I was born in 1989. I suppose that makes me quite old! However, growing up in the 90's was awesome! We had the feeling of that first time epic joy from all forms of entertainment. Movies had charm and character, music was great if you ignored that evil pop music, and generally everything for kids felt better than it is today!
Gaming especially felt fresh, getting a NES or SNES or even a sega genesis for Christmas to play games like Mario, donkey Kong or sonic, they felt like the coolest thing ever! For me, the first game to truly capture my imagination was final fantasy. In particular final fantasy 7 and super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64 literally blew my mind! Final fantasy 7 introduced me to the series, I then purchased the older games on SNES/nes and was a fan for life, and it introduced me to my favorite genre, rpg. I got my first job at 13 to pay for the release of final fantasy 9! Likewise for Mario 64, I'd be in competition with my friends for reaching 120 stars first! Even stretching Mario's nose at the intro screen was almost surreal, in a good way… a seriously good way!… or maybe I'm just a bit weird! Just experiencing this seemingly one of a kind game, felt special indeed! Heck, even McDonalds tasted good back then!
So, onto gaming magazines vs the internet. As I mentioned the 90's had those epic first experiences and fresh gaming moments. Magazines offered you the best way for news. It was the go to medium, for media and everything else. No click bait, no quick setup sites for ad revenue returns after a quick copy and paste internet tour of forums or gaming sites for quick hits, to a point no fanboy wars… only exactly what we wanted! Pure gaming indulgence! Arcades were also a way to play games in a social environment, and on what I guess was the monster rig of its day! I loved weekends at our arcade, now its kinda all available on your phone or console Let alone PC!
Along with awesome game art on the covers, and the shock surprise of your favorite game being the feature that month, or new news being revealed that took you by surprise! The time of month the next issue was released, going to the store and opening to find out what was inside! The design of each page, the feeling of owning a collection… it all just summarised the 90's, exactly how gaming was too. And it was just better! I guess this blog opens up many discussions beyond the title, physical vs digital, magazines vs internet, retro gaming vs current gen and so on, something we all likely hold opinions that are for/against both.
Take a trip down memory lane, and as a gamer you will have moments, even if its nostalgia taking over, where you say… wow, gaming and media back then was so much cooler! Its ironic, as gaming becomes more mainstream and "cool", through all its borderline CGI graphics and Hollywood production values, it in a way, becomes less cool for gamers at its core! If I was born in 1999, I'd be growing up with great games sure, but does it feel the same? Are TV commercials awfully made to the point of being epic? I doubt growing up in this gen of gaming will offer Mario 64 levels of Wow look at this guys!!! Graphically sure, but that's expected these days. Its a different form of WOW OMG when we see the witcher 3 or uncharted 4, its impressive, but we are fine tuned to this now. However great GTA is, or any modern game, are they truly earth shatteringly original. And you can't beat being at college for the first week when your soon to be new friend gets a text message alert and its the final fantasy 7 victory fanfare song, and you both just know how awesome it is!
Now don't get me wrong, the internet is awesome! When I was 16 I ran a fan site for square enix games, which paid for my living, writing articles, designing layouts and meeting new people was awesome! The feeling of knowing your forum just made 5000 posts in 24 hours, and you reach milestone uniques per day, or had been mentioned in an actual magazine, in print, without the internet none of it would've been possible … it started my path in graphic design, without the internet, I'd have so many less career options, although ironically i'd likely be designing magazines! Websites like N4G are great as we can get our fix instantly, we are now part of the industry by providing news, or blogs for others to read. YouTube can literally earn you millions, gain minor celebrity recognition, and countless other outlets are available for you… its really quite amazing! Maybe the soul and overall experience has gone for the average person, for those willing you can create so much online its awesome and is without doubt better than the 90's in that sense, but as gaming evolves, the internet has completely enabled us to enjoy a community experience and connect with gamers way beyond what it was before. N4G I suppose is my go to website, the magazine I'd rush to the store to buy! And remember, sites like ign were created by kids in their bedrooms in the late 90's… not to shabby eh!
Before I finish, I'd like to list my 10 favorite games prior to 2000! In no particular order.
1. Chrono trigger
2. Legend of Zelda ocarina of time
3. Super Mario 64
4. Tekken
5. Final Fantasy IX
6. Flashback
7. Star Ocean
8. Resident Evil
9. Metal Gear Solid
10. Mario Kart 64
This list could change at any point, but pretty much all of these games were the type of game which started something new, or was just generally all around awesome!
And I guess I should list my favorite things from the internet and digital based stuff, software which uses the internet etc! I'll add a little home in there too!
1. N4G
2. YouTube, watching game trailers in HD!
3. Web design
4. Streaming music
5. Old school MSN messenger
6. Social networking
7. CSS3 / HTML 5, nerd alert! Yes I find coding fun!
8. Google
9. MMORPG's
10. Boobies! Lol
What are your views on this debate? Will be great to see how you guys feel! Maybe you guys prefer how things are now, and sites like N4G define your years growing up, its how you get your fix! Or maybe you miss how things used to be. Although at my age, I'm happy how things have changed, I'd never go to an arcade or rush to buy a magazine now! So the internet allows my inner nerd to run free! But I do certainly miss the olden days! But having said that, I edited the image for the title and wrote this blog while on a train home on my android phone, couldn't do that in the 90's!
Times like these were grear, this was many a weekend for me, rivalry, new friends... good times!
Mario 64, fantastic game! Now... to stretch his nose!
Final Fantasy 7, cloud obviously had a few arm issues... possiblly worked arms all day, or felt the need to become lego. but those pre rendered backdrops are still gorgeous!
EGM, one of many great gaming magazines! R.I.P
Master race! The internet is great.... this guy looks... interesting!
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
Both have their plusses and minuses; the plus for magazines is that since they were publicized, writers were held to a standard. the minus was the cross-talk is limited to a bunch of your friends.
The internet has a wide variety of opinions and perspectives, which is a plus in my book; but the minus is that people with a certain mindset and opinion can gang-up on people with differing opinions, even if their assertions are innocent enough. :p So I guess if you have a thick skin, the internet is a good choice.
I'm from an era where some of your purchasing decisions were based on the cover-art of the game, magazines couldn't cover everything back then as there were far more games.
Internet is a great source of information if you can avoid all the crap and retarded nonsense and I pretty much stopped reading magazines when it came about. It wins hands down as it also allowed me to catch-up on pretty much every arcade/SNES game in existence, all those rare imports and reviews that I would have otherwise missed.
Automatic fail blog. Did not list Planescape: Torment as one of favorite games prior to 2000. Processing deletion of user and all user content from the Internet now.
Also, user is held in contempt of Internet Courtz for thinking that someone born in 1989 is now considered old.
Those were the days. Games were about the gamers. Want us to buy? Let us try it out, if we don't like it NO SALE. Now its buy or else.
I was a child of the 80s and we had the awesome Electronic Games magazine, until it folded.
At the time, I felt like the NES ruined videogames. I didn't like the style direction console games took in that era. For gaming I was using an Atari ST 16-bit computer, and then a PC once I saw Doom. I guess your perspective depends on when you were born.
Overall, I think things are better now. That's not to say I don't get nostalgic for the old games, and there was something awesome about getting the new issue of a great magazine. But on the other hand, magazines typically had up to a 3 month lead-time reporting news. Today we have up to the minute coverage. Which is better? Hard to say.