I remember crying to my parents to buy me an Xbox 360 because I couldn't wait to play Halo 3 on it, and when I was finally finished with the campaign, I realized I had nothing to do. Xbox Live cost more than a month's pocket money, and I didn't want to tell my folks that the console required more money for me to be able to play online. At the same time, my friend went with Team Blue, picking a costlier PlayStation 3, and thus becoming the de facto king in the extended friend group.

Lucky for me, he lived right across the street, which meant that I went from school to his place before even seeing my own home, playing games like Uncharted and God of War III. What this did was make me forget about the Xbox collecting dust at home, but looking back today, that was probably the best era in gaming.

No, I'm not saying this while wearing rose-tinted nostalgia glasses, but with the state of gaming right now, there's no denying that we've all seen and experienced better, and among them, there was never a better time than the PS3/Xbox 360 era.

The industry was in perfect harmony during this era

In the seventh generation, innovation, comfort, and ambition all worked in tandem

Why did the PS3 feel so comfortable and familiar, yet so ground-breaking at the same time? That's because it hit the sweet spot between two worlds. We still had the familiar comfort of PS2-style gaming, but now, the possibilities felt revolutionary with HD. This was a huge generational leap between consoles, and it felt futuristic to be booting up the sleek Cross Media Bar. The device felt so unreal and new, and yet, the games themselves? They carried the DNA of classic console design from the Xbox and PS2 days, which had shown us 3D games maturing. However, this time around, devs could be more ambitious, and games could be more polished. At their core, however, every game in this era was still a pick-up-and-play experience.

With the PS3 in particular, the hardware had such a "premium" aura. Blu-ray felt out of this world, and that made the PS3 a perfect movie player for the family, justifying its $599 price. It was the games where it truly shined, though. Back then, you popped in a disc, installed a quick data pack if you had to, and then, you were off. Putting in a disc for the first time didn't mean waiting for a 50GB day-one patch. Still, when the game booted? You knew you were in an all-new generation. Project Gotham Racing, Gears of War, Uncharted, and God of War III were jaw-dropping and gorgeous, and they never needed servers, updates, patches, and bug-fixes to enjoy.

This was the last era where single-player ruled the world

Campaigns made or broke games

This one doesn't really need an explanation. With our PS3s and Xbox 360s, we lived in the last true golden age of single-player games. By this time, Oblivion had already become the catalyst for the world changing with its Horse Armor DLC, but that trend hadn't picked up... yet. This was before "always-online" became a thing, before battle passes became the cash-raking mechanics they are today. This was when campaigns made or broke games, and boy, was it epic.

Uncharted 2? It redefined cinematic storytelling in gaming, becoming a summer blockbuster that you could play. Metal Gear Solid 4 gave us a grand conclusion to a long-running, fabled saga. Even at the tail end of its lifecycle, the PS3 gave us one of the greatest single-player games of all time, The Last of Us, which was a resounding declamation that single-player games did, and will continue to reign supreme. Halo 3 became the world's best and most popular online shooter, and it did that while still delivering an unforgettable campaign at the same time.

Owning the disc to a single-player game was genuinely all you needed. No server check-ins. No looming shutdowns, and no wondering when a game might be delisted and become impossible to play or enjoy. What you bought was yours forever, and today, it's a sad state of affairs that a lot of single-player titles require constant licensing checks or an always-online connection. Did we get some rather fantastic and downright unforgettable single-player games in the PS4 and Xbox One era, too? Yes, but that was never a generational leap that felt as gigantic as the one we made when the seventh generation began.

Online gaming may have been new, but it was also innocent

Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3 lobbies were simply peak

Single-player being king during this era didn't mean that multiplayer didn't thrive, either. In fact, this was when online gaming felt new to us. Every new game with an online component felt like a new discovery rather than a chore of exploring the same tried-and-tested method. Sure, the PS2 did dabble in online gaming, but it was this era where it truly came alive. Jumping into Battlefield or Modern Warfare 2 lobbies or Halo 3 custom games (after a few months of allowance) felt like entering a new world to me, and that's where I was happy I got more use out of my Xbox 360.

The live party chat features were novel at the time, and to me, it felt amazing not to be talking to my friends from school over the telephone, but rather in-game. I say all of this to highlight how at that time, multiplayer hadn't yet devolved into endless progression grinds, battle passes, and microtransaction-driven systems that want to ram skins down your throat.

I think the bigger problem is how everything felt novel and on the right side of technology and progress, and we were just unlucky enough to see it devolve into its own imitation a thousand times over. The PS3 and Xbox 360 era, though? That was online gaming at its most innocent. Unpolished and still finding its footing vis-à-vis server sizes and matchmaking? Yes. But it sure was full of genuine wonder.

This was a time before gaming's corporate squeeze

Barely a battle pass in sight

I think the biggest reason the PS3 era feels like the last golden age is that games weren't yet crushed under corporate obsession with engagement or player retention. Sure, those have always been important metrics, but that didn't mean that the PS3 or Xbox 360 games were designed with the sole purpose of keeping you grinding endlessly for cosmetics or checking back every day for daily logins like it's a second job. Instead, it was studios that wanted to tell stories and build worlds that drove the creation of games.

I mean, we got three Uncharted games and two inFAMOUS games on the PS3 alone, while the PS4 gave us just two (one of which was a glorified DLC). Audience expectations were always about a good game, not a huge game that somehow changed everything. As such, it took less time to pump out great new games, and we weren't complaining about similar-feeling games because we were just happy to see innovation and creativity find new avenues through newer games. Even DLC, when it came, felt like a genuine expansion, like Undead Nightmare for Red Dead Redemption or Shivering Isles for Oblivion.

Digital media was rising, but physical copies still remained dominant

I won't ever stop preferring physical media over digital, but sadly, the currents are against us. Digital media has been taking over slowly but surely, and now, we're seeing major games skip physical releases to stick to digital storefronts. On the other hand, the seventh generation gave us the PlayStation Network and the Xbox Live Arcade, which genuinely became breeding grounds for indie innovation and gave us games like Braid, Journey, and Castle Crashers, or in other words, games I could afford with a couple of months of allowance.

Still, physical media remained dominant, and there was just nothing like unwrapping a new release on day one. Games felt like treasures and new toys, and we lined up for midnight releases, making festivals out of major releases. Digital storefronts today? They're extremely convenient, yes, but they're also pretty sterile.

I don't want to be an old man shaking his fist at kids

I really don't. And yet I know that's what I sound like. Sadly, the truth of the matter is that objectively speaking, the seventh-gen PS3 and Xbox 360 were really gaming at its best. We'd taken the time to polish 3D and really create gorgeous and huge sandboxes, cinematic storytelling had found its footing, online multiplayer was novel but worked fantastically and took away thousands of our hours, and not a single moving part felt out of place.

It was the perfect storm. Midnight releases felt like events we lined up for, and the balance between physical and digital releases was just right. Modern gaming has so many strengths, but back then? Creativity still thrived, and it wasn't suffocated by corporate spreadsheets. Looking back, I think we all felt it — that rare magic where every new release felt like the center of the gaming universe. We really didn't know it at the time, but in hindsight, we really were living through gaming's last great golden age.