Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » February 21st, 2018, 2:28 pm
Worst generation ever? Compared to Pong, Pong, and more Pong? And no, Pitfall 2 and Metroid can't begin to compete with the depth and elegance of Symphony of the Night, Majora's Mask and Ocarina shame Adventure and The Legend of Zelda. and I'll never forget the magic of creating my own characters for the first time in a wrestling game. It was the dream of every 80's kid to play with your own characters in a game, and see them come to life.
This is the generation where racing games stopped stuttering frame by frame, and discovered The Need for Speed. It was Gran Turismo for those who wanted to learn how to drive, and Twisted Metal for those who wanted a drive by duel. I could fly an ever changing dragon or walk among the people below, in a world that was suddenly more than just a flat mosaic of tiles and sprites.
This was the generation that introduced me to new bads, in a time before it was all free on Youtube. This was the generation that let me feel like I was a rapping dog, trained by a talking onion, and in love with a flower.
This generation was the last generation that had no idea what it was doing, and that meant it had almost unlimited freedom to explore. Every day brought something exciting and new, and you never knew which developers won their games with the hardware until you read the reviews or finally played the demo after you exhausted all the possibilities on the demo disc you already knew you were going to love.
This generation was Doomed and we all accepted that fate and happily went to Hell together, just beyond a Silent Hill...
And sure, it all looked ugly as Hell, as pixels the size of bricks hit you in the face, while they warped and twisted between dimensions, or were lost in an ominous fog. But man, nostalgia aside, there was no better time to be a gamer in the US before then. All those 16 bit classics you still cherish to this day? Now remember the long wait between them, trying to make a bobcat fly...