Googleshng - 4:00 EST

Actually, I suppose since most of the mecha on mecha action in Xenosaga 2 is between two mecha designed for it, we'd get some kind of recursion with the PROPER abreviation, but still.

Just a guess, but they were probably thinking... "Well, this person did a better job than everyone else who auditioned for the part." I haven't gotten far enough to hear her new voice myself just yet as I have a lot on my plate, but to be fair, last game her voice had a creepy resemblence to Leela from Futurama that wasn't quite appropriate.

Now Thursday's voice, that'd be amusing.

Nope. If you want to play RPGs on the Xbox, PC ports are the best you're going to find. As for older systems...
Genesis: There's the Phantasy Star series. Good games. Then there's a lot of mental scarring from the other options.
SNES: The FF games, Chrono Trigger, Lufia 2, Super Mario RPG... did I really need to recommend these?
Game Boy and Such: Final Fantasy Legend 3, the MMBN games (just not all of them, for sanity's sake), Golden Sun you'll either love or hate, Pokémon in some form or other... for that matter, that port of the first two PS games.

As for what I'm looking forward to this year... well, honestly, everything I'm looking forward to at this point I doubt will actually be out this year. Might want to ask again after E3 though.

Actually, I was surprisingly pleased with XS1, and prefered the skill system to what 2 has somewhat. Customization can be cool too though.

As for the GC Fire Emblem, that's one of those games I'd say I was looking forward to this year if the release date wasn't late in the year enough to prevent me from being sure it'll be this year. Looks quite spiffy.

I think it's pretty safe to say he dies yes. I mean, a pretty thick chunk of the population does, he's pretty much at ground zero, he's fairly old, and he's the sort of person you'd figure would try to stay in touch otherwise.

Yes. There aren't any games I can think of which I'd enjoy less due to the free time I have at the moment. Although I probably would have been less keen on Koudelka being 10 hours long or so if my schedule was less hectic at the time.

Anyway, as for the matter of gameplay vs. plot, I'll take the gameplay any day. If I want a good story, I own about a hundred books with better plots than any videogame ever made. If I want some solid gameplay on the other hand, games are the only place I'm going to find it, so they'd better darn well have some. You can of course have good gameplay and a decent story too, provided you understand how to tell a story while I'm playing a game, instead of switching between Plot Mode and Actually Playing Mode like most modern RPGs.

That being said, I'm forced to nitpick your examples here a little, since Xenosaga, while pretty high in cutscene, really doesn't have that much story. It's just introducing characters for sequels really. Kingdom Hearts meanwhile (and to a lesser extent, all action/RPGs) has pretty darn simple and shallow gameplay. I'd say any given TRPG makes a better example.

On the length side of things, I like games to be as long as possible, without hitting the point where they're just dragging on, getting repetetive, boring, long for it's own sake, etc. That varies from game to game of course, but I can safely say that anything over 60 hours is going to be too much.

Well, SM64 DS should work out nicely for you. As for Bowser's kids... this may mess you up for life, but they have a mother. You know that conversation where Bowser's kid tells the princess she's his mother? Notice how she actually buys this? The only way that would be possible (aside from assuming she's braindead) would be if she did in fact have kids looking like Bowser, and put them up for adoption.