Funny how all that's old is new again. Growing up in the 2000s felt so dope, call it nostalgia but it felt like the world just made sense and knew what it was. Compared to post covid, it feels like the world is trying to identify with something and in doing so brining back the Y2K vibes.
That's ironically not new. It's just that Y2K is reaching that point of "nostalgia core" Don't be so quick to forget the mid-2010s and how it felt like _every_ creative/blogger/Tumblr/game dev/anime type DESPERATELY wanted to bring back the 1980s and early 90s, to the point I outright said "the 2010s was the decade that wanted to be the 1980s." That was the decade of everything from seapunk, vaporwave, retrowave, Japanese city pop, the 80s Anime Aesthetic, and whatnot, after all. Who knows, maybe the 2020s will seek to indulge in Y2K/Frutiger Aero as long as possible. It's certainly a striking look, and arguably the last real "definable" cultural aesthetic before the "2000s blandness" kicked in. As an aside, funny thing is, I first heard about the "Y2K aesthetic" as a term back in 2019, and even as early as late 2019, people were already saying it was dead. That's probably the biggest meme about the aesthetic: everyone's saying "Y2K aesthetic is over" every month, looking to some new aesthetic to exploit (most notably the aforementioned Frutiger Aero which seems to have stuck), yet it keeps on kicking on. No idea why there's such a need to declare it over when everyone was so keen to exploit 80s nostalgia for years without end. Edit: 2007 MySpace Emo is probably the next big "nostalgiaesthetic" actually. God help us all!
@@Yuli_Ban Its hard to pinpoint and depends on where youre located but I agree that the 2010 were so keen on holding on to the 80/90s. I can imagine that Y2K aesthetics will kick for another few years as with any form of generational identity. Its all just a matter of how much time passes till the previous generation are crying about their era and how much better things were. In my case, there are lots of people around me that are starting to get into the Y2K stuff and yes although nothing new its becoming more prominent with many of the clothings stores I go to as well as being around the city to see the look more specifically around skaters and younger peeps.
the combo of ps2 game visuals and dnb is just pure nostalgic energy, i wonder if there will ever be an era of digital innovation in art like the 2000s again
there will be, it goes in cycles, all the companies that made these games in the 2000's got bought up by the big mega corporations, the big mega corporations will eventually lose enough money because they're afraid of trying new things, that a new generation of game makers will pop up... look up the videogame crash of 1983, that will happen again.
Y2K aesthetic and early Frutiger Aero/Metro are probably my favorite two aesthetics, and fully embody the "look" of video gaming and gadgetry circa 1998-2004
this was the best i've seen someone explain why the 6th generation of games is so beloved. something about the art styles and soundtracks and characters just has me in a chokehold.
@@SouthwestRudy It was the dawn of a new Millennium and devs tried to capture that feel of the "future". MGS2 and Final Fantasy X (specifically the opening with Dream Zanarkand), Tekken Tag, Tekken 4, The Bouncer, WWE(F) Smackdown Just Bring It (menus) and so many more games. Such good times man
I’m a gen z and I’ve never been in this era of gaming. But the feeling I get, when I play dmc 1 is indescribable. It’s like an entire different experience from playing any modern game.
@@abyssalrayz9499 same. Even though i was born in 2002, i grew up with early 2000s games. I am kinda lucky, that i live in country where this aesthetic lived little bit longer. It also feels like that genZ are most nostalgic about this early 2000s Y2K aesthetic. Milennials are mostly connected with vaporwave aesthetic and PS1 gaming era.
@basedkaiser5352 Definitely Ruthless Aggression rather than Attitude. Both literally take place in the same time and both focus on edgy and experimental.
@@certifiedretart161nah they were still riding the 90s which had a much longer peak which opened the door for the electronic bliss of the 00s which was actually pretty much receding by 06
@@realamericannegro977with all the new crazy ai advances like rtx remix, sora, Im sure we will be able to have ai filters on game to make it look any style we want.
@@RicochetForceIt’s the collective subconscious mind of Humanity screaming that we drastically need to 180. Half of us wanna go back to the 80s-including those born in the 90s and onwards-and the other half of us wants to go back to the early noughties. Both groups agree that where gaming and society in general is concerned we need to stop and turn around🤷♂️
I wish more indie devs would try and emulate the PS2 era aesthetic and beat, pixel art is cool and all but man the PS2 was just so damn good for cost effectiveness and gameplay innovation.
I was 9 years old in 2001. It was such a magical time to be a gamer. Going to Toys R Us or EB games to try out the demos was a true delight. I had SSX Tricky, ProSkater 3 & Jak & Daxter. Played GTA 3 & FFX at my cousin’s house during sleepovers. Got Sonic adventure 2 battle a year later on GameCube. I still play all these games today as a 31 year old 😭
I love how these games look like video games but still have realism in what they could express. This was the era I fell in love with games... sure I played PS1, SNES, and Sega, but 6th gen was where I knew I was in this for life and couldn't imagine growing out of the hobby... lo and behold.
Y2K just had a over all great aesthetic. We even got those blobject furniture pieces in the real world. You would see lots of cold blues and silver along with chrome and we can’t forget the bubbles. It felt dream like and liminal in a way. It was the time spand of 1997-2003
17:30 The words "Absurdly realistic" is spot on. Modern games try way too hard to make ultra realistic graphics, to the point that everything looks boring. And not to mention the censorship.
@@vee1766Movies are surreal from the get-go because of their cineastic 24 fps aesthetic. Current games are hyperrealistic, but aesthetically primitive.
I think this can be rephrased: Back when developers didn't have to sell as much to make a profit, and didn't have to worry about pleasing shareholders.
I was 22 in 2000, and completely captivated by gaming at this time. I had grown up playing games, but to see how it shifted into these epic adventures with the PS2 was so exciting.
Y2K was the peak of the entertainment industry. Everything from movies, music, series to games. It was all so creative and the whole DnB genre in itself. Kylie Minogue‘s Can‘t Get You Of My Head is still ringing in my ears.
Wish you’d discussed more of the Dreamcast. Even though it released in 98/99 it is the ultimate Y2K / early 2000s system. Dreamcast games have such a distinct style you can recognize it immediately whenever you see the games. It’s even more recognizable than any other 6th gen console. The Dreamcast is quintessential to the 00s aesthetic in my mind.
It definitely was way better than the bullshit first Xbox, it wasn't even until the 360 that Xbox was really good and worth it. If Sega would have made the dreamcast controller better and secured more games they would have been toe to toe with GameCube. I don't even really count Dreamcast as a 2000s system though, me personally I see the late 90s as its own thing between the Dreamcast, Nintendo 64 and PS1. Same way we see Nintendo 64 as a late 90s thing is the same we should do for the dreamcast that's just my opinion cause its first true competitors were the PS1 and Nintendo 64.
This is definitely why the Dreamcast, Ps2, and GameCube are my favorite consoles. Back then it was harder to find two games that look and play the same. Its the same reasons i go back to the 6th generation often. Sometimes nostalgia is nice, its fun to take a time capsule back into the past. Great video i love anything talking about the early 2000s i get stuck there in mind often. Glad I discovered this video looking over your channel it's clear we have a lot in common I have to sub at this point
Not Nostalgia to me. To me thats true gaming. 7th gen was great too but was the falling action. I count that era as true gaming too. Now games are kinda off in most cases.
