@Rocketpig: Development for Halo started in the mid-90's, and it was an RTS that they hoped would rival Command and Conquer. There was no Master Chief (as a character) yet, and 'Spartans' were just heavy units. Eventually, they decided to change it to an FPS.

i remember when i used to wake up bright and early with my bro to play the snes and genesis. i felt happy and gr8 and wanted to play all day! the current consoles don't have that kind of touch like the old consoles did.

@grandmaster192
who's that busty vixen on your avatar? are her boobs really real?!

 I agree.

Its the same with films, endless remakes and sequals all for a fast easy buck.

But who can blame them as people are quite happy to go watch these films or play the games giving producers/developers little incentive to be really creative or adventurous with their products.

I don't know. I thought years end 2007 was great: 

Interactive movies finally are great fun to play (Uncharted)

We had some great new IP breaking the double-digit sequel dominance (Assassin's, Bioshock, Mass Effects, Uncharted)

It was gaming wise definitely the most beautiful and I would think one of the best christmas.

I mean I am a PC gamer and after I bought a PS2 I was very surprised how few games there were worth playing. They were mostly shallow, weird, kiddy or ugly. But PS3/360 really brought PC gaming to consoles. And 2008 looks good.

...
Look, "gaming" is not a synonym for "BottledSpringWater".

And BTW, "it's" is not a synonym for "its" either. That's a contraction of "it is".

Yes english is not my native language either.

No doubt games have change as there are less "hardcore" games (not the same as hardcore gamer) on consoles and even on PC. One of PC's biggest hits is "World of Warcraft" which many agrees it more dumb down than other mmorpg. Mmorpg themselves were always more simply than single player rpg.

For example I never saw anything close to a hardcore strategy game like Carnage Heart (PS) on the PS2. One of my favorite all time rpg on consoles was Vagrant Story on the Playstation. That series was dropped because the combat system was too complex for many casual gamers compared to Final Fantasy simple combat system. (FF12 make some improvement).
I believe Vagrant Story showed many developers that you can't make a game too complex (one where you may have to look into the manual to figure out what you are doing) when you are investing in high dollar games.

In many ways gaming have improved but in other ways many games feels more dumb down. For example COD4 has improved graphics and sound which make you feel you can in a war zone yet there isn't much of a cost for getting killed. You return to the last check point which comes up very often, no need to worry about health because you heal automatically. It almost like I'm playing the game with a Game Shark.

I do agree. Somehow I have not had much enjoyment from playing games as of late. Some games have kinda touched how I used to feel (FFVII, FFXII, KH, LoZ: TP, KOTOR) but a lot have not given me chills when I've played the game. I haven't felt that in so long.

Thats why small developers are better.

 I have a Wii and have downloaded a VC games of my old favorites, and I more or less enjoy them as much as I do now as I did then. I probably like Super Mario Bros more now as an adult since I was terrible at it as a kid, now I can actually finish it. And I re-beat Super Mario 64 with 120 stars yet again, still smile when I see the ending.

Nostalgia may very well color perspective, but you can’t blatantly assume that’s why everyone prefers something over their newer versions. I only finally played Doom this year on the 360’s arcade. Clearly a cheap port, it just letterboxes the screen in 16:9 and the display stills shows 2-7 hotkeys from the PC. (Which you can’t rebind to anything) Thought it was awesome. Reminded how damn talky FPS games have gotten, and how much more fun is when the your mostly just encouraged to kill every thing that moves. Certainly not Nostalgia that helped me enjoy that since I didn’t play it until this year.

Nostalgia plays almost no role in the movies I like since a lot of my favorite movies were made years (sometimes decades) before I was born, and I didn’t see them to later in my life.