I've played and enjoyed MMOs myself, but I do agree that new directions to the genre are certainly welcome. Most people complain about the repetitiveness of MMOs, but the problem is that this is a trade-off developers take in exchange for creating a humongous persistent world. There is only so much time and money one can use to design a game, and it's difficult to keep quality when the quantity is hundreds or even thousands of hours. The biggest MMOs in the market have polished the existing formula to a mirror shine but it is true that the formula needs shaking up.

However, this is far, faaaar easier said than done. Even the most deep and interesting and deep of non-MMOs today would get dull if repeated for hundreds of hours, and thus keeping quality over such a length is something I believe in feasible with raw manpower. It isn't impossible, however, and with clever use of procedural tools (that is, systems that help develop content in automated fashion, which is not necessarily the same as random generation) could accomplish such a goal.

Basically what I'm trying to say is yes it would be great if such an MMO was made and it should be, but it's very difficult to do. So be patient, and although we should never stop expecting better of the genre don't do what thoughtless people do and accuse existing MMO developers of laziness. Seems they have a tough job to do.

Well I'm of two minds at the moment. On one hand, I'm not the type to buy remakes of games I already own, and indeed play on a regular basis on old systems. Final Fantasy X is possibly my favorite game of all time, but I've never been one for caring much about visuals. If they do add extras (like some people mentioned, the legendary weapons were obtained in stupid ways, like that accursed lightning challenge) in addition to the graphical upgrade this may be the first remake of a game I've played that I willingly buy.

Ok so first of all, I'd like to mention that the choice EA is forcing upon people is to use their service or don't play their games. I'd understand the excuse of creating competition between two retailers selling the same game, but that's not the case here. The case here is creating a competition between companies, and the problem with this is it's encouraging everyone else to do the same thing as Origin.

Imagine if every single game you had from every different publisher had some other program to run in the background or that you needed to log onto if you wanted to play their specific game. It would be a pain and a hassle and have no benefit to the consumer. The reason Steam gets away with it is because it sells games from tons of different publishers and offers as many incentives as it can in terms of sales and such to keep your business. The reason I can see people objecting to Origin isn't because the service itself is particularly horrible (ignoring the whole possible invasion of privacy thing), but because it represents a trend that every publisher should have their own store franchise and hinder the consumer without offering any benefits.

Well, I know you probably won't hear this Brett, but I've been listening to this cast since the first episode and you will be sincerely missed. If you're have a better job offer at Capcom of course you should take it, but I'll always miss the dynamic you contributed to this podcast.

I have no investment in Red Faction at all and am only sad to see it go because some developer is probably very depressed about it. However, though I have little affection for Red Faction, I have plenty for what it tried to do. I think the whole destroyable environments deal is something that more games could try, not even necessarily as a gimmick that fuels the whole game but just as something that is present in it. I'm way more interested in gameplay innovation like that as opposed to, say, increased graphical capability.

I'd just like to point out that the Nintendo Wii sold 1000 times as much. And the PLAYSTATION 2 sold 100 times as much. PS2 is still selling 200 consoles a day? Surprising.

I have played all but a couple Zelda games and agree with the majority of this list, but I have 3 points I'd like to bring up:

1. When you say there's nothing bad you can think of Link to the Past, I might suggest that some of the dungeon design is a bit archaic/frustrating. I was coincidentally was just this morning playing this game in the dark world forest dungeon, which has those bloody hands that take you back to the entrance spawning continuously in just about every room. Rooms that are filled with hard to kill enemies and lots of pits. Argh.

2. Speaking of frustration, I was surprised that in your assessment of Zelda 2 you didn't mention the thing that I hated the most and even kept me from finishing it: the difficulty. That game gets horrendously difficult at times, but what bugs me is it's often for the wrong reasons. The heinous 'lives' were probably the worst, and I can think of absolutely no benefit whatsoever to adding lives to an open world game. Especially one littered with near bullet hell moments and instant death pits. Other games like Mega Man did things like this, but stages in those games were several minutes long, whereas Zelda 2 sends you back to the starting point of the bloody game when you arbitrarily lose 3 lives. From a design standpoint I find this inexcusable because it completely ruined the game for me yet adds nothing I can think of to the gameplay.

3. I object to your entry on Link: The Faces of Evil! That shouldn't be on this list because it's not a Zelda game. It never happened. :D

Seems same old, same old to me. The man has big dreams but can never really back them up in reality. It's annoying, sure, but I don't see why so many people get super angry with him personally. I suppose "shooters are often same-y" is a bit arrogant of him to be saying but it's been said a billion times before by many others. Essentially: I agree that Peter is irritating but I don't understand the force of feeling behind people's hate for him.

Huzzah for the return of GMotD! This particular music is good, not overwhelming or anything just simple, solid old-school music. Really hope you keep up the music, I very much enjoy being introduced to cool new video game music.

Bah, typo above. I meant to say I like the old ganondorf better because he DOESN'T have creepy teeth.