Agreed. The 6th Gen was really an era where new ideas for games kept on coming and only certain games were knockoffs. Nowadays almost every AAA game (western ones anyway as far as I know) are the same, online shooters or other games with micro-transactions are pretty much everywhere like a portable casino. Even certain RPG titles felt the same in terms of gameplay. Soundtracks are hit or miss. I tend to hop back and forth between newer and older games too, with no hassle of trying to re-adjust myself to get used to the old graphics - a thing that hardly anyone around me ever do. Nowadays any gamer around me only play FIFA games (smh) and/or western AAA games, so anything Japanese they know nothing about them with only something like "I heeaard of iiiit...buuut never played it." While I play both western and Japanese games and experienced both the ups and downs of their games.
I eventually came to the same conclusion. During 2020, a few months before the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, I bought a PS2 and original Xbox and it just shocked me how much more fun I was having. There was no 20 minutes of cutscenes or pointless walls of text of dialog, most games had their own identity thanks to their art styles even the realistic looking ones like Silent Hill, the music actually stands out and is memorable - making you vibe with it like Ridge Racer V, the focus on gameplay for a lot of these games that solidifies the experience such as Jak & Daxter, couch co-op experience for games that were built for it like Shrek 2, fun arcade racers that don't exist anymore like Burnout with its banger music, the easter eggs/unlockables in so many games like Haunting Ground are fun to figure out, the edgy games like Hitman Contracts or GTA 3 that have an insane atmosphere - nothing released these days comes anywhere near close, the artsy games like Jet Set Radio Future that are so aesthetically pleasing, the fan service games like DoA Xtreme which are pretty relaxing and of course the cherry on top of the pie... the plug and play experience that modern consoles don't offer anymore. I even forgot the 9th gen consoles existed for a while after this.
@@Manic_Panic 90-00 everything was near perfect, not only videogames industry, but also music industry and cinematography industry, hair styles, fashion in general, we are very like that we lived in that golden era...
@@Manic_Panic Same bro my big bro bought a PS2 again and with some games no we mostly use emulators but yes knowing the state of modern gaming it always a sweet feeling revisting these older games and knowing the effort and passion they use to have during the good old days. Had fun playing with my big bro on the PSP emulator, and it feels like it was just yesterday ;)
A lot of it has to do with how materials worked on that gen. We finally had specular lighting but everything was manually dialed in. Physically based materials didnt exist yet. So rather than plugging textures into metal or hardness nodes, it had to be manually dialed in while the textures were albedo only. I would feel like a big issue with modern games is we rely too much on pbr and on displacement/normal maps to add small detail that irl wouldn’t stand out enough to be noticeable in that way. Tldr: modern game art is too busy with how it handles detail due to procedural or pbr based solutions. Old games had it all done by hand. If we kept modern poly counts and lighting methods while going back to manual material creation, things would look like those old cutscenes.
Also nodes werent a thing back then. No one was plugging anything into nodes. A huge chunk of the art pipeline was out of reach of artists. Actually I remember the first time I made particle effects for something in renderware and I had to do them all in notepad and then compile the game to see the results. Took so long, Mental.
Growing up in the Y2K era of gaming was amazing for me. I don't remember beating a lot of games, but I remember staying up at night and playing weird levels in weird games, I played a lot of easy games. I just loved getting lost in the sounds and the eerie bliss of an aesthetic drone. I remember watching RUclips videos of games my dad wouldn't buy for me. Horror games I couldn't stomach to play al the way through. Now that I'm older I'm going down the list and playing them, hoping to kind of drown out the rest of the world.
Not exactly, 60 fps happened because we could finally render things at more than 15 fps, but fluidity was NEVER mentioned in reviews, and games like God hand or Metal Gear Solid 3 are infamous for not being 60fps, because they started to push the systems more. Tldr: there was no focus on 60fps, it just happened at that time because things were easy enough to render.
@thechugg4372 yes & when you don't understand that the graphics of a game are relative to the overall power of the system it's running on & how the game could be made more or less resource intensive in a variety of ways which may or may not sacrifice graphical fidelity that's when you get idiots looking at modern consoles and expecting that everything has to absolutely be 60fps because they're so powerful compared to hardware from back in the days
Been sayin' dis for years. Game developers went full corporate & made soulless games wit no love in 'em. Graphics don't matter, as long as tha game was full of soul. I truly don't mind tha old school graphics, it's aesthetically pleasing to tha eye 💯💯💯💯💯
Late 90s were the golden years. PC from around 96 to 02 was the most exciting time in gaming history. Massive explosion in new tech, Every year it was like skipping 10 years of generations today. Big publishers hadn't fully taken over and AAA was still within reach of small indie studios. Huge passion from everyone involved and no politics being injected by activists.
I was hoping youd bring up the 4 orginal dot hack games. Infection, mutation, outbreak and quarantine. This series screams early 2000s internet vibes and i adore it.
Every Silent hill sound still scares me lol. The music, the way the voices sounded so clear and isolated, footsteps/ambiance, terrifying cutscene animations Maaaan
Watching this literally brought tears of profound nostalgia running down my eyes as I type this, they're still running. My childhood was awesome growing up with a Dad who played videogames on console and PC. He's awesome. Life was a wonder growing up during this time as an introverted kid/teenager for me. I miss my childhood 😭😭😭😭😭
Very cool video. Honestly this totally hits the nail on the head for me - Tekken 4, Shinobi, the lush pre-rendered backgrounds sharing main stage with 3D games. weird stuff like PN03, Digital Devil Saga. Aesthetic perfection. And the D'n'B was unrivaled. Speaking of: infinite thanks for putting down the titles of the tracks you used! I kept thinking how fire your playlist was for this video!
@@Pumpo hey bro why you disrespecting ff8 in your stupid video like that? that was a great game , ff9 is good too why you only pretend that ff7 is the only good final fantasy game? casual
I think you listed almost every single one of my favorite games, what a wonderful video! the perfect dose of nostalgia I was looking for👌late 90s/early 2000s aesthetics are timeless.
Hailing from 2001 here I think I can speak on behalf of everyone that grew up from late 90's to early 2k for when I say those eras were for sure solidified "You just had to be there" Moments in history
I dunno, I see current teens who look at 90s and 2000s stuff, and they can see there's a special level of creativity & style to it, so they totally get into it. I think I get what you mean, but usually people say "you just had to be there" when something looks crappy to anyone who wasn't there.
