Which Console Generation was the best

[Shaissa]

So we are on the Seventh generation of Video Game Consoles and I was wondering which one you thought was the best and why?

First Generation had a few like Atari Pong,Philips Odyssey and others, Nintendo would also start there console releases in Japan with their "color TV" consoles.

Second saw Atari release many consoles including the 5200 and the 2600 and other gaming companies try to keep up

Third Generation also known as the 16-bit era both Nintendo and Sega both start the battle between the console wars. Sega released there "master system's" in this era. Nintendo would release there NES in this era. Attari wouldn't back down with there Atari 7800

Fourth Generation saw 32 bit era graphics and Sega and Nintendo take the console wars by storm, although Nintendo would stay ahead, Sega made there mark right here.

Fifth Generation (which crosses with the Fourth Generation) Saw the end of the 32 bit era and the rise of the 64th bit (aka 3D model) era. Saw The Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64, also Sony would place there mark with the first Playsation. Atari also had there last console in this era.

6th Generation generation (aka the 128-bit era) Took gaming by storm. Games were able to do more than ever. Graphics were getting more realistic, movement and talking in video games was on the rise. Sega had there last attempt with there DreamCast in this era. Nintendo release The GameCube in this era. Sony released the PlayStation 2, and Microsoft would enter into a 3 way console war with the X-box.

7th Generation coming to a close soon enough. We have the Playstation 3, The Wii, and the X-box 360. These consoles would make it so people could get active while playing games, Wii really did this introducing there console, showing how people could move and stay active while playing there games. Sony and X-box both released their versions of it, with the playstation Move and the X-box Kinnect.

So which Generation was your favorite?

 

[Squid]

way too hard to choooose. I loved my Sega to bits, I have so many fond memories of it. Then I have my PSOne which I would play for hours and hours with friends and family, my PS2 I loved a lot but most of the time I played single player games on it and my PS3, though I don't find the games as amazing I have had such a great time playing with friends online through it, so almost each gen has a console I loved ;___;

Though I think I am going to go with the PS2 gen because I also had a gamecube which I adored!

 

[Starships]

I've brought a NES, Sega Genesis, SNES, N64 and a Gameboy Advanced from Garage sales and people and places online and honestly love them to death. I'm hoping to get a GameCube soon. I still have a PS2 and have a X- Box 360.


I honestly believe that the best consoles have to be the SNES, Genesis, and PlayStation.

The SNES has Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy IV, Teenaged Turtles- Turtles in Time, F- Zero, Contra III, Megaman X, Super Metorid and the Mario games.

The Genesis has The Sonic Games, Road Rage Games, Rocket Knight, Strider, Gunstar Heroes, Disney's Aladdin, Streets of Rage, and Golden Axe.

And then the PlayStation has Final Fantasy I- IX, The Crash games, the Spyro Games, Star Ocean the 2nd Story, Metal Gear Solid, Klonoa, Tomb Raider Ape Escape, Tekken games and Castlevania Symphony of the night.

The N64 I've only played for Mario kart and Conkers bad fur day to be honest. I'm not huge on the Zelda games or Pokemon. I sort of feel unless you enjoy Zelda or your massive Mario fan the N64 is sort of overrated Unlike the SNES which had plenty gaps to fall into if you weren't into the mainstream games, but the N64 just basically hopes that your a huge Zelda or Mario fan. But yeah, I'm going to sell this console.


I'm going to say the Sega VS SNES days were the best, even though I was like a baby or not born when it mostly occurred. The PlayStation 1 and 2 days come second and maybe today's time a third. Or maybe the after the video game crash time a third because the NES games while hard are pretty nice. Like Ninja Gaiden.

 

[AuronX]

Tough choice between fifth and sixth gen. The N64/PS1 era was so great because games were so exciting for the first time ever. They had more substance than the 8-bit games of the past but were still just pioneers. It made both the present and the future very exciting, plus the innovations in hardware led to innovations in software as well. I still play Goldeneye, San Fransisco Rush 2049, and Super Smash Bros with friends, and it's still a genuinely great time (i.e. not just because of nostalgia--the games really are fun to this day).

The sixth generation was also great because we finally got to see games maturing and becoming very capable storytellers. Consoles like the N64 were heavily limited in this regard because of memory constraints, but DVDs solved that problem pretty effectively. When I think of fifth gen, single player titles don't generally come to mind, but it's just the opposite for the sixth because of this. There were still some great party games too, though: Timesplitters, Halo, Super Smash Bros Melee, and so forth. However, none of them quite seemed to nail the kind of fun that the fifth gen did. I'm still not completely sure why, but that's how it is.

