Are Old Games Bad Games?

Looking back at my game collection, you'll see games such as the three PS1 Final Fantasy titles. I still enjoy those old RPGs, even though some of them are 10 years old now. Back then, they garnered much attention and praise. They were the best of the best that gaming had to offer. Magazines praised them, gamers lauded them. What happened?

During one of the recent episodes of X-Play, it seemed like PS2 owners were being seriously insulted because they couldn't afford a current generation system, and this got me to thinking - why is it that games and system that have been praised as awesome in the past, now looked down upon as something to be replaced by the new? Even console companies like Sony are bringing this attitude to the table, as shown by the lack of backwards compatibility with PS2 games from their 40GB PS3 model. Its like they're saying, "Sucks to be you!", to their millions of loyal PS2 fans.

In my opinion, the older games are much better than the games we see today. It seems to me like games today are praised mostly on graphics and what looks better on which system, with few exceptions. The mentality of the typical hardcore gamer is "new is better because its prettier". Rarely does anything reinvent the wheel these days. All the new stuff has already come and gone and today's games are just built on the foundation that previous generations of games laid down. Some games try to be new and innovative, but in reality, they're just, once again, based on something that came before. There are a few exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, this is the case. Just look at one of the games that is considered one of the most "innovative" titles of 2007 - Assassin's Creed. Free roaming, do what you want when you want. Sound familiar? The Grand Theft Auto series did it 10 years ago. However, because Assassin's Creed is current gen and has very nice visuals, its praised as "innovative".

This all reminds me of a thread on the WoW forums not long ago that complained that WoW was copying [insert other fantasy game]. Then, it was [insert other fantasy game] copying Tolkien. Then it was Tolkien copying [insert other fantasy work]. These days there is nothing new - everything copies something that came before it, in some way or another, with few exceptions.

Is it a psychological thing that people gravitate toward the newest and best games, even though these games might not be as good as what they once thought of previous games? I still enjoy playing my PS1 Final Fantasy games. How many people can say that about games from two generations ago?

This brings up a whole other topic - do graphics affect your game play?