@@Oecobius33The fact that teens today are able to see that love and passion is a testament to just how amazing this era was, but there's still a distinction to be made between admiring it in retrospect, and actually being there at the time. Anyone can admire something, but the admiration escalates to a wholly new level if you actually lived through it.
i haven't even watched the full video, but as someone who recently got a ps2 again and is replaying classics, just from the editing of that intro bam immediately subbed
I‘ve gotta leave a comment here to say, what a great video you did here mate. The topic you picked is highly interesting and your usage of music is just superb, love it. I had to open up my shazam app every other minute to add something to my nightdrive playlist. And I also gotta say, your narrating voice is great, I could easily listen through the whole 20 mins. Besides the technical video stuff: I was never able to pinpoint exactly, why I always look out for this synthwave/DnB/japanese inspired/slightly fearsome futuristic artstyle. But you hit the nail on the head: Digital apocalypse. Thanks for this insightful video essay. Brought back some memories, expanded my spotify playlist, explained my taste in art and gave me a new youtube channel to look out for. Keep it up
Really solid video. Especially important to me is your point about most games back then being smaller budget, allowing devs to experiment more and also release games faster. We need more "double-A" games like that, as they are the ones that truly define a generation. Without them, a new gen feels the same as the last, as they have to play it safe. It's not all bad these days, I love that indie devs can make a game in whatever style they want with relative ease compared to back in the day, thanks to all the tools at their disposal. Games today have the potential to be better than ever, and sometimes they are. But the thing that was special about the late 90s and early 2000s was the optimism felt in the medium across the board. Each developer racing to innovate and create the coolest IPs they could, making the culture of games feel more vibrant, alive, iconic and memorable than ever before or since.
The PS2 was the best Playstation Console in the 2000s. My favorite games to play on there when I was a kid was the Dora and Diego Games, Jak and Daxter, and enter the matrix.
the aesthetic presentation of this vid is unreal. this is the kinda stuff i usually strive for, but i felt like i lost it somewhere within the last couple of years or so. thanks for bringing some inspiration back, i just might have to start working on something again i also rlly appreciate: - GITAROO MAN FOOTAGE LETS GOOOOOOO - actual insight as to what makes all of the above factors of the aesthetic feel nostalgic and like it has some real soul in retrospect, and why they were made that way in the first place
Actually were seeing a revival of the double AA or games with the budgets of PS2 classics (relative to inflation) the amount of resources and ease of use in modern day engines, can allow a developer to relatively cheaply make good looking games without breaking the bank. their are really cheap library's of animations, reference models, pre-bult systems, and more that can be used as a starting point or to fill in missing gaps of development. You shouldn't have an issue making game at the scale of most Ps2 games, with said budgets anymore.
I would absolutely love to do that... but I have no coding skill and often struggle figuring out new technology. I grew up playing PS2 RPGs and many of them inspired the books I write, and so I often fantasize about them being games. *sigh*
@@Kaitou1412Fangirl As a programmer and game designer my self, I started out with laptop and a free-ware edition of GMS. Making games using clip art off of google. If you want to explore that route start small, make projects that you dedicate just a couple days to. Take what works and make a new project with that. Then start again. repeat till you have something confident. And grow from their!
@@GLRYB2GD No, just no. Their are use cases like blizz using it to resize helmets for the dozens of different classes. but that actually requires custom tools built by said studios. Which would take a lot of resources that AA or indie game studio's just don't have. General use AI stuff like generating images and text and the likes, just is stealing from other people. And or requires a giant bulk of content to actually train the tools on. Which for said studio's isn't exactly have access to.
@@angrypuckmen3501 you act like AI won't evolve to make games easier & quicker to make. AI-generated landscapes and whatnot. Idk how you can be so pessimistic. I have hope that AI will revolutionize gaming for the better.
Wow, this brings me back to the old times of playing the n64 with my cousin back in 98-99-01, i remember a game where i was a fox in a ship fighting, then we played star wars, south park, turok!!!!.... amazing freaking games and times.... then i moved onto ps1 playing silent hill, dino crisis, wip3out..... holy shit, this was absolute PEAK GAMING, wont be better than this.
Concerning reaching the peak, you know what they say "what goes up, must come down". That's why the 2020's is worse than the 2010's rather than being better.
I was born in 2005 and i do have alot of old memories of old gaming from 2000's and 2010's and I can tell you. Even when i was kid the world used to feel much better and had quality and i wish i was born earlier.
If you like this type of song, you should seek Breakcore/Jungle/DnB that is basically this genre (you probably already know it but still saying for other people who don't know)
Bro there were so many banger that came out during my childhood I am pissed I wasn't old enough to fully appreciate a lot of these games or even understand wtf I was doing. I remember playing that tomb raider on my cousins ps2 and I was too young to figure it out I got stuck at some ledge I couldn't ever get across. I also remember playing splinter cell and not having a clue either with that game. I've been on old game kick lately and this video is perfect to jog my memory.
I'm personally more enthralled by the 5th generation, where no one knew what to do but just kept doing it anyway, pretty much everything was experimental while 2D games where seemingly perfected, but damn, i grew up in the 6th generation, and games were undeniably cool (except for the shovelware that was starting to grow due to the mainstreaming of games lol), 100% agree with everything you said in the video.
To be be fair, at the time we transitioned from the 5th gen to the 6th gen, the visual leap did not feel that large. The PS2 didn't exact launch with a great lineup, but the system was flying off the shelves anyway. I think some of the reason for that was 1) we were all still playing on the same CRT's, 2) the Dreamcast kind of gave us an early preview but felt more like a higher end 5th gen system than a 6th gen system, and 3) a lot of early games for GC & Xbox were cancelled N64 & DC games that were moved over to the newer consoles. The biggest selling points weren't the better visuals or smoother frame rates (like they might be today), but the promise of new tech & features like DVDs & online play. Looking back, it's crazy to think so many of us barely even talked about frame rate, as that's one of the most noticeable improvements of that era. Maybe it was because that gen felt so short too. People forget the OG Xbox & GC launched in 2001, then only 4 years later we got the Xbox 360. Even though the jump from PS1 to PS2 is far more noticeable now, the adoption of HD TVs made going from PS2 to PS3 look HUGE at the time. This was a great video, sorry for ranting on & on. Just brought up a lot of memories, and it's weird to think back to internet discussions at the time compared to how people view things now.
It's crazy how much breakcore and emo and dark and goth theams were around in mid 2000's. I didn't know till highschool till i saw actual goths and emos and sceen kids
Your "Digital apocalypse" description sounds a lot like the "Digital Apocalypse" aesthetic GamingBritShow coined a year ago when he made a video talking about Tekken 4's atmosphere.
Exactly, and this guy is trying to pass it off like it's his label. Everyone's got this kind of video, and it's the same shit again and again, capping on millennial nostalgia for clicks.
@@greytuesday28 I don't even dislike the idea of the video, although I do feel like he misses the point where he actually explains *why* this aesthetic is timeless as opposed to merely just looking cool.
@@guyofminimalimportance7 Same, I'd actually love to see a making-of documentary by Namco, SEGA and these OG dev studios talking about the art direction of their titles. For me it would tell a lot more about this style than these clickbait RUclipsr essays.
@@greytuesday28Yeah, if nothing else a video talking about this subject really should actually focus on the thought processes which led to that style existing at all.