Like I said, it is a tough choice. Saying it like I just did makes it sound like one gen blew the other out of the water, but really that's not the case. Everything from the Commodore 64 days (as far back as I personally can remember) up to now has seen a lot of great titles.

 

[The Master]

It was a tie between the 5th and 6th Gen, because I DID play the N64, however, I never owned one... But I picked the 6th Gen because my first console was the Gamecube.

I still have it, I still own most of my games, I love 'em!

I also enjoyed the PS2 when I owned it during the 7th Gen so I'm not sure if that counts

 

[Master Cat]

Mehh, initially I was conflicted between the 5th and 6th generations... I really loved playing my PS One games during my childhood and I still play some of them to this day on the PS3. ^^;

However, there were a lot of awesome games for the PS2: .hack series, Kingdom Hearts, Shadow of Destiny, Shadow Hearts, Silent Hill 3, Xenosaga, Persona 3 and 4, Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits, all of those Naruto fighting games... I also started playing FFXI on the PS2, so... xD

I'll say the 6th generation for all of the awesome times while I was a teenager! :3 I also enjoyed playing the Dreamcast and Gamecube during this era~

 

[Lirael]

Oh wow, this is tough. I'm not 100% sure I can choose between the 5th and 6th generations!

5th generation brought us:

• Final Fantasy VI
• Final Fantasy VII
• Final Fantasy VIII
• Final Fantasy IX
• Spyro 1, Gateway to Glimmer and Year of the Dragon
• Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Zelda: Majora's Mask
• The Emperor's New Groove, which was too fun.

but in the 6th generation, we saw:

• Final Fantasy X (and X-2 I suppose!)
• Final Fantasy XII
• Zelda: Wind Waker
• Beyond Good and Evil
• Portal
• Valkyrie Profile 2
• Tales of Symphonia
• Baten Kaitos

I think I am gonna have to go with 5th gen... Just because I'm very nostalgic for Spyro, Final Fantasy VIII and IX are two of my ultimate favourites, and Ocarina of Time is quite possibly my favourite Zelda game (although I played Wind Waker more - to death!).

Beyond Good and Evil and Portal throw a couple of spanners into the works though! Those games were so unique and special! >.< And I adore FFX.

 

[Big Casino]

The NES and the master system were both 8 BIT consoles and the megadrive / genesis and the SNES were the 2 rivals at the time in the 16 BIT era. The 32 bit era was dominated by the playstation as the sega saturn flopped and the N64 did ok but it didnt have the titles the ps1 did. Just a little mix up in your history there shace. =)

for me the ps2 days was where it was at. Not only was i younger at the time and games could captivate me and pull me in a lot more but i think that system had the best games ever released on any console. Good memories of the ps2.
I also have fond memories of playing my sega megadrive as a kid. Playing games like shining force I and II and sonic 3 are what got me into gaming.

 

[Linnaete]

The 5th generation offered:

+ Hogs of War
+ Spyro series
+ Klonoa
+ The Tomb Raider series
+ Time Crisis
+ Vagrant Story
+ Ape Escape
+ Soul Reaver
+ Soul Blade (I suppose)
+ Metal Gear Solid
+ Final Fantasies VII, VIII, IX
+ Urban Chaos

The 6th generation offered:

+ Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
+ TimeSplitters series
+ Jak and Daxter series
+ Rogue Galaxy
+ Burnout series
+ Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2
+ Lego Star Wars 1 and 2
+ Project Zero/Fatal Frame games (even if they scared the shit out of me that I couldn't progress very far)
+ Tomb Raider Anniversary
+ Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
+ Odin Sphere
+ Bully/Canis Canem Edit
+ Dragon Quest VIII
+ Final Fantasies X, X-2, XII
+ The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age
+ Prince of Persia series
+ Ico
+ Shadow of the Colossus
+ The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (though I didn't actually own a copy of the game nor did I own a Gamecube)

----------------

Both were pretty damn good generations of games. Both inspired a lot of wonder and excitement and I got a lot of mileage out of my PS1 and PS2 consoles. Both suffered from that localisation problem though, so despite how widely adored games like Xenosaga and Xenogears appear to be, we never got a chance to play them. But despite that, I built up quite a library of PS1 and PS2 games and I continue to look back on those generations with adoration. In fact, the SNES-PS1-PS2 days were pretty much the halcyon era for me.

The seventh generation has sadly kind of lost me. I've grown heavily disillusioned with gaming as a whole, so I've been very rarely doing much of it lately. There have been gems like the Uncharted games, a surprise Ass Creed 2 invasion of the ranks, Xenoblade, Sleeping Dogs, etc. but even they do little to mitigate that sense of overall disappointment. I'm coming out of this generation feeling rather empty. Could be because I'm easing out of that gaming phase of my life. Could be because this generation has seen more and more homogenisation under the cloak of photorealism graphics and purely cinematic experiences, but only thankfully saved by the advent of the indie and digital markets. Something like Sony's upcoming Puppeteer to thankfully help balance out the samey "Triple-A games" like the upcoming Battlefield 4. God, I hate that term "Triple-A" now.

