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[ourumov]

Don't you think so ?

Perhaps 16 bit era is not the right word to define the game period I am trying to define at probably ends around 1998.

why ? Simple:

1. Arcade scene more powerful than ever. This brought a lot of life to small companies that did develop awesome titles.

2. Market in a status where risky ventures could be afford. Developers didn't have to take huge risks when developing a title, thus providing fresh and new ideas to the gaming world. Sometimes new genres...Others cool variations...

3. Home market very big but not too much... I would say that back to those days the casual mass was a smaller % than now. In other words, most people that played videogames knew what they were playing.

4. Two strong first parties fighting for the lead with a lot of market share everyone: SEGA and Nintendo. Both providing awesome titles and pretty much covering all genres (a thing that Nintendo can't say today).

5. Minoritary solutions also can coexist: PC-Engine and Neogeo. This was nice and allowed people to not be limited to just the two systems mentioned above.


I think there are a lot more reason but well...My strongest one is that I remember those times and a smile appears on my face.
It's not that the PSX-N64 era was a disaster...just different. Actually, PSX-SS were the successors to that era where 2D and 3D coexisted. I am not doing this thread just as an homage to 2D...Notice that many of our beloved 3D franchises start at the end of this period: Ridge Racer, Tekken, Virtua Fighter...

Long life to the 90s !

 

[ToxicAdam]

1. Arcade scene more powerful than ever. This brought a lot of life to small companies that did develop awesome titles.

!

You must not have been a gamer in the mid-80's. Every hotel, convienence store, grocery store, department store, pool hall, bar, etc etc had arcade machines.

 

[thorns]

Sorry but games are far more varied, deep and better now than they've ever been in the 16-bit era.

Personally I can't stand the majority of 16-bit console games. OTOH, Amiga and PC games were far far better at the time.

 

[Drinky Crow]

2. Market in a status where risky ventures could be afford. Developers didn't have to take huge risks when developing a title, thus providing fresh and new ideas to the gaming world. Sometimes new genres...Others cool variations...

Eh, what? If anything, the 32-bit generation and 3D brought greater variety and gameplay innovation. 16-bit was largely platformers (and licensed ones at that), fighting games, Zelda clones, shooters, and puzzle games.

The PC platform had all the innovation during that era.

4. Two strong first parties fighting for the lead with a lot of market share everyone: SEGA and Nintendo. Both providing awesome titles and pretty much covering all genres (a thing that Nintendo can't say today).

Yeah, Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo is your minority solution.

In the end, it's purely nostalgia. You were a kid then, and had the time and desire to endlessly pursue your favorite hobby. It really wasn't any better, though; in fact, it many demonstrable ways, it was worse. But shit ALWAYS seemes better back in the rosy fog of one's childhood.

 

[djtiesto]

Unfortunately, a lot of great 16 bit RPGs never even made it to these shores The best things in the 32 bit age (which I will definitely consider the silver age) were the lowered cost of games and the fact that many RPGs and games that would've never seen the light of day in the 16 bit eras actually made it here. I still find this present generation, as a whole, weaker than the 16 and 32 bit generations but that's personal opinion and not really clouded very much in nostalgia (as I play lots of games after the fact; summer 2004 was my first time playing the original Ys games for the Turbo!)

 

[Teddman]

If you pine away for the 16-bit era, pump up that GBA. It's been great to for that "SNES lives!!!" feeling. I just hope that with handhelds now finally making the transition to 3D, new 2D games don't become extremely few and far between.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I agree with a lot of the sentiment here. The golden age of gaming, to me, was 82-85.

Home consoles were getting powerful enough to do decent home conversions, and arcade games were *everywhere*. Home computers had hundreds of titles, many very original and excellent.

 

[Razoric]

Eh, what? If anything, the 32-bit generation and 3D brought greater variety and gameplay innovation. 16-bit was largely platformers (and licensed ones at that), fighting games, Zelda clones, shooters, and puzzle games.

The PC platform had all the innovation during that era.



Yeah, Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo is your minority solution.

In the end, it's purely nostalgia. You were a kid then, and had the time and desire to endlessly pursue your favorite hobby. It really wasn't any better, though; in fact, it many demonstrable ways, it was worse. But shit ALWAYS seemes better back in the rosy fog of one's childhood.