I started playing video games in the 3rd gen, and I have to say, that run from the 4th to 7th gen (1990 to 2011) was something special. However, I honestly believe that video games peaked in the 6th gen. The early to mid 2000s era was just incredible. Half of my top 10 video games of all time are from that generation: 1. Resident Evil 4 (6th gen) 2. Super Metroid 3. Super Mario Bros 3 4. Breath of the Wild 5. Ninja Gaiden Black (6th gen) 6. Metal Gear Solid 3 (6th gen) 7. Chrono Trigger 8. Metroid Prime (6th gen) 9. Devil May Cry 3 (6th gen) 10. Street Fighter 2
I’m late to the party here, a little, but replaying MGS4 on pc emulated and upscaled makes me realize this game is PEAAAAAAK 2000’s aesthetic! Upscaling shows how good this game has aged graphically but it still contains some pretty MGS2-era looking assets for certain objects making it such a joy to behold right now.
XIII was the first cel-shaded game I played and it had the cool comic-book-style cutscenes and sound bubbles or headshot reels. It was around the same time as jet set radio. I recently bought it again and it still looks as good. In fact, given the similarity of today's video games made by companies that push for photorealism 90% of the time, I'd say it aged pretty well.
EDIT: Nevermind, this video definitely plagiarized pretty heavily from another youtuber. I went and watched the channel people are saying this plagiarized from, and it wasn't even that deep into the Ridge Racer V video that the riffing became apparent. You gotta do better than that dude :/ Great video! I'm glad RUclips recommended this. It's all very fluid and loose, but to me R4 and Jet Set Radio are more turn-of-the-century to me, while their sequels, RRV and Jet Set Radio Future are more embodying of what I feel the 00s are. Like listen to a track like Euphoria from Ridge Racer V and tell me that ain't oozing that mid-aughts sound. And most of Jet Set Radio Future's OST was breakbeat stuff, you can also find that kind of music in Super Monkey Ball too! I've been getting so nostalgic for this era recently.
Each game had its own unique personality and mood back then. No two games were alike. The way the graphic design of each game varied made it feel as though you were altering dimensions each time you changed the disc, or cartridge.
Personally I do both the 80's for music and cinema and the 90s 2000's for some video games (I'm more on the arcade side of the 90's from a personal point of view, the hyper realism and the sure presentation of war and immoral games like GTA would annoy me and already bore me at the time, knowing when more I'm more of a player of Japanese games than of Western games the only Western license I use The touch was Mortal kombat.)
I keep coming back to this video to just vibe out to the music during the Silent Hill section. I could listen to that all day. I absolutely adored this time in gaming.
I played from a stolen ds my sister got for me. I would dream about playing all these games, the commercials went HARD. Now I’m an adult and can experience everything I didn’t get to but I can’t help but mourn what could’ve been if my mom wasn’t so against games. I lived through other people or going to friends houses, and it was the best times regardless. The vibes were so different.
most kids don't care about graphics, most of them play games in their cellphones who has graphics inferior than a PSP or cartoony looking f2p games like LoL and Fortnight, it is mostly millennials who never grew out of graphic obsession. maybe will see a collapse of AAA but honestly i don't want f2p and mobile to replace it, i kind of wish the indie market would raise where developers with small budgets can be experimental but still release premium games without predatory micro-transactions or brain dead gameplay. 5th, 6th and 7th gen was really peak, devs could be creative and hardware was good enough, before graphics race inflated the budgets and made all of them samey with no experimentation.
Thanks for opening with my tune❤
Couldn’t be happier to use your tracks man. I’ve used them in a few of my videos now and they are all so great!
that's your tune? that sounds straight out of third strike man good job lol
bro you really nailed the playstation dnb sound. I love to see dnb making a comeback amongst gamers of all people
you from the uk ? straight got that 90's sound from raving
Pizzahotline’s mixes straight gas 🔥
Funny how all that's old is new again. Growing up in the 2000s felt so dope, call it nostalgia but it felt like the world just made sense and knew what it was. Compared to post covid, it feels like the world is trying to identify with something and in doing so brining back the Y2K vibes.
That's ironically not new. It's just that Y2K is reaching that point of "nostalgia core"
Don't be so quick to forget the mid-2010s and how it felt like _every_ creative/blogger/Tumblr/game dev/anime type DESPERATELY wanted to bring back the 1980s and early 90s, to the point I outright said "the 2010s was the decade that wanted to be the 1980s." That was the decade of everything from seapunk, vaporwave, retrowave, Japanese city pop, the 80s Anime Aesthetic, and whatnot, after all.
Who knows, maybe the 2020s will seek to indulge in Y2K/Frutiger Aero as long as possible. It's certainly a striking look, and arguably the last real "definable" cultural aesthetic before the "2000s blandness" kicked in.
As an aside, funny thing is, I first heard about the "Y2K aesthetic" as a term back in 2019, and even as early as late 2019, people were already saying it was dead. That's probably the biggest meme about the aesthetic: everyone's saying "Y2K aesthetic is over" every month, looking to some new aesthetic to exploit (most notably the aforementioned Frutiger Aero which seems to have stuck), yet it keeps on kicking on. No idea why there's such a need to declare it over when everyone was so keen to exploit 80s nostalgia for years without end.
Edit: 2007 MySpace Emo is probably the next big "nostalgiaesthetic" actually. God help us all!
9/11 and the 2007 financial crisis made people feel like that way before Covid.
@@Yuli_Ban Its hard to pinpoint and depends on where youre located but I agree that the 2010 were so keen on holding on to the 80/90s. I can imagine that Y2K aesthetics will kick for another few years as with any form of generational identity. Its all just a matter of how much time passes till the previous generation are crying about their era and how much better things were. In my case, there are lots of people around me that are starting to get into the Y2K stuff and yes although nothing new its becoming more prominent with many of the clothings stores I go to as well as being around the city to see the look more specifically around skaters and younger peeps.
@@trabuco9not as a kid lul, i just played with video games and consumed media and toys
@@SilentCrown I was a kid and it felt like that.
Just by watching everyone being miserable and everything closing down.
the combo of ps2 game visuals and dnb is just pure nostalgic energy, i wonder if there will ever be an era of digital innovation in art like the 2000s again
Especially when it coincides with your childhood and most nostalgic years.
I mean there’s gotta be at some point.
Absolutely!
@@shecklesmack9563 even objectively i think there was a lot of technological innovation happening and things have kinda plateaued since
there will be, it goes in cycles, all the companies that made these games in the 2000's got bought up by the big mega corporations, the big mega corporations will eventually lose enough money because they're afraid of trying new things, that a new generation of game makers will pop up... look up the videogame crash of 1983, that will happen again.
Y2K aesthetic and early Frutiger Aero/Metro are probably my favorite two aesthetics, and fully embody the "look" of video gaming and gadgetry circa 1998-2004
Why stop at 2004? Mirror's Edge is from 2008.
this was the best i've seen someone explain why the 6th generation of games is so beloved. something about the art styles and soundtracks and characters just has me in a chokehold.
this guys was disrespecting final fantasy 8 in the video fuck him
It's called love and passion now its just greed and unfinished games.
@@SouthwestRudy It was the dawn of a new Millennium and devs tried to capture that feel of the "future". MGS2 and Final Fantasy X (specifically the opening with Dream Zanarkand), Tekken Tag, Tekken 4, The Bouncer, WWE(F) Smackdown Just Bring It (menus) and so many more games. Such good times man
@@SouthwestRudy Art without love sticks out like sore thumb.
