When was your peak gaming era?

[Squarehard]

And by, your peak gaming era, I'm talking about your personal gaming experience.

What part of your gaming lifetime do you feel has been the the best time in gaming from an enjoyment perspective?

Is the experience from awhile ago, or is it some time more recent? What consoles were a part of that time when you felt was just peak gaming for yourself?

 

[Deleted member 21709]

It has consistently been peaking.

 

[Squirrel09]

Playing world of Warcraft every evening after school and then having sleep overs with my buddies and we'd pvp all night. Was a great time

 

[Deleted member 22750]

PS1

renting games on weekends

 

[The Argus]

Freshman year of college. Double Dash, Halo 3, GoW. What a fun time.

Recently it's been the pandemic. I've reconnected with so many old friends over games of COD (mostly Warzone), NBA2K, and Animal Crossing.

 

[BasilZero]

Its hard to say.

I've had two periods which could easily fall in that category.


2005-2009
-Nintendo DS
-Nintendo Wii
-PSP (The homebrew scene made this fun)
-Dipped into MMO Gaming, was fun at first but quickly waned after 2009

2014-2018
-PS4
-WiiU
-3DS
-PC Gaming
-Had the most free time
-Managed to beat 100 games in 2017

 

[julia crawford]

Sometimes i think maybe i have already played all the good games and no game ever will be good enough again

They will all just be sad and lonely, and i will be alone with these bad games, and we will cry together about the things we will no longer achieve, like a good marriage, or being an astronaut, or getting out of bed at regular hours

 

[CloseTalker]

probably ps2/xb/gc era. I was younger, easier to please, life was simpler. Games have evolved, and in many ways gotten better, but everything around the industry has gotten more cynical and less fun. it's harder than ever to just enjoy something

 

[watdaeff4]

16-bit and current era are both pretty awesome tbh

 

[RoKKeR]

360 for sure. High school. Halo 3, MW2, Bad Company 2, Red Dead, ME2...... so many hours and totally immersed in online community for Halo. Was a great time.

 

[Deleted member 1839]

Probably 360/PS3 era. It pretty much started when I got into middle school and ended when I graduated high school .Some of my favorite games and moments where during this time, but if you want me to be more specific of what years it's 2007-2010 was probably the absolute best especially for a multiplayer guy.

 

[Landy828]

I poured the most time in my life into video games on SNES, PC, and N64 in the 90s.

Thousands of hours...as I had the most free time.

That was my pre-teen to high school years.

 

[Mana Latte]

360/PS3/Wii

Disposable income with a decent amount of free time made for fun times especially with all the good stuff that was coming out. I didn't really play too heavily during the PS2/Xbox/GC era. Mostly Bond games and Resident Evils

 

[AshenOne]

PC only gamer.

From the time of Max payne 2's release when i build a new PC until the release of Dark Souls 3 and its DLC.

2004-2016.

 

[Tagyhag]

As far as enjoyment goes, it's definitely today. So many games, so many different ways to play them, and for the first time I've been teaching myself to mod different games. I've also been trying to get over the difficulty hump and really sinking my teeth in games like Dwarf Fortress and 4X games/Paradox games. Games that I was too intimidated by and believed I was too stupid to play.

As far as when I feel I had the most time to game? Definitely high school era. All three consoles, PC, 1 handheld, and still enough free time so all of them got some play.

Could never imagine doing that again these days.

 

[Souls Survivor]

Fall 2011, junior year of high school, Xbox 360. At home, the Deus Ex Human Revolution, Dark Souls, and Skyrim trifecta. With friends, nights and nights of Call of Duty local multiplayer and zombies.

I've had multiple "eras" before and since, but that one takes the cake.

 

[ajcacio]

Now! There's never been a better time to play games. New games are great, old games are great and the convenience of playing old games has only gotten better.

 

[Yasuke]

I have the most nostalgia for the PS2/GameCube/GBA era, but last generation was the peak. And truthfully, I'm starting to think back to like 2015 with the same amount of nostalgia as I had for my earlier childhood.

I try to remember that the "good old times" are probably happening now, it just takes me a while to realize it lol

 

[Djalminha]

Dreamcast, probably, followed by the first years of the 360. It's been on a decline since.

 

[sir_crocodile]

1990-2001

NES, SNES, PSX & Saturn where the most important consoles to me. DOS gaming was too.

 

[TheMadTitan]

I don't know; I constantly engage with everything thanks to emulation and I mostly play single player and local multiplayer titles, so I'm not missing out on some non-recoverable MMO affair. And the online multiplayer games I did sink the most time into are all currently being revived thanks to emulators.

