Older gaming

[Homeless Nutter]

With the graphics... but not with the gameplay. I don't play a game to watch it like a movie.

Oh, please - we used to think Dragon's Lair games were good. At least - some people must have thought that, since they made a bunch of those. Personally - I don't think I ever got past the first or second screen.

If I had games with the sheer scope - not to mention multiplayer options - of something like Dark Souls, or Assassin's Creed - even without the modern graphics - back when I was a teenager, I'd have never graduated high-school.

Gameplay on average used to be less formulaic and back in the 90s the level design was more important than the graphics and cutscenes.

Gameplay used to extremely formulaic. Sure - there were gems and milestones, here and there, but there was a massive number of clones, especially in popular genres, like platformers, or point-and-click adventures, the majority of which had pretty much the same mechanics.

Making use of fewer tools used well and not just relying on technology, formula and gimmick can aid creativity IMHO.

Then there are plenty of new game developers, that employ this principle. I think you should look into more indie games. That's what I tend to do.

Although if your favorite games tend to be FPS, or RTS - you're pretty much screwed, because those genres seem to have burned out creatively, largely because there's only so much you can do with those particular sets of mechanics. Just like point-and-click adventures and platformers did before.