The "Good For Its Time" Defense

[Kriven]

games should be critiqued on what they set out to do and how well they did it within the confines of technology at the time

Unless you're speaking exclusively within these parameters, I disagree. The fact that we have games which have prevailed for decades and continue to be highly regarded (The NES Super Mario Bros. games, as an example) proves that "Good"--subjective as it is--is not limited by technology. A game that holds up will always hold up. A game that doesn't will fade into obscurity, with the exception of historically significant titles.

I'm going to steal half of your weird example (you're not just crossing technological lines with Pong vs OoT, but genre and audience as well? What? This is like comparing The Avengers with Titanic. They aren't made for the same demographic). Ocarina of Time vs. The Legend of Zelda. The Legend of Zelda is undeniably an important game--it defined genres, sparked imaginations, and birthed a very loyal core group of followers. But, it isn't as good as Ocarina of Time. Actually, it's not a very good game at all. It's overly cryptic, has some weird design choices (like enemies moving on a completely different grid from Link, making them very difficult to hit at times), and suffers from false difficulty to an excessive degree. It simply isn't that good of a game, while Ocarina of Time actually is (although it does also have its downsides... a barren open world, clunky movement, etc.).

If we're only allowed to consider the technical prowess of designers at the time of a game's creation in reviewing and critique, our opinions essentially become worthless. TLOZ is a great game for it's time. But that isn't a valuable response when somebody asks "Hey, which Zelda game should I play next? I really liked Skyward Sword and want to get into the franchise."