ever played was Microsoft Adventure - on a Tandy 1000 SX, and I was quite good at it. That said, it did not do much to really enthrall me with the PC, here I was, 16-bits of power, on an 8-bit bus, and this thing could'nt even put graphics on screen (or so I thought at the time) like my lowly Ricoh 2a03 Nintendo or 6507 powered Atari 2600 could. Yet somehow, at school, the IBM PS/2s could eek out 4 color CGA with Reader Rabbit. But I still enjoy those really really old DOS Games sometimes like Burger Blaster - which I got from my auto-shop teacher in high school who had an original IBM PC 5150, which I was the only guy in class who knew how to use, let alone LOVED dragging big box DOS games into class to play on it (we had just moved to block scheduling and had more time than class could use, so I'd play Ultima V for the rest of class, or BUrger Blaster, or Bugs).

But I would have to say my favorite of my chosen period would be the whole 1987-1996 era. The Secret of Monkey Island - one of my most prized possessions is the actual copy of that game my sister bought when I was 9, the 720K 1990 VGA release - was where I cut my teeth on the PC as a gaming platform in any real seriously big way. I mean, here was a game where you could freely walk around anywhere, talk to anyone, grab anything that's literally not nailed down pretty much, and the portraits of people and creatures were photorealistic as I had the 256 color vGA version. I mean, to my 9 year old mind, this beat ANYTHING NIntendo, Atari, Sega, or anyone else had come up with. And on top of it, it was nice to finally play something that you dont' need to feel stressed out to play.

And through my siblings and their boyfriends......I got exposure to Freddy Pharkas, Monkey Island 2, my first actual DOS game was Ultima 6 in 1993 - I spent my 11th birthday week playing that while out of school with pinkeye, listening to A-ha's Hunting High and Low Album for a soundtrack. I still to this day alternate between the OPL and "A-ha Soundtrack" for that game. My friend down the street had a Mac iwth Sim City 2000 on it - listening to the Bee Gees while playing that. My other friend had his dad's Compaq Deskpro 386, and we played Wolfenstein 3D and copies of the Champ Arcade ports we downloaded at the Auburn Draughton Library. Up the street was John and Matt whose dad bought a brand new Gateway 2000 486 "mega-tower" with Windows 3.1, and he had Mario is Missing, some kind of crazy isometric house-building game like some kind of early version of The Sims minus the "Sims" part, and of course, one of the Windows Entertainment Packs with Tetris. I think from age 11 onward, I spent at least a few hours every few weekends on some kind of PC surfing the early internet or playing games on one via friends. And when I was not playing, or learning guitar (which was most of the time), I was digging through the big boxes and reading the manuals, wondering about what games like "The Lost Vikings" or "Thexder" or "Ultima VIII: Pagan" were like. I was like a secret "nerd" in a way - nobody knew it, they just knew "guitar" me. My bro-in-law introduced me to Ultima, and X-wing.

Some games I really like from that era came later just as "Abandonware" was becoming a thing - like Doom, Duke Nukem 3d, Destruction Derby, Test Drive 3...I got Tie Fighter in the original box from my other bro-in-law in 05'. Diablo is a hardcore favorite of mine on PC and Power Mac both on and offline, and I still rock that on a 486. Recently I've gotten really into Get Lost, Flying Tigers 1&2, and Hoyle Classic Card games.

That said, there's some later stuff I hold onto, I still like the first three Sims games, Robot Arena 2: design and Destroy has been a long favorite since I bought my copy from Wal-Mart in 2003 for $5. Postal 1 & 2 are other standards for me as well....I even install it on my old 486s, even though it does not play well on that particular processor.

There are days I wish things had just paused around 1995, and stayed that way. I even, in some ways, miss not having to be connected 24/7.....using my 486 es with FreeDOS as a quasi-daily driver from time to time allows me to get as close to that as I possibly can, and live the past I never got to have because I was too poor to have it without being lucky to have the experiences I had through other people.

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Reply 24 of 62, by chinny22

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I'm surprised a few people said earlier then 90's but that's why I asked the question!
We had a Apple IIe during the time but pre teens me found most games not that engaging and even now don't have any real desire to go back and play the games I did enjoy.

