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[Archaic101]

Doing inventory of my 7th gen home console game collections, and it just reaffirmed that we didn’t know how lucky we had it:

3 Uncharted games
4 Halo games (and one remaster)
3 Mass Effect games
3 Mario games (2 3D, 1 2D)
2 Burnout games
3 Rock Band games (plus expansions)
4 Ratchet games
3 Batman Arkham games
4 Dead Space games
3 Skate games
2 Left 4 Dead games
7 Assassin’s Creed games
3 Far Cry games
3 Dragon Age games
2 Ninja Gaiden games
2 DMC games
4 Resident Evil games
2 Elder Scrolls games
2 Fallout games
4 Gears of War games
2 God of War games
5 Skylanders games
3 Command and Conquer games
3 Killzone games
3 Resistance games
2 X-com games
4 Castlevania games
6 Battlefield games
2 Fable games (and 1 remake)
2 GTA games (plus 2 full-length expansions)
2 Marvel Ultimate Alliance games
2 Sonic racing games
7 Spider-Man games
8ish Telltale adventure games
9ish Guitar Hero games
4 Armored Core games
2 Dark Souls games
2 Metal Gear games
3 Borderlands games
4 Fear games
2 Silent Hill games
2.5 Dead Rising games
2 Condemned games
2 Rayman games
3 Motorstorm games
2 Infamous games
2 Rainbow 6 Vegas games
7 new Tomb Raider games (if you include the 2 solid top-down games)
3 Splinter Cell games
2 Portal games
9ish Need for Speed games
2 Wii Sports games
3 Dance Central games
3 Little Big Planet games
10ish Lego games
3 Bioshock games
4 Saint's Row games
2 Just Cause games
2 Forza Horizon games
2 Gran Turismo games
2 Zelda games


New entries in the following neglected franchises:

Street Fighter
Mortal Kombat
Mafia
Driver
Punch Out
Raiden
Max Payne
Twisted Metal
Contra
Gradius
Splatterhouse
Red Dead
King’s Quest
A Boy and His Blob
House of the Dead
Diablo
Sam and Max
Rygar
Donkey Kong Country
King of Fighters
Civilization
Goldeneye
Shadowrun
Sin and Punishment
Syndicate
NBA Jam
Unreal Tournament
You Don’t Know Jack
Deus Ex
Alice
Marvel vs. Capcom


Excellent Re-release Collections (featuring 2+ games each):

Metroid Prime
Sly Cooper
Ratchet and Clank
House of the Dead
Jak and Daxter
Time Crisis
Metal Slug
Dragonball Z Budokai
God of War
Dungeons and Dragons (arcade)
Chronicles of Riddick
Half-life 2
Kirby's Return to Dreamland
WipeOut
Devil May Cry
Hitman
Ico/Shadow of the Colossus


Good “one-and-done” titles OR franchise starters for the 8th gen:

Last of Us
Minecraft
Fragile Dreams
Dragon’s Crown
Tatsunoko vs Capcom
ExciteBots
Iron Brigade
Dante's Inferno
Shadow Complex
Warhawk
Bayonetta
PacMan CE
Split Second
Toy Story 3
Witcher 2
Mark of the Ninja
Wii Fit
Xenoblade Chronicles
Enslaved
Saboteur
Sports Friends
Puppeteer
Last Story
Zack and Wiki
Lost Odyssey
Deadly Premonition
Prey
Muramasa
Warhammer: Space Marine
Tokyo Jungle
Rock Band Unplugged
Braid
Destiny
Valkyria Chronicles
Demon’s Souls
Guacamelee
3D Dot Game Heroes
Singularity
Ninja Blade
1 vs 100
Sleeping Dogs


All of this, as well as innovations in motion controls, online connectivity, casual gaming, achievements, toys-to-life, plastic instruments, persistent worlds, 3D video output…whew!

I mean, even if you concede that some of these games/changes are not your cup of tea (and I certainly didn't love all of them), I’d be hard pressed to think of a more productive time in the industry.

