Actually yes, BioShock was a pretty meh game exactly because SS2 was better on top of doing it almost a decade earlier. We should not be encouraging games that are worse than games that have been out for years. Otherwise you get something like BioShock 2 which was even worse than the first and just a very very mediocre game. If it's not better in some area than a game that already exists, then it's really not worth being on the market since it offers absolutely nothing new.

Saying a game is only good if it's better than all similar games before it is ridiuclous. That would mean there are only a few actually good games in existence by your definition and everything else sucks. A good game is enjoyable to play. A bad game is not.

Actually, that was the case up until the early/mid 2000s. Games to get praise had to be better than their predecessors, otherwise they were labeled as clones, and then their value was automatically lowered. I don't know what happened 2004/05/06 on, but things apparently changed. All I know is that there is indeed less than 25 games on all platforms and PC since then that have actually not been boring and just bad games. If you count indie games, then 40.

I also do enjoy playing even the suckier games, however I don't let that determine if it's a good game or not. A good game will top previous experiences, a bad game will not. You don't see anyone who enjoys movies the way you enjoy games saying that Avatar was a good movie solely becuse it was enjoyable to watch, do you? Everyone like that generally agrees that it was an enjoyable, but trashy, movie.

Things changed because a lot of older PC game franchises started appearing on consoles and were designed around the console audience and hence were "streamlined", sometimes well, othertimes poorly. Bioshock as the spiritual successor to System Shock 2 is a good example of a game having many things removed, but being praised for it. It wasn't a bad game, but as System Shock 2 (and to a lesser extent Deus Ex) was a predominantly PC game, the console crowd is unlikely to have the standards PC players who played these games in years gone by have.

Of course, their are cases where I think consolification has actually worked for a game, like in Mass Effect 1 & 2.

Also, I don't think your definition of good and bad games is necessarily the same as everyone elses'. If we take your Avatar example, then I think most (including a number of critics) would say it is a good film for what it was trying to acheive in terms of an entertaining and visually innovative piece of film. Classing all games as either good or bad based solely on what it does compared to previous games seems a bit silly.

So we can blame the console gamers for the apparent restart in several genres of games? I guess I can see that.

As for Avatar though, there are objective qualities based on which movies are qualified such as story, acting, themes presented, etc. Same is true for video games. Atmosphere, graphics, story, different features of gameplay. In the case of Avatar, all it had was the immersion and it got points for that. However in terms of acting, story, themes presented, etc, it failed pretty miserably, Now I am not saying it wasn't entertaining, in fact few people have, but they also aren't saying it's anything better than your average mediocre action movie.

In the movies, for something to be considered good, it would be measured against other movies such as Schindler's List, Godfather, etc. not against Avatar or The Dark Knight. There is no reason to compare games to their equivalnets, but to the best gaming has ever offered.

That was one awesome trailer, really makes me want to play the original. Well, good thing it's cheap!