"~" -> console
"connect 192.178.1.20" -> DEATHMATCH!!

-Graphics weren't focused on attaining realism (which is understandable considering the technology back then that wasn't as advanced as today). I just wish that game developers these days don't try to make their games look as realistic as possible and instead try to go for an art style that can differentiate their games from the competitors.

-No DLCs

-DRM Free

Yeah, definitely, don't know if it's about lack of skillsets or intentional kind of minimalistic art style wannabe but it's incredible how 2D games from 30 years ago look better tahn today's

The focus on game mechanics over presentation is one of the main appeals of old games for me.

Modern games look unbelievable. Yesterday I played a game called LEGO Ninja Go with my son. I couldn't believe my eyes at times. It's the most amazing looking game I've ever seen. This one specifically is a kids game, so I'm not going to comment on it's gameplay. Just saying, the graphics blew my mind. I don't play a lot of modern games, and even fewer AAA games.

But mechanically old and new games are on equal ground. Gaming just hasn't evolved enough, outside of maybe a few very specific genres. And so you still can go back to old games and be wowed by the gameplay, even if they look very simple compared to modern games.

So, it seems and I'm glad to see it. I think one such developer is happily diving into the Ultima series at the moment. If that passion drives them to bring us more such games, I'm sure there are plenty of gamers that are looking forward to it with anticipation.

The great thing about games, there's always something for everyone out there be it old or new.
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I did no such thing, I didn't eat your brain. It was probably one of those RedShell telemetry infected Total War games.

[EDIT:] Or anything built on Unity, really.

Mostly seconding others' points here:
-Plug and play for console games (no installation). No loading pre-disc systems

-Games were often faster paced, more concise and got going quicker. Compare Zelda 1-3 to Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear 1 to Metal Gear Solid or Super Metroid to Metroid Prime. Most games could be finished in an afternoon or two as well.

-Games were more focused on the gameplay without no cutscenes to interrupt it (though that started to change in the SNES era)

-Games being sold as complete and being able to be owned and resold

-No exploitative microtransactions (besides in arcade games)

-Clearer graphics with less visual noise to worry about

-Buggy mess AAA games weren't the norm

-No achievement pop-ups or in-universe achievements where they don't really fit

-Nice manuals and maps that came with the games

-Offline local multiplayer

-Lack of handholding (could go overboard though)

-Arcade-style sports games were the norm

-Chiptunes and midi over pre-recorded music for more dynamic transitions, though this has changed again for the better more recently

-Games often took themselves less seriously and were taken less seriously

Quick load times (Say PS2, 32Mb ram and instantly loads up Disgaea), games on disc that you own and not a service that requires a client. Awesome 8bit music. Good story (or none at all and the badguy needs taking down), small memory/HD footprint, manuals in your box, good map editors, each was a push to improve gaming and not chasing a trend, simplicity....

Abstraction and aesthetics. Game mechanics were king and everything was abstracted. For the aesthetics, compare Japans weird, modern fetish for little girls in their current dungeon crawlers, and the older D&D (when it was fresh) inspired look. Even modern D&D has even forgot how to do fantasy, aesthetically speaking.
Anyhow, those two are what keep me coming back.

imho they were not as good as most of the oldies remember

the difference was the size of competition , back than way fewer games came out and people played more by one product compared to nowadays , and that transferred to "those games were better" mentality + most people played them as children , and they love remembering to those times as better that they actually were

oh and they were not less buggy or more optimized
the only thing i would give + for old games , is they were more or less original and less samey as current games
current devs just use way too many features from past products, mostly the reasons are players are familiar with these or just expect them...

even indie games have these crappy indie feeling to them as they tend to be artsy fartsy broafs
non-existant world building , just throw the player into the game where he has to follow a line with some farty abstract story that makes no sense, fe Little Nightmares garbage game dont try it out + there are some very similar ones to this ,which play exactly the same way just the style is minimally different fe Inside
btw does anybody like these "games" where you cant do nearly anything just walk, with 0 interaction with other characters in a died out world?

or just look at all the crappy visual novels

or the cloning of old games all those master of orion copies, where the game is 90% the same as the old the added 10% is just pure poo to make it unenjoyable
another example : survival crafters , there are like a dozen of these, and they are just reskins with more bugs


yeah, micro payment/dlc spam that is clearly modern garbage

oh yes , i like the old fps better , new ones have just too many things thrown into your face, it makes shooting less enjoyable , clearly where extra effects and detail doesnt add anything to the game

i hated arcades and still do :P

" -Games often took themselves less seriously and were taken less seriously"
nah , i think this is clearly not true , just look at the top games , nearly all are these goofy colorful cartoony crap like fortnite

