1997-2004, bookended from Fallout to Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. The best from Black Isle, old Bioware, Looking Glass Studios, Troika, all gone now. And a game as cerebral and profound from that era as Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri couldn't get made today either. Also the era of the last great space-sim, Freelancer, and Star Trek game, Bridge Commander. The height of isometric top-down perspectives. 2D still had a place in gaming. Oddworld and Stronghold franchises had their best games in this era (and strategy games in general). I'm not a FPS fan but I have three words: American McGee's Alice (when is that drop-landing here?).

Though 1996 was a very good year for gaming. First Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Civilization 2, Wing Commander IV, Privateer 2, Diablo (back when the concept was novel and fun). It was sort of FMV's (and Origin's) last hurrah.

Well, one could say that Morrowind - perhaps the first RPG on the X-Box (although released first on the PC) - was the reason the quest compass was "invented", when players couldn't find Caius Cosades despite detailed instructions.
Ghost Recon was indeed a great game (I've played through it and all the expansions at least three times), but it was released in 2001 for the PC and in 2002 for the X-Box, so it wasn't designed for the X-Box.

Spectrum/C64 era 1983-88 prime years was great, Amiga/Atari ST 1988-1994 prime years was great also but my favourite era of all time was the 1993-2001 era, so many great things happened in that era, the launch of the 3DO in 1993, PS1/Saturn late 1994 Japan/1995 europe, N64 1996/97 and finally the Dreamcast in 1998/99.

The rise of 3D polygonal games with texture mapping was very exciting, nothing beats the first time you played a game on a Pentium PC with a 3DFX Voodoo 1 graphics card and 3D graphics were massively improved with Bi- Linear Filtering, smooth frame rates, SVGA resolutions with 16 Bit colour, PC 3D software games before this looked ugly most of the time with slow sluggish frame rates in SVGA mode and 256 colours.

Never will forget playing Unreal for the first time in early 1998, it looked just mindblowing with a PII and 3DFX Voodoo 2 graphics card.

I loved the FMV era also with classics like Gabriel Knight 2, Wing Commander 3/4, Privateer 2, Ripper, Under a Killing Moon, Realms of The Haunting, Psychic Detective, Spycraft - The Great Game, The Journeyman Project 3 and many more.

Everything since has paled in comparison, graphic card releases nowadays are too often with too many variants which just confuses customers.

But there is hope, Kickstarter has taken off this year to help great developers from those great era's to bring back classic brands, there is hope for 2013 onwards with some great retro style games with modern graphic techniques to be released. :)

So true... Nothing can beat that. You played only 2D pixel whatevers for all that time and suddenly there's Quake, Unreal and other games coming out and look like REAL!

There isn't such thing anymore. So far there's only "more polygons and better shaders", nothing really exciting. Something comparable to adding new water reflections during 00s era.

The problem now is that the graphics have become too photorealistic so designers need Bloom, piss filters, blurring and what not to make the games look more "artistic", instead of crisp and natural looking (which is "boring").

They add bloom and blur when they can't add better textures.

basically there are few times: one where you are alone sometimes with friends on a nes/snes or sega genesis or playstation and you are so into gaming.. no internet no cheat codes and you discover all yourself..

and then you are adult with whole internet full of mods cheap dlc crap.. better graphics resolutions..

i prefer the first option: example: finding brutalities in mk3:ultimate or finishing the game without cheats(some console games were pretty hard)

My utterly not-provable but probably true belief:


Is your favorite time period either now or when you were 13-17 years old? Or perhaps 18-21?

If it is now: You like empirical evidence. You're logical and you evaluate all of the variables. You see that gaming from before is still available now, and you also see that gaming has moved in many positive new places. So there is no time like the present to play some games. But you're also excited about the future.


If it is 13-17: When you think about a game's theme song, you want to play it. Or you just remember the great times that you had while playing it. That's because during these formative years, your brain wires up what music you like. And it usually has more to do with what you're listening to than what you think you like. And if you're a gamer, you probably heard more background game music than Neil Diamond.


If it's 18-21: You were probably limited in your ability to play when you were a child. And you're probably somewhat of a social person (even if you are introverted, you still like to be social with gaming). When you finally got away from your parents, you played with your friends and made strong bonds to both the games and the people you played them with. So when you think about this era, you rejoice and embellish in some nostalgia.


So, am I accurate?

You are 100% wrong with the 3rd statement as I am almost 20 years old next month, and the second statement well that applies to all ages not 13-17 imo as for the first well I have no answer to that statement, the only thing I can come up with is that I still like old games from the past, remember we are in GOG, and still timeless to me, but I also like some new advancements in games for example how I believe GTA 3 while good, but inferior compares to San Andreas and 4.

No. Not in my case.
I've been playing computer games since 1983 and to me there's no doubt that the best era was around 2000 when I was no longer a kid, but an adult with a job and a girlfriend.

But you are of course right that the current time may be the best for playing games, since we now have a huge catalogue of games to choose from, and that DosBox and other emulators, abandonware sites and GOG makes it possible to enjoy the full catalogue and not just the new games.

I built my statement around personal experience and something I heard on the radio about music development. I love video game music from my youth, even though it was crappy 8-bit and 16-bit songs. I say "crappy," but of course, I mean "Awesome!"

And around 2000 was when I was in college and I have super fond memories of that age of games. Empire Earth, Imperium Galactica II, Baldur's Gate 1+2, Myth 2, Way of the Samurai, Metal Gear Solid 1+2 and tons of other games were just pouring out then.

But if I am honest with myself, today is the best for playing games b/c everything is available that I used to play (almost, anyway). And the wonderful games being made are just amazing. The indie revolution has been awesome with unique and awesome games just being churned out like a methodical factory.

No denying that DD made things great for PC gaming (getting games to work on the early versions of Windows was a royal pain as backward compatibility was almost non-existent), but I think the OP was referring more to the games being released in a particular era.

For me the best music - mostly prog - is from the time when I was but a little snotling, around 1969 to 1974. My father liked country&western, so I I wasn't "raised" on prog, and I didn't discover it until I was in the 18-21 age range.
I've never cared much for game music, the only game music that I've liked so well that I listen to it outside of the game is the Haven theme for HoMM V - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQNMA2Yni_I

the newest games are the hardest to beat really, they have become fully imersive worlds complete with action, rpg elements, story's and more.

now don't get me wrong, i loved the era of fallout 1 and baldurs gate too. great era and really made some great leaps and bounds for gaming in general.