PAJ89

For Shadow of the Colossus, I agree. The name is never mentioned (except possibly in the manual?), but that game would be no different if the Wander/Wanda name wasn't attatched to the lead. BioShock, on the other hand, the whole concept of Jack's origin is pretty central to the story. The only reason he's never named in game (or early game at least) is because the surname would probably clue you onto one of the game's big twists.

Not bad. Someone mentioned Skies of Arcadia already, that's a good 'un. The original Wild Arms on PlayStation is something you might enjoy based on your list. Lush 2D graphics, excellent sound-track, challenging dungeons (Zelda-esque in some respects).

Unfortunately I never played LBA2, but was a big fan of the first game on the Playstation. Great little (big) adventure game, shame nothing really came of the franchise beyond this sequel.

I've had five die, four of them have been repaired for free and one of them is dead in the box and out of warranty. As for how they bit the dust... one of them had something wrong with the visual display (only sound would come out of the TV). One of them would eject the disc tray every ten minutes or so making games pretty much unplayable. Another had red rings and I forget about the others.

If I'm playing a game with cheat codes I'll activate them to have some fun, but I'll play through the main campaign/story/etc without them.

I think I'm at the point where I don't care if it's a game (though that would be preferable), as long as it gets resolved. I'm aware the story is finished, but I'm pretty sure it was never released or leaked. Anyway... Sega have made some pretty stupid decisions in recent years. Continuing the franchise would be stupid from a financial point of view, so maybe there's a tiny glimmer of hope.

Battletoads would be great, I don't think that's on there. Chrono Trigger should be there too, although having a DS version makes it less of an issue.

I got it without trouble on my first try, but this is largely down to being over-levelled to compensate for the ever-so-frustrating first form of the boss.

I think they were rolled out too slow. Not saying having everything within the first few hours would be wise (and as someone said the story dictates when certain things are introduced), but considering the way the game plays out - with battling the only real deviation from story progressing segments - parts of the early game were very boring for me. As for the party limitations on switching, it sounds like a drag, but it didn't bother me too much. The only time I really bothered to switch party members and come up with specific paradigms were all for late-game enemies and bosses where the restriction was already lifted.

Yes. iPod on shuffle, on a playlist containing (mostly) rock in many forms from the 60s to 00s.