I'm looking for basically the same thing right now.

So far I'm leaning toward a Samsung. They run higher than $800 though. Closer to $1200 for the one I'm looking at.

My current TV, a 42" plasma, is also suffering from burn in. And I got it in 2006 so while it will do 1080i, it doesn't do 1080p and only has one HDMI port. The Samsung I'm looking at has 4, which is pretty perfect for my setup. One for each console then I can run the HD cable box through the X1.

Me too. :)

As for mine:

• Even though I love Fallout now, Fallout 3 was my first experience with the franchise. I didn't have a PC that would run games when the original Fallouts came out.
• I seem to buy every Spider-Man video game even though there hasn't been a good one since Shattered Dimensions and there hasn't been a great one since the game adaptation of the second movie. And even it was pretty busted. I am, officially, "part of the problem" by supporting these poor games just because I have so much affection for the source material.
• I straight up hated the first Half-Life. HL2 was good though, but I never liked the first one.
• Back in the PS1 and PS2 eras, Simpsons games were my guilty pleasure. I played all of them, and enjoyed them despite the games being basically shovelware. Even the busted ones like the wrestling and skateboarding games.

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown
• SimCity 2000
• Unreal Tournament
• Starcraft: Brood War

Yeah, that's probably the 5 I've played the most over the years.

I'd also add Diablo 2. I didn't play it nearly as much as some people have over the years, but I have a lot of friends who love it like no other game. You don't build affection like that if you don't have A LOT to offer your fanbase.

I wouldn't presume to know. But if pressed, I'd assume they added it because the market was moving toward an online gaming focus. Sony of the time was always quick to react to the consumer demand and it usually paid off for them nicely.

The PS2 coming out a year before the Xbox was a blessing and a curse. Mostly a blessing though. They had not only the whole gaming market for a year, but they had the DVD market by being the cheapest DVD player you could buy at the time. But I only remember the Dreamcast having internet connectivity being built in before the Xbox (But I could be completely wrong on that. I'm old, cut me some slack). So at the time it launched, it would have been impossible and foolhardy to add in costly components for a trend most people wouldn't have predicted. The only real downside is that when you need a peripheral to enjoy a game, you immediately limit your potential audience for a title. I can't say it's a sure bet, but I'd wager that if every PS2 and PSTwo had all the hardware built in, SOCOM could have been as big as Halo. Maybe bigger. There were certainly more Sony machines in the market than Microsoft machines at the time.

I know my third PS2(PSTwo?) had a port so I tried SOCOM and it was pretty sweet. Beyond that, I got nothin but speculation and supposition.

Halo 2 in 2004 was very popular. It helped make Xbox Live a success. They'd already had a few online games (Unreal Championship, MechAssault, etc), but Halo took it from mild curiosity to THE big thing people were talking about.

When the game launched it hit the news. And that only rarely happens, at least around here where I live. They were talking about it on local channels. I even saw awards show presenters talking about Halo 2.

When the 360 launched, Halo 2 and it's LIVE features were the most played game on the platform for a while. I don't want to make claims that I'm unsure of so I won't go giving any numbers or whatnot, but it was going strong to say the least.

Playstation's online offerings were good as well. SOCOM was fun. But while somewhat popular, I don't remember anyone being as nuts for SOCOM as people were for Halo 2. Largely, one would assume, because the PS2 didn't have an on board HDD or network card. Those were all peripherals sold separately while the Xbox had them built in. It wasn't until the PS3 that Sony got their system ready to be put online out of the box.

If I had to pin it down to one singular moment, I'd say the launch of Halo 2 took console online games from "kind of interesting" to being the big new thing of the time. Now whether or not ushering in the age of the online console shooter was good thing or not is a debate for another time. ;)

Pandemic never made the best games, but they always made interesting games. Mercenaries 2 was busted but still very fun. Battlefront, obviously, was great. And I really enjoyed Saboteur.

I wish they were still around.

I wouldn't play Resi 7 if Capcom's president drove to my house and handed me a free copy. And gave me cash. And a new black Ferrari with "ZZoMBiE13" engraved on the door. And pet my dog.

That was a fun story mode (or whever they called it). I remember enjoying it quite a bit.

But I really loved the matches where you could get in a vehicle, fly towards an enemy capital ship, shoot down the shield generators, infiltrate their ships, and disable them from the inside. Those were so much fun. The ground battles were great too, but the ship to ship combat has stuck with me for all these years as about the best of that kind of action I've ever played.

EA used to own Pandemic, I wonder if any of the people who worked on BF2 are still around? There would almost be a bit of poetic symmetry if they could work with DICE on the new one.

Pretty much what I was coming in here to say.

The same again, but bigger. Pretty much what we want from most sequels. Give us that thing we already liked again! Only better in every conceivable way but without changing anything. WOO, PROGRESS!

We grow, we live, priorities change. Malaise for gaming is not uncommon, it happens to most gamers at some point. Even I went through a phase of my life where I didn't game much. When my daughter was born and a couple of years later when the divorce fairy granted me my one true wish, gaming was low on my priority list.

And then the Dreamcast came along. Yay.