I remember that Unreal bots autonomously attacked us from behind in multiplayer. Now, we have AI and all they can do is chatting.
Yet some argue that âpretty graphicsâ make games more immersive just because they bought a super-expensive rig or graphics card.
Unforgettable Story > Unforgettable âShinyâ
I mean, sure, some games do things worse than some older games. But overall most games today do almost everything better than old games. Nostalgia is a big factor when people watch videos like this.
Now that you mention it. I really did miss that back in the day we didnât have micro-transactions, in game stores, lootboxes, in game currency, battle-passes etc. Iâm so happy we get those all now in our games, as it was really a thing that was missing it makes games more complete and gives a better gaming experience! 
My friendâs a huge Morrowind fan. He only recently admitted, after playing some time Tamriel Rebuilt, that uses OpenMV as engine, that âYeah, original is more bugged than I actually realizedâ.
Younger (Gen Z) players without nostalgia see it quite differently:
I recently bought COD1 with United Offensive on CD from Ebay for a few quid. I know I could probably get it on Steam but my Windows7 box isnât allowed out to play on the internet.
It made me realise I donât actually need WinXP for most old Windows games.
Iâve never played United Offensive so looking forward to that once I replay through the base game. Having to play it on the 5:4 19" screen though as I think it will just stretch on the 27" 16:9.
Yet it is still the best COD game ever released.
Are you sure ?
I remember back in the day that you had to quicksave frequently because the Bethesda engine would crash (I hear it was never really fixed). I found OpenMW after switching to Linux, and the first thing I noticed was no crashes.
Because itâs old, itâs good.
Because itâs new, itâs better.
Discuss.
Yeah, it very much depends on the game and what it tries to achieve. Older games donât necessarily mean the game is automatically better compared to a modern one and vice versa. Thereâs much more nuance here that, honestly, it deserves to be treated on a case by case basis.
I will say, though, that if the game is old and it is still talked about to some degree, it did something right to stand out for all those years. It might be more janky than more modern games, but it likely offers an unique experience if it is still mentioned and praised to this day.
An element thatâs frequently overlooked in media, is the power of the imagination.
A lot of modern media is incredibly visual, blasting our eyeballs with computer generated sensory overload. I know thereâs an audience for that sort of thing, but personally, Iâm enjoying myself when my imagination is engaged.
Consider the movie Alien. Terrifying. Not because of what we do see, but because of what we donât. Our imagination is filling in the gaps, and itâs really good at it!
When I was a boy, there was a game on our familyâs Commadore Vic 20 that really scared me. I wanted to play it, but I was also terrified.
Behold the terror (brace yourself):
The premise is a character whose exploring a pitch black dungeon. You donât know whatâs in the next room until you explore it, and whatâs in there could possibly be a pit, or a horrific monster consisting of half a dozen pixels, ready to end you! 
Itâs funny now, but Iâm being serious when I say, this terrified me as a boy 
The imagination filled in the gaps.
Then thereâs originals that were never surpassed. The best âThe Settlersâ game in the franchise (in my opinion), was the first, created by the German studio, Blue Byte:
Blue Byte was later acquired by Ubisoft, and you can probably imagine how that ends. How good the game looks canât make up for loss of the original game mechanics. Looks great, but the game is⌠just ok, when youâre not wrestling with the Ubisoft loaders and required internet connection to play a local campaign.
The graphics donât make the game great. Great games can have simple graphics, and on that note, my last example, what is probably my most played game of the last 10 years or so. The Kingdom franchise.
Simple graphics, but simultaneously picturesque and immersive.
I didnât want your post to reach an end. Great stuff!
Nintendo wouldnât be where they are, if only technology would define a game.
Some old Gameboy and NES games are much better than some of todays AAA titles.
Garage projects leveled up to the most successful titles today. For instance I started playing Counterstrike around 1999 maybe a bit later, when it was beta Mod for Half-Life. Look how popular it got.
Another title is World of Warcraft - love it or hate it. But people are willing to pay monthly costs to play it, even the classic spinoff. Some are playing since around 2004 - better not calculate what they have paid for it til todayâŚ
It was innovative when it was released but it never was a technology wonder on the frontend and newer MMOs hardly came close to itâs success.
Online games like CS and WoW are dependant on a large active player base.
Sequels and spiritual successors such as CS:GO come on the scene but unless everyone migrates they are unlikely to take off and the original possibly becomes even stronger.
Similar to when a new social media platform comes out, itâs immediately make or break.
Nintendo still has a lot of fan momentum from the 80s, 90s and 2000s, in my humble opinion, alongside their obvious ability to consistently provide a decent time and above with their games. Indeed, you donât need a lot of technology to make good games, but Nintendo isnât really playing for the leagues as most AAA studios. Nintendo makes money through more than just selling games, so they can afford to be more strict on quality.
I enjoyed dabbliing in MUDs back in '92-'95. The theatre of the mind reigned over those games. May go back and visit a MUD or two just for nostalgiaâs sake.
The old games vs new games argument is usually pretty flawed.
I have been playing games for a long time and there were plenty of bad and good games from every generation going back to the Atari 2600. Each subsequent generation has always brought good things and bad things with it.
There are lots of great older games on console and PC that are still excellent even today. There are also plenty thatâŚarenât.
The video in the OP is filled with cherry picked comparisons. There are plenty of modern games that do the things shown in older games in those examples.
I am a retro gamer, I love playing older games but I think a statement like âOld games are better than new gamesâ is just as silly as saying âNew games are better than old gamesâ.
It is also hard to reasonably hard to compare games across big generational gaps. For example, compare the the original Legend of Zelda, the Ocarina of Time and the Breath of the Wild. All 3 games were amazing in their time. Which is the best? I could easily argue that BoTW is better than OoT right now but at the time, OoT was definitely more ground breaking in itâs time than BoTW. Meanwhile, I loved the original but I am not sure I would really enjoy playing it as much today.
Donât take this the wrong way, there are lots of modern games I donât like and lots of things about modern games I donât like. But the same was true of every generation of gaming.