@@SouthwestRudy Yup, the soul is gone in these modern games.
I’m a gen z and I’ve never been in this era of gaming. But the feeling I get, when I play dmc 1 is indescribable. It’s like an entire different experience from playing any modern game.
You say it's indescribable but could you try to describe it?
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I’m lucky to be the earlier gen z who grew up with this
Well I was. As part of the older gen z, I had a ps2 and I loved it.
@@abyssalrayz9499 same.
Even though i was born in 2002, i grew up with early 2000s games.
I am kinda lucky, that i live in country where this aesthetic lived little bit longer.
It also feels like that genZ are most nostalgic about this early 2000s Y2K aesthetic.
Milennials are mostly connected with vaporwave aesthetic and PS1 gaming era.
the attitude era of gaming
More like Ruthless Aggression.
16 Bit is the attitude era.
@basedkaiser5352 Definitely Ruthless Aggression rather than Attitude. Both literally take place in the same time and both focus on edgy and experimental.
The 2000s were our cultural peak.
@@certifiedretart161nah they were still riding the 90s which had a much longer peak which opened the door for the electronic bliss of the 00s which was actually pretty much receding by 06
Tekken 4....what a game. I wouldn't mind if game graphics looked like ps2 era but maybe a bit more polished.
I was thinking this for years. PS2 but with more polygons and higher res textures.
@@realamericannegro977with all the new crazy ai advances like rtx remix, sora, Im sure we will be able to have ai filters on game to make it look any style we want.
I played the sh*t outta tekken 4 back in the day 😍😍
@@RicochetForceIt’s the collective subconscious mind of Humanity screaming that we drastically need to 180. Half of us wanna go back to the 80s-including those born in the 90s and onwards-and the other half of us wants to go back to the early noughties. Both groups agree that where gaming and society in general is concerned we need to stop and turn around🤷♂️
@@RicochetForcethere’s this game coming out called crow country with that ps1 look to it, completely agree
I wish more indie devs would try and emulate the PS2 era aesthetic and beat, pixel art is cool and all but man the PS2 was just so damn good for cost effectiveness and gameplay innovation.
They're too busy spamming pixel art rouge-likes
@@Rorschach1998 or streamer bait spoopy games
I was 9 years old in 2001. It was such a magical time to be a gamer. Going to Toys R Us or EB games to try out the demos was a true delight. I had SSX Tricky, ProSkater 3 & Jak & Daxter. Played GTA 3 & FFX at my cousin’s house during sleepovers. Got Sonic adventure 2 battle a year later on GameCube. I still play all these games today as a 31 year old 😭
I love how these games look like video games but still have realism in what they could express. This was the era I fell in love with games... sure I played PS1, SNES, and Sega, but 6th gen was where I knew I was in this for life and couldn't imagine growing out of the hobby... lo and behold.
Y2K just had a over all great aesthetic. We even got those blobject furniture pieces in the real world. You would see lots of cold blues and silver along with chrome and we can’t forget the bubbles. It felt dream like and liminal in a way. It was the time spand of 1997-2003
Exactly!
17:30 The words "Absurdly realistic" is spot on. Modern games try way too hard to make ultra realistic graphics, to the point that everything looks boring. And not to mention the censorship.
Are movies boring because they "look realistic" then ?
@@vee1766Movies are surreal from the get-go because of their cineastic 24 fps aesthetic. Current games are hyperrealistic, but aesthetically primitive.
@@vee1766 Films are boring to me, yeah. That's why I barely watch them. I don't even pay for TV it's all mundane as hell.
@@vee1766 i mean tv is dead and cinema is in an all time slump right now while anime films/shows are achieving highs ... so yes
@vee1766 yes.
The early and mid 2000s games have my heart. I’ll always be stuck in the mid 2000s when it comes to gaming
same :)
Same here. I'm working on a gaming setup where I can go back there. I'm fed up with the games of today.
Back when developers didn’t force battlepasses and microtransactions, but focused on making memorable games with care, passion and creativity.
They still do. Go outside of the AAA and you'll find plenty
I think this can be rephrased:
Back when developers didn't have to sell as much to make a profit, and didn't have to worry about pleasing shareholders.
I was 22 in 2000, and completely captivated by gaming at this time. I had grown up playing games, but to see how it shifted into these epic adventures with the PS2 was so exciting.
Y2K was the peak of the entertainment industry. Everything from movies, music, series to games. It was all so creative and the whole DnB genre in itself. Kylie Minogue‘s Can‘t Get You Of My Head is still ringing in my ears.
Games, sure. Music, fashion and movies, not so much.
@@mothinhead8903Not you again envious 90's fanboy mbop dwop looking headaas.
Wish you’d discussed more of the Dreamcast. Even though it released in 98/99 it is the ultimate Y2K / early 2000s system. Dreamcast games have such a distinct style you can recognize it immediately whenever you see the games. It’s even more recognizable than any other 6th gen console. The Dreamcast is quintessential to the 00s aesthetic in my mind.
So true! Phantasy Star Online is where it’s at for me.
There's a full 600 games completely missed by leaving out Dreamcast.
It definitely was way better than the bullshit first Xbox, it wasn't even until the 360 that Xbox was really good and worth it. If Sega would have made the dreamcast controller better and secured more games they would have been toe to toe with GameCube. I don't even really count Dreamcast as a 2000s system though, me personally I see the late 90s as its own thing between the Dreamcast, Nintendo 64 and PS1. Same way we see Nintendo 64 as a late 90s thing is the same we should do for the dreamcast that's just my opinion cause its first true competitors were the PS1 and Nintendo 64.
i liked how you mentioned the beach level. That generation had an obsession with blue crystal waters. Its something that era does so well.
100%
In the words of Cody ko, they really loved themselves some blue ass water 😭
Loved the water in Wave Race 😄
Frutiger Aero 😁
feel like it was to show of graphic fidelity
Don’t forget the love for cell shaded graphics too :) they were really trying to much so fast. Love the creativity of that era.
Auto Modelista, Jet Grind Radio, Sonic Shuffle, The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker... 😏
This is definitely why the Dreamcast, Ps2, and GameCube are my favorite consoles. Back then it was harder to find two games that look and play the same. Its the same reasons i go back to the 6th generation often. Sometimes nostalgia is nice, its fun to take a time capsule back into the past.
Great video i love anything talking about the early 2000s i get stuck there in mind often.
Glad I discovered this video looking over your channel it's clear we have a lot in common I have to sub at this point
Not Nostalgia to me. To me thats true gaming. 7th gen was great too but was the falling action. I count that era as true gaming too. Now games are kinda off in most cases.
Agreed. The 6th Gen was really an era where new ideas for games kept on coming and only certain games were knockoffs. Nowadays almost every AAA game (western ones anyway as far as I know) are the same, online shooters or other games with micro-transactions are pretty much everywhere like a portable casino. Even certain RPG titles felt the same in terms of gameplay. Soundtracks are hit or miss.
I tend to hop back and forth between newer and older games too, with no hassle of trying to re-adjust myself to get used to the old graphics - a thing that hardly anyone around me ever do. Nowadays any gamer around me only play FIFA games (smh) and/or western AAA games, so anything Japanese they know nothing about them with only something like "I heeaard of iiiit...buuut never played it." While I play both western and Japanese games and experienced both the ups and downs of their games.
