Gaming in the 90s was awesome...

[sevin0seven]

ah the 90s....i was still in HS.....cartoons were still awesome.....16 BIT WARS! yes i love it.

[J T]

The 90s were a good time. Here's a few of my favorite memories.

-The 7-11 around the corner was Street Fighter II central. My friends and I would go regularly and while I would take the SFII machine, they would take NBA Jam. We were local legends. My friends almost always beat their NBA Jam opponents by 100 points and I could fend off a stream of SFII challengers for hours on a single quarter (which I really had to do because I didn't have much money then).

-The Nickle Arcade in Sandy, Utah. You'd pay a $5 entrance fee, and all games were a Nickel after that. My friends and I would stay there all night playing games like Virtua Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat 2, Killer Instinct, and Numan Athletics in the latter half of the 90s.

-Just for Fun. A place with a badass NeoGeo setup. It was in a dark private room where others could view you from a window in the back. Gigantic speakers. Dual large screen TVs. Banana chairs. It was awesome.

-Building my friends basement. His parents gave him free reign to do what he wanted and a contractor to work with. He taught us how to do the dry wall, painting etc. We installed a purple neon light trim throughout and had purple carpet. The place looked like something from the future and it became our computer lair where we would stay up late eating pizza and getting scared shitless from long hours of playing Doom.

-Goldeneye 64 at my place. An L shaped couch setup allowed everyone a comfy seat and there was never a controller slot that went unused. Yelling and laughter could be heard throughout the house as another room full of remote mines was detonated.

-Playing Playstation in my younger brothers room. I was the Nintendo guy and he bought the Playstation. We worked our way through epic story games like Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid, and we had some fierce battles on Street Fighter EX plus alpha once he got good with Akuma and I figured out that Pullum's laughter sent my brother into a rage. haha.

[Flake]

The 90's were great because:

- the idea of applying realism to games was not even over the horizon.
- the internet was still in its infancy and fanboys were mainly found on the playground
- games were still a niche industry - random assholes with MBA's were less of a problem.
- the technology was simple and durable
- Squaresoft was unaware of zippers or hairspray
- The giant Katamari's that are EA and Activision were still measured in inches, not miles
- Since no one knew what worked, everyone tried everything. There was so much variety.

[fastbilly1]

90s for me were scarily similar to JTs. Just change out his 7/11 experience with beatemups and VF2, change the nickel arcade to a rich friend who had a lan at his house, and no purple carpet.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I love the 90's, especially the mid 90's, though I'm probably alone on that, but, I grew up on the original PlayStation, so some nostalgia probably plays into that.

Anyway, I understand the complaints about FPS's now, but theres always been SOMETHING along those lines. Platformers in the late 80's-early 90's. Street Fighter 2 clones for a good portion of the 90's. 3D platformers in the late 90's with the advent of Mario 64...

Nothing has really changed, just the genre.

Trends come and go.

[alienjesus]

I love the 90's, especially the mid 90's, though I'm probably alone on that, but, I grew up on the original PlayStation, so some nostalgia probably plays into that.

Anyway, I understand the complaints about FPS's now, but theres always been SOMETHING along those lines. Platformers in the late 80's-early 90's. Street Fighter 2 clones for a good portion of the 90's. 3D platformers in the late 90's with the advent of Mario 64...

Nothing has really changed, just the genre.

Trends come and go.

I think the main issue lies in that those genres came and went much quicker than FPS did (besides maybe 2d platformers). Engines like the Unreal engine make it affordable and easy to develop an FPS compared to other genres when so much time and money has to be spent on HD graphics to compete with other flashy looking games. So there are lot's of FPS just ebcause it's less of a risk - it sells well, its well supported for development and it allows the developers to save time creating their own game engine. I'm not sure if that was true for any of the other genres.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I love the 90's, especially the mid 90's, though I'm probably alone on that, but, I grew up on the original PlayStation, so some nostalgia probably plays into that.

Anyway, I understand the complaints about FPS's now, but theres always been SOMETHING along those lines. Platformers in the late 80's-early 90's. Street Fighter 2 clones for a good portion of the 90's. 3D platformers in the late 90's with the advent of Mario 64...

Nothing has really changed, just the genre.

Trends come and go.

I think the main issue lies in that those genres came and went much quicker than FPS did (besides maybe 2d platformers). Engines like the Unreal engine make it affordable and easy to develop an FPS compared to other genres when so much time and money has to be spent on HD graphics to compete with other flashy looking games. So there are lot's of FPS just ebcause it's less of a risk - it sells well, its well supported for development and it allows the developers to save time creating their own game engine. I'm not sure if that was true for any of the other genres.

However, you can make more than just FPS's with the Unreal engine. I understand where you're coming from, but I'd just give it a couple years. There will be a whole new cookie cutter genre!

[yomomma1]

^You CAN make different genre of games with unreal engine...
Like the Last Remnant...

[flamepanther]

Anyway, I understand the complaints about FPS's now, but theres always been SOMETHING along those lines. Platformers in the late 80's-early 90's. Street Fighter 2 clones for a good portion of the 90's. 3D platformers in the late 90's with the advent of Mario 64...

Nothing has really changed, just the genre.

Trends come and go.

Except I don't remember anyone in the 80s or early '90s saying "you play stuff that's not a platformer? That's for little kids." Sony and/or their fanboys cultivated that sort of attitude in the fanbase sometime in the mid to late '90s as a way to disparage Nintendo in favor of the "gritty" games they were promoting on the PS1. That attitude has developed into a stigma within mainstream gaming against anything that isn't a shooter, a sports game, or some version of Grand Theft Auto.

Honestly, the problem isn't the genre, it's the culture that's been developed by catering to fratboys and Joe sixpacks as the new main base of gamers for so many years. I'm hoping the recent influx of casual, older, and female gamers brought on by the Wii will help to even things out a little, but I don't know how much good it will really do.

EDIT: Just for clarification, because I know this is going to get someone to try to label me as an "elitist" or something... It's not a problem that there are games catering to "Joe Sixpack". The problem is that the industry now focuses almost exclusively on him and nobody else. "Elitism" is the idea that one group deserves special treatment over another. The fratboy audience is the group getting that special treatment right now. I'm asking for that bias to end, not to for that group to be excluded.

[ReddMcKnight]

I just remembered another thing from the 90s. The following image shows the back of Super Mario Bros. 3 box. If you look at the top screenshot on it, you can see that the 1st World Map is different than it is in the game itself.