Are You Happy About The Era Of Gaming You Grew Up In?

[Phillyman]

I was thinking about this, kids today have Xbox 360's and Playstation 3's. Some of these kids will never play classics such as Super Mario Bros 3. Are you happy about the era that you were born in? Do you think it gave you a greater or more in depth appreciation of video games today. I grew up with a 2600 and then went through the Nintendo consoles all the way to present day. Can kids today really appreciate classics like Sonic the Hedgehog or Legend of Zelda?

[MacGruber]

I love my game consoles' generation There were 16/64 bits consoles, like sega genesis and n64. And in spite I don't belong to the 8bits era, I played the NES and Dynacom (atari clon) till the tiredness

Since then, I almost don't play any games at all, except some PS2 titles.

[Areala]

I was thinking about this, kids today have Xbox 360's and Playstation 3's. Some of these kids will never play classics such as Super Mario Bros 3. Are you happy about the era that you were born in? Do you think it gave you a greater or more in depth appreciation of video games today. I grew up with a 2600 and then went through the Nintendo consoles all the way to present day. Can kids today really appreciate classics like Sonic the Hedgehog or Legend of Zelda?

Can they appreciate them? Possibly, though not growing up with it makes it hard to appreciate anything when there's "something better" out there. In a way, I believe people my age and right around it were the luckiest in the world: we've seen games evolve from blips and bloops of Space Invaders into the amazing array of first-person shooters, RPGs, and action titles that a mere 30 years ago would have been a joke.

We've also profited from growing up in an era where skill was required to beat a game. There was no difficulty selector for games like Ninja Gaiden or Super Mario Bros. 3: you either figured out the best routes to take, or you didn't beat the game. Many games to me seem "dumbed down" compared to the ones of yesteryear. Remember in the original Final Fantasy how much strategy was involved in knowing your enemies so that you didn't waste attacks on monsters you had already killed?

*huggles*

Areala

[Mister Zero]

I'm glad I grew up in the NES era on. I feel sort of bad for these modern kids because they missed out and probably won't ever have the appreciation for the classics which are the foundation of todays gaming.

I always wonder if they have the same feelings about games today that I used to get about games when I was a kid.

[triverse]

I am proud to have grown up in the "electronics games" era (2600 on up to today) and am enjoying it a lot.  I enjoyed it more back around the SNES and 3DO though for some reason (could be that games were unique and publishers/developers were trying new things, course there were the copycats following the leader too).

[kbf_private_joker]

I'm glad I grew up in the NES era on. I feel sort of bad for these modern kids because they missed out and probably won't ever have the appreciation for the classics which are the foundation of todays gaming.

I always wonder if they have the same feelings about games today that I used to get about games when I was a kid.

I 100% agree with this. Games like Super Mario Bros 3 are great because it didn't have to have 3d graphics or awesome sound to be fun to play. To me, fun is the most important aspect of any game. This is why games like SMB3 will be great forever.

[E-Day]

I started on the 2600, then went to the Master System, and then the Super NES in early 1992. The 16-bit era was the best. The 32-bit era could have been even better had they stuck with 2D games. I never liked how the 3D games looked. The consoles weren't powerful enough for what they wanted to do, so everything was jagged and ugly; especially looking back at it now.

[Tony_32]

I'm glad also. But the same could be said for the old folks who grew up in TV's heyday. But as an 80's kid, TV then was great also. Lots of great shows, A Team, Airwolf, Dukes of Hazzard. Lots of good sitcoms, too many to name. Lots of great Sat morning cartoons. I guess lots of things seemed great looking back but the grown ups that were kids when I was just getting out of school seem to recall TV shows and games for which would fall out of my heyday rankings. It's all relative, if you ask me.

We're sort of the old toy collector's, in a sense. Just as the old guys who still collect old toy train tracks and such from their heydays. They'll probably tell you toys were better then because you used your imagination more and it was more physical. In other words, one man's heyday is another man's hellday.