I eventually came to the same conclusion. During 2020, a few months before the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, I bought a PS2 and original Xbox and it just shocked me how much more fun I was having.
There was no 20 minutes of cutscenes or pointless walls of text of dialog, most games had their own identity thanks to their art styles even the realistic looking ones like Silent Hill, the music actually stands out and is memorable - making you vibe with it like Ridge Racer V, the focus on gameplay for a lot of these games that solidifies the experience such as Jak & Daxter, couch co-op experience for games that were built for it like Shrek 2, fun arcade racers that don't exist anymore like Burnout with its banger music, the easter eggs/unlockables in so many games like Haunting Ground are fun to figure out, the edgy games like Hitman Contracts or GTA 3 that have an insane atmosphere - nothing released these days comes anywhere near close, the artsy games like Jet Set Radio Future that are so aesthetically pleasing, the fan service games like DoA Xtreme which are pretty relaxing and of course the cherry on top of the pie... the plug and play experience that modern consoles don't offer anymore.
I even forgot the 9th gen consoles existed for a while after this.
@@Manic_Panic 90-00 everything was near perfect, not only videogames industry, but also music industry and cinematography industry, hair styles, fashion in general, we are very like that we lived in that golden era...
@@Manic_Panic Same bro my big bro bought a PS2 again and with some games no we mostly use emulators but yes knowing the state of modern gaming it always a sweet feeling revisting these older games and knowing the effort and passion they use to have during the good old days. Had fun playing with my big bro on the PSP emulator, and it feels like it was just yesterday ;)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who loves early 2000’s beach levels
Ah the Early 2000's. Such an nostalgic time of gaming to me.
My favorite era of gaming was early 2000s era and I’m glad I played since 2000 and experienced a lot of games
That Drum and Bass soundtrack is perfection!
A lot of it has to do with how materials worked on that gen. We finally had specular lighting but everything was manually dialed in. Physically based materials didnt exist yet. So rather than plugging textures into metal or hardness nodes, it had to be manually dialed in while the textures were albedo only.
I would feel like a big issue with modern games is we rely too much on pbr and on displacement/normal maps to add small detail that irl wouldn’t stand out enough to be noticeable in that way.
Tldr: modern game art is too busy with how it handles detail due to procedural or pbr based solutions. Old games had it all done by hand.
If we kept modern poly counts and lighting methods while going back to manual material creation, things would look like those old cutscenes.
Also nodes werent a thing back then. No one was plugging anything into nodes. A huge chunk of the art pipeline was out of reach of artists.
Actually I remember the first time I made particle effects for something in renderware and I had to do them all in notepad and then compile the game to see the results. Took so long, Mental.
The 2000's will always have a special place in my heart 💚💚💚
also thx for not sleeping on R&C 😭
Growing up in the Y2K era of gaming was amazing for me. I don't remember beating a lot of games, but I remember staying up at night and playing weird levels in weird games, I played a lot of easy games. I just loved getting lost in the sounds and the eerie bliss of an aesthetic drone.
I remember watching RUclips videos of games my dad wouldn't buy for me. Horror games I couldn't stomach to play al the way through.
Now that I'm older I'm going down the list and playing them, hoping to kind of drown out the rest of the world.
This video is so good! It’s almost like I’ve seen it before…
🌚
This was a fantastic video to watch. You did forget to mention that almost EVERY dev was targeting 60 FPS for fluidity
Not exactly, 60 fps happened because we could finally render things at more than 15 fps, but fluidity was NEVER mentioned in reviews, and games like God hand or Metal Gear Solid 3 are infamous for not being 60fps, because they started to push the systems more.
Tldr: there was no focus on 60fps, it just happened at that time because things were easy enough to render.
@thechugg4372 yes & when you don't understand that the graphics of a game are relative to the overall power of the system it's running on & how the game could be made more or less resource intensive in a variety of ways which may or may not sacrifice graphical fidelity that's when you get idiots looking at modern consoles and expecting that everything has to absolutely be 60fps because they're so powerful compared to hardware from back in the days
RUclipsrs stop ripping off TGBS' Tekken 4 video challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]
😂 Bro, when I heard 'digital apocalypse', I knew he watched that video along with the ridge racer reviews.
Yeah loved the vid but come on lol some of these talking points gave me actual de ja vu
Been sayin' dis for years. Game developers went full corporate & made soulless games wit no love in 'em. Graphics don't matter, as long as tha game was full of soul. I truly don't mind tha old school graphics, it's aesthetically pleasing to tha eye 💯💯💯💯💯
Late 90s were the golden years. PC from around 96 to 02 was the most exciting time in gaming history. Massive explosion in new tech, Every year it was like skipping 10 years of generations today. Big publishers hadn't fully taken over and AAA was still within reach of small indie studios. Huge passion from everyone involved and no politics being injected by activists.
I was hoping youd bring up the 4 orginal dot hack games. Infection, mutation, outbreak and quarantine. This series screams early 2000s internet vibes and i adore it.
Props to the Shin Megami Tensei franchise for keeping the YIIK aesthetic alive and well.
It will always be my favourite generation of gaming!
Really appreciate the good balance over the background music and voice over audio, this was enjoyable.
We need to bring the 2000s/90s back. It was the point in history before everything went to hell. Might as well pick up where we left off.
Depends if you were in Iraq or not...
@@wiegraf9009 Minus all the wars and terrorism.
@@mattd5240I mean that was the "going to hell" part and pretty impossible to avoid in those days.
Every Silent hill sound still scares me lol. The music, the way the voices sounded so clear and isolated, footsteps/ambiance, terrifying cutscene animations Maaaan
Watching this literally brought tears of profound nostalgia running down my eyes as I type this, they're still running. My childhood was awesome growing up with a Dad who played videogames on console and PC. He's awesome. Life was a wonder growing up during this time as an introverted kid/teenager for me. I miss my childhood 😭😭😭😭😭
Very cool video. Honestly this totally hits the nail on the head for me - Tekken 4, Shinobi, the lush pre-rendered backgrounds sharing main stage with 3D games. weird stuff like PN03, Digital Devil Saga. Aesthetic perfection. And the D'n'B was unrivaled.
Speaking of: infinite thanks for putting down the titles of the tracks you used! I kept thinking how fire your playlist was for this video!
I spent a while figuring out which songs to use on this vid so I'm really glad you enjoyed it
I'm glad I grew up in this era of gaming. Great video and nice use of Pizza Hotline🔥
Thank you. I love pizza hotline and all of his music
@@Pumpo hey bro why you disrespecting ff8 in your stupid video like that? that was a great game , ff9 is good too why you only pretend that ff7 is the only good final fantasy game? casual
That early 2000s D&B will always remind me of my childhood
I think you listed almost every single one of my favorite games, what a wonderful video! the perfect dose of nostalgia I was looking for👌late 90s/early 2000s aesthetics are timeless.