Seems most people have a 5-10 year window, betting age plays a big part of that (no surprise) Guess I was just lucky I caught the end of DOS to be able to enjoy both Pre and Post Windows gaming.

Reply 25 of 62, by 386SX

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I think late 80's game consoles were much more common (even in the early 90's) so it's difficult to not see those as a variable for those who was playing those games daily on the CRT TV. Computers here in EU weren't nearly common in the people houses before the '95 a least and most x86 games played were usually still the older msdos ones often comparable to the old game console beside some exceptions like the early 3D ones or the more complex 3D-like FPS. 2D scrolling games weren't exactly impressive considering the game console dedicated hw for it. Also a variable to consider that I didn't remember many game stores having computer games but a lot of game store having tons of old 80's/early 90's game console ones. Most games I ended up playing on the 80386SX-20 computer I bought them as a low end discount new releases once they were already obsolete. For example Another World, LHX, Test Drive III (just to mention some great ones)... I remember these low end games were sold in the newspaper stores as a weekly or monthly release at very good prices.

Reply 26 of 62, by Namrok

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One aspect of 80's computing/gaming I often see people have nostalgia for is how open the platforms were. You had unfettered access to every single chip, byte and register on the systems, often from BASIC. It's an era I missed, but an era I'm developing vicarious nostalgia for in reaction to how profoundly locked down and abstracted modern computing environments are.

Win95/DOS 7.1 - P233 MMX (@2.5 x 100 FSB), Diamond Viper V330 AGP, SB16 CT2800
Win98 - K6-2+ 500, GF2 MX, SB AWE 64 CT4500, SBLive CT4780
Win98 - Pentium III 1000, GF2 GTS, SBLive CT4760
WinXP - Athlon 64 3200+, GF 7800 GS, Audigy 2 ZS

Reply 27 of 62, by 386SX

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For games let's think to some like the '93 Doom and how few people worked to its development but going even back let's think to a popular one like the C64 "The Last Ninja" series and how much effort it took to be developed (I read an interview once) given the hw limits. Or "Mayhem in Monsterland" on the same computer using some of the many C64 hw tricks to be able to have that smoothness/graphic. Obviously the target was to sell the games but from the final user point of view nowdays it seems like not only about locked down abstract enviroments but more that the old "closed box buying product and you own the product forever" concept is lost cause the target seems what come "after" buying the game or product, the usage of the product is probably more interesting. And there's the feeling that there's not much to own, no box, cd/floppy whatever, only abstract time dependant sw enviroments that might have a limited virtual duration.

Last edited by 386SX on 2021-09-04, 10:39. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 29 of 62, by ncmark

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Would definitely say 93-99 - that is really a huge range, covering everything from doom and duke3d all the way to half life and unreal.
Maybe I got old, maybe it just wasn't new (to me) anymore, but it seems like nothing truly original came after that.
Sure we got games with fancier graphics and higher resolutions, but the the "formula" didn't change after that.
Just my two cents for whatever it's worth.

Reply 30 of 62, by Anonymous Coward

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chinny22 wrote on 2021-09-03, 10:09:

I'm surprised a few people said earlier then 90's but that's why I asked the question!

Wny is that surprising? The 80s was the golden age of arcade games.

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Reply 31 of 62, by Shreddoc

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1985. The year of the Sega Master System.The Commodore Amiga. The Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA). The Atari ST.

Until 1994. The technical pinnacle for DOS. Genius coders directly accessing hardware.

Everything got weird after that, by becoming normal. All kinds of standards were imposed to facilitate mass adoption, and now here our homogenised selves are.

Reply 32 of 62, by leonardo

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Early to late 90's.

What an amazing stretch in all possible metrics.

After that, suddenly, you had to have a matching version of DirectX and video card, and all the hardware became cheap black plastic with neon lights in it, and your regular office chair is now called a gaming chair for some reason and has red thingies in the arm rest, and you need to have a 1000W power supply for something that checks your email... and all the games are now basically GTA. ...and I need nap. 😁

[Install Win95 like you were born in 1985!] on systems like this or this.

