If you haven't been impressed by a new game in the past 4 years, I'd say YOU were playing the wrong games. But I still think it's mostly a matter of not being able to truly appreciate what we have now if you didn't live through what it was like then.
I would agree with this. I've been impressed for different by a number of next-gen games. Resident Evil 5, Infamous 1 & 2, the PS3 Ratchet and Clank installments, Burnout Paradise, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Double Dragon Neon, and Scott Pilgrim vs the World. That's just off the top of my head.
My only frustration is the Ratchet and Clank games got old pretty quickly as each version was not much different than the previous. Just better graphics and sound. Vs. Something like Super Mario Bro's for NES where Nintendo literally rewrote the entire formula every single time. Risky as hell for sales but every one managed to be a winner. The current gen is all about repeat what just worked with higher-res textures and more video cutscenes.
As much as I enjoyed Ducktales Remastered for PS3 and Punch Out for the Wii. I blew through Punch out in 10 minutes (beat the whole game). Beat Ducktales Remastered on hard in 4 hours. They looked amazing and played great. but they were just visual upgrades so once I beat them I was done.
I enjoyed a lot more games like the Resident Evil remake for the Gamecube. Fantastic graphics and sound. Similar enough to the original that it felt familiar. All the same "holy sh!t" moments from the original were there. But the game itself was tweaked and expanded so much that I played the hell out of it for months and found all new "holy sh!t" moments that were never in the original.
I'm really about the gameplay experience and how much enjoyment there is to be had for the money.
I think I lean towards retro now because the hardware and software is so well known, cloned, emulated, and hackable at this point that the gameplay experience and enjoyment has expanded for the older games far more than the current and next-gen counterparts which are still locked down and held hostage.
There is no Super Mario Bros. ZIGPOK (game genie code) this generation. There is no Metriod Prime editor (yet) like there is for Super Metriod.
This is no fan translations for the latest J-RPGs. There is no playing Infamous on your PSP. Or Crysis on your GP32.
I'm sure those days are coming. I think once current-gen becomes open and retro I will enjoy and appreciate it a lot more.
Also, Dr. Jekyll is one of the most misunderstood and underated games ever released for the NES. I blame a hacked up and censored US release combined with 2 reviews released by the Angry Video Game Nerd. He's awesome and I love his reviews. But he is dead wrong about this game. I plan to release my own review soon where I explain what the game is really about and why I think it's actually pretty damn brilliant and provocative for it's time.