What generation of gamer are you?

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Find out your gaming age in our in-depth look at video games throughout the ages

What is your gaming age?

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Youve never known a time when all of a game came on the disc you bought

To you, paying for the disc (if you even buy physical media) is just the start of the adventure. The ending on the disc is a gateway to the 57 pieces of DLC that will inevitably follow, and youre fine with that. Its just how things work. What does make you nervous is the absence of a vaguely underwhelming multiplayer component tacked onto your single-player adventure--unless it has been announced as DLC. Phew!

Nolan North voices all your gaming heroes

Look at all your games. Nolan North is in 80%+ of them. Quite right, especially after they passed the Nolan North Act of 2009, making it illegal to exclude the ubiquitous voice actor from any video game with a mid-to-late 30s male protagonist (so all of them, then) who regularly finds himself in great peril. You simply cant imagine a game without The Northster.

As far as you know, Sega is just a company that makes games

Sega? Theyre the ones who made Aliens: Colonial Marines and Alpha Protocol, right? you ask, as somewhere Yuji Naka dies a little bit inside. It never occurs to you that they were once a major player in the console market, with their mascot Sonic a multi-million dollar brand locked in fierce rivalry with Mario. Sonic? Isnt he one of the characters in that Olympics Game?

You have never known the joy of a really good d-pad

See that cross-shaped thing beneath the left analogue stick on your consoles wireless pad? Yeah, the d-pad. Its a bit redundant, right? Chances are you probably just use it for switching between weapons or choosing the bonnet cam in racing games, but before the dawn of dual sticks it was the only way to control your on-screen movement. One day, it will be extinct like the Dodo or Simon Cowells humanity.

Youve always thought FIFA was better than PES

In the UK, there is a fierce rivalry between two competing football games: FIFA and PES (or Pro Evolution Soccer). Or, at least, there once was. In terms of sales, FIFA is now the dominant force--has been for 5-6 years--while PES, with its lack of English Premiership licenses lags behind. If youre new to consoles you probably cant recall a time when FIFA wasnt utterly dominant. For our US readers--try to imagine a time when NBA Live was superior to NBA 2K. And it existed. No? It has been a while.

Youre a... Gaming Toddler

Youve only played games in the HD era, and your first console was either an Xbox 360 or PS3. Xbox Live and PSN are your playgrounds, DLC is your co-pilot, and you probably even tried PS Home for an hour or two before getting bored. Sonic and Mario are good friends in your mind, and Rare are just those guys who make all the Kinect Sports games.

Doesn't apply to you? You must be older than a toddler. Click through to the next set of statements...

Not you? Keep going then...

You remember when platformers didnt have to be existential

Growing up, your heroes were humanised animals who saved the world by leaping between colourful 3D platforms. Although each one had a certain amount of attitude, it was a safe kind of rebelliousness that rarely lead to brutal dismemberment or airport massacres. Enemies dropped coins, not intestines, and at the end of the game there would be a party rather than a deep sense of existential dread.

Andy Hartup
Andy Hartup