Some Nobody
Junior Member
Now I think a lot (though obviously not all) of gamers will agree with the idea that gaming was never more fun than when you were a child. I know I'm that way, at least.
I'm a bit of a late bloomer compared to a lot of you all; while my mother bought me a SNES and a Game Gear when I was around 6 or 7 and I spent a bit of time playing both, it wasn't until my cousin showed me Super Mario RPG that gaming truly caught my eye. Up to that point, I had been a quiet, introverted child that focused largely on comic books and things that had story in them. So when I saw this new...thing (I wasn't into games at ALL so I had no idea what an RPG even was!), that wasn't so focused on twitch-based gaming, and seemed to create an entire world that you explored and learned about, that was the first time I was hooked. But that was the only game I really cared about, so I wasn't quite a gamer.
A year later though that same cousin would show me Final Fantasy VII over summer vacation and that, as they say, was that. I bugged my mother enough to get a Playstation (My little nine year old mind believed since Nintendo had Super Mario RPG, they would get more RPGs like that on their next console. ...Yeah, I know.) and received it, Tales of Destiny, Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden, and Brave Fencer Musashi the next Christmas. I spent the whole year playing through each one, putting them down when I would get stuck and coming back to another. Over time I became a bigger and bigger fan of video games, buying EGM, EGM2, and PSM to keep up with major news and to learn of new games to try and get.
Unfortunately, by the time the PS2 launched in 2000 I had made the mistake of asking for a Dreamcast (not really a mistake since it's a great console but its longevity was..well...) over the Playstation 2. Not long afterwards my family wasn't doing so great financially so it wasn't until Christmas 2004 that I was finally able to get a Playstation 2. But that was fine--I spent a lot of time enjoying the vast library of the PS2 and genuinely enjoyed the games I was able to get.
Of course, by the time the PS3 had come out I just recently graduated high school. I took some time off due to a number of issues, and afterwards I took a break from console gaming in general. The PS3 was ungodly expensive, the Wii's limited graphical improvement was a turn-off and I wasn't really a Microsoft fan so I decided to acquaint myself with the GBA and SNES for a bit. I would peak my head into news sites to see what was going on, but nothing especially interesting ever popped out at me so I waited.
....And waited....
And waited.....
Finally, the PS3 dropped its price to $300 and around 2010 most of my problems keeping me out of college had cleared up. So I picked it up anyway as a way to spend my time when I wasn't doing homework (which is never, but college holiday breaks are LONG so you still need something to do). I didn't really have any games for it yet, but I was hyped to play Star Ocean 4 (being that SO had been one of my favorite series from the PS1&PS2 era) and while I was never the hugest Final Fantasy fan, XIII seemed like a good bet, right?
Yeah. You know how THAT turned out--a complete letdown. And really, that's how I've felt the entire time I've been apart of this generation (which is actually the longest I've ever been apart of a generation before a new console came out...thanks, 8th gen! >_<). I can think of maybe a handful of games across the genres I care about that REALLY interested me:
Racing: Wipeout HD
Open World: Sleeping Dogs
RPGs: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Action: Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Batman: Arkham City (though I'm not a big Bats fan)
TPS: Uncharted series, Transformers Cybertron series.
Classic: Sonic Generations
Fighting: Injustice
I like to think I'm not all that bitter, but on some level I'm curious as to where the wonder went. I'm not all that difficult to please--or at least, I don't think I am. I just enjoy stories where the worlds aren't hopelessly fucked or overtly dystopian, characters who aren't amoral bastards, and preferably a world where the primary color scheme isn't "earth-tones" or "gray". The only genres I don't much care for are sports and FPS titles. (Again, LOL.)
Still, at the beginning of the year I was granted a new hope, in the form of the Playstation 4. With new generations come new beginnings. It took developers some time to get used to the era of HD gaming, but having come out the other side of that tunnel many of them seem ready and able to start developing great titles for the next-gen. For that reason I'm hoping this coming gen will be better, and so far so good! We already have games like inFamous: Second Son, The Witcher 3, Destiny (I hate FPS but I'd be waiting forever for a universe that looked as interesting for a TPS), The Order: 1886, Final Fantasy XV (I know, I know), Lily Bergamo, Yakuza: Ishin, and even Dragon Age 3 looks fairly promising! I really don't think 2007 looked anywhere near as promising.
