No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

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Jon1
Posts: 378
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby Jon1 » March 18th, 2015, 8:49 pm

I love that generation too, although there were aspects of it I don't. At the dawn of the generation, 1993-1995, the video game industry, in my opinion, was as healthy as it has been in my time playing video games. There were so many consoles and 3d was new and exciting. It seemed like a really fair landscape with tons of developers trying to make great games. As the VGC has pointed out (and me too), check out a Gamepro from that era, it's remarkable. It seemed like a really innocent time. The only problem I have with that generation is the PS1, whose games look pathetically ugly. So ugly it's insulting. Throw in the unfathomable fact that the Jaguar was released without an understanding of how to work the system, and that no one ever came close to showing off its potential, and there are some very mixed feelings. I consider that maybe the biggest travesty in video game history.

scotland171
Posts: 816
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby scotland171 » March 19th, 2015, 8:45 am

Guess we should include Virtual Boy and 3DO in here too as part of the "early polygon" era.

@Herschie I think you are spot on. This generation begins modern gaming. We see it now as transitional, where we compare the best games like Goldeneye to its modern analog FPSers.

Maybe its like cars. A model T is like a 2600, in that we don't compare it to modern cars. Yet a 1974 toyota celica is a modern we see as inferior car in almost every way. Its not fair, and as time goes by we learn to appreciate things for what they are and not for what they led too years later. We don't complain log cabins don't have flush toilets. They are what they are.

Makes me want to go play some Time Crisis on my PS. Lightguns games, there is one genre that was still alive and well in this generation.

LS6501
Posts: 119
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby LS6501 » March 19th, 2015, 11:55 am

I think a lot of the folks here are either into 'modern' era gaming, or appreciate the original 8-bit roots of gaming.  The 'middle generations' don't get the love - they don't have the history and nostalgia of the older machines, yet look weak compared to the latest systems.

Everyone's different:  I've owned both a PS1 and a N64.  The PS1 has some great games, but sitting here I can't think of a single one that I'd get excited over playing again.  The N64 holds some excitement for me; although the library was weak in some aspects, it had some great racing and shooter games.  Perhaps my favorite racing game of all time, Bettle Adventure Racing, is only available on the N64, so I could see picking up a cheap N64 just to play that one game....

LS6501
Posts: 119
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby LS6501 » March 19th, 2015, 12:07 pm

[QUOTE]I think you will find someone here to champion every console, and even most games. Go Odyssey 2![/QUOTE]

Hey, don't be making fun of the O2.  It's got some really decent games: the KC games, UFO!, Killer Bees, Turtles!, and a few others. 
The O2 also has a really healthy homebrew scene: there's a new cart release maybe every two or three months, which is a heck of a lot more than most old systems get....

scotland171
Posts: 816
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby scotland171 » March 19th, 2015, 12:57 pm

[QUOTE=LS650][QUOTE]I think you will find someone here to champion every console, and even most games. Go Odyssey 2![/QUOTE]

Hey, don't be making fun of the O2.  It's got some really decent games: the KC games, UFO!, Killer Bees, Turtles!, and a few others. 
The O2 also has a really healthy homebrew scene: there's a new cart release maybe every two or three months, which is a heck of a lot more than most old systems get....[/QUOTE]

Whoa. Throttle down, I'm on your side.

Actually *I* was championing the console myself. Just bought Death Race the other month, and finally bought KTAA last week. Color me an alien blue, but I love the system too.

SpiceWare1
Posts: 57
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby SpiceWare1 » March 19th, 2015, 2:41 pm

PSX is what got me back into consoles.  A coworker picked one up during lunch as his original release unit had died. He hooked it up in the conference room after work so I could see what the fuss was about.  The demo disk had Spyro the Dragon and I was sold - bought one on the way home.  A little background helps here - in the early 80s thru early 90s I ran The Dragon's Lair BBS on my Vic 20 then C= 64 and finally C= 128.  My alias was The Dragon Master, or The DM for short - even had that on vanity plates for a couple of years.  I have a large collection of dragons, mostly acquired as gifts from friends who've known me since back then.

A few weeks ago I decided to replay the series on my PS3, just finished Spyro 2 yesterday.  The games have held up fairly well, but the PS3 emulation of the PSX has some minor issues.  It occasionally stutters the music, and the frame rate takes a hit at times.  I don't recall either problem on the PSX, though I do recall being disappointed with the PS2 Spyro games due to bad frame rates and sloppy controls.

ptdebate1
Posts: 909
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby ptdebate1 » March 19th, 2015, 3:41 pm

Just wanted to chime in that the PS1 library contains more of my favorite games than any other system.

Jon1
Posts: 378
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby Jon1 » March 19th, 2015, 4:42 pm

When people say games looked ugly from that generation, they're overgeneralizing in my opinion. The PS1 was ugly as sin, but I think people are lumping in some of the other systems with it. The 3do had somewhat nice looking 3d graphics that I don't think have aged too bad, at least they're not hard to look at. The Jag's 3d graphics look really nice, and have aged really well, although I'll admit the quality of some of the games were not great so it tends to be forgotten that the system really was capable of great looking 3d. The N64 has a lot of 3d games that have aged well; Super Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye, Mario Kart 64 to name a few. We tend to remember the fog problem that plagued a lot of the system's titles, but I wouldn't say they've aged terribly, they were just already flawed. But I'll admit the Saturn's 3d graphics never looked good to me at all, and they've aged terribly too. In conclusion, I think the Saturn and PS1's atrocious graphics are giving the other systems a bad name.

Sut1
Posts: 789
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby Sut1 » March 19th, 2015, 6:36 pm

[QUOTE=scotland17]Makes me want to go play some Time Crisis on my PS. Lightguns games, there is one genre that was still alive and well in this generation.[/QUOTE]

Hey now your talking!
Virtua Cop 1&2, House of the Dead, Time Crisis, Point Blank all with excellent and accurate light guns at a time when we all still had CRT TV's. It truly was the light gun's golden era.

I put it to the jury that the 32/64 bit generation is the best generation for light gun games.

shootingstar1
Posts: 9
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

No love for the 32/64 bit generation?

Postby shootingstar1 » March 19th, 2015, 7:05 pm

Glad to hear that many people like this generation too.  Maybe it's just me but these games don't feel to clunky to me, but it could be I've adapted to them. [biggrin]  All I know is that it's a lot of fun to me.

Anyway Jon, I would disagree that the PSX was ugly, I think there's a lot of good looking games for the time period on PSX.  Metal Gear Solid and Spyro I'll give as examples.  I think that the PSx can get pretty close to the N64 in terms of graphics, it just depends on how you harness the system's hardware.  Sure the might look pixelated, but in many ways the best looking games on PSX can get pretty close to the N64.


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