Your 7th Gen Memories

Now that the Xbox One is out, the seventh generation of console gaming has effectively ended (true, their games are still on the shelves, but their time in the spot-light is over).

What are some of your fondest moments? Things you did for the first time? Favorite games? Favorite innovations?

I remember playing online for the first time with Resistance: Fall of Man. Pretty sure that was also my first shooter (a lack of games can make you try anything you wouldn't have before).

I think the Rock Band 1 set was my first singularly-focused peripheral. I must have spent at least a thousand dollars over the years on songs for that game (and it got me to seriously consider singing). I think the game was also the first DLC I ever bought.

I also distinctly remember playing around with the Wii Virtual Console for the first time. The whole idea of older games being released across the internet was amazing to me (and getting to finally beat the Kafei/Anju Quest in Majora's Mask after all these years didn't hurt either).

And my top games are:

1. Valkyria Chronicles
2. Rock Band 2
3. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves tied with The Last of Us
4. Playstation All Stars Battle Royale ^note this one is a part of the Vita as well, so it's only a half-example
5. Assassin's Creed II ^note I think this was the first game I ever got a Platinum trophy for, and it got me into the franchise in general tied with Folklore

edited 9th Dec '13 2:42:51 PM by Alucard

That first reveal shot of Rapture in Bio Shock is still one of the most jaw-dropping things I've seen.

Sadly, what comes to mind is that my 7th gen console, the Xbox 360, died two or three months after I bought it. I had also bought much later than release to avoid the red ring issue in the first place. It then died two weeks ago so now we're on the third damn console.

Plenty of good memories with the games, though I never owned as many as my PS 2. Unfortunately, I doubt I'd be able to play them in a year.

edited 22nd Nov '13 6:54:37 PM by Rotpar

• Killing a centaur for the first in God Of War 3. Hell, watching the trailer for Go WIII.
• Dom's death scene played to the tune of Mad World in Gears of War III.
• My friend going apeshit over No More Heroes, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and Little Big Planet. He used to update me on Brawl with every announcement. I didn't think much of LBP, but he loved that game, and I'm a little fonder of it now. No More Heroes was a Crowning Moment Of Funny in my gaming history.
• Playing Bioshock the moment my 360 red'ringed, and me, never taking it in to get repaired.
• Playing Metal Gear Solid 4 even though the whole plot was spoiled for me. Playing MGO even though the community was annoying.
• Playing Aliens Vs Predator on PS 3 and playing as an Alien during the demo. Gnarly finishing moves.
• Getting punched out of a window by Pizza Batt Jr in No More Heroes 2 Desperate Struggle. Goddamn it.
• Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
• Playing a 4-player game of New Super Mario Bros with my high school buds.
• Grabbing the shotgun in Gears and going absolutely nuts.
• Halo3.
• The ending of inFamous
• Playing Disgaea 3 for the first time and learning about the level cap. o_o
• Wishing to god I had a PS 3 so I could play MGS 4.
• Scoffing my impudent friends for arguing about Call Of Duty and Battlefield when Kingdom Hearts, Little Big Planet, and DC Universe Online were clearly more original, superior games.
• Console war arguments
• Batman Arkham Asylum. Stayed up all night and beat the game the next day. Funnest all-nighter I ever did.
• Playstation Network getting hacked and me getting paranoid about putting my debit info there.
• The most authentic video game commercial I've ever seen.
• Saints Row The Third and the Power Trailer.
• Bioshock Infinite and the bizarre ending.
• The Would You Kindly plot twist. YMMV.
• Getting to be a Big Daddy in Bioshock2.
• Still waiting on The Last Guardian.
• Finding out the identity of the Origami Killer in Heavy Rain. I mean, holy crap.
• Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer brought a tear to my eye.
• The first time I crashed my vehicle and went flying out the windshield of my car in Grand Theft Auto IV.
• Playing Modern Warfare 2 for the first time and finally gaining an interest in first person shooters.

...hmm, I think that sums up this generation for me.

Oh, and:

• Sly Cooper 4 being announced.
• Peeking under Lightning's skirt in Final Fantasy XIII and discovering that some girls wore shorts under their skirts.
• FUS ROH DAH!
• The initial Grand Theft Auto IV trailer. Such a shift in tone for GTA.
• Watching Kung Lao saw someone in half for the very first time in MK 9.
• Being heavily dissappoined by the sequel to inFamous.
• Playing Demons Souls for the first time and trying to fight a dragon early in the game.
• The return of Twisted Metal.

edited 22nd Nov '13 8:18:18 PM by FOFD

A lot of my favorite franchises getting recycled / remade and destroyed for the most part...

