Did The 90s Suck? - And if so, why?

[ToroidalBoat]

turn based strategy

Civilization 2 and Master of Orion 2 are pretty good "4X" games.

also speaking of vidya:

early '90s: 16-bit games
mid '90s: "multimedia craze"
late '90s: early 3D vidya

 

[Bubble Ba'ath]

Civilization 2 and Master of Orion 2 are pretty good "4X" games.

Yes, and Alpha Centauri is a great one. I would say the greatest.

 

[malleusmaleficarum]

I'm sure it wasn't that bad but every time I see "retro gaming" shit from the 90s and think about all the nerds playing that bullshit for thousands of hours fills me with unimaginable dread.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

"retro gaming"

When I think "retro gaming" I normally think '70s and '80s, not '90s.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

all the nerds playing that bullshit for thousands of hours fills me with unimaginable dread.

ironically if you were a nerd back then you probably had more of a social life than the zoomers who spend all day on discord. Even if out of necessity you had to go out of your way to meet other nerds in real life, you had to go to the comic shop, you had to go to the weird video rental store that had the good shit, you had to go to the smelly arcade that was the only one with the good cabinets. If you wanted recomendations or access to stuff you became friends with people and bonded over it, in person.

 

[malleusmaleficarum]

When I think "retro gaming" I normally think '70s and '80s, not '90s.

We can split hairs all day long but I certainly wouldn't describe SNES and N64 as cutting edge next gen consoles.

@LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV] This is a good point, but I still feel like the market was limited to Soytendo Bing Bing Wahoo Goyslop. You'd still have to wait until 2009 for the release of Demons Souls to get the real kino.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I'm sure it wasn't that bad but every time I see "retro gaming" shit from the 90s and think about all the nerds playing that bullshit for thousands of hours fills me with unimaginable dread.

Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I doubt they played near as long as modern gaymers.

Then again; the games I have the most hours in are bullshit like Downwell and Spelunky that could have been made back then. And stuff with no timer like Solitaire and Tetris. But stuff like that can also be paired with listening to TV and music.

 

[malleusmaleficarum]

music.

I do miss the days of portable CD players and cassettes. Looking back, these formats are clunky and kind of shit but it was so much better to actually own media in physical format instead of this gay streaming/subscription bullshit that everything is on now.

 

[Sneed's Feed And Seed]

My biggest memory of the 90's is sitting down to watch some Power Rangers and some football player had murdered his girlfriend and her Jew friend and was interrupting my fucking show because he wouldn't pull the fuck over.

After a while I was begging for missiles or a sniper to take this motherfucker down because I was missing Power Rangers.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

This is a good point, but I still feel like the market was limited to Soytendo Bing Bing Wahoo Goyslop

Nah, you just had to get involved. Even the most obscure and nerdy media was available if you knew the right bootlegers. Today the ease of access have never been greater and yet most stuff coming out is not even worth bothering.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Probably the biggest advantage the '90s have over Current Year Clown World was none of the endless toxic, anti-human, wannabe commie BS known as "woke" being mainstream.

No BS notions like "cultural appropriation", "microaggressions", or "white supremacy" in Western mainstream like there are now. Extreme political correctness and extreme feminism were confined to fringe academia and extreme activism, and were mocked in the mainstream. And of course American politics was far less divisive compared to now.

 

[Judge Dredd]

nerds playing that bullshit for thousands of hours fills me with unimaginable dread.

Demons Souls to get the real kino

The flaw with 90s games like Xcom, Fallout, and Daggerfall is that you have to restart dozens of times just to get past the first dungeon/combat. This is exactly the same kind of trial-and-error bullshit that the Souls games lean on. Unlike Souls games, 90s games often had the content and replay value to back it up beyond that initial learning curve.

Today the ease of access have never been greater and yet most stuff coming out is not even worth bothering.

This is why, to me, the 80s-mid 2000s were peak anime and what I always go back to, even when looking for new shows. I've said it before, but I want cyberpunk and hyper violence, not overly-dramatic moe-blob slice-of-life paedo-bait isekia.

Though one thing I don't miss are the prices. What anime did come over was often expensive. £20 (in 90s money) for a 4 episode vhs/dvd or single OVA. Oof.

 

[fake farts]

The only people I've seen bash the 90's are either boomers/oldfag gen xers who are still mad their gay hair metal buttrock died, or le funny whacky youngfag millennials who don't remember and zoomers who weren't even born. It wasn't perfect, no decade is, but it was probably the high water mark for the West. The right amount of weirdness and fun, in a time after living in fear of the gommies and nukes, and before living in fear of durka durkas, migrant invasions, and The Patriot Act.

