When were the most timeless, classic, or plain great video games made and played?

Of those choices, I definitely go with 1992-1996.  The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were the absolute peak of 2D gaming.  1995 was a transition year that didn't have too many good games, but 1996 was excellent.  Great games like Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Crash Bandicoot were excellent games that brought in the "3D Revolution" in force.  These games revolutionized video games and marked the true beginning of the 3D gaming age (1995 was, as stated, transitional).  This itself marks the end of the "Golden Age".  Not that I hold anything against 1996-2000 or anything afterward, but 1992-1996 saw more change and innovation than any other era, in my opinion.

Of those choices, I definitely go with 1992-1996.  The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were the absolute peak of 2D gaming.  1995 was a transition year that didn't have too many good games, but 1996 was excellent.  Great games like Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Crash Bandicoot were excellent games that brought in the "3D Revolution" in force.  These games revolutionized video games and marked the true beginning of the 3D gaming age (1995 was, as stated, transitional).  This itself marks the end of the "Golden Age".  Not that I hold anything against 1996-2000 or anything afterward, but 1992-1996 saw more change and innovation than any other era, in my opinion.



Yeah, of the choices given I said 1992-1996 as well. Even though I would put the "golden age" at about 1987-1997 roughly, since in '87 the NES's popularity peaked and 1997 was the year that 2D gaming on major consoles finally died out.

92-96

Before 1980.

Of those choices, I definitely go with 1992-1996.  The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were the absolute peak of 2D gaming.  1995 was a transition year that didn't have too many good games, but 1996 was excellent.  Great games like Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, and Crash Bandicoot were excellent games that brought in the "3D Revolution" in force.  These games revolutionized video games and marked the true beginning of the 3D gaming age (1995 was, as stated, transitional).  This itself marks the end of the "Golden Age".  Not that I hold anything against 1996-2000 or anything afterward, but 1992-1996 saw more change and innovation than any other era, in my opinion.


For me there were two 'Golden ages' - the Golden Age of console gaming was either between 1988-1992 while the 16-bit consoles were just reaching their peak, but such NES classics as Super Mario Brothers 2 and 3 were just being released, or between 1992 and 1996 when the 16-bit consoles reached their peak. The height of the Nintendo vs Sega 'Console Wars' was about 1993-94: I vividly recall playing both Sonic and Mario (of course I only owned Nintendo systems, so I would be biased), and remembered what a big deal the whole Sonic vs Mario thing was. In terms of computer games and 3D-consoles, the period 1996-2000 really shined: you had the Playstation, N64, as well as unforgettable computer games like Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Half Life, Sim City 2000/3000 and System Shock 2.

When were the most timeless, classic, or plain great video games made and played?

I can't speak for the golden age of home/console games.  Each generation has had some fantastic games, but I spent way more time doing PC gaming.

So I went for the arcade: 1978-1984. 

Once upon a time, if you wanted to play video games, you had to go to an arcade, because home systems weren't good enough to play "the real thing".

Because you had to go to an arcade to play video games, gaming was - by definition - a social activity.  The biggest social reward was the ego boost that came from getting the high score and leaving one's initials on the screen for everyone to see for the rest of the day. (Second-biggest:  Playing for an hour, or two, or 24, or until you fell asleep, on a single quarter.)  Some games had non-volatile memory for high score storage, and your initials (or more) remained up there permanently.  There were usually two or three people per city who had the high score on every machine (of the four or five games in which they'd specialized) within driving distance. 

The period from 1978-1984 doesn't cover the entire industry, but it covers "Space Invaders" through "Robotron:2084", which was (in terms of quarters spent, games produced, game genres invented, and technological advancement in hardware design) by every definition, the golden age of the arcade industry.

arcades golden age would be around the early 80s
consoles would be late 80's-mid 90s
PC would be mid-late 90s

i think as of 2002-??? can be considered the silver age of console games due to the courtship of mature gamers and even stealing away PC gamers with the online aspect(Halo is a game that perfectly combines these markets)

While I stated earlier that I prefer 1992-1996, I do think that every game "era" is great.  Even the current gaming era has many great games, despite the tons of crappy, copycat shooting games that exist in this era.  What I find funny is when people complain about the video games coming out these days and talk about how a past era was better.  Usually, people of this opinion think that current games are crap and that the Super Nintendo was the best system ever.  Why do I find this funny?  Because I have a lot of old video game magazines from the 90s and people back in the Super Nintendo era were complaining about how "games these days are crap" and that the NES was the best.  I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It depends if you like old school (pre 1995) or new school (1995 and later) gaming.

I can't speak for the golden age of home/console games.  Each generation has had some fantastic games, but I spent way more time doing PC gaming.

So I went for the arcade: 1978-1984. 

Once upon a time, if you wanted to play video games, you had to go to an arcade, because home systems weren't good enough to play "the real thing".

Because you had to go to an arcade to play video games, gaming was - by definition - a social activity.  The biggest social reward was the ego boost that came from getting the high score and leaving one's initials on the screen for everyone to see for the rest of the day. (Second-biggest:  Playing for an hour, or two, or 24, or until you fell asleep, on a single quarter.)  Some games had non-volatile memory for high score storage, and your initials (or more) remained up there permanently.  There were usually two or three people per city who had the high score on every machine (of the four or five games in which they'd specialized) within driving distance. 

The period from 1978-1984 doesn't cover the entire industry, but it covers "Space Invaders" through "Robotron:2084", which was (in terms of quarters spent, games produced, game genres invented, and technological advancement in hardware design) by every definition, the golden age of the arcade industry.


The best gaming has always been played with others - i.e. 'socially.' By most memories are challenging my mates at Super Mario Kart on the N64, having big LAN bashes at computer class in school when we were supposed to be learning about 'BASIC' or some other computer language...it's the friendly competition which made it so fun. How I miss those days...

PC wise, I'd have to go back to the 80s back when CRPGs were breaking onto the scene. Starting off with games like the Infocom text-based games, The Bards Tale, Wizardry, and Ultima (and all of their respectives series of games),  it generated a whole wave of similar games including Wasteland (which in turn brought the Fallout series) and the numerous goldbox AD&D games (Pool of Radiance series, the Dragonlance series, and various others). These then led to MMORPGS, which are huge whether they're graphic based (Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest series, Age of Warcraft, etc) or text-based MUDs, MUSHs, and MUSEs.

I like all sorts of gaming from the old 8 bit machines (anyone remember computer games like 'Manic Miner', 'Jet Set Willy','Dizzy' etc . . .), 16 bit machines (Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, Golden Axe . . .), old skool consoles (All Mario Brothers, Sonic the hedgehog, Streetfighter 2 . . .) and the modern consoles (Halo, Smackdown, Burnout and Blinx the time sweeper).

I can't wait until I can afford the XBox360.  8)

I'm not a gamer myself, but I would hate to think the "Golden Age" came and went in under thirty years! I should hope the best is yet to come!
8)