I know how you feel, games have lost all imagination is my eyes.

For me, gaming has become a chore and a habit, rather than a hobby and a passion. I'm always bothered by my games list, my achievements, what games I have completed and what games I haven't completed. I miss the days where I used to just play amazing games and not give a shit about anything else.

No offense to the OP, but it seems more like a personal problem. You dont HAVE to go to lens of truth to find out which one is better looking, you choose to do that. Its no ones fault that the the PS360 are much closer hardware and library wise than PS2 and xbox one. Just buy the game for whatever 90% you cant even tell the difference between the two versions unless you hold them up together and even then I find it hard to tell, IMHO

That doesnt mean i dont miss last gen, i do. For different reasons, i love/hate the push for online. I like the store's content, but i hate how companies are doing online pass crap, i love playing against friends who I would not be able to otherwise due to living in different places. But i hate how companies use this as an excuse to not include local multiplayer in some games. IMHO hardware has been the worst this gen. Ya MS 360s that were RRODing for years and they tried to act like nothing was happening. SOny thought people would go gaga for a 600 dollar system. Ninty decided to cheap out on hardware and barely upgrade. JRPGs have taken are turn for the worst at least on consoles.
Too many FPSs, i mean how much of those can people play, especially military, arent people tired of shooting taliban/Koreans/Russians or whoever US is beefing with?

I agree with you concerns, but I think this is more the result of the high dev. costs of this gen than the lack of skill of the developers. With higher costs, publishers need to be sure that the game is going to sell well enough, and the usually that means making a sequel of a proven franchise, using popular licenses (from movies or comics) or making a new game that's easy to advertise.

And that brings the problems with the story or creativity of the games:

1-Make a sequel. First of, not everyone has a franchise that allows them to make sequels, and those who have it find themselves limited for whatever the first game was about, and so does the story of this sequels: more of the same with no originality.

2-Using licenses. Story wise this has the same problems as the sequels, as there are things that limit what you can do or what you do want to tell.

3-Make a game easy to advertise. This present us with a question, how are games advertised? And the answer is focusing on the graphics. They can't sell games because of the story or the gameplay because what people will see in the press or internet are posters and teasers/trailers, so they focus on that. Oddly enough, this focus on graphics increase the costs so they have to do some sacrifices, usually in gameplay and story. The result: games that look good but feel the same over and over again.

Unfortunately, this is a trend that shows no sign of change, at least in the near future.

I'm sure a lot of people share my sentiments and have their own reasons why they miss last gen or any other gen before. As one said before, gaming has become a chore which takes more thinking than it should. Some might like this gen more and thats fine because there are a lot of great games from this gen which I love. Everyone has their own personal problems, of course, it happens but I am trying to make light of an issue that has made itself very visible this gen and I hope it sorts itself out next gen. Lens of Truth has become a choice place to turn to if you are a multiplat console owner like myself and you want to know which version plays better without as many issues. It's like Gattaca in finding out which baby is perfect and which is imperfect. This is what happens when there are so many multiplat games on two consoles that mirror each others offerings in most cases. The difference between issues of similarity is that it shows a major draw back in games when compared to the era of the Genesis vs the SNES where Sega and Nintendo both had plenty of exclusives to show what their hardware could do. They also improved their hardware to increase the capabilities of the games. It was the gamers choice to decide what they want. To that extent I am also glad the lot of Japanese devs don't make constant PC games so they can focus on the games themselves. There is no reason for them to take five to six year to complete a title (or not) like Polyphony Digital, but anything less will do. It's also why I respect companies like Dice who will not give into the yearly profit temptation with their main franchise and wait until a game is finished to truly release it. The online has made things interesting and has made the multiplayer experience quite fun this gen but where does it give when it comes to story and gameplay?

Secondly, a war is beginning between publishers, trade-in brick and mortar companies and gamers alike. This online code thing is going too far to the point where actual paying gamers are becoming the enemy when their true enemy are the trade in stores and pirates alike. I don't mind paying $60 for a game thats worth it and I am sure the majority of console gamers don't mind either, but at the same time it's not like Gamestop doesn't gauge the popularity and value of such games either. This is how they know which game has lost value over another. In the end I hope everything sorts itself out. Thats all I can say.

I want Japanese domination again

Very good explaination. I knew all of this, but I am glad someone brought it to light in a detailed fashion. Thank you.

I disagree. The best-selling games this gen ARE NOT focused on graphics. Here's some examples
-Wii Sports
-Super Mario Galaxy
-Call of Duty

I was gonna disagree but I remembered that I had to think, really THINK about whether to get Wii or 360, Wii had unique features i wanted to try but the hardware was weak and i wasnt hearing great things about the online(besides VC) 360 was RRODing right and left, i didnt want to deal with that headache and most games I wanted were coming to PS3. I went with Wii and had every intention of getting 360, but by the time they truly fixed the problem, there was nothing that interested me.

Im sorry but how is PS360 situation so different from SNES/GEN?? they both had consoles similar to each other in terms of power and library. Sony could stand to advertise more, but IMHO they are pretty much doing great with 1st stuff. MS had been slacking but they are picking it up at least in terms of Kinect

I agree with the whole damn thing, love the Gattaca reference, good movie

I own a lot of games for the current generation. Now you can argue it's either because there are plenty of good games or because the games are short and get boring very quickly so I need new ones. Games of the last two generations were played for far more time. I played games like five times to a 100% statistic, going for extreme results like "beat the CPU on hard with highest handicap" and stuff like that (take a soccer game, hardest CPU, 7 vs 11 players, bad mood vs great mood, and win that match without the CPU getting a single goal) - everything without Trophies and Achievements.

Are games getting better or worse? I have wondered this myself for months now. I personally think the same as what is stated in the first post. Since the West is so strong games have changed too much for me. It's not really a game anymore, just entertainment like movies. That's probably why I play lots of retro, remakes, arcade and Japanese "shovelware".