 

[el bandito loco]

I was only there like 5 years and I enjoyed it but I was a kid and was just becoming a sentient little dude. I prefer a lot of 90's media, particularly movies because the type of shit I like just doesn't get made very often anymore. (Big budget drama films for adults) and you can say what you want about gaming back then but if you can tolerate old shit we got some interesting shit because the latter half was the wild west of 3D gaming. The ps1 has the strangest and possibly most diverse imo console library ever.

what's odd to me is how different but the same certain things were to now. My dad was around my age now back then and the same shit he was doing then I do now but it's less tangible. for example I mod game systems and shit and download games to put on them, and pirate movies. my pop used to have to drive to blockbuster and rent games and movies to rip to the computer to burn for the ps1, and to copy from one vcr to the other. Me? I sit at home and just download ps4 games and install them or movies or whatever.

I appreciate the ease at which you can look at anything media wise from back then to now in the present, but it is a trade off due to certain things being so streamlined are more isolating now. if you didn't want to leave your house to do anything at all or avoid socializing entirely now you can do that from basic shit like renting a movie on streaming to grocery delivery. In reality though I don't know that then or now actually sucks more. I think generally as long as you aren't living in a war torn shithole every decade is probably about the same suck-wise. Just different than the last.

 

[Doctor John B. Zyklon]

The 90s were great, iirc, good economy, good media, the pinnacle of cars before they turned into computers, I remember the overwhelming mood being joy, hope, excitement for the future.

 

[Spicey McHaggis]

ironically if you were a nerd back then you probably had more of a social life than the zoomers who spend all day on discord. Even if out of necessity you had to go out of your way to meet other nerds in real life, you had to go to the comic shop, you had to go to the weird video rental store that had the good shit, you had to go to the smelly arcade that was the only one with the good cabinets. If you wanted recomendations or access to stuff you became friends with people and bonded over it, in person.

Not to mention that if you wanted multiplayer, you really had to do it in person. Shit like LAN parties will never be a thing again sadly. On the upside, there are significantly few balltaps when the guy you killed isn't sitting right next to you.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

This is why, to me, the 80s-mid 2000s were peak anime and what I always go back to, even when looking for new shows. I've said it before, but I want cyberpunk and hyper violence, not overly-dramatic moe-blob slice-of-life paedo-bait isekia.

When i was a kid "anime" made me think of trippy sci fi and edgelord stuff, anime now makes me think in trannies with moefag profile pics. little girls doing slice of life shit is Lame
The celluloid ovas are always gonna be the greatest. It was straightforward fun with a very high bar of artistic technique and even the lowbrow stuff was charming.

Its true about the prices though, We in latam were lucky because the channel Locomotion played a lot of the best anime like Akira Gits, Macross, a lot of cool ovas and old shows, a local tv station in my country also played a lot of shonen anime, even evangelion. But having to find something in beta or vhs was expensive, even when cds and dvds made bootlegging more accessible it could be a drag. I remember the first time i watched the rurouni kenshin ovas and saint seiya the hades chapter was because a friend had them in cds, not even dvds, just low res files that he had burned into cds to play on the pc lol, sometimes anime magazines would include some episodes of a show or an ova in a cd too and we would pass those around. Today a lot of old anime is on youtube even, t its kinda sad that a lot of it was never remastered so there aren't any versions better than 400p anywhere but even the blurryness adds a bit to the charm.

 

[fake farts]

The actual animation of anime definitely peaked in the mid 80s to early/mid 90s, on the OVAs anyway. Nice two or three toned shading, cool designs, good animation. A credit all to Japan's good economy at the time. Then it shit out, and anime shit out as well.

 

[OutInTheRain]

The 90's were great. Maybe it was being a kid during that time, but everything felt so much brighter. TV was great, it was the first real big expansion of vidya, and genres were moving beyond just platformers in a big way. It wasn't without its problems, music was beginning to stagnate and boy bands were everywhere. It was when offshoring was beginning to take off, and in a lot of ways the rot we deal with today had begun to take form back then.

 

[fake farts]

It was when offshoring was beginning to take off, and in a lot of ways the rot we deal with today had begun to take form back then.

I'd argue offshoring began in the 80's, depending on the industry. I grew up in a tobacco family, on a farm, and by the early/mid 90's none of the workers were actual Americans, all Mexicans. Even the modern rot of wokeism goes back further than the 90's. It did start to encroach mainstream a bit more by the 90's though, but you were still allowed to get away with a lot more without as much backlash.