How many times have you seen this conversation online in forums, YouTube videos, tweets or articles? I completely disagree with that statement. People tend to only remember the all time best era defining classic games which taints their perception. Ten years ago people were making the exact same arguments and probably will make the same argument 10 years in the future. What generation of gaming do you think is the best in gaming history? If you answered anything other than now or the future you are wrong and I'll tell you why.
Many gamers like to reminisce on days gone by when all games were amazing and we didn't see so many commercial tie ins, shovel ware or games that are popular on the merits of their graphics alone. So when was this golden era in gaming? Surely people must agree on this one specific era where all games were instant classics. Obviously it was last generation with the Playstation 2, Gamecube, Xbox and Dreamcast because we all know there weren't any terrible games on those systems, ever.
This game was the voice of a generation.
But wait the Playstation 2 was one of the most popular game systems on the face of the planet. Ten years later you can still buy one new halfway through the next hardware generation. When a system has that kind of install base you start seeing a lot of shovel ware. Shovel ware being cheap games that unwitting grandparents are suckered into buying their children in need of some wholesome non threatening entertainment.
What every kid wants under the Christmas Tree.
Surely this is a new trend and all those classic games I remember from my Childhood were the only games ever made. I mean fifteen years ago with the Playstation we had Metal Gear solid, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy VII and on the N64 we had Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64. Look at all those classic games! How could that era possibly suck?
If there's one thing Mary Kate and Ashley know, it's how to suck.
But wait a minute! They only made classics back then, what the hell? People have selective memories. you remember the best games you played as a child and have built up this false sense of wonder surrounding that time in your life where all you had to worry about was a little homework, eating pizzas and playing video games.
Back in about 2006 a young man named James reached a fair level of fame on YouTube by bitching about shitty games. These games were mostly on the Nintendo Entertainment System. There's no shortage of NES games for him to boo hoo about and craft new and exciting fart jokes. How can that possibly be? The Nintendo Entertainment System is a classic console a shining example of Game play over graphics how could there be hundreds of shitty games on such a magical machine? How can this guys schtick be successful when everyone knows 20 years ago they only made brilliant games?
The supple foundation of a brilliant new fart joke.
So when is the best era of gaming? Now. Why now though? You can play any game that's been made during all of gaming history. There are thousands of classic games that have been made over the past 30 years and right now you can play any of them. If you limited yourself to only playing games from fifteen years ago and earlier you would be missing out on many amazing modern classics. The only time better for gaming is the future because again it will encompass all video games up to that point. I've always been irked by the people that want to limit themselves to their selective and biased memories of their childhood instead of being open to new exciting game play and all the possibilities offered on current generation hardware.
2 comments:
Completely agree man, there are always going to be bad games, then and now, there's always going to be shovelware. (action 52 anyone?)
A smart article, I got some LOL's when I saw the picture of Haze, I actually own that game and on occasion look at it with digust.
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