Ask yourself in 1998...

[Owyn_Merrilin]

1998, huh? I honestly think I would have imagined technology not too far off from what we have today, but with games still in the same kinds of specialized niches we had in the 90's. There's no way eight year old me could have conceived of the homogenization the industry saw this gen. Oh, one other thing: I probably wouldn't have been able to imagine digital distribution or indie games. I think my family got cable internet somewhere around 2001, and we were ahead of the curve on that. Digital distribution back then pretty much meant "spend all day downloading one or two shareware demos."

 

[Rad Party God]

In '98, I was pretty busy playing through many seminal games of the era, like Goldeneye, Banjo-Kazooie, Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid and although not as important as the ones previously mentioned, Turok 2 (Starcraft, Half-Life, Unreal, Thief and many other games of that time would come much later as I was busy with consoles back then).

My prediction about gaming back then, would be bigger and better games, no more polygonal characters, no more "pixelated" graphics, shorter loading times (wich hasn't been adressed to this day in consoles), and everything just plain better, back then I wasn't dreaming about holodecks or something like that, I just wanted to improve everything we already had back then.

I wanted consoles to look as awesome as arcade games, if not better. (It's been a while since we got past that point)

Seriously... '98 - 2000 were great years for gaming, everything was fresh and exciting. Nowadays I'm still pretty excited and positive about gaming, but there are a few things that can make it hard not to be excited about it anymore.

I think I'd be incessantly weeping if I'd know what Rare has become in 2012... And that Killer Instinct 3 would never be released... ever...

 

[Verkula]

I remember wanting another Crash Bandicoot game thats even longer then the 3rd one, like, its on 2DISCs!

 

[chadachada123]

That would have been just a year after the N64's release, meaning I would already have it and would have been playing Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario 64 constantly.

Between that and Pokemon (also released in '97ish), I probably would have thought I'd be playing even better racing and platforming games in the future. I probably wouldn't have been able to fathom a 3D Pokemon game or anything near where we are now in terms of graphics.

However, I clearly remember thinking that holographic/full simulation gaming was the future. I really thought that virtual reality was going to be a thing, where you could go to an arcade, jack your head into a server, and play in full virtual reality like the goddamned Matrix. That, or devise a rolling sphere that would allow for infinite movement in any direction, combined with VR goggles. I'm still of the opinion that we'll get there eventually. Eventually.

 

[Yal]

In 1998 I was neck deep in roguelikes. By virtue of being something you could pour hundreds of hours in to for free, they got me through my broke-ass college years. Past me would have been pleasantly surprised by the renaissance that genre is going through right now.

What would I have predicted? Maybe I could have seen MMOs coming, if I was being particularly perceptive. I never played Ultima Online, but I was aware of it and its predecessors, and it seems obvious in retrospect. But more likely I would have asked for ambitious sim projects along the lines of Dwarf Fortress.

Shame about the space games, though.

 

[Ando85]

What would you be playing in 2012?

For those old enough to remember gaming in the 90s what would you have predicted gaming would be like in the present day? I'd likely imagine some super virtual reality almost real life looking game...but I'm actually playing a PS1 game that came out in 1999 and enjoying it just as much as a new current gen game.

In 1998 I was playing... Xenogears and Parasite Eve 1.

This year I played... Xenogears.

And a bunch of current gen stuff.

It's just... a little eerie that you picked 1998 specifically.

The reason I choose 1998 is based around Xenogears and the year I got a PS1. Such great games like FF7, Xenogears, Parasite Eve, Resident Evil 2, Ocarina of Time, and Metal Gear Solid were coming out around that timeframe. I choose 1998 cause those games really shaped what kind of gamer I am to this day.

1998 was a wonderful year for gaming!

 

[blackrave]

The Elder Scrolls game with all Tamriel available.
(and no TES:Arena isn't what I had in mind)

Also another awesome C&C game
Yeah, let me borrow this

FUUUUUUUUUU.....

 

[IndomitableSam]

Well, I was 15 and thoroughly teenager-ish and FFVII was out... so... probably "I'll always be playing this, this is the best game ever, I need to go cry in the corner I'm so alone and nobody loves me... I'm going to write more bad poetry about how awful my life is."

... Yeah. I wouldnt ask my 1998 self anything, I'd fucking slap her in the face.

The Elder Scrolls game with all Tamriel available.
(and no TES:Arena isn't what I had in mind)

Also another awesome C&C game

FUUUUUUUUUU.....