[white-zombie]

I was born in the early 80's, and grew up playing my friend's Commodore 64's (Midnight Resistance, anyone?), before eventually getting a Mega Drive in '93, and a SNES for Christmas '94, then a PSOne when it launched in November '95 in the UK.

As such, I consider myself to been a part of the 16-bit era as a child, then later on a part of the 32-bit era.

I consider the 16-bit era to be one of the best thus far in terms of quality games and consoles.

Super Mario All-stars, Zelda III, Starwing, Super Castlevania IV, Quackshot, Gunstar Heroes, Sonic 2...

I guess there's another topic in there somewhere...Which era produced the best games!?

[link82]

I am very happy.I was born in 1982 and had a nes in 1988.I had some of the best game ever and played others from friends.besides a lost many and many games and system due to money budget,but now i can recover them all and enjoy them

[Thor]

By the time I really got into gaming VCS was around and it was ok I really did like it and Coleco but by the time the NES era came around I fell in love. My parents went out and bought us a PC which only made us want to get an NES even more because PC gaming back the well... sorry but it sucked. So the following year my parents bought us a SMS which actually was really cool because they bought the 3D set with the light gun. So I kinda had the best of both worlds. All my friends had the NES and I had the SMS so depending on what we wanted to play we traded off visiting each others house.

Anyway to answer the question yes I was happy.

[8bitforever]

I grew up in the Atari 2600 and on era. I believe it is just like trying to understand why my grandfather likes Eddie Arnold music. You had to be there! The early 80's and 90's were a goldmine not just for games but television and toys as well. I think anyone growing up in this era was extremely lucky. I make sure my two daughters get their fair share of He-man and She-ra along with the all the old games I grew up with. My kids like the old games but I see a growing trend in young people that is disturbing. If their game doesn't look like a CG movie they think it sucks. In my day we had to use a little imagination when playing Pitfall on the 2600 in order to really get into the game. Even the old box art and instruction manuals were full of things we really did not see in the game but it brought us into the game even more. I will never accept that the generation now or future will ever be as good as the 80's.

[CharmedonWB]

I grew up in the era of the Coleco Vision, Commodore 64, Atari and the NES. The time when the gaming industry was bouncing back from its near death. This era was the beginning of the industry as we know it today so I'm extremely glad that I was able to see the industry being born and grow up to what it is today.

[Tron]

I grew up in the NES era.... during the snes era. back then my family didn't have a lot of money, so i got an nes one year for some reason (it wasn't anyone's birthday or christmas. we just went to the store and got one one day)

This turned out to be a pretty good choice, since there was a huge nes library for me to choose from and prices on all the games had dropped. i acquired about 10 games in a few months and many many more since.

I eventually got an SNES because i wanted to play donkey kong country, but i still played my nes, and continue to do so today.

anyway, on appreciating systems from the past, i really don't think its possible for kids raised on a 360 to enjoy something like old school mario. its not that mario is a bad game, its just not what they're used to. they don't "get" it.

an example of this is that while i started on an nes, i can't enjoy an atari game. Its alien to me. the first time i actually saw an atari was only two years ago. i tried some atari games and just couldn't enjoy it. the graphics weren't on par with my standard, the nes. the games didn't really have any story. and i could care less about getting points.

what i'm saying is that the nes was a game changer. after its release, the goal of a videogame was to finish it to its completion rather than achieve the highest score, which was a major component of atari gaming. sure, Super Mario Bros. and a number of other nes games had points, but they were secondary to the experience, and eventually were dropped from games altogether. I can appreciate the historical significance of the Atari and its games, but i'm not likely to play a game of haunted house or Yar's revenge.

Contrast this to a kid playing the ps3 or 360, the game changer for them is online play, and one player modes are starting to take a back seat to the multiplayer experience. Not only that, but consoles can do more than just play games. Perhaps when they look at a system that "only plays games" and doesn't have an online component, they see it as inferior and therefore not worth their time. their loss, i suppose.

