Another vote for 1994-2004 over here.

If I have to pick an exact year then 2001. It was a year that brought us many great titles that were (r)evolutionary in both gameplay and graphics.

I think majority of us consider the best period of gaming a year span from discovering games to a moment when we first experienced that something has changed and the familiar feeling begins to fade away.
The first time I realized gaming is going downwards was in 2005. I've read through an entire gaming magazine without finding a single interesting title, which was a completely rotting feeling. There were good games released after that of course, but the magic bubble has popped. I think that's when game making become game industry.

1998 was great, but

1996 - Quake
and
2003-2004 - Max Payne 2 & Far Cry

As far as PC gaming is concerned, 1993 until 2004 were the golden years - plenty of quality PC exclusives (no, the swarms of second-rate indie wannabes do not count as quality), no DRM and a hardware ecosystem that was better optimised for gaming.

The SNES/Mega Drive/Amiga/ST era was probably a great time for gaming in general - it was everything the 8-bit generation should have been. Much of the 8-bit generation was great for nostalgia, but let's be honest, many of those games are shite by modern standards. Likewise, the PS2/GameCube/Xbox era was the last truly great console generation, which coincided with the last great PC gaming era as well.

I used to consider generations to be like Star Trek movies - the odd-numbered ones were shite. But the PS4/Xbox One generation has really bucked that trend, with an almost pathological obsession about new ways for the publishers to make money intruding on the gaming experience. The Wii U is an exception in this regard - despite being massively underpowered by comparison, all of my games of the generation so far have been on the Wii U.

The best thing about the years prior to 2002 was that console games and computer games were mostly two different segments. But with the launch of the accursed X-Box PC games suddenly had to be dumbed down and scaled down to fit inferior hardware and controls.

Hard question but most probably late 90's. I can tell you for certain it's not this year.

Yeah, that saddens me. Xbox ruined Deus Ex 2. :'(

1990-2000

You had arguably the biggest console war ever (Sega Genesis vs SNES,) legendary companies were founded and reached their heights (Blizzard, Shiny, Black Isle, Bioware, ect) and AAA publishers were willing to back unique and experimental games (most notably Interplay) and didn't have this scorn for the consumer we see today. This Golden age died due to the push for everything to be 3d, and have multiplayer even if it didn't fit the game. Don't get me wrong I love the PS2, but the early to mid 2000's was the tipping point. Interplay died a long slow death taking down Shiny and Black Isle; Blizzard had to focus solely on WOW as it was a never ending cash machine, Lucasarts stopped making adventure games, Sierra closed; the list goes on.

No one mentioned Doom = Heresy

Ah yes, the little known brother of Doom. Classic fantasy fps.

wut... i meant that not mentioning doom equals heresy... O.o

aahhh the times when i used to play heretic, hexen and doom in coop with friends. last week was awesome!

Oh wow... I feel dumb! hahahah! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heretic_(video_game)

yep edited my post :D
And dont forget about strife!

Game wise, 1990-1996 is where my heart resides and 1997-2001 is where all my money went!