I'm currently almost at my 70th hour of gameplay in Front Mission 4 (PS2). There's something addictive about the way the game is executed, the brilliance of the graphics, the crisp sound effects, and the sensation of each battle. I'm surprised that I've been captivated by a single game for so long, especially after finishing it. Thankfully, there is a plus mode after conquering the game, although I wish it would have included all of the unlockable camoflauge options from the starting point. The benefit of the plus game is that you start out with a ton of cash and the ability to purchase every pilot's full set of abilities (that would normally take you until the last half of the game to earn). It doesn't make you insanely overpowered, but it means that you'll be able to use your extra points to customize your pilots in ways that weren't possible the first time around. I'm a sucker for extensive customization. Of course, if I could afford a PS3 and Demon's Souls, that would be probably be the one game I'd be playing.

As an avid gamer, I've made some big changes over the last few years. I was once almost strictly "a PC", and, by the way--when did we start assuming the identities of inanimate objects? If that's the cool thing now, then let's have some variety. Hello, I'm a toaster. Nice to meet you.

Anyway, I'm not a wealthy individual, and I lost the race to keep up with PC gaming hardware as soon as Oblivion came out. When I realized my next-gen gaming desires could be satisfied completely by a console for the mere price of a new video card, I did some comparative research and sprung on a PS3. I was tired of the hacker-infested world of PC multiplayer and believed consoles to be the last pure gaming experience.

PS3 owners have seen a wonderful change throughout 2008, as the system went from sitting under Microsoft's constant, "You don't have enough games," argument to experiencing an landslide of incredible titles. And we finally got trophy support.

Were the trophies worth the wait? Should we even care about them? Some would say that trophies are a meaningless form of gamer recognition, or another extension of the cyber-ego. But for those of us who were creating challenges for ourselves years before achievements existed, trophies are a welcome addition. Before, you'd spend more time refining your ability to survive a six-star federal assault in GTA3 than actually finishing the game, and you got nothing but the thrill. Now, you finally get a prize for being a lunatic, as well as a sense of community.

Competition has always been an integral part of multiplayer, but we've mainly seen it reflected in the form of kill/death ratios and experience points. You'd memorize every nook and cranny of a map, find a technique, wash, rinse, and repeat. Or you'd learn to make twelve hour MMORPG gaming sessions part of your day-to-day life, watching your mortality transform into rare set items. After a while, it's more of a routine than a challenge. There's a difference between a kill and a really sweet kill--the kind you remember for years to come. But those moments aren't reflected in statistics... well, they weren't before the trophy system.

That's why trophies are somewhat monumental for me. They've added a friendly new dimension to competitive online gaming, where the focus is on skill rather than depth of obsession. And the system transcends individual games, taking more of the collective PS3 gaming experience into account.

In the end, all game rankings are subject to a reality-check: Can you expect to impress a beautiful woman at a club by bragging about your kill/death ratio or the amount of hit points your level 400 Mage has? Probably not. But rankings are fun within their context, and PS3 trophies have made a significant addition to the fun, as well as to how much enjoyment we can squeeze out of our games.

My PC and PS3 had recently been introduced to a gorgeous new widescreen monitor; HDMI for the PS3, VGA for the PC, and a leftover component input. After seeing how incredible the PS3 looked in HDMI, as well as my PC at 1920x1200 resolution, my mind immediately leapt to the possibility of bringing one of my last-gen consoles back to life on the crystal clear LCD monitor. I had yet to finish FFX and GTA: Vice City, and how could I live without playing the two more recent Final Fantasy and Xenosaga titles? A quick romp through Gamespot's PS2 section made it apparent that hit games like the Shin Megami Tensei series were still being released on the PS2. Sorry XBOX and Gamecube-- The PS2 had to come back first.

So I took a break from my COD:4 and Oblivion and Folklore. I was ready to conquer FFX. As I finished FFX, I started wondering what game would be the equivalent on the PS3. Next I started on GTA: Vice City. Since I began playing, I became engulfed in it and haven't played my PS3 since. Sure, the PS2 graphics couldn't compare to PS3 in HDMI, but that didn't bother me. It was the content of Vice City, the living, breathing world with so much to captivate me. And I started to wonder... do next-gen games spend more time looking pretty than being epic? Am I going to spend the rest of this year playing the PS2 titles I've missed, and then going back to Gamecube for the Resident Evil titles I missed? What next-gen game is going to compete?

Folklore... or Valkyrie Profile 2? FFXII? Resident Evil 4? Shadow of the Colossus? Could it be that the further we go back in technological prowess, we find more ambitious game developers? Although there are some epic offerings on the next-gen consoles, it seems to me that the current shape of most next-gen games is an obsession with how shiny and pretty things can look. But when are we going to get the next SNES FF3? I eagerly await the future of next-gen games... to see if developers will view the insane graphic and audio capabilites at their hands as a means to create even more incredible content, and not just a more incredible view.