Where's the epic downloadable rpgs?

Because today is the release one of the more hotly anticipated downloadable titles of the year (at least on PSN, it hits XBLA tomorrow), Deathspank, an old-school dungeon crawler with a good sense of humor. I downloaded the demo, and it was pretty entertaining. But even though the reviews are very positive, most clock it in at a measly 8 hours, not a very meaty rpg. Now, admittedly, standards should be a little different for a downloadable title, but this is an rpg we are talking about. 15 hours should arguably be the bare minimum, with 20 being a more acceptable number. There is no reason someone couldn't make an epic rpg clocking in anywhere form 30-60 hours on the graphical level of a PS one title or even a 16 or 8-bit game. I mean, we do get occasional bytes in old school classic rpgs such as Secret or Mana or Final Fantasy IX that are available for download, but where are some original rpgs? I mean aside from the newly released Deathspank, there's the Penny Arcade games, and that's about it. Hopefully somebody is working on one, because I'd love to see an epic Super NES era style rpg to downloadable channels. I mean, if they can make something as awesome as Torchlight and sell it for $20 (actually far less with it constantly being on sale) on PC, surely they can do something equally epic for consoles, right? Someone get on that.

Well, I'm about 9 or so hours into Dragonquest IX, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. Though it is still very old school and frankly the multi-player aspect is essentially nothing more than grinding with friends since you can't advance the story any. Still a really solid choice for anyone looking for a timesink portable rpg.

So, Kinect demo units are coming to a major retailer near you. Where you ask? Macy's. Yeah, that's the ticket, demoing it at a place that gamers never go for gaming, and that is on the verge of bankruptcy. And while Kinect is clearly an attempt at reaching a non-gamer audience, it's not the matter of "playing the Halos" as the Penny Arcade guys put it. It's the matter of being able to navigate menus equally well with your hands vs. a controller, or being able to do something like drive with nothing physical to interact with. The complete lack of a physical controller to do many things that in real life require control of an object sounds like you might as well be just using your imagination and playing in a cardboard box. Which would be a helluva lot cheaper than buying whatever the hell Kinect thinks it is.


Ok, that's pretty much all I have for today, but I'll leave you with the TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Valhalla Rising