What is your favorite era of gaming?

Definitely 90's. While I spent most of my allowance on arcade and Atari games from the 80's, that style of gaming just doesn't hold my interest anymore. Also, I remember with great pain the horrid BEEP BOOP BEEP of the PC's internal speaker before Ad Lib/Sound Blaster came to the rescue. Once that happened, I became a PC gamer for life and never looked back. Good things start with S: Starcraft (W95), Stratego (DOS), Solitaire (3.1) are probably the games I play the most these days.

2000s for me.

The Xbox and Gamecube are 2 of my favourite consoles of all time... I have the fondest memories from that gen of consoles. Also a bunch of my favourite games were released in the 00s, like Half-Life 2, BioShock, Halo, GTA San Andreas etc.

I am the same way regarding your response about video games in the 90s being my favorite era for gaming. Unlike you regarding spending money on arcade games in the 80s, I, on the other hand, spent my money on arcade games from the 90s.

Out of curiosity, what is it about that era of gaming doesn't hold your interest anymore?

Lastly, do you recognize or have you played either of these arcade games? I put their names in the description below the photos.

The early 2000's were pretty good times for gaming. I think every genre really came into its own by that point, and graphics reached a benchmark that enabled games to look reasonably good from that point forward. I think early online stuff was very hit-or-miss, but by the 360 era it had improved considerably - a very short period of time, actually.

I prefer 80's and early 90's games. Nintendo NES is my favorite platform.

Late 90's early 2000's when we used to get together for four player split screen on Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and Timesplitters. Used to gather at my place and take over the living room for hours at a time. Now when people come over, I want them to go home so we can play some games.

2000's by a wide margin. By then all controllers had two analog sticks, most developers had gotten a handle on making things in 3D, graphics were good enough to be genuinely pretty, the advantages of online were there but it's also before most of the worst monetization practices took off, and I had the disposable income to buy most of the games I wanted.

The 1980-1989 for coin op arcade gaming. The Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis era 1989-1996 for home consoles. tied with The PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era 2005-2012 for home console gaming.

Default answer is era you were a child in,, mine was mid 90s to early 00s.

Not always. I chose late 90's to early 2000's. Mid 20's for me.

Late 90's. Halflife. System Shock 2. Thief. Metal Gear Solid. Quake 3. Unreal Tournament. CnC: Tib etc...

Haha, yes I remember both of those games! Were those your favorites? I wasn't a huge shooter fan but I do know Area 51. TMNT was a multi-player co-op "quarter eater," kind of like Simpsons, Gauntlet, Rampage. I loved how you could just go to the arcade and instantly bond with whoever was playing. X-Men was really something special...6 players at once!

So basically, I'm no longer a fan of the typical "3 lives and game over" scheme in most 80's video games. I prefer something that is "winnable" and doesn't just rely on faster and faster reflexes to stay alive...especially since age has not kept my reflexes completely intact :)

The 90s, when console wars sort of made sense because each machine was actually different but, at the same time, we didn't really care that much. Also, arcade was delivering the goods.

2000's for me. PC gaming was really coming into it's own. Halo, Morrowind, KOTOR for xbox.

I will go with the 90s, 100%.

We had Super NES, Genesis, Saturn, PS1, and N64 with all their amazing games.

Plus we had awesome hitters on PC like: Age of Empires II, Baldur's Gate, Diablo, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Fallout 1 and 2, Half-Life, Planescape: Torment, Quake, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Starcraft, System Shock II, Unreal Tournament, Warcraft II.

Easily the 6th generation. Legendary consoles and games.

The 2000's! PS2 is the king.

90's, Classic NES

90´s, because the technology took a major leap once that era hit.

'90s for me. The golden era of JRPGs. Game developers coming to grips with 3D technology and 3D game design. The 3D stealth genre being born (?) with the Thief/Tenchu/Metal Gear Solid trio in 1998. The potential of video games to deliver stories of cinematic quality being revealed with MGS and others. The survival horror being popularized with Resident Evil, and then improved on (in my opinion) with Silent Hill. We saw the racing sim going mainstream and selling like hot cakes with Gran Turismo, with the more arcadey experience of Need for Speed kinda rivaling it.

On the PC, we saw the rise of the FPS genre, that of the RTS genre, and of online multiplayer matches as the Internet became more and more popular, along with great CRPG classics being released right and left.

On the Nintendo side of things, the entire lifespan of the SNES which was "the" console to be had in its time, dominating the market on account of its games and not its hardware. We saw the Game Boy and the whole Pokémon phenomenon. We saw the N64 with classics like Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye, Conker's Bad Fur Day, well, you Nintendo folks name it.

As far as Sega goes, I can't name much on the Genesis, despite having had one, but I do distinctly and dearly remember Sonic 2, Gunstar Heroes, Shinobi III. Then the Saturn came along and got overshadowed by the PlayStation, yet it still rode the same wave of a 3D graphics revolution. The Dreamcast, the swansong of Sega's console-making efforts, pioneered (perhaps too early) the next big leap in the 3D revolution that would continue in the next decade, with impressive-looking games, especially the absolute classic that is Shenmue.

