Do people still want this? I feel like interest for this remake peaked a few years ago. And now to wait another few years until it's done?

Spec comparisons are always a big deal when systems launch. With these current consoles, resolution/fps has become the benchmark. With all the talk of "specs don't really matter, it's the games that count", it's become interesting to see that maybe specs do matter.

Personally, it's not a big deal to me. But it gives people something to talk about.

There is usually a lull this time of year. We get the big Christmas rush where there's lots to talk about, then a couple of outliers who wait until January (usually, though not much this year), February starts to get a few more releases. By March the conversations will be more varied. There are a ton of releases coming for March. Infamous, Titanfall, South Park, etc.

There just isn't much new in the news right now. It's not helped by the fact that the release schedule is a bit gimped while developers build new games for the new machines. It will pass, just give it a month.

Great sales for both Mario and Zelda. Both are fantastic games. Does the game play differently when you select different characters in Mario 3D Worlds? I heard Princess Peach can float in midair, but I never really played the game with anyone other than mario.

All the games were actually well received in Japan, and FFXIII AND -2 received pretty good scores here in the U.S. There was a loud group of haters, and they spilled their outrage on the internet like an infection. It spread all over, increasing their numbers. Now the cool thing to do is to hate on the series. American reviewers noticed all the loud haters, so they were afraid to give Lightning Returns a good score.

That's what happened. End of story.

A lot of the open world games out there are just a single story arc, empty space, and a bunch of mini-games. Sure you have the freedom to run around in circles, but if you want to do anything meaningful, you're on rails, with virtually no control over how the story progresses.

I much prefer the ability to make choices and then experience the consequences than the "freedom" to drive/ride/walk through empty space, which is all games like AC, Farcry and GTA really offer. Most open world stuff is tedious and boring. At least in a game like Skyrim there are multiple story paths, radiant quests, and one-off quests for dungeon areas you find while exploring. It still has its issues - like being heavily on rails with simplistic level design that often fails to allow you to take advantage of your particular skill set...but it does a fairly good job providing a world filled with meaningful activities...at least when you compare it to things like Farcry, where your only activities outside of the storyline are generic, repetitious mini-game strings like races or kill X amount of Y at point Z.