Period(s) in gaming history you never got to experience but wish you did

[aerie]

My first console was a NES, and i grew up with an 8-bit microcomputer and had access to older games due to my uncle being a big fan so i was pretty blessed to get to experience almost every era. The only thing I'd love to have taken part in was the golden age of arcades, i was still able to play plenty of the games but after their prime for sure.

 

[maximumzero]

I was born in 1985 and received an NES at the age of four in 1989. So I experienced the second half of the NES' heyday, but it was enough to satisfy my want. I was able to read Nintendo Power and experience Sears and Toys R Us big wall of games and everything. We also got a family PC around 1993 so I was able to experience a lot of the shareware boom of the time.

Prior consoles don't terribly interest me, your Ataris and Colecovisions and whatnot, so I don't feel bad about missing those.

What I would have liked to experience though is Europe's microcomputing revolution. Maybe it's years of watching British Youtubers but practically all of those things look fascinating as hell.

Also arcades. I was able to enjoy arcades in the 90s, but I would have loved to been a teen in the 80s able to enjoy Arcade games at his own leisure.

 

[DAREALGUMMY]

Being born in 1982, aside from wishing I had a bit more time when arcades were more prevalent, I think I'm pretty good with what I got.

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Same. Although I missed the frenzied arcade scene in the early 80's I think I was around for most of the memorable eras.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

I was alive, but I didn't have a good gaming PC for the golden age of like 97-2001. Half Life, Starcraft, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Baldur's Gate 2, and all the rest. I love games from that era now, and I bet I would have loved them even more if I'd played them at the time.

 

[BLLYjoe25]

I kinda wish I got into PC gaming earlier. We had a cheap supermarket prebuild PC in the late 90's that wasn't up for games. I never got into PC gaming until early 2015. The great thing is that I can easily play older games today but I wish I was there because maybe you needed to be there to appreciate the innovations in graphics and gameplay/features. I'd like to have played games like Baldur's Gate or Planescape when they came out or Blizzard games like Diablo 1 + 2 and WoW.

 

[tiesto]

Bubble-era (late 80s-early 90s) Japanese PC gaming. FM-TOWNS, Sharp X68000, PC-98, MSX...

I mean I've been catching up, but to experience something like the X68000 during its prime would have been revelatory.

 

[0451]

I was alive for it but I wish I was older so I could have experienced Capcom's reign in arcades with all their CPS2 and CPS3 games as an irresponsible teen.

 

[RayBenefield]

I grew up as a Nintendo kid with Gameboy, Super, 64, cube, etc. Then jumped into Xbox. I really missed out on the PlayStation story based games like final fantasy, devil may cry, god of war, star ocean, dot hack, etc. I loved RPGs, but I always seemed to choose the wrong consoles growing up. *Sigh*

 

[Bohemian]

Outside of DDR, I never really got to experience the peak of social arcades. It's cool that there are a lot of bar-cades now trying to bring it back, but during my highschool and college years, arcades were mostly dead or dying.

 

[EarthBound64]

I grew up as a Nintendo kid with [...] Super [...] I loved RPGs, but I always seemed to choose the wrong consoles growing up. *Sigh*

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But you had the best console for JRPGs.

 

[Servbot24]

Honestly if anything I wish I had less history with games. I wasted more childhood on it than necessary.

Plus there's not really such thing as missing out since I can still play basically any game I want.

 

[Dekuman]

I wish i got to experience the arcade era. I did hang out in the arcades in the 90s but it wasn't quite the same as when it was huge in the late 70s and very early 80s

 

[HououinKyouma00]

Gonna say the heyday if Arcades.

I was born in 1991 my first console was a PS1. There was an arcade in my hometown but it was small.

Would be cool to go back in time for awhile.

Maybe I wouldn't suck so bad at fighters

 

[Talonluck]

Being born in 84, I don't think I could have asked for being born into a better era. I had it all.

 

[Wolfgav]

I would have enjoyed being a bit older during the height of the arcade era. I know there are some arcades around now but it isn't the same.