[meppi]

Some great stories in here. Love to read them so keep them coming.

I believe people my age and right around it were the luckiest in the world: we've seen games evolve from blips and bloops of Space Invaders into the amazing array of first-person shooters, RPGs, and action titles that a mere 30 years ago would have been a joke.

Oh absolutely!

I think of myself as being very lucky not only by growing up during the boom of videogames but also at the time and place where it allowed me to constantly play an arcade cabinet and a pinball machine from the early age of 3.

Those early years made me into the gamer I am today and when getting a NES many years later solidified it even more. Yet discovering the MegaDrive and later on the Saturn, both at a time where I was thinking I was growing out of games, pulled me back in in a whole other way and made me realize that I need arcade style games to be happy.

So I'm extremely glad that I can appreciate games from the early arcade days just as much today as I do modern games. Although my gamers heart lies in the past.

That is probably the reason why I'm not happy at all with the current generation and partially the last one as well.

Arcade games have become a dirty word. Looked down upon as throwaway games that lack depth and are only good to be played for 5 minutes before moving on to the next one.

The flaw in this reasoning, and I can't believe the overwhelming majority of gamers today feel this way is, arcade games have such a huge amount of replayability to them.

While lots of todays games can be enjoyed only once through and then no more, unless you truly love the game in question.

I can easily sit down with Elevator Action or Xevious and spend the whole afternoon or evening playing those non-stop. While at the same time I find myself getting very easily bored with the latest and greatest gaming has to offer.

Not that this applies to everything. As I can just as well play an all-nighter of Crash Commando for instance or WipEout HD.

Yet, this probably has to do with what kind of games these actually are. Disguised in a nice shiny HD coat of paint, but at heart arcade styled, trying to fool people there are something else.

Something entirely different that I've observed, but which has been mentioned in the thread.

Kids today growing up with PS3s and 360s not only not appreciating classic games, but seemingly unable to handle them.

I've watched this happen on many occasions over the past couple of years when I went to babysit a friend's kids who started gaming on a PSone at a very young age.

They moved on the PS2,Xbox, GC and now PS3 and Wii.

They played basically nothing but 3D games and can most of the time hold their own, and in many others even kick my butt.

Yet, when I bring a NES or MegaDrive or SNES with me and let them play Super Mario Bros or Super Mario World for instance, games which we all agree upon are timeless classics, they not only seem to get bored of them rather quickly.

But what's more surprising and a bit shocking to me at the time is that they can't seem to handle them.

Remember when we played SMB for the first time with the d-pad? Running towards the first pit and dropping straight into it, having even trouble jumping over it when we know we had to?

Well these kids have now about 8 years of gaming under their belts, so they should be able to handle something as archaic and bare bones as SMB?

Guess what, they can't. Watching them plummet to their death and jump headfirst into a Koopa over and over again is so painful to watch.

The worst part is, instead of pushing on and learning how to play the game like we did, they just give up...

So there's definitely a flaw with the logic lots of modern gamers use in describing 2D games as simple, boring and outdated.

For us those games might be simple, well simple to understand anyway, because we played nothing but for a decade or more.

But for lots of kids today they are not.

So in the end yes, I'm absolutely 100% happy about growing up when I did and feel a bit sorry for the kids today that crave their 50+ hour story driven, FMV loaded, bloated "entertainment packages" that pretend they are videogames...

And that's the end of my old fart rant.

[Gnash]

What I hate about my era of games is that we didn't have real reviews, so I spent quite a few bucks on bad games. Nintendo Power would hype stupid games while not looking at some great ones.

[gblock]

Yeah, I'd agree with that Gnash.

I loved the era of gaming I grew up in (8-64bit), just wish I had a job back then so I could have actually played some of the really great stuff when it was actually out. Oh, and not having an arcade around me until they were practically dead f'n sucked hardcore :(

Which is why I will have another Wii at some point down the road, because it covers all my classic gaming needs, as well as a nice mix of casual current gaming.

