The golden era of gaming

'The golden era of gaming' is a quote that is thrown around pretty frequently, but seldom when used do those who use it (on separate occasions) agree on it's meaning, or even know what it's meaning is. It is for this reason that i believe, the golden era of gaming is subjective and individual, it refers to a period in the individuals life when gaming was at it's peak, be it for whatever reason.


The Wikipedia (what a reliable source..) definition is, 'The golden age of video arcade games was a peak era of video arcade game popularity, innovation, and earnings' The date placement of this is placed around the late 70s into the early 80s. I'll save the history lesson for a later blog when i'm stuck for ideas or have no games to review - but as I wasn't even alive in this golden age, i don't class it as the golden era of videogames.


No, for me the golden era was the 90s. The age of the Playstation and the Nintendo 64. I have been gaming as long as i can remember, from the early days of Altered Beast and Golden Axe when i could barely hold a controller, to that one faithful Christmas morning when me, my brother and sister unwrapped the last present under the tree - the present which changed my life forever, The dream machine itself, Playstation. The machine with it's dirty gray casing with it's huge power and open disk buttons, so ugly yet beautiful. For me, this was the machine that made and did it all. My all time classics (each will be getting their own blog) were on this console; Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Front Mission 3, Castlevania Symphony Of The Night, Silent Hill, some of the highlights of my gaming career. I was young, multiplayer consisted of having 2 pads and actually sitting next to each other. Trophies were non-existant and the internet was a distant dream, i was too young for all that.

The leap into 3D gaming had just begun, i was amazed by the (at that time) mind blowing cutscene graphics of Final Fantasy 8, and battle graphics of Front Mission 3. The first game i got was Crash Bandicoot, as I believe, did many people. But in all actuallity, i don't really remember much, if any of it. One of the earliest game memories I have is in fact me and my dad coming home from Blockbuster (those were the days) and playing Resident Evil despite being horribly underage. It was then that i fell in love with one of my favourite gaming characters of all time - Albert Wesker. The slicked back blonde hair, the sunglasses and the voice, he was awesome. Speaking of voice, the voice acting in Resident Evil, looking back, is simply terrible - but i digress.


That's not to say it's not hard to choose one's particular golden age - it was a close cut between Playstation and SNES and even N64. Anyone who played it can and will agree that 4 way split screen Goldeneye were some of the best gaming, and even family memories they've ever had - it was pure simple fun. All of these eras however had one thing in common - it was all about the game. It was about giving a fresh, genuinely appealing storyline, graphics were on the backburner and companies weren't afraid to try new things. It saddens me that  gaming youth of today, in a market rife of bland, similar FPS' believe that they live in gamings golden age simply because the graphics have improved so much. 

The point i'm trying to make, is that I personally don't think there IS a golden age of gaming, if it was golden to you then it was your golden age, no matter what anyone says you will always think of it as THE golden age because it was so personal.On a sub note, I also think it would be beneficial for the everyone, both the industry and us the consumers, if developers and companies returned to the 90s even 80s way of doing things, that is stop concentrating on going that one step further graphically, when it means sacrificing what could be a great game with a lack of story or even character development.


I'd love to know what people think on this, when your golden age was - so feel free to let me know.