I used to be a passionate gamer, and I often find myself nostalgic for the golden era of video games when there were new ideas popping left and right.
Now, it feels like we’re caught between long-delayed triple-A titles and a constant stream of indie platformers. Originality seems to have taken a backseat, with many games regurgitating the same concepts.
What do you think defined the golden era of gaming? Are we currently in a rut, or is there a chance for fresh ideas to emerge again?
PS2 generation because it was the last generation where your games were guaranteed to work without a web connection and they were generally shipped as finished products.
The PS3 generation started the current trend of still needing a web connection even for a physical copy and IIRC it also started the trend of shipping games unfinished and patching them later, and both trends went off the deep end with the PS4 generation where most of the games are broken at launch and patched later, and the ‘physical copies’ are little more than glorified license keys for games you gotta download anyways, or in more extreme cases, eg. GT7 on the PS5, need a web connection to even boot the game.
Like, you can dust off your PS2/GC/OG Xbox, stick a game disc in, and it’ll play just like it were new, but that’s not as guaranteed with the PS3/XB360 and good luck with the PS4/XB1 and newer.
That said, if you’re integrating a PS2-generation and older console into a modern AV stack, you’re going to want a hardware upscaler such as an OSSC, RetroTink, or Framemeister.
And we’re definitely in a rut and the only way out is a Second Video Game Crash.
Deep respect to Microsoft for the Xbox 360 Arcade. That SKU forced damn near every game to work without a hard drive. I think even GTA V could run off a USB stick.
But hoo boy did they fuck that up with the Xbox One launch. And Sony capitalized.