So I guess I'll take the easy answer and agree with the first reply of the thread:

It has consistently been peaking.

Click to shrink...

 

[Truno]

I have to say that probably right now. Having access to resources that let me know of incredible games that I've never heard of and being able to play those games in a reasonable manner is amazing. New games are also really fantastic. However my roots as a gamer come from Nintendo. N64/GC was my nostalgic golden age and its really sad to see how they treat some of my most beloved IPs from them

 

[Babu93]

I don't think the Xbox 360 days will ever be topped for me. It's largely an age thing. I was 14 when I got my 360, so when you came home from school you could guarantee your friends would be online. It's much harder now to schedule a gaming session when we're all free, with work and partners and kids to juggle.

So it's the social aspect I miss most. The custom games on Halo 3, the chaos of GTA IV online, that run of COD games from Modern Warfare to Black Ops, 1 vs 100... just such great memories. Not to mention some of my favourite single player experiences like Fallout 3, New Vegas, Alan Wake and BioShock. But even then, if we were playing separate games, we'd still be in a party together. Good times.

 

[Xavillin]

Online multiplayer wise, when LittleBigPlanet 1 arrived. Made a lot of PSN friends from that game and played the multiplayer almost everyday, despite it being super shitty and laggy as fuck.

Single player wise, it never peaked, just keeps growing.

 

[Svejk]

PS1/Saturn era. Fresh out of High school and could spend countless hours with glorious 3D games with CD quality sounds.

 

[Musubi]

I never stop peaking.

 

[Discontent]

Right now, mostly cause I'm playing the best recent games and also must plays from my backlog

 

[smocaine]

2017-2019 for me. 2015 practically made me drop gaming. A string of underwhelming releases and becoming increasingly disheartened with the industry at large. I still am, to be fair, but I returned in 2017 with much different goals/interests, mainly thanks to indie games and emulation. It peaked in 2019 when I played Rain World (my favourite 'thing' ever), and a new string of games like Pathologic 2, Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium, etc.

 

[Diarrhea Day-Lewis]

It has been peaking for decades for me. I have particularly fond memories of discovering KOTOR in 2005, 360 exclusive onslaught in 2006-2008, catching up on PS3 games in 2013, prime Destiny in 2014, and Switch/PS4's stellar 2017.

but yeah these are good times. Animal crossing brought me some great memories with friends and I expect MH Rise to do the same

of course PS2 era and 3D gaming 1995-1999 was something else, just like the leap to HD

 

[Mindfreak191]

2007-2012
After that life kicked into 5th gear and now I'm lucky to be able to play through a game.

 

[Virtua King]

1993-2004. After that I just got bored with the hobby and didn't really enjoy playing anything new until 2010.

 

[Giga Man]

The transition from GameCube to Wii was my peak because I was in high school and made a lot of friends who were as big on games as I was, especially Nintendo games, and we played a lot of Smash Bros., both Melee and Brawl.

 

[Polyh3dron]

Looking back I'd have to say Dreamcast. It was just as I graduated high school, had a lot of time on my hands.

 

[Zeal543]

Gen 6 in general

 

[GamerJM]

2005-2009 or so was my favorite. I was still new enough to the medium that experiences felt really novel, and I was still discovering new genres, series, and developers to fall in love with, but I was old enough (middle school) by that point that I could take it all in and understand it. Gamecube, GBA, DS, Wii, 360 towards the end. It would have included PS2 in an alternate universe and become even more incredible. This era included stuff like Super Monkey Ball 2 parties, playing MKDS online all day during the Summer of 06, Twilight Princess, Rock Band summers in 2008 and 2009.

My singular favorite year for gaming for me might be 2012 though. Just a ton of awesome experiences that year. Getting into PC gaming, going through my PSP backlog, stuff like Pokemon Black and White 2 and 999, Halo LAN parties in the dorms for the first time. The years that proceeded and followed it weren't too great though, so not really long enough to call it an era. I guess maybe I could boil it down to senior year of high school - freshmen year of college.

 

[z1ggy]

I would say the last 4 or 5 years, it helps that i work 5 min away from home. I dont have nostalgia for the past, ive been gaming for the last 35 years and it gets better and better (except for jrpgs, heh)

I have a PC, switch and a PS4.

 

[Roli]

I guess you could say there have been multiple peaks for me.

First was between 2006-2010.
COD everyday with friends after school and late nights on weekends
PS3 exclusives
NHL

Second I would say was 2015-2018
Siege. Met a lot of great people and a few I would consider as close friends
Multiple sports games my buddy and I would play on weekends into the late hours.

