Better or Different?

Has gaming really gotten better over time?
Is a game like Halo better than a game like Donkey Kong Country?

I don’t think so.

Gaming is not better than what it once was, I don’t necessary find it “Better” just, different. Nowadays we have consoles than can deliver HD graphics, awesome sound, online play and fantastic story telling. Back in the era of Super Nintendo (Could possibly be my favorite gen) you didn’t have HD resolution, online play wasn’t on consoles yet, and the sound was just Stereo.
But you could still tell a good story.Final Fantasy comes to mind.
Back then you had to rely on a fun single player to engage the player; you didn’t have any online multiplayer to rely on to have them keep coming back. Now, developers find it necessary to add multiplayer to every single game because the community would complain. I play through the single player before I touch the multiplayer, always. Story is more important to me than online play. Uncharted is absolutely fantastic and doesn’t need multiplayer, yet the second added it to the game, and it does work well. Bioshock did not need multiplayer, but it was added to the sequel, and it’s not all that great.

Donkey Kong Country is a game I use as an example a lot. That game is fantastic. I can still go back and play it over and over again. I have yet to get bored of that game. Will I be able to do that with games coming out today 20 or so years from now? Or, will the online component be shut down and all I’m left with is a single player campaign some developer didn’t put much time into? At least I know 20 years from now I will still have the complete Donkey Kong, or Mario Bros. experience. I can’t say the same for any game with multiplayer right now. Servers get shut down eventually. Such as the entire catalog of Xbox live original games. Flip a switch and it’s all gone. Not with the old school games. I’m not saying every single game has a boring single player; just it seems a lot of developers care more about multiplayer than the single player.

I don’t find gaming any better than what it once was, it’s just different.
So, I ask you. Has gaming improved with all these achievements, online multiplayer, and HD graphics? Or, are things just different, and not necessarily evolving?

-Doug