" -Lack of handholding (could go overboard though)"
dunno , maybe there were fewer tutorials, but now we get games where they just throw you into the middle of nowhere and go , not even intro or anything to set the atmosphere for you , so bad

" -Nice manuals and maps that came with the games"
didn't like those, i found them useless , you look at them once with an aw and say nice and that's all , then they just took up space

It is also definitely less work. With checkpoints, you just reverse to a pre-defined state and reset most things. With manual saves, you have to store stuff like in-flight projectiles, currently ongoing enemy AI action, the exact position of you and all the enemies, items you picked up, current momentum for every active entity etc. You also have to ensure everything is restored properly when the engine starts again after you load a save. Even vanilla Doom had a bug where the enemies would "forget" they knew about you and return to their idle state when you load a save.

Ability to manually save tells me that the dev put in actual work into their save system and didn't take the easy way out in the form of checkpoints.

In my case, I usually played older games, relatively to the moment when I played them, because my computers have always been underpowered, from the get go graphically and kept for several years, so even if after the first couple of them the CPU and RAM were good at first, they ended up also being under par for the majority of the time I ended up using them. So the first thing would be that they work(ed).
Then, again a matter of relative age, that they're complete and no longer being developed, so they're usually as patched as they're going to be and no more content is coming, so I just get it once and don't need to worry about keeping up after that, and also run no risk of saves becoming incompatible or otherwise needing to restart because of some change if I end up playing on and off for years before finally finishing (if I did at all), as it's quite often the case for me.

Now, to answer in the spirit of the OP's question... Well, it's darn hard to make this sort of general assessment, old vs. new games taken as a whole. But I will say that before a certain point, I'd say 2005 or so, the major studios tended to actually try to make good games, also having more original IPs but mainly, in general, showing that they actually cared about the game, with creativity, care and attention to detail, not having marketing pull all the strings, with everything that comes with that. You still see that now, of course, but it's more and more from smaller developers and the lack of resources shows, while there used to be a time when those with the most resources put them to use in this manner.
The above also led to longer games with more content, and from the get go, not being added (and charged for) in bits and pieces after the original release.

Other than that, a PC game having controls and mechanics clearly made and optimized for the PC tended to go without saying, while after a certain point that's less and less the case, with multiplatform titles that are optimized for consoles becoming the norm.

And, speaking of optimization, remember when that actually was a thing? Optimizing resource use, I mean, to make the game play on the weakest system it could possibly play on, unlike now when generic tools are used and hardly a thought is spared to optimization or slashing requirements, so games that look that they should be playable on a certain system often aren't.

There is a limit of how far back you can go and have all of this apply, though, there's definitely such a thing as too old from my point of view, so it's extremely unlikely I'd even consider playing games released before a certain point anymore, and if I'd be to assess now those particularly old ones that I did play, those I'd still give good ratings to would be few and far between. But there is a sweet spot I think fondly of, with exceptions on either side of it of course. And, time flowing as it does, the exceptions on the more recent side obviously keep increasing in number... While at the same time constantly decreasing as a ratio, the number of games being released increasing exponentially and making the relatively few good ones ever harder to find among the crap.
That may actually be the most notable difference, if you put it all together. A higher ratio of good games among the total games released, plus the fact that said good games were also more likely to be made by those with the resources to also make them known, means it was easier to learn of them, while the crap tended to not get in the way so much. Now that's quite the other way around.

Offline Singleplayer focus.

Honestly these days, outside of the indie scene, there is a lack of AAA, AA, A and even B games that aim for the single player.

Also slow burn / own pace experiences. So many games these days are made like pokie machines. Keep the dopamine kick going and constant engagement, rather than players being able to go through it without feeling they need to keep going or must finish.

Less open worlds. Not every game needs to be an open world. A greater focus on smaller, stronger experiences in a smaller closed environment.

Finally, daring to do something different. So many of the big releases these days are clones of other games that succeeded. Few developers (especially the big ones) are prepared to take a punt on trying something different. The major releases are all getting closer and closer in style and feel. It feels like a pick your time period and off you go almost.