games keep improving over time, but they also keep degenerating over time. we all know the ways in which they keep improving, but a lot of people seem blind to the ways in which they keep going backwards. games have gotten easier and easier to the point where something like dark souls comes out and people call it "impossible" lol. if this game had been released 20 years ago it would have fit right in.
when genres like FPS and WRPG mostly moved to consoles, they went backwards in many ways as well. dual analog control meant the enemies had to be slower and dumber, hardware restrictions meant smaller levels and less detailed graphics, and so on.
many games like GTA, Zelda, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, and the like haven't changed much, apart from the graphics, in the last ten years. In the case of grand theft auto, the fourth installment is worse than the third in pretty much every way except for graphics. The Zelda games, apart from graphics, really have barely changed whatsoever. The final fantasy games got increasingly linear and went off the deep end with the cinematics. Comparing metal gear solid 4 to 1 is a joke. The fourth has better shooting mechanics, vastly better graphics, much better animation (especially in cutscenes) and STILL manages to be a horrible, disjointed mess because the developers forgot they were making a game and not a movie; consequently, it can't even hold a candle to the first installment in the series.
Take a game like bioshock and look at its lineage. It's the direct descendant of system shock 1 & 2, thief 1 & 2, and deus ex... nostalgia has nothing to do with it. ANY of these games is OBVIOUSLY much superior in EVERY WAY other than graphics technology (and i stress technology, because artistically bioshock is a mess by comparison). They have bigger and more complex levels, better controls, more intelligently designed enemies, more engaging stories, and are actually challenging (in bioshock you can't even die lol wtf).
On that note, look at thief: deadly shadows. Not a SINGLE person who has played the entire series will tell you anything other than "it's an okay game, but falls well short of the first two entries." Thief II was a step up from thief I in almost every way, and then, to satisfy the rush of new gamers with xboxes, they had to dumb everything down hugely for the third installment -- tiny levels with multiple loading zones, a hackneyed "open world" component shoved in for no other reason than "GTA sells a lot so lets make our game more like it," simplistic level design and glowing UI elements everywhere, because it's impossible to see shit when your artists have no talent / you're developing a dark 3D game for SDTVs.
Another example is red dead redemption, rockstar's latest open world game. If any of you actually played GTA III, rockstar's FIRST open world game, you know how far astray they've gone.
I hope you all realize, too, that every time the newest CoD or Battlefield game comes out, the professional community (ie the people who are the most knowledgeable about these games, love them the most, and generally have the best taste) play them for about 2 months before going back to counterstrike because, guess what, the new games are BORING.