Agreed 100%. Thread should have stopped here. :O

 

[Minotauro]

Agreed 100%. Thread should have stopped here. :O

I agree with your agreement. Drinky took the time to articulate the thoughts I was having but was too lazy to post.

People (read: Nintendo and Sega fans) look back at that period with nostalgia-clouded vision. While there were definitely a lot of great titles (I actually prefer it to the 64/32-bit era), there was also a shit ton of shovelware and licensed garbage.

 

[slayn]

definitely, but its not so much that developers were 'better' then or anything.

it has more to do with:
The genres that were the focus of the era were the genre's I enjoy the most
2D games are visually appealing to me. Polygons have always been 'meh' in my mind


back then, developers made games for ME. Nowadays, I am not a fan of the games that are the most popular (especially online shit) and so the best effort is no longer being spent on making me personally happy.

 

[Ranger X]

I must say that i agree it was good in the arcades. The beginning of the 90s, Street Fighter 2 / Mortal Kombat / Turbo Outrun era. The best.
There was tons of games coming out an many more people in the arcades.
Today it's just a couple of people playing Initial D or the lastest of it's 20930967309683908723528509348534 clones or DDR. Oh yeah and some crack seller playing and old Time Crisis 2 in the corner.

 

[slayn]

oh also, games have generally gotten easier as time has progressed which, to me, is a terrible thing. Though this gen did have a decent increase (psx/n64 having the easiest games) its not up to the difficulty of snes/genesis games and no where near nes difficulty.

 

[Drinky Crow]

back then, developers made games for ME.

More accurately, they simply made games while your tastes were developing. You developed and sealed your predominant preferences during that era.

The 32-bit era brought real innovation, but by then, your tastes were largely locked down, and there's nothing that they could do to appeal to you

Games are still just as fun -- in fact, they have more of the tangible qualities we commonly ascribe to fun, such as good controls, great graphics/sound, improved art direction, stellar production values -- it's just that really, you aren't as open-minded and fresh-faced as you were when you were a kid. It's true of all of us older gamers, to some extent, although I find that my tastes are better satisfied with each generation save in the area of PC gaming -- and again, some of my "complaints" in that area can be ascribed to nostalgia.

The 16-bit era DID have a few advantages -- I think soundtrack composition was better and more technical, due to the hardware limitations, and I'd like to see developers give more of a timeslice to 2D development -- but in the end, any concrete claim that "16-bit was better" is largely falsifiable. It's almost all nostalgia.

 

[Duck of Death]

My golden age would be roughly the same period, but not on consoles. During that time the PC game market was loaded with innovative, fun, and challenging games.

 

[slayn]

I mean genre wise. I was, and still am, a fan of puzzle games. Shit like Lost Vikings. Where's the Lost Vikings of today?

There is also less games for me to choose from because I am not a competetively minded person and the importance of multiplayer has been continually increasing particularly with online. Playing online has never appealed to me. Playing against humans has never really been terribly high on my 'fun' list. The one exception being fighters which have vastly improved and I enjoy this gen's fighters immensely and won't even consider goign back to street fighter 2 when I have guilty gear XX sitting nearby.

There is also now a much fiercer direction towards online. I am not opposed to the core idea of playing online, but what I don't like is when developers then go out of their way to continue supporting an online game. Obviously, this is not a bad thing for gamers in general; its just bad for ME. Chances are, if a game is focused to be online I'm not going to like it. Thus, it is guaranteed that a greater portion of time is going to be spent on games I don't like. But thats a more recent complaint and not one I often bitch about unless provoked.

The 16 bit generation, for me, had a visual advantage in that I am more tolerant of 2d than 3d. This comes from two things:

1. Being a 3d artist myself but NOT a 2d artist, I am still more mystified and surprised by 2d art than 3d. For 3d, I am much more likely to immediately focus on all the faults readily apparent in the game.

2. 2d generally forced a lack of detail. This 'lack' allowed me to visual the game as I saw fit rather than being handed all the details I didn't like. This is on part of my argument I generally fail miserably to explain well. I can only further say its vaugely like having a book without much description vs one with a lot of it. My imagination is powerful enough that one isn't more 'real' than the other, but when its more vauge I can make the mental image into what I want it to be rather than what the author intended. It is harder to ignore detail than to just be ignorant of it.

