Was the 2000's the best decade for gaming not based on nostalgia?

I find myself going back to alot of games from 00's for the gameplay console games and PC games. I been gaming since the 80's I have some nostalgia for 90's games but most of those games the gameplay doesn't hold up. But when I play games from the 2000's alot of the gameplay does still hold up and alot of them are more fun then games today. And for me it had best FPS, best sports games, best racing games and best third person shooters. Does anyone agree that the 2000's had the best games not based on nostalgia? here's some of the heavy hitters of that decade.

• Max Payne& Max Payne 2
• Medal of Honor Allied Assault and Frontline
• Battlefield 2
• Half Life 2
• WWE smackdown games and No Mercy
• SSX Tricky and 3
• Burnout series
• NFL 2K 5
• F.E.A.R.
• Crysis
• Def Jam fight for NY
• Resident Evil 4
• Tony Hawk Underground
• GTA IV
• SWAT 4
• Batman Arkham Asylum
• Metal Gear 2 and 3
• Dead Space

These are just some games of that decade that I can easily go back to the gameplay and have a great experience and it's not based on nostalgia. I could of put GTA: SA on there but that would be a nostalgic pick so what do you think was the 00's best decade of gaming based on gameplay and not nostalgia?

Yes.

More importantly, games from the 2000's seem to age fairly well. At least on PC. They are still fun to play and the gameplay, visuals, and so forth are all agreeable with modern standards (in most cases).

Usually I play an older game and think "I understand if someone who wasn't there for the game when it came out doesn't like it", but for a lot of the games that came out in the 2000's, I feel like someone who is 10 years late to the party can still enjoy it.

I think you're being nostalgic.

1998.

@phbz: Agree with you for 100%

Fair enough but I can tell you the only thing I liked about the 00's was the games and some TV shows and that's about it. But what I am nostalgic for is the late 90's that's based on life. The 00's was a horrible decade for me.

Odd how even the OP list doesn't give the 2000's master piece games justice.

However I commonly believe the term 'best generation' is for people with overwhelming nostalgia. Who refuse to appreciate the bigger picture, usually very immature people that would struggle to hold a conversation.

All generations have great games (as well as trash) if looked at with an open-mind. The 2000's did host some of my favorite games ever made, yet so have other gens.

Now back to Iceborne!

Personally, PS1 - PS2 was the best era of gaming, ever.

I'd say so, but personally, not for many of the games you listed. Halo, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, CoD, Fable

PC gaming between 1998 and 2002: Mouse look became the standard, the joystick and throttle were dying out, a keyboard only setup remained and the gamepads still hadn't taken off. There were more in-game custom options, mission briefs to prepare them, stories told in real time and with cutscenes using its graphics. Those years prepared the future of modern PC gaming, just like the Famicom did with classic gaming, although you could argue that 2003 through 2007 were better.

Well said man.

A lot of games from the 2000's I look back on with nostalgia for. Halo: Combat Evolved being one of many.

I agree with your comments. Even though I LOVE games from the 1990s, there was not much when it came to stories behind those games. Yes, there was sometimes a brief intro, or we spent a lot of time reading the manual to understand exactly what was going on. I understand due to the limitations at the time, developers could not give us much when it came to the dialog, let alone a story, but games from the early 2000s were mostly known for breaking barriers and trying new things to see what works.

All nostalgia :) . I agree in the early 2000s alot of barriers were broken, and fans got what they wanted. But this same topic will get created 5 to 10 years from now claiming how amazing Fortnite was back in the day.

No chance, none of these games hold a candle to the likes of Bloodborne and The Witcher 3 to begin with.

Inevitably, but that does not mean that the 2000's did not produce some of the best games to date.

Especially considering the rise of microtransactions. Games back then shipped as full experiences, with Expansion sets releasing later, usually adding sizeable amount of new contents and ways to play.

Today's games are incomplete and improperly tested. You are usually better faring by buying the game at a significant discount, months later, as the game will have received multiple fix and updates, with most of the available extra content offered as part of the discounted package.