It certainly explains why some are unhappy with their libraries this gen, relatively speaking

 

[nial]

Resogun

This is PS4 gen. The PS3 port was released a full year later.

 

[Evolved1]

It's a good post for some perspective. Still, I couldn't go back to having loadtimes.

 

[RagnarokIV]

Was the last gen I proper loved and enjoyed.

 

[LectureMaster]

It's mind boggling to look back how prolific Naughty Dog was

UC1 -2007
UC2 -2009
UC2 -2011
TLoU- 2013
UC4 - 2016

Now we are on the fifth year of Gen 9 and ND hasn't even given a release window for its game.

 

[Evolved1]

It's mind boggling to look back how prolific Naughty Dog was

UC1 -2007
UC2 -2009
UC2 -2011
TLoU- 2013
UC4 - 2016

Now we are on the fifth year of Gen 9 and ND hasn't even given a release window for its game.

Factions getting axed took a big bite out of them. I bet that game is awesome as fuck too. That's the one ND leak we needed...

 

[Archaic101]

It's mind boggling to look back how prolific Naughty Dog was

UC1 -2007
UC2 -2009
UC2 -2011
TLoU- 2013
UC4 - 2016

Now we are on the fifth year of Gen 9 and ND hasn't even given a release window for its game.

And -even though it was short- Lost Legacy came out in 2017! So that's 6ish games in 10 years, 5 of which could be called AAA headliners for their systems.

 

[Radical_3d]

I’ve always stated that was the best generation. The best Xbox, the best Sony, the best EA, the best Activision, so many rising promises and even some people liked what Nintendo did. The first indies exploding in XBLA. The golden age of video games. Gone to never return again.

 

[Gaiff]

It's mind boggling to look back how prolific Naughty Dog was

UC1 -2007
UC2 -2009
UC2 -2011
TLoU- 2013
UC4 - 2016

Now we are on the fifth year of Gen 9 and ND hasn't even given a release window for its game.

To be fair, everyone was.

BioWare

2007: Mass Effect
2009: Dragon Age: Origins
2010: Mass Effect 2
2011: Dragon Age 2
2012: Mass Effect 3

Bethesda:

2006: Oblivion
2008: Fallout 3
2011: Skyrim
2015: Fallout 4

It's really odd we reached a point where games of similar size take 5-7 years to make when they used to take 2-3 years. I understand the graphics are production values are much higher, but surely, this cannot explain everything?

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It’s insane how good we had it. Nowadays it takes like 5 years to make a game, and then when it comes out there’s like a 75% chance it’s some woke piece of crap made by devs who hate their audience and have no idea what made the previous one good.

 

[Wolves hunt in packs]

Best gen that will never return (probably), So many fantastic games, first time on HD TV, first time with wireless controller, best time i had with gaming.

 

[intbal]

...
3 Halo games

Which Halo game did you miss out on during the 7th gen?

 

[hououinkyouma00]

Which Halo game did you miss out on during the 7th gen?

Only 3 Halo games exist on Xbox 360.

3/ODST/Reach

 

[rofif]

Yep we knew!
360/ps3 was an amazing era.
More games each month than we get in a year or two nowadays.
Quality, ground breaking AAA games at that... thaat are 6-20 hours long. Not 20-100 hours long... and that was perfect.
Mass Effect could be 20-30 hours and IT WAS FINE.
Gears/uncharted was 8 hours AND IT WAS FINE

 

[Vaquilla]

7th gen was awesome.
All three consoles delivered amazing experiences, and the sheer number of good games was mind-boggling.
Dev times were still reasonable, shit like microtransactions hadn't yet infected everything, there were a ton of amazing new IPs, just a great time to be a gamer.

 

[N30RYU]

It’s insane how good we had it. Nowadays it takes like 5 years to make a game, and then when it comes out there’s like a 75% chance it’s some woke piece of crap made by devs who hate their audience and have no idea what made the previous one good.