Reply 33 of 62, by armani

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By far, the best era for DOS/Windows games was 1993-2006 in terms of quality. I have tons of physical DOS games from before then and from the 1980s that are good, but pre-1990 DOS games (except maybe Stunts, Test Drive, etc.) aren't as playable.

Though regarding Amiga, pretty much all Amiga games from every era are extremely playable. Unlike DOS games from the 80s, Amiga games from that time are way more playable and simply just run better.

Reply 34 of 62, by BitWrangler

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I bought games from 1983-2003, saw them double in price and gain bigger boxes and manuals, treble in price and gain extras like maps and backstory novellas, then quadruple in price and take all that away and add onerous burdens in the name of anti-piracy. So I cut them off there, no more of my money. Bought the odd thing used later than that, if 5 years later ppl still say it's a good game. Maybe '92 to '97 were the real glory years, enough colors and CPU speed to fulfil a vision of an engaging game if programmed right, not just substituting eyecandy for gameplay and scripted railroad trip for a plot.

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Reply 35 of 62, by Shreddoc

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I'm a 90's-glory-years DOS gamer too.

In a recent self-reflective moment, it occurred to me that my 90's-and-later idolisation of the demoscene's accomplishments were somewhat counter to my (and everybody's, to some extent) desire for Good Gameplay above all else.

And I sorta got what I'd wished for, in that those demoscene guys, their strengths and their disciples went on to inform some of the game scene's evolution from the mid-late 90's onwards.

Now I look back, and think differently : I still idolise the technical accomplishments of the demoscene and it holds a special place in my heart, but I wonder now - many many years later - if that's really who I'd now choose to write my video games and be the primary drivers of my gaming scene.

The designers and implementers of great games should receive at least equal accolade, and in some quarters they do, but perhaps I had not accorded certain areas the attention they deserved, in pursuit of (or understandably distracted by) insane mind-blowing graphics and coding.

/isolated_and_possibly_incoherent_point

Reply 36 of 62, by Bruninho

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Best era IMO was 97-2002. I have been playing games since I was 6 yrs old, something like 1988 until today. I haven't been doing a proper gaming since 2012, though. Modern AAA games require too much power, constant hardware upgrading and $$$, so I moved to my old games. I no longer want to upgrade a PC.

I salute the old DOS and 3Dfx/Glide games era!

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Reply 37 of 62, by badmojo

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I have a lot of nostalgia for early 90's to ~98, which is when my interests were diverted to the usual things. It was an exciting time for computing in general but being a teen helped - limitless time and limited cares / responsibilities. My hope is that once the parenting is done and the mortgage is paid and the safe-but-boring day job is no longer required then I'll have the time and energy to really enjoy gaming again - and this time I'll have money for decent hardware 😈

So my favourite era is yet to come 😀

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 38 of 62, by Joseph_Joestar

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Bruninho wrote on 2021-12-20, 03:25:

Modern AAA games require too much power, constant hardware upgrading and $$$, so I moved to my old games.

That wasn't really any different in the mid to late 90s though. If anything, hardware became obsolete even faster back then. For example, many 3D accelerated games released in 1998 ran quite poorly on hardware that was made in 1997.

As mentioned before, I hate modern AAA games because they are filled with DLCs, micro transactions, loot boxes, season passes and similar crap. Basically, most games made today are designed to squeeze out as much money as possible from people. In contrast, old games were designed to be fun to play, nothing more.

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Reply 39 of 62, by RandomStranger

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-12-20, 05:48:
Bruninho wrote on 2021-12-20, 03:25:

Modern AAA games require too much power, constant hardware upgrading and $$$, so I moved to my old games.

That wasn't really any different in the mid to late 90s though. If anything, hardware became obsolete even faster back then. For example, many 3D accelerated games released in 1998 ran quite poorly on hardware that was made in 1997.

It used to be the case, but moving back to them today, performance is a non-issue. If you don't care about real hardware, just about any PC can run games maxed out up until about 2006-2008 and entry level gaming rigs about 2015-2016. That's what moving back to old games means.

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