which do you prefer, old school or new, and why?

personally, i liked the generation of consoles.

the birth of awesome franchises like halo, ratchet and clank, jak, and guitar hero.

besides, there was a less heated debate about "which console was best" as compared to this gen.

dont get me wrong, i love the new stuff, but i do find myself using the backwards compataility quite often.

*first line, i meant to put "the last generation"

New School FTW!!!

It's not a question of old versus new I'd say. I'd say it is a question of what has defined and set the course of gaming for the last 20 or so years? What titles have been the most revolutionary or had the most profound impact? When they came out really doesn't matter to me. Then again, a lot of people are tempted to say Halo is the best franchise ever, without even taking a second to look at what came before Halo. What ever happened to people listing off Zelda, Mario, Sonic, Cloud, and such? I love the new games that are coming out, they're awesome and amazing, but to see more and more people missing out on some of the best games of all time like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, makes me a bit sad.

a very valid point my friend, however i must point out the fact that game franchises that laid the foundation for the games we love today have totally either whored themselves out to exploit the good name of the franchise itself (ie, sonic, megaman, even mario) or have had their executives make mistakes that would ruin the reputation of the games' name (ie the entire zelda on cd series, though im not sure the names, the earliest sequels to the original legend of zelda game.

these factors both have removed the franchise from the mind of todays gamers, except the few who remember that gameplay and story telling pwn the atypical flash and bang games of today.

The Phillips CD-I games were first off, not the earliest sequels to the original Zelda, there was Links Adventure on NES, and then the classic Link to the Past on SNES. The CD-I games were a mere by product of Nintendo deciding against working with the Phillips CD-I system(which they found to be cumbersome and horribly overpriced compared to their bestseller, the SNES), but had already signed a contract with Phillips promising the use of their major franchises(I.E. Zelda, Mario, etc.). So Phillips went ahead without Nintendo, and made some very bad games. The CD-I games had nothing to do with the actual franchise, nothing to do with NIntendo, and frankly, barely anyone actually played them because nobody had a CD-I. The old franchises have not "whored" themselves out, they're simply trying to reach new markets, with new business strategies. Zelda's reputation was not ruined by the CD-I games obviously, as the series continued, and continues now to pump out hits. The same could be said of Mario, and Sonic to a lesser degree(Sega's own fault due to poor development practices as of late, I have hope for them however). It's very easy to make general statements about things, but if we actually take the time to break down the motivation and actual context, it becomes a bit of a different story.

again, good points my friend