Haha.. Well if you're on those life decisions like mariage, buying a house, kids, job opportunity etc.. it will effect me till my 72.. but I'm sure i'll be retired by then and have more time for videogames and its plots and subtexts.. :)

That can't be true either, because Serious Sam and Painkiller are still a lt more fun to play through than say Gears of War. Because you kno what? An assault rifle with a chainsaw is a PUSSY compared to a gun that shoots ninja stars AND lightning. It's just that shooters are half-assed shoot-em-up like Serious Sam/UT/Quake/Painkiller  but are too afraid to go all the way (probably cause a controller can't handle all the way too well) and half-assed "strategy" like Delta Force, but people would be too bored to play that since DF is actually kind of hard. So you end up with half-assed games which suck compared to the ones from 5-10 years ago.

As for WRPGs, playing through Baldur's Gate 2 and DIablo 2 is far more entertaining than playing through Dragon Age (and I think DA isn't half bad if you remember) and Fable.

Now the genre that seems to have evolved the most are the platformers, and while I play SMB3 now and again, I like NSMBW a more fun and a better game. Same with MG2 and M64.

Basically, some genres have taken 4 steps back, while others have actually improved. Dunno why or how, but only a few games in the past 5 years have kept my attention for more than a few hours in certain genres (also Metro 2033 is fucking amazing!).

Twice now lol. It's really that good?

How do u personally compare it to say STALKER, Bioshock and Half-Life 2, quality wise?

That doesn't always work though. There are so many old games that I could quite happily go back and play through like Bomb Jack, Starquake, Rise of the Triad etc. and the nostalgia just papers over all the faults. They're still great games as far as I'm concerned.

In my case its because i became a much more aware gamer all at once (really in 2006 when i started posting heavily on joystiq), and so have been buying more games, and spending less time than the games past, when i had less disposable income and was less aware of games i wanted. I spent a lot of time with Super Mario 64 because i had no game other than Super Mario 64 for about 4 months straight.

Even a difference as narrowly as Fire Emblem Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. Path of Radiance i've done 5 times, Radiant Dawn only 2, and Shadow Dragon only once (though Shadow Dragon was a bit more of a chore)

It's pretty close to Bioshock level, I like it more than the first STALKER and I hated Half Life 2, so yeah its pretty good, but it's shorter than all of those games and doesn't have any re playability. It's worth a rent.