It depends on the kind of game. I love the Elder Scrolls games and the Fallout games because of their size, and the fact that there's so much open space there to get lost in. Plus they give lots of opportunities for modders to add their own content. Daggerfall and Arena WERE actually a bit too big, but that's partly because there were not modders (that I know of) to fill in those empty spaces.

That said, I'm fine with other smaller games, when the size fits the story. ES games try to be epic and open-ended with tons of side quests, so they deserve an epic scale. They are games you WANT to get lost in. They are games where you don't have to ever get into their main quests because there's so much other fun stuff to do in the world. But then there are smaller games, where immersion is not the primary goal. And those are fine just how they are.

And for those who are afraid to play Skyrim, etc. because they are too big -- they really aren't. They are simply as big as you want them to be. You can play the games as a simple story, never veering off the paved road, and finish them quicker than most other games. Or you can play them as worlds to explore. Or you can simply bite off chunks here and there, treating each side quest as a separate gaming experience. Play as much or as little as you want. I think it's stupid to be afraid of them for their size. You may as well be afraid of the world for its size, and stay in your own neighborhood for your entire life, never traveling, keeping your head in the sand.

@Celtic_34: I think that GTA is like most things in that it's probably harmless in small doses and for reasonably well-adjusted people. I wouldn't want a young kid of mine, and certainly of any of my neighbors playing it, simply because I can't tell you if they are closet psychopaths or not. That doesn't mean I think it ought to be outlawed, just that parents ought to use good judgment.

There was a kid of my age growing up in the same neighborhood as me -- he was suspected of torturing small animals, possibly neighbor's pets. His parents kept having to move to different neighborhoods because of him because he kept getting into trouble, and getting kicked out of schools. I didn't know at the time. This was something I only learned after the fact. His dumb grandpa bought him a rifle for his birthday. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a liberal, but I'm not an anti gun fanatic (though I do favor sensible gun laws). But I'll tell you this. I would have worried a lot less had his grandpa gotten him a video game, than a gun. And it's odd, but people who seem to be the most against video games seem to be the same people who are also against any kind of gun control. Let your kids have as many AK-47s as you want, don't even bother licensing them. But if kids get their hands on GTA, we're all gonna die.

Most of you guys are youngsters to me, just so you know. I was a board gamer and mainframe/minicomputer gamer before the age of the PC. My High School was lucky enough to be one of the first schools in the state to have computer terminals hooked up to mainframes via audiocoupler+300 baud modems. There wasn't much available as far as gaming was concerned, except for Adventure, and Trek and Hunt the Wumpus. i was mostly on the terminals teaching myself programming and writing my own stupid games.

When I got into college, I discovered Rogue, and Empire, the first computer games that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered serious computer games. The first was the granddaddy of (of course) the roguelike, and all crpgs. Empire was the granddaddy of all computer wargames, and 4X games.

Anyway, it should be no surprise that I'm a huge roguelike and 4X fan. Nowadays, I'm mostly spending my time playing Worlds of Magic, an early access game which aspires to be a spiritual sequel to Master of Magic. Currently, it's a bit too raw to recommend except for true MoM fanatics who don't mind testing a not yet ready for prime time game. But it promises to be like MoM on steroids, when it's finally released.

The new site IS incredbly slow, I can't find the various articles that are NOT reviews. You've put the reviews right up front, which would be fine, if that's all that people want to read. I also had a really hard time just logging in.

I really hope that you guys realize that you've taken a really easy-to-use website and turned it into a maze.