Another Golden Age of Gaming?

An anonymous reader writes "Julian Murdoch over at Gamers With Jobs thinks that this is the best time ever to be a gamer. In his conversation with a (one suspects hypothetical) kid in a library, he engages in a bit of a rant on the topic: 'He's me when I was 16. Everything sucked. But I'm glad I talked to him, because it turns out I needed to hear myself say it all. For all of my daily kvetching, this is the best time ever to be a gamer, because the games are good. We can bitch all we want about console wars, prices, fanboyitis, and those games which do, in fact, suck. But at the end of the day, there are more different games out there than ever before, from the oh-so-pretty Oblivion to Guitar Hero to Dwarf Fortress. From Magic: the Gathering to Pokemon (laugh all you want, it's a good game). From Heroscape to Warhammer 40k.' So what do you think? In the midst of all the negative campaigning in the console wars, is this another golden age of gaming?"

Steam

[Pharmboy]

Although there are plenty of people who hate Steam, I think what Valve has done ever since Half Life originally came out has contributed. By making a good game that is easy to mod, they have opened the door for thousands of future game makers. Not only do mods create a platform to create lots of games, some good, some not, but their method of distribution allows the good mods to be further developed into viable commercial products. And I can just download them and they run in a few minutes.

Not everything I have bought I really liked (Sin Episodes, for example...) but for less money, hassle and installation concerns than traditional games, they have made trying new games out much easier, and increased the total number of good games on the market.

bit generations

[gEvil (beta)]

At the suggestion of a friend, I decided to check out some of Nintendo's "bit Generation" series of games for the GBA (Japanese only at the moment, but there's no text in the games anyways). The games are designed to be pseudo-retro in terms of graphics and gameplay (read: simplistic), but man are they fun! I highly recommend everyone try out Orbital. For a game that only uses two buttons (more gravity, less gravity), it certainly is engaging (and frustrating). As long as there are companies out there that are willing to keep things simple for those of us who like games they can just pick up, then the golden age will continue for a long time.

Re:Steam

[edremy]

I have to agree here. I bought The Ship the other day. This is a game that would *never* make it into stores, yet is one of the most innovative FP(S/B/S/P)*es I've seen. Hopefully others out there will have fun innovating- although i don't own a console stuff like XBox live gives great little games a chance to actually make it in the marketplace.

*Shooter/Bludgeoner/Stabber/Poisoner

Re:The Golden Age or the Revolution?

[ExPacis]

I definitely agree. The entire article was about choices, which do not reflect a Golden Age, just choices and opinions on games.

Most games now are based on an equation -- how little money can I put into it and still retain enough of a profit to do it again next game? I've yet to find a game that is truly ground-breaking as of late.

MMOs all follow the same pattern - grind, grind, grind.
FPS' all follow the same pattern - shoot, upgrade, shoot.
RPGs all follow the same pattern - predictable plot twist, romantic interest, revealing dialogue.

It's been a long time since I've sat down after a game and just gone "...Whoa."

Golden Age? Hardly. But there is quite a selection.

Re:Steam

[Pharmboy]

I am salivating after seeing the trailers for TF2 and Portal, which will be bundled with HL2/Episode 2. I didn't even care about Portal until I saw the trailer. Looks very different than other games, and appears to be a total mind screw, forcing you to forget what you know about physics and learning to think extra dimensionally. They said pricing for Ep2 will be between normal Episode prices and full game prices ($20 and $60) but I don't think even full price will slow down the purchases, just for Team Fortress 2.

Re:I'll take what he's smoking

[EMeta]

I've been waiting for my entire gaming existance for there to be good controls on which I can swing something and a sword swings on a screen somewhere. I certainly think immersion is a wonderful goal that we are on the verge of achieving. That games haven't had accelerometers in their controllers already puzzles me, but I think a new age of gaming can now begin.

My Definitnion

[uberjoe]

The Golden Age of Gaming is whenever you are old enough to understand the game and can be really good at it, but still young enough to have the loads of free time to actually play the damn thing. In my case (I'm 25) that was anywhere between five and fifteen years ago.

The Golden Age can't be now (not for me anyway) because I have a job, a spouse, kids and a house to attend to. Oh there are plenty of great games I would love to play and really immerse my self in, but I can't really get the time.

Now my son OTOH is five. He plays SMS and Zelda on Game Cube, and various Mario and Wario titles on his Game Boy. He doesn't quite get some of them yet, but he'll get better. His Golden Age is rapidly approaching. More games than ever to play, and a whole childhood to play them in.

Sadly my time is over, until I retire that is.