I still do enjoy today's new releases, but i believe there are little arguments against the fact that games have been better, both in term of quality and value, in the past.

I preferred the late 90's. We had gems like

- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

- FFVII

- FFVIII

- Parasite Eve

- Crash Bandicoot

- FF: Tactics

- Chrono Cross

- The Legend of Dragoon

- Grandia

- Xenogears

- Suikoden II

- Breath of Fire 3

- Legend of Legaia

- Metal Gear Solid

- Resident Evil 2

- Tekken 3

- Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

Nostalgia’s not such a bad thing. I have no problem revisiting classics as long as they’re represented faithfully. Which is why I was really disappointed to find out the new Medal of Honor is VR only...

This decade has been a bit of a letdown.

I can think of quite a few series that have actually gone downhill:

Fallout series

Deus ex series

Mass effect series

Doom series, wolfenstein series (okay, controversial but that's my opinion anyway)

Metro series

Dead space series (after the second)

Maybe the 20's will be the next golden era of gaming.

Bah! Nonsense. Hogwash. That might be the tactic of the stagnant AAA publishers, but for the growing independent game market, it won't be like that.

This is why I am so hopeful for the future.

Not being a hipster, but independent games are the only reason I still play games. They are my rock. So while I might play AC Odyssey or Battlefield and get 40 or so hours out of it, I am on my 400th or so hour of Factorio. Or Halcyon 6. Or Stellaris. Or No Man's Sky. Or Kerbal Space Program. I mean, take your pick.

Divinity Original Sin 2, Elite Dangerous, Bastion, Thumper, No Man's Sky, and so on. I'd take any one of those games over my choice of five recent alleged-AAA titles.

Yup! A lot of independently produced and published games these days have, if not a "AAA polish" to them, at least a big-studio quality to them. As you said, The Witcher 3 for sure, but also games produced by Frontier Developments (Elite: Dangerous, Planet Coaster, Jurassic World Evolution, and no doubt the upcoming Planet Zoo) and many others.

The 2000's were far better. Just compare 2009 to 2019. This year has been very poor.

I don't think we'll ever see anything as great as generations 4-6 again. The evolution of gaming during those eras happened so quickly. Within 10 years we went from side scrolling 16 bit games to the beginning of full 3D open world. The end of generation 6 and beginning of generation 7 was one of the weakest times as the focus was no longer on gamers. Not to mention saturation. If a game series was successful in gen 6 the end of the gen was those companies pushing out subpar products from that line. GTA did this after Vice City and San Andreas with Liberty City and Vice City Stories. Guitar Hero did it with Rock The 80's and specific band Guitar Hero games.

I would go as far and say that there were more quality games in numbers especially in generations 5 and 6. If you had a few different friends with Playstation or Xbox they would each have their own unique library of quality games. Nowadays most people will have a more similar library of games if they own the same system.

Someone mentioned that there was both good and trash games in every generation and that's a blanket statement. The ratio can differ among generations. PS2 has the ability to play over 3000 games so imagine how many great games can be played. Trash games for gens 4 and 5 often had some redeeming qualities, they were often based off of great movies, shows and franchises. Some of the terrible games were atleast somewhat humorous.

Lastly, one thing that didn't survive after gens 4-6 was the arcade influence in home gaming. In the current generation it actually seems that home gaming has influenced the arcade more than the arcade influencing home gaming.

@warmblur: IMO the Xbox 360 feels like where a lot of games and types of gameplay finally started really working, and games started getting consistently good. I mean there’s piles of great older games, but I feel like games now are just more polished, less frustrating, and able to do really co oles stuff while being easy to control and accessible. Hard to explain what I mean, but I just kind of expect say a (single player) FPS to looks and play great starting with the 360, even “mediocre” titles are actually a lot of fun worth Playing in a way they hadn’t been. It feels like they solved a lot of how we interact with and do things in games.