Well, I can't say that I'm that old (I screwed around with a couple of NES games back in the day... when I was four), but I have to say that Video games just don't do it for me like they used to. I remember having people come over and just playing MK64 Battle mode for a few horus at a time, eating, and then going back to playing battle mode. That social connection has just been cut off. I remember popping in Goldeneye (I actually didn't own Goldeneye, it was just one of those 64 bond games), and playing 4-player for hours, hitting head shots and everything.

I think the main reason that video games have lost so much appeal to me is that fewer and fewer games are including actual social interaction (not the online sort). Call me old fashioned, but I think that split screen is way more fun than online. I feel like in Online, I'm just facing another CPU. Theres nothing but the curse words being emitted from my screen to indicate that this person is anything more than another bot.

Sure, Brawl will always have its moments, but nothing beats the glitchy 4 player of Smash Bros 64.

Maybe I'm just an old coot now.

My first console was an Atari 2600 (and I purchased it from money from my full-time job if that says anything about how ancient I am).

My best gaming, however, was probably on the Amiga. Bard's Tale. Faery Tale Adventure. A few others. I'm not sure games were better back then, but perhaps we expected less of them considering what video games were capable of before that.

FTW! Couldn't have said it better myself!

This is actually part of what pushed me out of gaming for a while. I've been gaming since 1984, loving it most of the way. But then came the PS1... of course, I got one, but I didn't get a lot of games (for me) on it. Then I looked back and saw why- the new fanbase fell for my issue that arose then. Games weren't as fun, they were just pretty, and the new gamers got sucked in (and suckered) by this new beauty. FF7, for all its hype, was crap as a final fantasy. All it had was graphics to me; the story was bland (IMO), the challenge was gone, even the joy of exploration was taken away. It was follow a straight line, looking at their pretty graphics. (Ironically, this was also the point when my preference switched from FF to DQ.)

And, many years later, when I was pretty much done entirely with gaming, along comes the DS. It was something different; the focus went back to the game. And I started finding games similar to the ones I played way back when, but that had more interesting features. (Say, Etrian Odyssey, for instance?) There was a common thread with these games- Atlus. So I had to go get a PS2 to play some of their other games, and it was this that brought me back into gaming. Needless to say, I also love the different style of the Wii. So maybe I'm back close to the fun I had in the old days, but it's much more narrowed.

As I like complex plots and RPG's, that make savegames essential, and I started liking RPG's when I bought an AD&D game for Intellivision, I welcomed progress, PC, hard disks and I don't regret the past. I'm not a graphics whore anyway, so I like the 3D possibilities offered by graphics cards since they started including a geometric engine with the first GeForce because they widened the gaming horizon with new way of playing, but I never look for the latest graphics at all costs, and I enjoyed for example Ultima Underworld despite having already played games like Quake II and Heretic II before trying it when a games mag gave it as a gift.
And although I don't feel tied to the past and I like good new games, I still love most old games I loved in the past and I really hate when old good series get ruined by badly made new chapters.

Whoa, in my opinion, one of the few Japanese RPGs that's non-linear enough to feel like a real CRPG (and not a cartoon soap opera). Proof of the (super) power of the Super Nintendo.

As far as consoles go, I used to be almost NES/SNES only. And I used to be a big nostalgia freak, remeniscing about the good ol' days, when games had soul and looked beautiful. Bad experiences with games early in the transition from 2D-3D soured me on 3D gaming for a long time. Games like Simon the Sorcerer 3D, Prince of Persia 3D, Ultima 9, Super Mario 64 and of course the Doom and Quake titles are what I'm referring to here. It wasn't until the Wii generation and games like Super Mario Galaxy that I was finally able to enjoy a 3D platformer. It wasn't until Wii Sports that I'd felt the interface had caught up with the presentation. As far as PC titles go, Oblivion was the first fully polygon-based 3D world that I could enjoy visually.

I would not say that my fun-o-meter has really gone up or down. It has for the most part stayed the same I guess. I just enjoy different aspects, and now my game time is always so limited. I only play the M rated games after the kids are asleep.

As long as there are good, enticing games, yes, I have as much fun as I ever did.

However, where I'm getting my fun from has changed. Back in the early to mid 90's, a vast portion of my gaming came from JRPGs and Sim gaming. Now it's more WRPG heavy in terms of enjoyment.

The first console I played was a sega master system - before the MD/Genesis launched.

Yeah, I still enjoy it. However I've become rather quirky about it. In two ways: which games I enjoy and when I enjoy them.

Really this comes down to the difference in you lives. Back then we were little kids just playing to have fun without a care in the world.

Now it is a leisure activity among the many important daily items I have to do and be concerned with.