And even so... devs are clueless why are they failing and they think that is because they aren't focusing on safe bets or their games aren't a gaas... them have their minds twisted...

 

[dragonyeuw]

The last gen where companies could put out 3 AAA within a 5-6 year period, and a commercial under-performer wasn't a death knell for a company. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, try again. Now if your 200m blockbuster underperforms...layoffs, studio closures, and the sky falls.

 

[BouncyFrag]

Great post.

Still replay many of those games. Timeless.

 

[adamsapple]

Probably the reason games came out so quick was that they weren't being made on an astronomical budget either.

Gears of War 1's development budget was $10m.
Gears of War 2's development budget was $12m.

During his presentation at the High-Performance Graphics 2009 conference, Tim Sweeney, the CEO and founder of Epic Games, revealed that Gears of War 2 required a $12 million development budget to complete. That is surprisingly low for a high-profile HD game. The project took two years to complete and needed 15 programmers and 12 artists.

Even accounting for inflation, these are tiny numbers compared to today's average game budget.

 

[Sooner]

Yeah, and GAF was still filled with the same "gaming sucks now" threads we have today.

Some day this will be the "good ol days" for people crying about how the PS7 and Switch 4 just don't get it anymore.

 

[Fess]

This is depressing to be honest.
We got 3 Uncharted games, 3 Gears of War, the full Mass Effect trilogy, which could be the best trilogy in gaming, and all in the same generation.

And here we are… Naughty Dog hasn’t released it’s first new game yet this generation. The Coalition hasn’t even shown gameplay of their new Gears of War. And no Mass Effect either but there is a Dragon Age game that nobody likes.

What is happening? Is this a direct consequence of aiming for photo realism and motion capture and Hollywood cutscenes?
Then what are we doing why do we need photo realism? My favorite game of all time is Elden Ring. No photo realism there, lipync sucks, no motion capture, still better than every other game and has more content too than almost everything.

 

[Fess]

7 Assassin’s Creed games?!!!

Seriously, what are we doing?

 

[Sushi_Combo]

Gen 7 was best Gen.

 

[Fess]

2 Elder Scrolls games
2 Fallout games
3 Motorstorm games
9 Need for Speed games

What. Is. Happening. These. Days????

This is going to be the shittiest day, I just woke up and this is how I start my day

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

but surely, this cannot explain everything?

it pretty much does, not only did (texture/polycount)resolutions increase, the techniques did as well and became more involved; model sculpting which was a thing mostly reserved for off-line renders, became more accessible publicly around ~2008 with a big release of zbrush, and mudbox shortly after.
Then there was a shift from the specular workflow (diffuse, specular, light, normal) for mapping, to the PBR workflow (Albedo, AO, roughness, normal) for mapping, which takes more work to create a material shader.
You'll have a bunch of generalists around but sculpting can be pretty difficult and take a long time to finish, so studios will also have dedicated sculpters.

So basically the increases in resolution already ballooned the time required to build, while changes in techniques adds additional time to that as well.

 

[Klosshufvud]

The usual suspects of corporate asslickers will hit this thread and go on a tirade how we're so much better off today since profit margins are so high.

You're damn right OP it was an insanely good time for video games. The first half of 7th gen was on par with 6th gen if not even better in consistent releases of absolute classics.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

My favorite overall gen. None of the systems including the handhelds had a weak library and gaming culture was in a fantastic place.

 

[HYDE]

Only 3 Halo games exist on Xbox 360.

3/ODST/Reach

Wrong, if not already called out…Halo 4.
And Anniversary Combat Evolved

 

[hououinkyouma00]

Wrong, if not already called out…Halo 4.
And Anniversary Combat Evolved

I don’t know what you are talking about. Those definitely don’t exist and both sound horrible.

 

[BigLee74]

Best gen yet. Graphics really took off, multiplayer took root, and top games were generally only taking 3 years to develop.

It’s when consoles became a viable alternative to gaming PCs, and I’ve never looked back.