Back when videogame companies took risks
i still live in 2001
same
Hailing from 2001 here I think I can speak on behalf of everyone that grew up from late 90's to early 2k for when I say those eras were for sure solidified "You just had to be there" Moments in history
True
I dunno, I see current teens who look at 90s and 2000s stuff, and they can see there's a special level of creativity & style to it, so they totally get into it.
I think I get what you mean, but usually people say "you just had to be there" when something looks crappy to anyone who wasn't there.
@@Oecobius33The fact that teens today are able to see that love and passion is a testament to just how amazing this era was, but there's still a distinction to be made between admiring it in retrospect, and actually being there at the time. Anyone can admire something, but the admiration escalates to a wholly new level if you actually lived through it.
i haven't even watched the full video, but as someone who recently got a ps2 again and is replaying classics, just from the editing of that intro bam immediately subbed
Nice video!! Loved the jungle DnB music that fit the era, especially the Goemon's Great Adventure boss music 😘
So true, even street fighter third strike, and parts of mgs 2 (boss fight/vr missions) shared a similar aesthetic.
I‘ve gotta leave a comment here to say, what a great video you did here mate. The topic you picked is highly interesting and your usage of music is just superb, love it. I had to open up my shazam app every other minute to add something to my nightdrive playlist. And I also gotta say, your narrating voice is great, I could easily listen through the whole 20 mins.
Besides the technical video stuff: I was never able to pinpoint exactly, why I always look out for this synthwave/DnB/japanese inspired/slightly fearsome futuristic artstyle. But you hit the nail on the head: Digital apocalypse. Thanks for this insightful video essay. Brought back some memories, expanded my spotify playlist, explained my taste in art and gave me a new youtube channel to look out for.
Keep it up
Man, this video was such an effective love letter to that era, my era. Well done!
Those of us born in late eighties or early 90s should be especially thankful. The right age for 6th gen consoles imo.
Really solid video. Especially important to me is your point about most games back then being smaller budget, allowing devs to experiment more and also release games faster. We need more "double-A" games like that, as they are the ones that truly define a generation. Without them, a new gen feels the same as the last, as they have to play it safe.
It's not all bad these days, I love that indie devs can make a game in whatever style they want with relative ease compared to back in the day, thanks to all the tools at their disposal. Games today have the potential to be better than ever, and sometimes they are. But the thing that was special about the late 90s and early 2000s was the optimism felt in the medium across the board. Each developer racing to innovate and create the coolest IPs they could, making the culture of games feel more vibrant, alive, iconic and memorable than ever before or since.
The PS2 was the best Playstation Console in the 2000s. My favorite games to play on there when I was a kid was the Dora and Diego Games, Jak and Daxter, and enter the matrix.
JSR is literally one of my favourite games ever. It’s inspired my art and taste in music so much
bruh thx so much for adding trackslist.
Happy you enjoyed the music choices
the aesthetic presentation of this vid is unreal. this is the kinda stuff i usually strive for, but i felt like i lost it somewhere within the last couple of years or so. thanks for bringing some inspiration back, i just might have to start working on something again
i also rlly appreciate:
- GITAROO MAN FOOTAGE LETS GOOOOOOO
- actual insight as to what makes all of the above factors of the aesthetic feel nostalgic and like it has some real soul in retrospect, and why they were made that way in the first place
YEAH GITAROO MANNN
Actually were seeing a revival of the double AA or games with the budgets of PS2 classics (relative to inflation)
the amount of resources and ease of use in modern day engines, can allow a developer to relatively cheaply make good looking games without breaking the bank.
their are really cheap library's of animations, reference models, pre-bult systems, and more that can be used as a starting point or to fill in missing gaps of development.
You shouldn't have an issue making game at the scale of most Ps2 games, with said budgets anymore.
I would absolutely love to do that... but I have no coding skill and often struggle figuring out new technology. I grew up playing PS2 RPGs and many of them inspired the books I write, and so I often fantasize about them being games. *sigh*
@@Kaitou1412Fangirl As a programmer and game designer my self, I started out with laptop and a free-ware edition of GMS. Making games using clip art off of google.
If you want to explore that route start small, make projects that you dedicate just a couple days to. Take what works and make a new project with that.
Then start again.
repeat till you have something confident.
And grow from their!
Exactly. AI will also be helping in the creation of new AA games.
@@GLRYB2GD No, just no.
Their are use cases like blizz using it to resize helmets for the dozens of different classes.
but that actually requires custom tools built by said studios. Which would take a lot of resources that AA or indie game studio's just don't have.
General use AI stuff like generating images and text and the likes, just is stealing from other people. And or requires a giant bulk of content to actually train the tools on. Which for said studio's isn't exactly have access to.
@@angrypuckmen3501 you act like AI won't evolve to make games easier & quicker to make. AI-generated landscapes and whatnot. Idk how you can be so pessimistic. I have hope that AI will revolutionize gaming for the better.
The soundtrack you picked really sold this video and made me feel really nostalgic. Banger video.
Early 2000s was the renaissance for entertainment in general, things were much cooler & organic back then & people had good taste
Wow, this brings me back to the old times of playing the n64 with my cousin back in 98-99-01, i remember a game where i was a fox in a ship fighting, then we played star wars, south park, turok!!!!.... amazing freaking games and times.... then i moved onto ps1 playing silent hill, dino crisis, wip3out..... holy shit, this was absolute PEAK GAMING, wont be better than this.
Great video man !
Thank you for making this, and including the track list! People seem to not do this any more it’s frustrating !!
2000s had the best of every genre in gaming
The entertainment industry reached its highest peak in the 2000s from video games to movies to music
Concerning reaching the peak, you know what they say "what goes up, must come down". That's why the 2020's is worse than the 2010's rather than being better.
@@mebarkiimad4575 Society was better in the 2000's.
I was born in 2005 and i do have alot of old memories of old gaming from 2000's and 2010's and I can tell you. Even when i was kid the world used to feel much better and had quality and i wish i was born earlier.
Im Curious. What year would you have wished to be born in?
LLoved this
KARIM BIG FAN SINCE I WAS IN FOURTH GRADE MAN
you somehow made me nostalgic for a console i never had
Some of that 90s drum and crossed over. Mhm *chef's kiss*
If you like this type of song, you should seek Breakcore/Jungle/DnB that is basically this genre (you probably already know it but still saying for other people who don't know)
@@renren47618 breakcore sounds less familiar from the other two. I'll have to check that one out. Thanks! 😁
Brits would always use that music. That's some Ali G roadman music.
Bro there were so many banger that came out during my childhood I am pissed I wasn't old enough to fully appreciate a lot of these games or even understand wtf I was doing. I remember playing that tomb raider on my cousins ps2 and I was too young to figure it out I got stuck at some ledge I couldn't ever get across. I also remember playing splinter cell and not having a clue either with that game. I've been on old game kick lately and this video is perfect to jog my memory.
The good old days
I'm personally more enthralled by the 5th generation, where no one knew what to do but just kept doing it anyway, pretty much everything was experimental while 2D games where seemingly perfected, but damn, i grew up in the 6th generation, and games were undeniably cool (except for the shovelware that was starting to grow due to the mainstreaming of games lol), 100% agree with everything you said in the video.