[Gnash]

Yeah, I'd agree with that Gnash.

I loved the era of gaming I grew up in (8-64bit), just wish I had a job back then so I could have actually played some of the really great stuff when it was actually out. Oh, and not having an arcade around me until they were practically dead f'n sucked hardcore :(

Which is why I will have another Wii at some point down the road, because it covers all my classic gaming needs, as well as a nice mix of casual current gaming.

Exactly my reason for owning a Wii.

[Data]

I don't know too many kids nowadays but I would imagine most could not appreciate a good old game unless it was the only game they could play. This made me think of a scene in the film The Wrestler starring Mickey Rourke. It Features a fictional Nintendo Entertainment System video game called Wrestle Jam '88, starring the characters of Robinson and The Ayatollah. Randy invites a neighborhood boy over to play this game and the kid quickly loses interest. Not because he was getting slammed but because he wanted to go home and play Call of Duty.

[MagikMilk]

1987 - 2000 Sure i am proud and happy about growing up in the gaming era i was raised in!

*Lights Dim* Although i'm not happy to say i'm not happy with the way things are in the gaming world today, especially with our younger generation.

I find it funny how all of us Veterans of The Gaming World talks as if we served in WWII.

[Schloss Ritter]

I appreciate being able to play the Atari 2600 games when they were new, along with some of the electronic handhelds of that day. It gives me a better perspective on what makes a good game today, not overlooking games with "bad graphics" for example.

[Estil]

Absolutely, I couldn't have grown up in a better era. To be right in the middle of the 16-bit console wars was awesome, though it seemed like I was in the minority as it seemed like most wanted a Genesis but I was a Nintendo fanboy through and through. Genesis vs. SNES; it was like Democrat or Republican; you were either one or the other, not both (unless you and your parents were REALLY rich). Though I got my first console for my 10th birthday, an NES, back in 1990. I remember how desperately I wanted a SNES for Christmas as soon as I saw that first commerical (the one for Super Mario World that had 16 "A little bit..."'s); I wanted to play with SUPER Power! But my parents insisted that "I already had a Nintendo". But my persistence paid off; I did indeed get that Super Nintendo--three years later. But the wait was well worth it; it was the very best video game console package ever created; two controllers and Super Mario World AND All-Stars! I got FIVE games in one! And again it was quite late, but I got a Nintendo 64 for Christmas in 2000!

Though I twice made the mistake of selling my classic consoles (thinking computer and later Wii Virtual Console emulation would be good enough), my wife helped me get back into classic gaming last Christmas, and with my usual dealer being able to put in fresh battery backups in all my games, there's just no excuse now for settling for anything less than the real deal. Screw emulation.

I definitely feel bad for the young people today; I know they got those almost photorealistic looking games and games where you wave a remote/numchuk around, but can they ever appreciate the classics? I sure hope at least some can.

[MagikMilk]

I wasn't too fond of the PS2 i believe it was just a "distraction" or "side track" to lure fans away from what to ultimately expect from the PS3, i believe, in my opinion, that Sony used the PS2 to lure their fans money so they can use that to create the PS3.

i think too much about conspiracies.

[Mister Zero]

PS2 is one of the most lukewarm systems I own. It's got some fun games, but altogether it didn't stand out or even make me as happy as the PS1 did. But of course, even the great PS1 pales in comparison to my SNES or Genesis.

[MagikMilk]

PS2 is one of the most lukewarm systems I own. It's got some fun games, but altogether it didn't stand out or even make me as happy as the PS1 did. But of course, even the great PS1 pales in comparison to my SNES or Genesis.

i agree with your statement, PS2 wasn't much of an impact. Sony fans were still stuck and well attached to their PSX that i myself became one with my Playstation One, 1, PSX. PS2 was like a roadblock, something to keep us busy so Sony could work on the PS3. I imagine it went like this "here's something to give our fans busy in the meantime while we come up with something new".