 

[RAIDEN1]

OP what were the Command and Conquer games? Were they on a level of Tiberian Sun

 

[Fbh]

I played and enjoyed games before, but this was the gen that really got me into gaming as a hobby.
I'd honestly be willing to go back to shorter games with simpler graphics (as long as they run at high res and at least 60fps) if we could go back to this era of gaming.

We never needed more production values than this:

 

[Ceadeus]

That was fucking insane, it won't ever be topped. And we're not even talking about the handhelds.

Edit: In all honesty, I've made room by unplugging the Series X and hooked the 360 and PS3. There are still so much fun.

 

[Neat]

I played and enjoyed games before, but this was the gen that really got me into gaming as a hobby.
I'd honestly be willing to go back to shorter games with simpler graphics (as long as they run at high res and at least 60fps) if we could go back to this era of gaming.

We never needed more production values than this:

Whats the 1st and 4th game?

 

[GHG]

Whats the 1st and 4th game?

Lost planet and ni no kuni.

 

[nkarafo]

7th gen lasted what, 9 years?

 

[Fbh]

Whats the 1st and 4th game?

First is Lost Planet 2.
4th is Ni No Kuni 1

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Best gen for games.

Also, online gaming became standard on consoles. MP modes, invite gamers into a game and party chat, friends lists etc.... And the game devs all figured out that part out too.

At the time, studios needed game sales for revenue/profit, and maybe some games had DLC and map packs. I dont think there were too many games latched onto GAAS mtx going for eons.

But a lot of modern day games pigeon hole that into their business cycle. So instead of 3 solid games in 7-8 years. Now you get 1 game, maybe 2 tops. But got mtx and season 1, 2.... 15 as their built in revenue gap filler.

 

[Vaquilla]

I still have my 360, Wii, and PS3 hooked up even after all these years, and I'm still finding cool looking games I never heard about or got around to playing back in the day; recently picked up Stranglehold and Ace Combat 6 for instance.

7th gen is a goldmine.

 

[Tommi84]

UC1 -2007
UC2 -2009
UC2 -2011
TLoU- 2013
UC4 - 2016

Those that played in the early days of Naughty Dog were SUPER LUCKY.

At first, ND gave us this

But then, they switched and gave us this

Sorry, ND, a chose chloe/Elena:

 

[semiconscious]

What is happening? Is this a direct consequence of aiming for photo realism and motion capture and Hollywood cutscenes?
Then what are we doing why do we need photo realism? My favorite game of all time is Elden Ring. No photo realism there, lipync sucks, no motion capture, still better than every other game and has more content too than almost everything.

well, aiming for photo realism & motion capture (appearance) is basically what you're left with as a direct consequence of a complete lack of genuine vision (substance), so yeah...

i mean, just look at all those timeless original franchises. not too many of those right now...

 

[vodka-bull]

It's a good post for some perspective. Still, I couldn't go back to having loadtimes.

Playing through Days Gone just recently proved to me how awful loading times are. It‘s a great game, but staring at a black screen for 15+ seconds just sucks…

 

[Evolved1]

Playing through Days Gone just recently proved to me how awful loading times are. It‘s a great game, but staring at a black screen for 15+ seconds just sucks…

yeah, hard to back to older games for that reason. i love resident evil, but i can never watch another door opening loading transition lol. i just cannot.

 

[Archaic101]

OP what were the Command and Conquer games? Were they on a level of Tiberian Sun

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2
Command and Conquer 3: Tiberian Wars
Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath

I had them all on 360, and they all had their pros and cons. My favorite was probably Red Alert 2, but I don't know if that's a popular opinion.

 

[EverydayBeast]

It’s easy to nitpick this generation, especially when it’s in the middle of the generation. For the record I don’t have a problem with saying 7th gen is better than this generation.

 

[Gamerguy84]

Yep. Games used to be a lot smaller though.

The average PS1 game was 500 to 600 MBs. The average PS5 game is 50 to 100 Gigabytes. COD being something like 200GB alone.

I love this gen for the tech advancements alone though. No loading is forever a game changer.