 

[Agent_Tiro]

Echoing the sentiments of others, being born in 83 and playing on an old Binatone orange box with paddles at a very young age means I experienced a lot of gaming ages and wouldn't change any of it. I don't feel like I missed out on anything really. Definitely a great age to be born for gaming as it meant that come the PS2 era onwards I was earning money to fund the gaming habits

 

[King of Cups]

Being born in 1982, aside from wishing I had a bit more time when arcades were more prevalent, I think I'm pretty good with what I got.

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Same year, same experience. I do very much wish the arcade scene was still available near me, if not vibrant, but other than that, I'm glad I was there for everything.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

I wish I'd have experienced gaming before the great industry crash. I didn't get into gaming until Mario NES.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

God this thread makes me feel old.

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That, and a lot of comments from people born in the '80s or later thinking they didn't miss out on much. I would have thought more people would have wanted to experience the pioneering era before their time.

 

[Tarot Deck]

The NES era.

I played most of them much later, but I imagine playing Mario 3 or MegaMan 2 when it launched how amazing it was.

Also I played a lot of PC gaming, but wasn't much into First person Shooter ( they were called Doom clones back then). Which made me miss Doom, Thief and System Shock series.

 

[Deleted member 9971]

Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 lainch i was like 3 years old around that time. I am glad to semi relive moments in history like that with Zelda Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey tho.

Seeing friends irl and people here online (Zelda BotE on gaf back then) on era enjoy them so much feels so good. It's like being part of gaming history kinda. That's why i wished i could experience that n64 era.

 

[EarthBound64]

That, and a lot of comments from people born in the '80s or later thinking they didn't miss out on much. I would have thought more people would have wanted to experience the pioneering era before their time.

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There's a difference between "being good with what you had" and "thinking you didn't miss out on much."
I know I missed out on plenty. Still, I'm fine with having come along after that.

 

[Lardonate]

I consider myself extremely lucky to have lived when and where I did. When I was 7 our family moved to a Seaside town (In the UK) and from 1986 to 1998 I was down the arcades without fail every weekend.

Started out playing Outrun and the party finally ended with Crazy Taxi. After that the arcades round here stopped getting new videogames in and concentrated on Cranes and Prize games and Gambling slot machines (FRUITIES!)

That said, I would have loved to have been around a tadge earlier to get the whole arcade scene in, or to have been in Japan throughout the same timeperiod. I try to make amends with this by collecting arcade boards and cabinets when I can. Got a fair few, still in need of a real Japanese style "candy" though.

 

[thefro]

I caught the second half of the arcade era (when kids were lining up at Street Fighter II machines), but I would have loved to see the pre-83 era, or be from a big enough city to have an actual arcade scene.

 

[Mammoth Jones]

I wish I was there at launch for WoW. I joined in around the launch of BC and it blew my mind. Coming in while everyone was excited and figuring out how the world functioned would've been really cool.

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One of the best gaming experiences I ever had. Friggin loved that game.

 

[cHinzo]

Would have been great to play WoW at launch. I've never touched that game before, but a lot of people I knew were playing it. Was too busy playing Counter-Strike 1.6 and free2play MMOs instead.

I don't feel I missed out on many console experiences, even though I don't own them all.

 

[Decarbia]

The arcade scene. I can kinda remember it (born in 86) so like I remember lines for street fighter and mortal combat and turtles in time, but like the real heyday must have been something.

Also most of the HD twins generation. Between 05 and 13 i had boot camp, school, and 6 deployments. And yeah ibpla6ed a lot of games on those deployments but they were months late and with no internet connection I was playing v 1.0 games with no communities.

 

[Clear]

I wish I was old enough when intellivision had it's own tv channel that had select games every week.

 

[Derrick01]

I've been gaming since the NES days but where I grew up no one really bothered with PCs or even had them until the early 2000s, and even then they were mostly their parent's PC, so I missed out on the golden age of PC gaming in the 90s. Sure I eventually went back and played most of those games years later and many of them are still better than most games today but it's never quite the same as actually being there and playing these legendary games in the moment.