Moving out and growing up I play less online and can't seem to rekindle that same magic. There was a bit with warzone and friends who were never gamers but that only lasted a few months.

 

[jimboton]

89-91, owning for the first time a machine that could play some games -a 286 12 Mhz 640kb monochrome pc- . Mostly not so great games but the excitement browsing the latest pages of Micromania or Games Master for new games has never been topped.

then 95-99, owning Psx for Wipeout,Soul Reaver, Discworld, Tomb raider and King''s Field and N64 with Majora's Mask, Ocarina Mario, Shadowman and Banjo plus a decent pc 'for study' able to rediscover the golden age of pc gaming the Ultimas, Dungeon Master, Lucasarts and Sierra adventures, Lands of Lore, Ultima Underworld, System Shock, all that really spoiled me in my uni years.

After that 2007-today has been really great all things considered. Rediscovering party based multiplayer and making some good friends with whom to enjoy all of it, the relative resurgence of classic genres like adventures, metroidvanias, actually challenging games being made, sometimes thanks to indies leveraging crowdfunding sites, Souls, The Witness, Legend of Grimrock 2, Spelunky, Toki Tori 2 +, Destiny, Quern: Undying Thoughts, Divinity Original Sin 2, Hyper Light Drifter, Apex Legends, Salt & Sanctuary, Hollow Knight, Lawbreakers (RIP) so much stuff that's among my most favorite games were made in these last 5-10 years. Yeah we're in a good place gaming wise right now I think

 

[ClivePwned]

I really liked the 360/PS3 era. The systems had enough grunt to do them reasonably well and there had been enough development to the genre where they no long had to be GTA clones to work.

Just Cause 2, Red Faction Guerrilla, The Saboteur, Assassins Creed II, Brotherhood and even Revelations were some of my favourites from that Generation along with Mass Effect, Bioshock, Skyrim, Fallout 3 and NV, and some of the better CoD's with CoD4, WaW, MW2, Black Ops and Black Ops 2. Halo was still great, Infamous 1-2, Uncharted 1-3, Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2. Happy times.

 

[KAMI-SAMA]

My teen years.

 

[MegaManTrigger]

I constantly go back between the PS1-N64 era vs. the PS2 era.

 

[ConfusedOwl]

Gamecube/PS2/Xbox. Just before I started posting on internet forums and before my mental health took a serious nosedive. I didn't have as much to play as I do now but I appreciated every new game or rental I got. I also didn't spend hours on the internet reading about all the bad shit that goes on in the industry.

 

[Kuga]

16-Bit (SNES/Genesis), and early 3D (Saturn, Playstation, N64). PS2/Xbox/Gamecube to a lesser extent. As far as portables go, GBA was my jam but I loved the DS/PSP stuff too.

 

[Gizmo]

PlayStation 2 with SOCOM 1 and 2. I was in my prime with those games.

 

[Birdito]

It was 2009-2014, probably. I was around 20 or so, lots of spare time and lots of disposable income. I worked an afternoon shift, and came home at like midnight, played 360 til 6am, went to sleep til noon, and then went to work.

Spent a lot of time playing the PS4 at launch as well, and then it dropped off a bit in the years that followed, until some time in 2019, when I got really into gaming again. Now it's one of my main hobbies, and I spend a few hours most nights playing something.

 

[dreamfall]

It should be now, considering I've set up so many old and new PC setups, consoles galore in my own apartment space. But I think it was probably being broke, picking up my pride leaving NYC and moving back to my mother's house around 2009, trying to figure out life. That Red Dead/L.A. Noire/Max Payne 3 summer rollout was one of my favorite eras ever, I played so much Dark Souls, and old Tomb Raider. Still chasing that feeling!

 

[Ertai]

The SNES/Genesis era. So many great games. Visiting rental stores and getting my hands on US import games that never saw the light of day in the EU market. Renting a game for a week so rushing to finish it. Simpler times but oh so great...

 

[DarthBuzzard]

2016-2021. Basically ever since I got VR, it's the best it's ever been.

That said, World of Warcraft from 2006->2011 really took over my life.

 

[5taquitos]

At 36 my FPS aim has honestly never been better, I just don't have the time or desire to dedicate to competitive play anymore.

 

[Wood Man]

Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox

I was in college, had plenty of time for gaming. I was really into fighting games and I was pretty darn good at everything. Built myself a pretty strong reputation around campus of being "that guy to beat". Made a lot of friends, and a few enemies. I would also try 100% complete everything I played.

Nowadays Im', still no slouch, but far removed from my glory days. Also I put just about put everything on easy and just breeze through the story and that's enough for me.

I used to average about 50 games completed each year. Now I'm down to like 10.