Which year do you think is the golden era of games?

Man, both of those lists are incredibly lackluster. there were far better games that could have been listed, Still, 1997 is one of the biggest game changer years with Half Life and Ocarina of Time among its many strong titles. I also thought 2004 was quite incredible as well.

In the end, I feel like the real golden age of gaming spanned the first half of the 90's

A single year can't really be an era...

in my highschool life, i always go out with my friends and playing MHP3 that time.

Well for PC Gaming I think it's 1997 - 2000 inclusive. It might be heresy to say but I thing PC gaming reigned supreme all 4 of those years.

It was a great time to be a PC Gamer, at least 20 great games a year, mostly designed for the PC first and foremost, many of the games having a major impact on today's games....the Fallouts, Diablos, Quakes, Jedi Knights, Starcraft, Max Payne as well as imaginative games like Sacrifice, Sanitarium, Homeworld, Grim Fandango, etc., good times. 3 major PC gaming magazines, 3dfx was king.