I'm pretty sure that aside from sleeping, there is no way to pass time. A whole day in Dragon's Dogma is only 48 minutes though, so worst case senario you could just put the controller down and walk a way for a bit :)

Argo (The horse in Shadow of the Colossus.) Best horse ever.Got_to_go

YES! I became so attached to everyone in that game, the boy, Argo ... I even bonded with all thecolossus. (i guess not surprising since it took me so long to figure out how to kill them)

Story isn't always important. Oblivion and Fallout didn't really have epic storylines that kept me comming back, but it was the amount of options and things to do in the game that made up for it. Left 4 Dead has virtually no story whatsoever but it's still freakishly fun to kill thousands of zombies with friends. Fighting games always have these last minute, thrown together, random, 30 second cutscenes that sort of explain who and why your fighting - but that doesn't stop people from playing them for years, some times decades after they've come out. 

Story *can* be important. Final Fantasy is famous for it's dramatic plot twists and complex characters. JRPGs are dependent on having a good story. In other genres it can make games stand out and attract people who normally would never have tried that kind of game (I'm thinking of Mass Effect and Halo in particular). Certainly no game is ever hurt by having a great story. But that doesn't mean that a game has to have a really detailed story to be fun or good, either. 

Personally I was blown away by Prince of Persia and Tales of Vesperia. The graphics in those games were breathtaking.

It really comes down to singleplayer vs. multiplayer and playing for long periods of time vs. short periods of time

L4D is *really* fun to play for an hour or two with friends every once in ahwile. It's a great way to have fun with people! But you probably won't play for more than a couple of hours at a time. Fallout on the other hand is a really epic single player experience, it can suck you in and convince you to spend an entire day in front of the tv. It has a lot ofre playability.

Personally I would go for fallout, just because I got way moremileageout of it. But if I were the type of player that hated RPGs or single player games I'd probably like L4D more. Both are great games, you can't really go wrong!

I worked at gamestop for almost 2 years. You know all those display boxes out on the floor? They arn't just decorations, theyre the real boxes. We have to take the games out to put them on the floor to protect them from being stolen. Gamestop will always try to get you a sealed copy if they have one, but if they're down to the last copy chances are the plastic has been unwrapped and the game has been removed and locked up so we can display the box. I never once saw anyone in any gamestop (and I had a management position) try to pass off a used game as a new game. What's more likely is that the employees that we're removing the disks were less than careful about it and got the disk dirty. If that's the case, you have every right to go to another store and buy the game there!

It's not a perfect system, but right now gaming companies are unwilling to send gamestop empty cases to use as a display, and the company likes to have a box that isn't sealed in a plastic case *coughbestbuycough* so you can flip through the manual inside.

Games that are 80 hours long frustrate me because, since i can only play in short bursts, it takes so long to finish everything I lose interest and move on to another game.

I *love* games that give me a good 30-40 hours with their plot, but offer lots more hours worth of optional bonus content. FFXII was a perfect example.

At any given time I'm playing 1-2 console games and a handheld game. If I am playing 2 console games at once, they're usually really different (for example, right now I'm playing viva pinata and L4D)

Too many quests, not enough puzzles.

If you liked running around the map and exploring in the first game, you'll like galactrix. As a person who was it in more for the puzzles I found the sequel frustrating.

I think that $60 is a reasonable price, considering how much it costs to make a game. However, theres no way I could afford to buy every game I want to play for the full new price, so I'm more willing to buy a used game. I feel bad because I know it's ripping off the developer, but I don't want to miss out on gameseither.