Some areas are, indeed, nostalgia based. Particularly RPGs. My favorite game to date is FF6. I know I can't even begin to objectively review the game myself because, though it was not my first RPG, the game had a lot of 'firsts' for me. It offered a lot of new experiances I hadn't thought possible. That said though, I think this generation's RPG selection has been rather poor in comparison to the psx era.

next up on my list are graphic adventure games. Not a console thing so much as a PC thing. I don't recall if the ones I played are from the '16 bit era' I just know I played the ones I did during the 16 bit era and they have since gone away for the most part

Platformers/Shooters, as a whole, I think is one area that was never translated well into 3D. Sure, the 3d ones have had much more variety and innovation, but the core gameplay just starts out as being inherently worse. BECAUSE of the complexity and depth afforded by 3D, the game is not capable of becoming as intense. Developers can no logner require the same degree of perfection from the gamer because there are too many choices to be made. Games like Mario/Sonic/Castlevania/Contra should generally stay 2d. They can still try 3D games, but I would be far happier if 3/4 were 2D. =)

Every generation of gaming carries with it far more potential than the last. Even so, todays developers have not happened to point that potential towards my personal preferences for what I like the most and have the most fun with. Gaming may be better as a whole, but not for me. And I disagree with anyone that thinks every area of gaming has improved without any tradefoffs whatsoever from the 16 bit era.

edited to attempt to make it a bit more readable.

 

[VALIS]

The golden age of gaming, to me, was 82-85.

Yep. If there was any "golden age," then '79-'85 (appx.) was it. Every supermarket, department store, laundromat, convienience store, restaurant, bus station, pizza place, diner and so on had at least one arcade game in it. I used to know what game(s) dozens and dozens of these places had. Hell, I still remember who had what games to a degree, even though those games and places have been gone for over 20 years.

I'm not debating quality or appeal, either. That's all subjective and like Uncle Gabby's drinking buddy said, has a lot to do with nostalgia. Video games were never more integrated into "regular" life as they were then. My father and his friends (in their late 30's then) used to play Video Pinball all night. My mother (mid 30's then) used to play Kaboom. Shit, a song about Pac-Man reached the top-10! I'm not championing my own memories or saying those games were any better than the games from any other generation. But discussion of the "golden age" of video games begins and ends with the original late 70's/early 80's era. Period.

 

[iapetus]

16 bit era = Golden Age

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I used to know what game(s) dozens and dozens of these places had. Hell, I still remember who had what games to a degree, even though those games and places have been gone for over 20 years.

So true!

 

[Monk]

Yeah well, i am still playing 16 bit games now on my emulator. :/ All of them RPG's but none the less...

 

[Late Stage Marxist]

I'd say the ones trumpeting the 8-bit and earlier games are far more delusional than someone saying 16-bit was the golden age.

 

[Semjaza Azazel]

People always cite "nostalgia", but I still regularly play a lot of 8-bit and 16-bit titles and enjoy them just as much as I always have. I don't know that gaming was any better then... I'd say overall it's been pretty constant for me. Always several games I really love and shitloads I didn't really need to bother with.

 

[belgurdo]

A lot of titles from the 16-bit era were ultra bad, just like all other eras, so I shed no tears for that generation specifically

 

[Ranger X]

Yep. If there was any "golden age," then '79-'85 (appx.) was it. Every supermarket, department store, laundromat, convienience store, restaurant, bus station, pizza place, diner and so on had at least one arcade game in it. I used to know what game(s) dozens and dozens of these places had. Hell, I still remember who had what games to a degree, even though those games and places have been gone for over 20 years.

I'm not debating quality or appeal, either. That's all subjective and like Uncle Gabby's drinking buddy said, has a lot to do with nostalgia. Video games were never more integrated into "regular" life as they were then. My father and his friends (in their late 30's then) used to play Video Pinball all night. My mother (mid 30's then) used to play Kaboom. Shit, a song about Pac-Man reached the top-10! I'm not championing my own memories or saying those games were any better than the games from any other generation. But discussion of the "golden age" of video games begins and ends with the original late 70's/early 80's era. Period.

Then why people say that now videogames is a much more integrated and mainstream media/entertainment today and more than ever before? ?? There's something wrong here.

