Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of bullshit about this generation sucking and people waxing nostalgic about the last gen as the pinnacle of gaming. Let me just say, I’ve been around the block for a long time. I can assure you, this generation isn’t as good as the last generation; Not because this generation sucks, but because it isn’t even over yet. We are only 3/4 years into what will ultimately be an approximately a 10 year generation. Now, I’m going to field a couple of complaints about this generation and tell you why you all suck for complaining.

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“Remember back in the days of 2D graphics?”

This rhetorical question is usually followed by some old timer rant on 3D games being crappy because it’s all about the graphics. Grandpa will then go on to rant about all games looking the same nowdays before giving himself a hernia and ending up on an NHS waiting list for the rest of his miserable life. Pining away on grapes and Quality Street, while demanding his dutiful relatives seek him out the rarest Gameboy cartridges.

So I won’t say that, in the hope that fate does not await me after this article. I grew up in the days of 2D gaming, first with the Master System (with about two games because we were poor Northerners living down a mine) and then, when I was about five, I got a Mega-Drive, and Sonic the Hedgehog. My life was essentially bound to gaming since then. It sounds sad, but all the key events in my life are sorted in my mind by what game I was playing at the time. So you may want to stop reading now, call me a nostalgia ridden old prat (despite being only twenty) and take me out behind the shed to put me out of my misery. What these games showed me was a world of colour, every game worth buying had it’s own individual style that was vastly different from the rest. Because the games aimed for a more cartoony aesthetic, based on the limitations on the hardware, and the fact that gaming was considered a child’s hobby.

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