So, with all that said: What did you guys think of the 8th Gen? Was it great for you, or less than stellar? And do you hope the 9th Gen will be better for you, even if it was great?
I'm a bit of a late bloomer compared to a lot of you all; while my mother bought me a SNES and a Game Gear when I was around 6 or 7 and I spent a bit of time playing both, it wasn't until my cousin showed me Super Mario RPG that gaming truly caught my eye. Up to that point, I had been a quiet, introverted child that focused largely on comic books and things that had story in them. So when I saw this new...thing (I wasn't into games at ALL so I had no idea what an RPG even was!), that wasn't so focused on twitch-based gaming, and seemed to create an entire world that you explored and learned about, that was the first time I was hooked. But that was the only game I really cared about, so I wasn't quite a gamer.
A year later though that same cousin would show me Final Fantasy VII over summer vacation and that, as they say, was that. I bugged my mother enough to get a Playstation (My little nine year old mind believed since Nintendo had Super Mario RPG, they would get more RPGs like that on their next console. ...Yeah, I know.) and received it, Tales of Destiny, Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden, and Brave Fencer Musashi the next Christmas. I spent the whole year playing through each one, putting them down when I would get stuck and coming back to another. Over time I became a bigger and bigger fan of video games, buying EGM, EGM2, and PSM to keep up with major news and to learn of new games to try and get.
Unfortunately, by the time the PS2 launched in 2000 I had made the mistake of asking for a Dreamcast (not really a mistake since it's a great console but its longevity was..well...) over the Playstation 2. Not long afterwards my family wasn't doing so great financially so it wasn't until Christmas 2004 that I was finally able to get a Playstation 2. But that was fine--I spent a lot of time enjoying the vast library of the PS2 and genuinely enjoyed the games I was able to get.
Of course, by the time the PS3 had come out I just recently graduated high school. I took some time off due to a number of issues, and afterwards I took a break from console gaming in general. The PS3 was ungodly expensive, the Wii's limited graphical improvement was a turn-off and I wasn't really a Microsoft fan so I decided to acquaint myself with the GBA and SNES for a bit. I would peak my head into news sites to see what was going on, but nothing especially interesting ever popped out at me so I waited.
....And waited....
And waited.....
Finally, the PS3 dropped its price to $300 and around 2010 most of my problems keeping me out of college had cleared up. So I picked it up anyway as a way to spend my time when I wasn't doing homework (which is never, but college holiday breaks are LONG so you still need something to do). I didn't really have any games for it yet, but I was hyped to play Star Ocean 4 (being that SO had been one of my favorite series from the PS1&PS2 era) and while I was never the hugest Final Fantasy fan, XIII seemed like a good bet, right?
Yeah. You know how THAT turned out--a complete letdown. And really, that's how I've felt the entire time I've been apart of this generation (which is actually the longest I've ever been apart of a generation before a new console came out...thanks, 8th gen! >_<). I can think of maybe a handful of games across the genres I care about that REALLY interested me:
Racing: Wipeout HD
Open World: Sleeping Dogs
RPGs: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Action: Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Batman: Arkham City (though I'm not a big Bats fan)
TPS: Uncharted series, Transformers Cybertron series.
Classic: Sonic Generations
Fighting: Injustice
I like to think I'm not all that bitter, but on some level I'm curious as to where the wonder went. I'm not all that difficult to please--or at least, I don't think I am. I just enjoy stories where the worlds aren't hopelessly fucked or overtly dystopian, characters who aren't amoral bastards, and preferably a world where the primary color scheme isn't "earth-tones" or "gray". The only genres I don't much care for are sports and FPS titles. (Again, LOL.)
Still, at the beginning of the year I was granted a new hope, in the form of the Playstation 4. With new generations come new beginnings. It took developers some time to get used to the era of HD gaming, but having come out the other side of that tunnel many of them seem ready and able to start developing great titles for the next-gen. For that reason I'm hoping this coming gen will be better, and so far so good! We already have games like inFamous: Second Son, The Witcher 3, Destiny (I hate FPS but I'd be waiting forever for a universe that looked as interesting for a TPS), The Order: 1886, Final Fantasy XV (I know, I know), Lily Bergamo, Yakuza: Ishin, and even Dragon Age 3 looks fairly promising! I really don't think 2007 looked anywhere near as promising.
So, with all that said: What did you guys think of the 8th Gen? Was it great for you, or less than stellar? And do you hope the 9th Gen will be better for you, even if it was great?