 

[Timbuktu]

The 16 bit was my golden age for gaming simply because I was just getting into my teen years and I think I enjoyed games most as a kid. I simply don't have enough time anymore, and I'm too critical. 'I was happier then, with no mind-set'.

 

[Dice]

The 16-bit era was pretty cool, but going back I'm far more critical on the games. A lot are still quality, but they aren't near what we have now, they're just kinda simplistic and lacking. However, with games fully mainstream right now, I'm not finding very many I like.

I'm starting to think of Playstation as the real golden age, late enough for 3D abilities and open enough for cool ideas to be made into games, but still fun because it was before videogames went into this hollywood-style mindless overblown production.

These days you may still find a couple cool and original niche titles a year that somehow got through production, but too much stuff is so stereotypical and boring to me now, even if it is bigger/badder/more affluent. Back with Playstation the original and fun games seemed to come out every other month.

 

[Dilbert]

I miss the old days of PC gaming. Although I enjoyed my Sega Master System and Genesis growing up, the games which REALLY made an impression on me were all PC games.

 

[WrathOfOtaibah]

Do you think it could be possible because when we were younger, we didn't own as many games as we do now? I just remember the time when I got Zelda 2 for NES when I was a kid. I was pissed and that was an understatement. I wanted the original. However I played the hell out of it because there was nothing else to play at the time. I wound up playing a damn good game. Someone in another thread brought up Evolution. I had a Dreamcast and was in 9th grade so money was tight. Yet I got that game, played the hell out of it, and still enjoyed every minute of it.

I don't think its being too critical. I think its just there's so many games. That forced joy may be the key missing element here.

 

[Doc Holliday]

I'm pretty old school and this gen for me is surpassing the 16 bit era.

re4
Mp 1 & 2
Wind Waker
MGS 2 & 3
Ninja Gaiden
Ico
RE remake
dmc 1 & 3
Half Life 2
pikmin
ssmb
vf4
gta
silent hill 2

and more.. or maybe its because i have more money now then i ever did back then lol

 

[ourumov]

I think I am alone but when I look at the 80s I don't see any appeal. Videogames were pretty simple to my tastes and the looked pretty bad...

Actually I started with a Game & Watch...But had no interest at all on the NES. It was ok for me to spend 3000 spanish pesetas on Bomb Sweeper or Donkey Kong...But the NES looked so ugly that I never had any interest on it. It's the only case in gaming history where I was looking at games and they seemed ugly to me (in its time)...
Then it came the GBOY which was pretty interesting for me...and finally the SNES.


When I say golden age I mean that in my opinion videogame quality reached a top when it comes to certain genres of course. Mainly the classic arcade ones: fighters and shmups. Besides we saw a great ammount of games on the home scene that are still the best ones: RPGS and Platfformers...

Sure there have been great games after this time but well...I think that the 16 bit era is the golden age of gaming. Not that things are horrible now. Actually I buy a lot more titles now than before but well...I think that today there is much more crap and less innovation.

 

[etiolate]

It's not just nostalgia. People forget all the different stuff there was out there then. There were lots of fighters and platformers, but those platformers managed more varied gameplay than the standard "spin attack move" we have today. And the overlfow of Action and FPS titles today is much greater than the amount of fighters back then.

All the arcade games. Stuff like Faceball, ZAMN and Uniracers. That era just feels refined, while many of today's top games are rough around the edges.

2. 2d generally forced a lack of detail. This 'lack' allowed me to visual the game as I saw fit rather than being handed all the details I didn't like. This is on part of my argument I generally fail miserably to explain well. I can only further say its vaugely like having a book without much description vs one with a lot of it. My imagination is powerful enough that one isn't more 'real' than the other, but when its more vauge I can make the mental image into what I want it to be rather than what the author intended. It is harder to ignore detail than to just be ignorant of it.

I've talked about this abstract aspect of older games and the player's imagination before. It is a general rule to be concrete and descript in books, but an over descript writer writes the reader right out of the experience. Reading an Asimov of Herbert book as a kid did you know what everything looked exactly like? No, but the imagination filling in the open spots is part of the fun.

It's sort of like The Nothing within the movie The Neverending Story. Through the movie, you really don't see much of The Nothing and this lack of information does not detract from the movie but rather feeds the imagination and fear.

