Thanks for the input guys! Big help! I just bought a 120GB Crucial M4 today and I'm totally excited about it. Exactly the thing I was looking for in next-gen technology.

On a side note, have MONITORS evolved much in 4 years? They've gotten cheaper, and a 24" widescreen has now become the standard for PC gaming. But no new technology to get that excited about right? I was hoping retina display monitors would have started popping up by now but it looks like it's still far away. I mean, it's still easy to pick out individual pixels on my monitor... I'm actually still very happy with the SIZE of my monitor (19" Dell Ultrasharp 2007), but it's still pretty far off from looking as you're peeking through a window. I probably should be thankful that such a thing has not happened because that type of upgrade is really expensive and I'm already breaking the bank. :) Actually, what would REALLY make me want to upgrade is a viable solution for the Anti-glare coating vs glossy mointor issue. If someone can find a really good middle-ground for that issue, that would be a viable upgrade for me, as I really hate AG coating and I also really hate glare as well...

Oooh, I haven't even heard of SSD's before... They're pretty pricey though. Would you recommend using an SSD just as my primary HD to hold my OS and a couple games? I'd probably be able to afford a 120GB one for that extra boost in performance. And the fact that they're silent makes them really attractive...

So does that mean that they really are faster now? Should I compare cache instead? I'm running with a 7200rpm doing only 16mb... I hope that's pretty slow by today's standards, hehe. Looks like 64mb cache are the standard now.

Well, I'm significantly upgrading my PC. Lots of great games lately that have really started beating up on my 8800gt based rig that I built 4 years ago. Now just seems to be a really good time to do it with better support for quad core cpu's, DX11, and Physx being some of the reasons worth upgrading.

But the one area that seems to be pretty stagnant has been the Hard Drive space. I'm particularly talking about HD speed, as it's obvious HDs have gotten cheaper and bigger over the years. My 4 year old HD spins at 7200 rpm, and it looks like internal HDs are still spinning at 7200 for the budget minded consumer. The release of Sata 6 from what I've read doesn't really make things better on this end either. If I'm missing something, let me know. I've been out of the game for a good 4 years.

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_e30802_home.html

Read it and celebrate. :)

Cause I certainly do. Free-roaming games are here to stay as well, but I hope companies aren't always going to think non-linear, "players get to choose" types of games are better. I just played COD4 and it's just the most enjoyable shooter I've ever played. I'm no game critic, but this is the type of game I enjoy playing, and I think most people do too. It's a "Non-stop action, take me on a rollercoaster ride" type of game. I don't like games where I have to think "Man, I'm lost. What the heck am I supposed to do now?" or "am I really making the right choice here?". I prefer the philosophy that you want to take the gamer on a ride where the developer dictates to you what's going to happen. I like going to theatres to watch movies, not to direct them. The less options a gamer has, the more control the developer has to create a concise presentation of what he wants and what he wants the player to experience.

But I guess there has to be a balance as well. Mass Effect without any options would simply be a shooting game stuck between movie scenes. Sandbox and more free roaming games definitely have a place in the market. I just don't agree with all of the hoop-la about how many options a player has. It's not bad for a game to be too linear because you wouldn't get the same experience if it wasn't!

My opinion of Turn-Based RPGs is this: GOOD RIDDANCE! You look at the stuff Bioware and other western companies have been doing versus the stuff Square has been doing in the past decade, and it's just no comparison. Mass Effect and KOTOR just blow any JRPG out of the water. I loved FFVII and all the PSX RPGS, but that's old stuff. Games have to evolve. FFXII was a small step in the right direction, but the battles were still boring to me, especially cause there were so many of them and the fighting maps were just huge. Western companies have pretty much ditched the whole turn-based RPG idea altogether. Good for them, and good for gaming. The sales speak for themselves. If you want "nostalgia", than keep playing SNES games and gobble up the few Atlus games tha come your way. But there's really no room for them on the main stage. They're niche games that are niche for a reason.

Square has been complaining abut the decline of their company in the international market, and it's ridiculously obvious why that's so. They're way behind, and I know the last thing Square wants to be is a niche company like Atlus. Square knows this, so I'm really excited to find out what FFXIII has in store for us. JRPGs need to evolve desperately. You can start by ditching silly anime cliches and not making your main character a 15-year-old pre-teen boy.

Hi, I was just wondering if there are a lot of people out there that are updating their graphics cards at the moment. If so, why? And this is totally coming from a guy who is self proclaimed eye-candy whore.

Here's my philosophy: You have 2 types of games: Unreal Engine 3 games and Crysis. An 8800 GT is already going to handle any Unreal Engine 3 game absolutely beautifully. Crysis? Not so much... But will a 9800GTX or even the next 280GTX (or whatever it's called) handle Crysis that much better? Sorry, but I'm not going to plunk down an extra $400 and go SLI crazy just so I can get an extra 10 frames on Crysis.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to even be looking at new cards until there's a commercial card out there that maxes Crysis on 1600x1200 at 60fps. Looking back, there were legitimate reasons to update to the 8800GTX. But at the moment, I just don't see anything on the horizon that's worth updating my PC. Whatever comes out in the next 8 months, I will still be woefully unsatisfied with my Crysis experience and my 8800GT is already more than enough for all the other games.

For me, the PC hardware business is looking pretty barren for me until the next 2 years or so.

I don't see how anyone can think Gears has good character design. I don't see how the theme of "gears" fits in with anything at all. It's a fun game and I enjoyed playing it. The graphics are fantastic. But it's not like I could take it seriously either. As I said, I firmly believe anybody could make up character designs as good as Gears. Gears is as generic as character game designing gets. I don't agree with your list either. I thought FEAR's character design was pretty lackluster as well. The whole "The Ring" effect was just to make an excuse for a game. A fantastic game to play, but the story and the atmosphere didn't really appeal to me. But at least you could tell the tried. I didn't like Oblivion either.

For good character design, I would have to say that you could see that game being made into a movie. BioShock and Metal Gear and Mass Effect can easily be made into movies. Most games can't. But I'd have to agree with you that it seems in general, the better the game, the better character designs it will likely have. But at this stage in videogaming, I don't think it's there just yet.