Now, I know the 6th generation and the '00s did fantastic leaps to both game design quality and graphics in comparison to the 5th, with stuff like MGS2 and Gran Turismo 3 particularly sticking out in my memory, but allow me to look at the '90s with my comfortable nostalgia glasses. The late '00s also saw the rise of the gritty brown/yellow modern military first-person shooter with regenerating health, which remained a standard many tried to clone in the years to come, saturating the market. They also saw the rise of the DLC (horse armor, anyone?) and of games being launched unfinished. I particularly think the advent of online features to consoles hurt the experience around them, a statement to which many Xbox people might feel inclined to object.

I don't know much about the '80s, I hear Nintendo "saved" video games with the NES' popularity after the crash in '83, followed/accompanied by Sega I guess. I feel this suspicion that many might look at those days with even comfier "different times" nostalgia goggles than I do the '90s. Something I'm pretty sure of is it was something of a great time for owning personal computers that came with BASIC interpreters and manuals for programming them and whatnot, every now and then you hear about some successful programmer who started making his/her own games on the Apple II or Commodore 64 as a kid.

Sorry for writing this much, just got thinking too much about the topic.

My favourite was mega drive v SNES both were at the top of their games with great exclusives. Other than that the PS1 and N64 were also great times. N64 was the multiplayer machine PS1 single player greatness.

I'm going to say 80's. I was born in 81 so was only 9 when the 90's came around but I just liked the (and I'm going to say a word now) 'vibe' of the ZX Spectrum.

I didn't actually have one but played my friend's.

The Sinclair ZX Spectrum had free games. But they weren't like free Steam games. Some were actually worth playing at least once.

Even though it used tapes and was before the internet, the games were just so varied. There were far more types of game. Every game could be a whole new weird concept.

There are over 1700 games and almost all written between 82 and 92 and usually by one guy, who would sometimes have his name written across the screen for the whole time.

But having just one programmer/designer make the game on his own gave him/her almost complete creative freedom. The publishers didn't know anything about programming and were just happy to find one so let them pretty much get on with it.

So sound of the little speaker is somehow very charming and the colour limitation of 1 colour per 8x8 square made all the games look like they'd been coloured in by a 5 year old but it was still colour and some games really looked great.

Also the fact that all the games were British pretty much as no other country really bought it outside europe and it was intended as a machine to teach the British to program so thats what alot of them did.

So the games are charming, funny and inventive. Yeah I know the C64 could do a different colour for every pixel and had the SID sound chip but the spectrum was cheaper and had more games.

Also, what I think is the first RTS game in the addictive Nether Earth (1987).

I would say the 2000's to present.

Xbox 360 has so many great games it is amazing, rather on disc or Xbox Live Arcade. Mobile gaming is also huge right now. PS4 has a ton of excellent games.

There's never been a better time to be a gamer than now. The options are massive. Back in the 80's and early 90's you didn't have as much choice or variety of games. Now the options are gigantic. Don't forget PC, there's like a million PC games now, rather on disc, Steam or browser games.

1. 1988 - 1992: I was born and didn't play.
2. 1993 - 1997: I played on Genesis and MS-DOS.
3. 1998 - 2002: I got myself a Dreamcast and used a PC.
4. 2003 - 2007: I forgot consoles and got into online gaming.
5. 2008 - 2012: I got myself an Xbox 360 and coupled it with a Wii.
6. 2013 - 2017: I started to collect old consoles and build my collection.

1998 through 2002 would be it.

@n64dd: I absolutely agree with the 2000's and PC gaming and the games you mentioned. Morrowind COMPLETELY changed the way I viewed video games and made me really get into gaming. Before then, video games just weren't great, there were some fun ones, but the 2000's really changed things.

My answer is not on the list.

which would be from 2013 to today. by a friggin HUGE looong shot

It's honestly a tie between the 90's and 2000's for me. Some of my favorite games of all time came out in the 90's and were the reason why I love video games. I still love the original Resident Evil game, and then when Max Payne came out in 2001, I hadn't seen anything like it before.

2000’s.

Great time for 3D platformers back then.

Late 90's! End of SNES era with fabulous games and PS1 was starting to be well on board!

I'd have to cheat and say 00's and 90's.
1995 to 2005 was the best 10 years to be a gamer regardless of system in my opinion.

Early 00s. When multiplayer gaming still felt... pure. Battlefield, Counterstrike, Day of Defeat, Phantasy Star Online, Red Alert 2. They were all just raw gameplay. Also console games weren't just PC games with a controller.

As a kid in the 70s I grew up playing the very early consoles and 8bit computers so they will always have a special place in me, however, my favorite era was the PS1-N64-PS2.

I have so many great memories of that time.

Every period until around 2007ish and it’s been pretty much downhill from there except for a few bright spots that sill managed to poke through.

I think the best Era was my childhood.

Not seen what you played. Rather that everything was new. Also the experience playing was completely different. They met with his buddy and played this ONE game. There was no help. You had to find out everything yourself.

Above all, this flood of games was not available every year. Also, of course, the reporting was different. Social media and hype trailers were very rare to see.

So I would vote the 90s as my Era games.

R.I.P

And hello 2019