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Comment by inertiatic | Hacker News Reader

I find that statements like this serve only to reflect the writer's nostalgia.

The Playstation/Saturn/N64 generation wasn't even mentioned despite being the one to introduce 3D games which are still being perfected and laying the foundation for the mechanics that are still the basis of almost every single game coming out today.

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And perhaps it's fueled by nostalgia, but games like Super Mario 64 and Final Fantasy VII are still acclaimed today despite their aged tech and the creation of better successors. And in some ways they are timeless, in the same ways NES or Atari classics are.

3D ganes were introduced in the 90s, before the dark age I described. I did mention 4: Doom (OK, pseudo-3D), Ultima Underworld (full-fledged 3D in 1992, almost modern controls and has aged better than many games 10 years newer), Daggerfall (extremely ambitious full 3D with a world of a size and scope never since seen) and Quake (full 3D, essentially the same game gameplay wise as most of the later FPSs released until today, just with less detailed textures, and a breakthrough in scriptability and moddability). In the console world I could of course mention Star Fox of the SNES, and Mario 64 of the N64, which were also seminal games, but quite prior to the age I'm criticizing. The 3D games of the 1999-2005 era didn't really introduce significant new elements that weren't in these, they were mostly variations of the same thing, sequels or incremental improvements.

Those systems introduced 3D gaming, like the Atari 2600 and it's contemporaries introduced home video games. However, there's not that many great games from either of those times. I enjoy playing the Atari generation games because of the intense focus on gameplay and immediacy of the platform, but it's hard to get others interested. I expect the same is true outside of a very few 3d titles from that era between load times, poor textures, bad cameras, etc. (But maybe I'm just old and grumpy)

I started playing 3d games with Elite on the BBC Micro.

Edit - and am currently wallowing in nostalgia after downloading Oolite.

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