Those are fun memories.

Thank god X Com more or less survived.

Just dicking about with friends on the Halo 3 forge maps. Killing each other with golf clubs, building sick Mongoose ramps and making giant penis monuments for giggles.

• Watching Sonic Generations chug on my glorious Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated GPU at 640x400 and low settings
• Playing a bunch of strange little freeware indie games on my laptop
• Pirating Rayman Origins and its sequel
• Dropping my jaw at Metal Gear Rising and Black Ops 2's silky smooth framerate on console
• Thinking Nitronic Rush was the raddest game ever made
• Watching in disbelief as the Sonic Adventure 2 re-release exhibited frequent slowdown on a computer that really should have given it no trouble at all
• Playing various Humble Bundle games
• Never owning a seventh generation game console

edited 26th Nov '13 7:44:16 PM by lewattoo

I remember first playing Fallout 3. That was amazing at the time. It was the first PC game I ever played, and the first WRPG too.

Now I feel like a negative nancy. I need to draft some positive memories.

The Witcher 2 I guess for starters.

edited 22nd Nov '13 8:59:24 PM by Thorn14

• I remember experiencing extreme levels of hype for the first Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros Brawl. Brawl in particular led to many fun months of speculation, which lives on today with the announcement of Sm4sh.
• Using the Virtual Console to discover games like Kid Icarus, Punch Out, and Mega Man.
• My Wii had two big problems in its lifetime. One was near the end of 2008 when it would freeze up on the Wii Menu (going into maintenance mode sidestepped the problem). Turns out an automated email from something my aunt had subscribed to was so massive my Wii couldn't handle it. Luckily, it was fixed with a firmware update in the beginning of '09.
  • Then, in fall of 2010, the console stopped playing Wii discs entirely (aside from New Super Mario Bros Wii, bizarrely), but got it fixed a few months later by sending it in to Nintendo (which sucked because Donkey Kong Country Returns and NBA Jam were released while it was out of commission).
• I have fond memories of playing Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney inbetween classes in college.
• Playing Mortal Kombat 9 obsessively every day for almost four months. And once against my first girlfriend shortly after our breakup. Talk about Catharsis Factor!
• Spending the mornings before class in high school hanging out with my clique of nerds playing Mario Kart DS, forming friendships I still have. It was somewhat popular. We eventually had more players than the game could support!

Well, like 75% of the games I've played in my life have been during the seventh generation (including ones from earlier generations that I played for the first time this generation) since it was only like 2008 or so when I really started getting interested in most stuff. I guess my top five games that were released on 7th gen consoles would be...

• Dissidia Duodecim: Final Fantasy
• Batman: Arkham City
• Super Mario Galaxy 2
• Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
• Super Smash Bros Brawl

Let's see. I bought a Xbox360 in 2006 and my initial views of the games I purchased with it were mixed. At first I was disappointed that I couldn't carry over the data from Knights Of The Old Republic and WWE Raw but I eventually got over that. Smackdown Vs Raw 2007 was technically impressive but felt cut down in some aspects, Dead Or Alive 4 was okay, but frustrating and the third game and Ultimate were just as good, Project Gotham Racing was okay, but not the smash it was built up as. Ridge Racer was sadly pretty meh and not up to the standards I would expect. I did quite enjoy Perfect Dark Zero and remember being quite impressed by it.

On the other hand I was quite keen on the demoes for upcoming games such as Dead Rising and other titles that I thought were innovative, Tomb Raider Legends, as well as the likes of Need For Speed Most Wanted and NBA 2 K 7 which at the time had mind blowing graphics. I tried out other games like Rumble Roses, Fight Night and The Elder Scrolls Oblivion but found them underwhelming. Then came one of the biggest periods of games ever with the likes of Mass Effect 1, Call Of Duty Modern Warfare which I just knew was going to be big even though I was more partial to Rainbow Six Vegas, and Guitar Hero. Bought them, loved them.

Through 2008 I kept track of the games that were coming out and would periodically update my aging PS 2 collection with titles on the 360. Worthwhile purchases at the time would include Mercenaries, World Tour, Mirrors Edge and Command And Conquer Red Alert 3. At the beginning of 2009 I also shelled out a lot of money to import Rock Band 2 and thought it was money well spent, as well as all the DLC content for the game. Most of 2008-09 was spent playing that as well as Saints Row 2, one of the best games and in my mind much less of an artistic achievement as Grand Theft Auto IV but just as fun if not more so. I also picked up Resident Evil 5 and loved it, even though it was kind of Resident Evil 4.5.