 

[Lionheart360]

I completely missed out on owning a Nintendo DS as a kid. Feels bad man

 

[Animagne]

Not exactly an era, but more in general nintendo. Where I live consoles didn't gain any traction until ps1 (except for nes and genesis clones) and then it usually went with the ones easiest to pirate for (ps1, ps2, 360). Nintendo was never really a part of gaming culture here past smb/smb3.

 

[Gozert]

The golden age of arcade games. I was born in 1985 and started gaming on a NES in 1988 or 1989 (memories are a bit vague...), so I just missed out on it. It seems like it was a magical time, and one pretty iconic for gaming in general.

But still, I'm thankful for having enjoyed the 16-bit era, the late 90's/early 2000's PC games and the launch of World of Warcraft. Those were all fantastic. :)

 

[Sanctuary]

Not so much a period as much as the scene. I was fortunate enough to grow up as video games were evolving since Pong. What I feel like I missed out on though was being able to be a part of the truly competitive fighting game scene in the 90s, namely the California area. We had some fierce competition where I played, and the arcades were completely packed on the weekends (you typically had to wait thirty minutes to play any given fighting game, so you either got good fast, or waited), but it wasn't Orange County, CA where they got all of the newest fighting games before everyone else in the US. During that period, claims of "the best players in the US are all in California" were made, and it would have been interesting for me to see how well I could have done against some of them. I was pretty much the best in my area between '92 and '97.

I mean, I was born in California, so who knows; maybe there's something in the air?

Spoiler

smog

One of the best gaming experiences I ever had. Friggin loved that game.

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I played it from launch day until August of 2010. Best six years of online gaming I've ever had, and proabably ever will.

 

[Dabi3]

I was 2-3 when the N64 was doing it's thing (and PS1). Wish I was old enough to understand the magic that was going on then.

 

[Phendrift]

Easily the release of Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. I can't imagine how mindblowing they were back in the day.

 

[EdgeWilder]

The arcade craze, a shame i missed out on that, only had 1 arcade were i lived and it get shut down b4 i could even appreciate it. Where i learned the wonders of DDR

 

[Manzoon]

Being born in 1982, aside from wishing I had a bit more time when arcades were more prevalent, I think I'm pretty good with what I got.

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1983 here, seconding this. Got an NES when I was 5, had to sell it when the SNES came out because 'you can only have one' was my parents' mentality.

 

[EarthBound64]

'you can only have one' was my parents' mentality.

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Heh. In 3rd grade I got a couple NES games from a kid who was giving away his NES/games because he was getting a Genesis.
On the other hand, that same year I was also in school with someone who got a Neo-Geo AES. Super-jealous of that, needless to say.

 

[Ragnar]

I missed the arcade heydays both temporally and spatially, growing up primarily in the 90s in Northern Europe. I got a few opportunities to experience arcade cabinets here and there (The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Cruisin' U.S.A., Virtua Fighter 3tb, to name a few), but obviously it was a far cry from the culture in Japan and the U.S. in the 80s and 90s.

As far as home console and computer game eras go, there's nothing I feel I "missed out on", because those games are still fully playable and available to me in a way that arcade games aren't. In fact, pretty much everything I play these days harkens back to the late 70s, 80s and 90s.

 

[Aeron]

Early Nintendo, grew up with SEGA and though I wouldn't trade that, it was a bummer to not experience the NES/SNES.

 

[DSoup]

Born early 70s here so I caught most generations but between the Atari 2600 and PlayStation I shifted from consoles to computers so I missed some great NES and SNES titles. I keep meaning to revisit with emulators but it can be hard to revisit decades-old mechanics and gameplay.

 

[LitheSaber]

Most of the PS2 period... there was high-school and stuff...

 

[Tawpgun]

I wish I could have experienced WoW from the start. But only if I could no life the game. Everyone always has such great stories of vanilla WoW. I tried the free trial but couldn't get into it. My PC sucked as well.