Next year, dude. Remember... except it's an MMO... so... yeah.

 

[Skoldpadda]

Half-Life - wait for it - 3. Like, on budget. Like, on a separate system with an older OS because the normal one can't run it anymore. Ordering my robot buddy to fetch me more Doritos. Yeah, the future's underwhelming.

 

[krazykidd]

Honestly ? I would have probably said something like Final Fantasy 13 or something. Back then final fantasy was my favorite game , and i would have at least played I,IV ,VI and VII ( the ones released in NA). I remember asking my dad what happened to the missing numbers and up to what number will they go to .

 

[GTwander]

Lets see...
I was really into FFVIII at the time (I think), so likely something FF.

 

[kortin]

I thought we would be playing in huge worlds, with better graphics (obviously), more content and even more depth and complexity than we used to have.

We know how that turned out.

You mean like we currently have?

Or wait, are you the guy who lives in the 90s still when it comes to games?

 

[xDarc]

Honestly? I thought it would be in the details of the worlds they made. The progression from early shooters to full 3D ones in 1998 created a perception that there was no aspect of the real world that they could not mimic, and make it fully interactive; a world full of real-world features. That was the idea.

Games today are more shallow than they were in 1998 though, big surprise and big let down for me.

I spent a lot of time building Doom maps, editing WAD files, spent a lot of time in Duke 3D's Build Editor. The idea of tagging sectors to give them a specific, preset function, which you could tweak with modifier tags, and stack other tags on top for multiple functions... was genius. This was what gaming in the 90s was about- making feature-rich environments using clever tricks and ingenuity.

It's pretty god damn sad that now that we do have full 3D tech and models without pointy polygon heads that everything else is completely uninspired.

Also in 1998, I predicted global terrorism would destabilize the entire middle east in response to provocation from groups like al Qaeda who could hop from country to country; and that the USA would tear the entire middle east down chasing them... basically starting WWIII.

I spent my entire teen years preparing for war and the apocalypse. Now that I'm 30, own a home, have a gf who lives with me that I will probably marry, I don't really know how to feel. I honestly didn't think we'd still be here in any meaningful capacity. And not to trivialize the events of 09/11/01, but when I turned on my TV that morning I was secretly excited because this was the beginning of my whole vision. I turned on TV that morning and I knew exactly who the finger would be pointed at, and knew exactly what came next.

To this day, I do not understand how we did not start WW3. Maybe we still are, maybe it's just taking longer than I thought. Now i'll be too old to be of any use.

A little off topic, but I genuinely did just go back in time 14 years just now and thought about just how I felt. So thanks for that.

 

[MorganL4]

1998..... I'm pretty sure I would have imagined well.... To be honest considering how I was a kid in elementary school, I think a Pokemon MMO would have been what I would describe to me.

 

[kortin]

"more content and even more depth and complexity"

I guess you must of skipped over this part.

Okay, yeah, definitely that guy. Thanks

 

[vasiD]

1997 was the year FF7 came out yeah?

1998 me would be shitting his pants over XIII.

2012 me just wants to play Bloodlines over and over again...

 

[Squilookle]

Anyway, I'd probably assume that I'd still be playing Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 forever. I didn't have many games since my parents wanted me to be doing...other things. So I just kept playing those and added my own goals and storylines. I'd pick up a bob-omb or a box in Mario and act like it was urgent for me to take it to some place.

Pretty much this- I got Mario 64 so that I could 'have a platformer', Diddy Kong Racing so I could 'have a racer' and Goldeneye so I could 'have a shooter'. I assumed back then that I'd be happily playing them more or less forever, and like many others this has more or less played out just like that. What I didn't predict was most other games getting so crap that I wouldn't want to keep playing other games. I always assumed great games would always be coming out and I'd admire them but stick with my original choices, probably because of financial reasons. As it turns out, I just play the original batch because they're still much better than most offerings today.

I would probably say awesome platformers by Rare and awesome Star Wars space sims by LucasArts.

...

Oh yes... well of course there'd be... and I'd... I'd...

 

[malestrithe]

I just got my Playstation 1 from the only Gamestop in 200 miles of my house at the time. I was playing Saga Frontier because I got bored with FF7 and need a break from it.

I guess that in 2012, I thought I would finally beat Saga Frontier. It is a game that needs a lot of time to get through. Not because it was dense, but it was repetitive and boring.