2010. Mass Effect 2. Nothing else needs to be said. Played through the first one so I could import my Shepards, snapped up all the DLC, and aside from the yearly updates to games like Sv R 2010 I expanded the games a bit more, skateboarding, loved the Wet demo and bought that and as a fan of the novels also picked up Rogue Warrior. Picked up Fable 2, great game, but too much of a Tear Jerker so I had to get rid of it. The new Rock Band came out and I got that, loved it.

I must have been asleep at the wheel when the infamous Dead Island trailer came out, I would have seen it in passing but my attention was more on the Kinect games, playing the UFC games, 2K11 and how much detail they put into it. By now I had become a huge Buffy fan so snapped up Call Of Duty Black Ops and Call of the Dead as well as picking up good games cheap such as Splinter Cell Conviction. When it came out I picked up Duke Nukem Forever and a week later tried to return it but not only wouldn't who I bought it from accept another return copy everyone reviled it. I was interested in some of the games on the horizon such as, well...Ace Combat Assault Horizon but my attention was mainly on Saints Row The Third.

2012 was all about Batman for me. Finally got around to purchasing Batman Arkham Asylum and loved it right through, then picked up Batman Arkham City and ditto. Also bought Mass Effect 3 and I think we all know how that turned out. A better game in my view was SSX which was well worth playing, then Bio Ware brought out the Extended Cut and went a long way to deliver on their promises. Wish the same could be said for Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City which by this point I had stopped following the series until it gets back on it's feet. Tried out Lollipop Chainsaw and it's alright, but it just seems off somehow, certainly worth a rental. Which reminds me, I really must try Sleeping Dogs, if it delivers on the good cop/bad cop idea then that'd be pretty tight. As a long time Tekken fan I snapped up 6 and Tag 2 and loved editing the cast to have my own fighters.

2013 was when Australia got it's R rating and this would be a huge thing, though I didn't realize it at the time. I first learned of it when I saw Mortal Kombat 9 for sale and I thought, that's interesting since at the time they had boarder patrol trying to stop it from being imported. Then on a visit to my brother and sister I saw the special case for Dead Island Riptide and after researching the game was rocked, badly, by the trailers, as well as the Zombie Bait edition and other R rated games such as The Last Of Us and Metro Last Light which the reason given was for sexual violence. I had been into game design before but this brought on a serious effort to conduct research into the games and the thinking behind putting in such dark content, as well as a serious effort to create a game for myself, complete with a detailed tropes page and beginning to create the game through online college, something I will get back to once I learn the software more. Aside from that I picked up The Elder Scrolls Skyrim and it is well worth a purchase and Mass Effect 3 became awesome again with the Citadel DLC and I snapped up Saints Row IV. One of these days I'll look at the new AFL Live and when it comes out the new cricket game.

For the era as a whole I won't say there was an underwhelming amount of smash hit games but I will say the smash hits I did not like as much as some of the titles that flew under the radar, chief among them Saints Row in comparison to Grand Theft Auto. I'm also troubled by the Darker and Edgier tone games are going in, though I had been able to get over that with Dead Island and think they are well worth buying. One thing I am disappointed at is that I was given to understand the 360 would still be supported for a few more years yet. It may well still be but at this stage it well die by this time next year. Even were there to be a new Mass Effect I have no intention of joining the new generation of games, instead I would very much like to help my nieces and nephew with their XBOX collection and gather titles that would be worth collecting.

Innovations by year.

2005: Making online gaming viable through console.

2006: Evolving existing franchises and experimenting with new ones.

2007: The juggernaut that was Modern Warfare and Mass Effect.

2008: Music games including full band support, Mirrors Edge.

2009: Batman Arkham Asylum.

2010: Kinect.

2011: I would have to say none.

2012: Mass Effect multiplayer and trying to tie it into the main game.

2013: YMMV on whether this is a positive or negative but how much games are pushing the envelope in regards to content.

And my picks for Game of the Year.

2005: Call Of Duty 2. While I enjoyed Perfect Dark this was the better game.

2006: Dead Rising. This best showcased the innovation, experimentation and graphics of the system for that year.

2007: Mass Effect 1: Fanboys can have their Modern Warfare and there is no question the first game was amazing. In terms of content and the fan base this one stands out more.

2008: Saints Row 2. While Grand Theft Auto may be in many ways a superior title it came down to which I found the most fun. I had to pick Volition's game over Rock Star's, with Rock Band 2 coming a very close second and missing out only because I do not still play it today.