Personally for the 2D generation SNES, megadrive Arcade they were the best, and for the 3D generation, ps2 GameCube they were the best.
I'm 35 and yeah this was my childhood.
This video is amazing! I really mean it! You were able to capture the nostalgia of that time! Thank you for this amazing piece of work!
Amazing video subbed!
Incredibly well made video! The writing was great, the editing was great, fantastic visual and song choices. Really great stuff.
To be be fair, at the time we transitioned from the 5th gen to the 6th gen, the visual leap did not feel that large. The PS2 didn't exact launch with a great lineup, but the system was flying off the shelves anyway.
I think some of the reason for that was 1) we were all still playing on the same CRT's, 2) the Dreamcast kind of gave us an early preview but felt more like a higher end 5th gen system than a 6th gen system, and 3) a lot of early games for GC & Xbox were cancelled N64 & DC games that were moved over to the newer consoles.
The biggest selling points weren't the better visuals or smoother frame rates (like they might be today), but the promise of new tech & features like DVDs & online play. Looking back, it's crazy to think so many of us barely even talked about frame rate, as that's one of the most noticeable improvements of that era.
Maybe it was because that gen felt so short too. People forget the OG Xbox & GC launched in 2001, then only 4 years later we got the Xbox 360. Even though the jump from PS1 to PS2 is far more noticeable now, the adoption of HD TVs made going from PS2 to PS3 look HUGE at the time.
This was a great video, sorry for ranting on & on. Just brought up a lot of memories, and it's weird to think back to internet discussions at the time compared to how people view things now.
It's crazy how much breakcore and emo and dark and goth theams were around in mid 2000's. I didn't know till highschool till i saw actual goths and emos and sceen kids
Your "Digital apocalypse" description sounds a lot like the "Digital Apocalypse" aesthetic GamingBritShow coined a year ago when he made a video talking about Tekken 4's atmosphere.
Exactly, and this guy is trying to pass it off like it's his label. Everyone's got this kind of video, and it's the same shit again and again, capping on millennial nostalgia for clicks.
@@greytuesday28 I don't even dislike the idea of the video, although I do feel like he misses the point where he actually explains *why* this aesthetic is timeless as opposed to merely just looking cool.
@@guyofminimalimportance7 Same, I'd actually love to see a making-of documentary by Namco, SEGA and these OG dev studios talking about the art direction of their titles. For me it would tell a lot more about this style than these clickbait RUclipsr essays.
@@greytuesday28Yeah, if nothing else a video talking about this subject really should actually focus on the thought processes which led to that style existing at all.
@@greytuesday28I recommend the video "The Charming Aesthetic of Namco Games" by the channel Heavynsent for a look into this.
I started playing video games in the 3rd gen, and I have to say, that run from the 4th to 7th gen (1990 to 2011) was something special. However, I honestly believe that video games peaked in the 6th gen. The early to mid 2000s era was just incredible. Half of my top 10 video games of all time are from that generation:
1. Resident Evil 4 (6th gen)
2. Super Metroid
3. Super Mario Bros 3
4. Breath of the Wild
5. Ninja Gaiden Black (6th gen)
6. Metal Gear Solid 3 (6th gen)
7. Chrono Trigger
8. Metroid Prime (6th gen)
9. Devil May Cry 3 (6th gen)
10. Street Fighter 2
nuts how even after the whole thing w james somerton there are still people who think they can get away with plagiarizing on here
Aight, this is one of my favorite videos now
The audacity to release this after the RUclips plagiarism fiasco a while back
I’m late to the party here, a little, but replaying MGS4 on pc emulated and upscaled makes me realize this game is PEAAAAAAK 2000’s aesthetic!
Upscaling shows how good this game has aged graphically but it still contains some pretty MGS2-era looking assets for certain objects making it such a joy to behold right now.
Early 2000s games are late 90s games on steroids.
Well late 97 to mid 08 is the same era. Then they tried to be wannabe 80's and completely destroyed this amazing peak era.
XIII was the first cel-shaded game I played and it had the cool comic-book-style cutscenes and sound bubbles or headshot reels.
It was around the same time as jet set radio. I recently bought it again and it still looks as good. In fact, given the similarity of today's video games made by companies that push for photorealism 90% of the time, I'd say it aged pretty well.
EDIT: Nevermind, this video definitely plagiarized pretty heavily from another youtuber. I went and watched the channel people are saying this plagiarized from, and it wasn't even that deep into the Ridge Racer V video that the riffing became apparent. You gotta do better than that dude :/
Great video! I'm glad RUclips recommended this.
It's all very fluid and loose, but to me R4 and Jet Set Radio are more turn-of-the-century to me, while their sequels, RRV and Jet Set Radio Future are more embodying of what I feel the 00s are.
Like listen to a track like Euphoria from Ridge Racer V and tell me that ain't oozing that mid-aughts sound. And most of Jet Set Radio Future's OST was breakbeat stuff, you can also find that kind of music in Super Monkey Ball too!
I've been getting so nostalgic for this era recently.
It's not plagiarized 🥲
Each game had its own unique personality and mood back then. No two games were alike. The way the graphic design of each game varied made it feel as though you were altering dimensions each time you changed the disc, or cartridge.
Remember when our parents were romanticising about 80s music? I think now its our turn to romanticise about 2000s videogames.
Personally I do both the 80's for music and cinema and the 90s 2000's for some video games (I'm more on the arcade side of the 90's from a personal point of view, the hyper realism and the sure presentation of war and immoral games like GTA would annoy me and already bore me at the time, knowing when more I'm more of a player of Japanese games than of Western games the only Western license I use The touch was Mortal kombat.)
Even the editing in this video is like watching a tv special in the early 2000’s
Dope video! Subscribed
I keep coming back to this video to just vibe out to the music during the Silent Hill section. I could listen to that all day. I absolutely adored this time in gaming.
Your mother is very proud
I played from a stolen ds my sister got for me. I would dream about playing all these games, the commercials went HARD. Now I’m an adult and can experience everything I didn’t get to but I can’t help but mourn what could’ve been if my mom wasn’t so against games. I lived through other people or going to friends houses, and it was the best times regardless. The vibes were so different.
most kids don't care about graphics, most of them play games in their cellphones who has graphics inferior than a PSP or cartoony looking f2p games like LoL and Fortnight, it is mostly millennials who never grew out of graphic obsession.
maybe will see a collapse of AAA but honestly i don't want f2p and mobile to replace it, i kind of wish the indie market would raise where developers with small budgets can be experimental but still release premium games without predatory micro-transactions or brain dead gameplay.
5th, 6th and 7th gen was really peak, devs could be creative and hardware was good enough, before graphics race inflated the budgets and made all of them samey with no experimentation.
this video is insanely good like just the fact u decided to use ambient dnb as background music, ur th goat
Great video man! And amazing editing. Keep 'em coming!
Thank you!
God the tekken 4 soundtrack gives me all the feels. Probably my favorite of all time. I could listen to touch and go all day.
Now every console has soulless Windows 11 menus/home screens. And boring apple presentations/reveals. so disgusting
Someone had to say it, haha
game play & graphic transition from PS1 to PS2 were revolutional
The last era of passion