Oh well, I'm also looking at the PC market nowadays to find some rather interesting things from Retro City Rampage to XCOM: Enemy Unknown to To The Moon.

P.S. Oh right, ultimate answer! Best generation? I got the most mileage out of my PS2. I've had my most fun with it and I've got my biggest library of games for the PS2. So Sieg Heil to the sixth gen!

 

[mikey_boson]

I grew up with an Amiga 500 (which isn't strictly a console). However, it was ace and there were a lot of really good games available (Fire and Ice, Superfrog, Cannon Fodder etc.) - I really enjoyed this era. I then had a Megadrive which again was top-notch. Many games were ports from the Amiga (Desert Strike for example) but i spent hours on Sonic, Micro Machines and loads of others. The PS1 was my next console and this era was by far the best. There were so many developers around and loads of less well-known gems were released because companies could afford to produce them. There were loads more ideas floating around and originality wasn't difficult to come by.

The PS2 era was good but I think that it was only graphics and the speed of gameplay that was improved upon. Most of the ideas for games had been thought of during the PS1 era and also games were becoming more expensive to produce. This lead to fewer original ideas and developers because it was costing too much to produce games that wouldn't sell in vast numbers. I bought loads of PS2 games but did I enjoy them more than the games I had for my PS1? No not really.

I haven't bought a PS3, I play on a family member's instead but the games just aren't as fun anymore. They're designed to all be mass-market with too much emphasis on the online multi-player side of things. How many more FIFA and COD games are going to be released? I imagine a lot because people will keep parting with their money to play almost the same game that they had a year ago with minimal updates.

 

[Tyler Breeze]

Ahh, so hard to choose...

Well, the 5th generation provided me with a whole lot of great memories. My dad playing games like, Silent Hill, the Resident Evil games, Tomb Raider games, Smackdown games, among others. I had to wait to play the N64 because my dad sold it when I was still a baby. When I finally did play it, I fucking loved it. I have about 25 games for it, and still have them and the console to this day. But the most important part of this generation for me, is that my favorite video game ever came out during the 5th generation. Final Fantasy IX.

However, the 6th generation was damn awesome as well. Once we got the Gamecube to work, I had fun mornings with that. Playstation 2 is my favorite console ever. Lots of great games and memories here as well. I recently started up my Xbox 360 collection again after going back to PS2 for the last 2 years. I'll still be playing PS2 for these next few years. Or until it decides to burn out. Either way, the 6th generation wins for me by a hair. There's just something about the PS2 and Cube that I love so much.

Luckily for me, I can still play FFIX on PS1 and PS2!

 

[Will Graham]

Our first system in the house was a PS1 so I didn't really know that many of the classic N64 and Sega Megadrive games. I didn't really get into gaming until the sixth generation, and a lot of my favourite games are still on the PS2. This generation is probably the best I guess, it has some of the best games I have ever played plus HD releases of some of my favourites from G6.

 

[Rydia]

The SNES was my favorite console ever, so I'll have to go with that generation. It has some of my favorite video games such as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV, Secret of Mana, and Breath of Fire. I haven't enjoyed a consol as much as the SNES.

 

[SaShman]

I'm going to go with the 5th generation. I'd probably attribute this to the fact that I was I kid, but the majority of the PSone games I had seemed to have had a lot more re-playability. Games like Crash Bandicoot, Time Crisis, Point Black, Tekken and Crash Team Racing were ridiculously fun.

Additionally, it was an exciting time because the games that were being released at the time seemed fresh and innovative. When Metal Gear Sold was released, it completely blew me away as I had never played anything like it. I remember James Bond: Golden eye on my mate's N64. I loved it because it was the first FPS I played with a movable camera (so you could actually aim). The little things such as seeing bullet holes in the walls and noticing that enemies would fall in different positions when they died were enough to impress me back then. In fact, as terrible as some of the graphics were in hindsight, the whole idea of 3D games was considered awesome back then as I had hitherto just played side scrollers, 2D fighters & strategy games and games like Doom.

The early days of the PS2 were golden. But towards the end of it's life cycle was around the time I started to lose interest in gaming. I found that a lot of the games being released were generic.

 

[Sir Kenneth]

5 generation. It coincided with what for me was the glory years of Final Fantasy with FF VII to IX and Tactics, Metal Gear Solid, Crash Bandicoot, the 2 first Gran Turismo games, Tekken, etc, etc. Plus, my original Playstation from 1998 still works to this day long after my PS2 gave up