2009: Batman Arkham Asylum. No contest. While there may be other games that were really fun like Wet in terms of quality I have to tip my hat to Rocksteady and Warner Brothers.

2010: Mass Effect 2. This would be on my short list of the top five best games of all time. It honestly is that good. From beginning to end it performs and the outstanding DLC really backs that up.

2011: Batman Arkham City. Like the above example I consider this one of the best games of all time and as amazing as Skyrim is this is easier to play and get into, and if you were in the unfortunate position of having to choose one or the other, about as hard a choice as choosing which child you love more, then if you absolutely had to pick just one then I would say Batman.

2012: Tekken Tag Tournament 2. In a lot of ways Mass Effect 3 is the better game however the ending does make it lose points. Not the in game content itself as such but the controversy surrounding it leaves something of a bad taste in the mouth. As it stands in terms of quality and the DLC Mass Effect would be a more deserving game of the year but my pick would have to go to Tekken.

2013: Saints Row IV. This is a bit hard because I have yet to play games such as Batman Arkham Origins and as amazing as Bioshock Infinite is I have only seen it and not actually played it. Also there is the issue of the Darker and Edgier games. Dead Island Riptide is a good, fun game, but flawed, the trailer honestly pissed me off, and the Zombie Bait edition to me and to other fans was controversy that perhaps shouldn't have been caused. Likewise I do not have a PS 3 so I cannot comment on The Last Of Us. My pick would have to go to Saints Row based on how fun it is as well as considering how off beat the game is the amount of thought that went into the story and dialogue.

edited 25th Nov '13 8:50:53 PM by tsstevens

• Playing Burnout Revenge and Need For Speed: Most Wanted and thinking, aww yeah, welcome to next-gen.
• Seeing the rise of downloadable games, starting with Geometry Wars and ballooning from there.
• Seeing the rise of indie games, starting with Braid and Castle Crashers and ballooning from there.
• Playing Halo 3 and finishing the fight.
• Playing Call of Duty 4, and the intensity and dramatic-ness of the campaign, along with the coolness of multiplayer.
• Trading Pokemon in Diamond online and thinking, man, catching them all is so much more convenient now.
• All the times I played Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
• Playing Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel and thinking, man, they really outdid themselves.
• Playing The World Ends With You and experiencing its every twist and turn.
• Playing Tales of Vesperia and thinking, man, I missed out on this series.
• Playing Halo 3: ODST and liking its unique structure.
• Playing Halo: Reach and thinking, what a way to go, Bungie.
• Playing Gears of War, and enjoying the intense cover shooter mechanics.
• Playing the Ratchet & Clank Future games and still finding the series such a delight.
• Playing Uncharted 2 and being awed at the intense situations I was put in, and giving Naughty Dog massive respect.
• Playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and thinking it was the most awesome Batman game yet.
• All the times playing the Rock Band games. They had some of my favorite co-op moments.
• Playing BioShock and playing with all the weapons and powers, and being unsettled by the place.
• Playing Sonic Colors and thinking, you made it, Sonic. You finally freakin' made it.
• Rayman Legends being such a surprising delight to play.
• Learning that Criterion was taking the helm for some of the Need for Speed games, and proving their worth with Hot Pursuit 2010.

edited 8th Dec '13 3:30:14 PM by AzureSeas

Rock band two and three more than anything. Mainly because we had a Wii and got few games for it as the TV in our house is more often used as a TV than anything else. My brother and I just game on our laptops now.

Lemme see. I seem to have spent most of the 7th gen playing games on consoles which I ended up trading in for the pc versions. So, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, GTA IV, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and so on. Out of that little lot Fallout 3 made me feel like I had come home for some strange messed up reason, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution made me insanely jealous of its protagonist, Adam Jensen. Mainly because all the cybernetic enhancements he complains about getting I would quite literally kill for if I knew for a fact that I would get both them and a free pass on the murder charge.

Saint's Row The Third was gleeful in its depiction of what a GTA protagonist would really be like if pushed to its logical conclusion and completely undercut what need I may have had to jump into GTA V on console when it got released. I may end up getting that one on pc but only IF it appears.

Skyrim, every Wii game I ever bought, the market on Xbox 360. That generally what my 7th gen memories consist of.

• Beating all four Sly Cooper games in a row.
• http://deckers.die
• Crushing Ornstein and Smough under my metal boot.
• Defeating the Negativatron.

Among other things, of course.