Other than that, I would love to re-live Halo 2 through Reach. Such great memories.

 

[Rich]

None. I started gaming at exactly the right time - my first console was the Game Boy in 1994. I got the SNES the following year and had enough experience with that for my mind to be blown by the N64 and Super Mario 64 thereafter.

 

[Hayama Akito]

I said this before

Mid 80's in japanese arcades. Playing Gradius II everyday.

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Now add this

Bubble-era (late 80s-early 90s) Japanese PC gaming. FM-TOWNS, Sharp X68000, PC-98, MSX...

I mean I've been catching up, but to experience something like the X68000 during its prime would have been revelatory.

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YES, pretty much this. I was born in 1984 yet for me japanese bubble arcade gaming was the best shit ever. Playing Gradius on X68000 while reading a Gamest article about making my own arcade cabinet in 1987 sounds like much, much fun times.

 

[Ikon]

I've been part of most of the stuff I'd want to - beginning with Tetris on an old 286 computer.

Despite being there early enough there's a ton of stuff I missed on account of where I lived. Mainly the hay day of the arcade scene. The thought of having forever missed out on being a part of the MvC2/CvS2/3S communities back then is heart wrenching to me.

Then again, I got to be part of Everquest from beta through 6 or 7 expansions, and I suspect I would have had a hard time doing both of these... and I wouldn't really want to swap these away either.

 

[DAREALGUMMY]

That, and a lot of comments from people born in the '80s or later thinking they didn't miss out on much. I would have thought more people would have wanted to experience the pioneering era before their time.

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My dad did quite a bit of second hand selling so plenty of old consoles, PC's and even Macintosh computers came my way for testing. I felt like I got all of that even with the NES and SNES eras. My appreciation for the vintage came from those.

Not so much a period as much as the scene. I was fortunate enough to grow up as video games were evolving since Pong. What I feel like I missed out on though was being able to be a part of the truly competitive fighting game scene in the 90s, namely the California area. We had some fierce competition where I played, and the arcades were completely packed on the weekends (you typically had to wait thirty minutes to play any given fighting game, so you either got good fast, or waited), but it wasn't Orange County, CA where they got all of the newest fighting games before everyone else in the US. During that period, claims of "the best players in the US are all in California" were made, and it would have been interesting for me to see how well I could have done against some of them. I was pretty much the best in my area between '92 and '97.

Click to shrink...

Man those were the days. Everyone placing their quarters on the screen, no fights on who was next, just serious fighting game happenings. SF2, MK, every so often a gem would be added to the local arcade and everyone would switch to them, then back to the classics. Being there the NIGHT MK3 was being installed and tested was insanely memorable.

 

[Sanctuary]

My dad did quite a bit of second hand selling so plenty of old consoles, PC's and even Macintosh computers came my way for testing. I felt like I got all of that even with the NES and SNES eras. My appreciation for the vintage came from those.

Man those were the days. Everyone placing their quarters on the screen, no fights on who was next, just serious fighting game happenings. SF2, MK, every so often a gem would be added to the local arcade and everyone would switch to them, then back to the classics. Being there the NIGHT MK3 was being installed and tested was insanely memorable.

Click to shrink...

Where I lived, we got pretty much all of the newest fighting games, but the most popular ended up being SF2 Turbo, MK2 (there was literally a sea of people the first night this was unveiled), Killer Instinct, Samurai Shodown 1&2 and X-Men vs Street Fighter. Games like Virtua Fighter, Tekken and Soul Edge also got played a lot, but not nearly as much as the others. Oh, and we even had Time Killers too. But that game was shit.

 

[mats effect]

Always wish I had a NES and SNES growing up. Was very much a SEGA kid. Great memory's of my Gameboy colour and PS1 but, wish I had gotten into the Nintendo home consoles much sooner.

 

[HStallion]

I'm still waiting for the period where games are free of politics ;)