So I think more abstraction in modern games is good and is a trend you might start seeing from the longtime game gurus.

This is another difference from that 90s era and today. Too often lately I feel like I am playing something that is the product of some market research or some board of directors cutting and mangling of some idea into a pallatable one. Back then, many of the games I played felt like they were born inside somebody's head, born from someone's imagination and I was playing somebody's idea.

Then why people say that now videogames is a much more integrated and mainstream media/entertainment today and more than ever before? ?? There's something wrong here.

Videogames are a mainstream product, but videogame culture is heading the exact opposite direction.

 

[FortNinety]

The 16 bit era is "my" golden age, if only cuz I was old enough to really appreciate good games, but young enough not have to deal with a job and other adult stuff.

 

[soundwave05]

The 16-bit era is unique because of all the incredible things happening in the arcade scene as well.

Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, NBA Jam, etc. etc. etc.

Also I think the 16-bit era saw the rise of the sports simultation genre thanks to EA and other companies. Also the incredible shitstorm of controversey over Mortal Kombat.

And of course the most vicious console battle between the SNES and Genesis (good times).

 

[User 406]

Golden Age of Gaming: 1970's - Present, for all values of Present.

 

[Fantasmo]

Eh, what? If anything, the 32-bit generation and 3D brought greater variety and gameplay innovation. 16-bit was largely platformers (and licensed ones at that), fighting games, Zelda clones, shooters, and puzzle games.

In the end, it's purely nostalgia. You were a kid then, and had the time and desire to endlessly pursue your favorite hobby. It really wasn't any better, though; in fact, it many demonstrable ways, it was worse. But shit ALWAYS seemes better back in the rosy fog of one's childhood.

More accurately, they simply made games while your tastes were developing. You developed and sealed your predominant preferences during that era.

The 32-bit era brought real innovation, but by then, your tastes were largely locked down, and there's nothing that they could do to appeal to you

Games are still just as fun -- in fact, they have more of the tangible qualities we commonly ascribe to fun, such as good controls, great graphics/sound, improved art direction, stellar production values -- it's just that really, you aren't as open-minded and fresh-faced as you were when you were a kid. It's true of all of us older gamers, to some extent, although I find that my tastes are better satisfied with each generation save in the area of PC gaming -- and again, some of my "complaints" in that area can be ascribed to nostalgia.

I disagree with most of your sentiments Drinky. 16-bit was better for the same reason that current gen is so good.

32-bit sucked. Barring a few exceptions, anything made out of polygons in the PS/Saturn/N64 era looked horrible. SNES graphics were more acceptable because characters and backgrounds were able to look more like concept art than 32-bit 3d polygons could ever hope for. Many great 32-bit 3d games had generic graphics and zero style because most companies were just starting out with 3d. 32-bit 3d games simply did not have the power to display the detail in graphics that 2d graphics could on 16 bit. 3d Gameplay had begun but not been perfected. It was an experimentation era.

Forget nostalgia and locked down tastes, that's bunk. 16-bit had perfected old, tried and true methods and really fleshed out what 8-bit had begun. It was no longer experimentation.

However, that 16-bit feeling is back this gen. With all 3 current gen systems, 3d experimenting is gone. Methods have been proven and perfected again. The learning curve is gone and graphics have hit a level that far surpass anything prior. The packages are once again becoming whole -- 3d movement, framerates, detail, and experiences are fully fleshed out and playable.

Last gen, games like Ninja Gaiden, Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, Chronicles of Riddick, Resident Evil 4, Fatal Frame 2, GTA, Fight Night, Halo, Tekken 5, Mercenaries, Ratchet & Clank, and Splinter Cell weren't possible the way they are today. Several of these simply couldn't exist last gen, couldn't look proper last gen, or weren't fluid enough to be an extension of your hand as they are with this gen's systems. Oh, they were possible in 32bit , but the desired effect in graphics and control were not achieved until now. You need only look at current gen games to realize that it wasn't US that didn't like 32bit, it was them for not being able to quite pull it off yet.

This gen's capabilities has even opened me to new genres, genres that I wouldn't give a chance to in 32bit days. Not because of my locked down tastes, but because the developers have perfected their craft!