The five biggest no-brainers in gaming

3. An HD Remake of Final Fantasy VII

Likelihood of this ever actually happening: 60%

Yeah, I went there. Hey, Square Enix? We were all super psyched when you announced a 10th anniversary remake of Final Fantasy X, and we’re excited to see that happen whenever it does, but you guys gotta know what kind of teasing you’re doing to our weird gamer sexplaces. Final Fantasy X is NOT Final Fantasy VII, guys! It’s a game we all pleasantly enjoyed, sure, but it certainly isn’t the culture-changing masterpiece, revered by almost every gamer ever as if it were holy that FFVII was! Yes, the prospect of online blitzball is exciting, but even just giving gamers the chance to watch Knights of the Round in HD would be exactly like printing money.

I don’t even like Final Fantasy VII that much. It’s a great game, of course, but it’s pretty overrated in my opinion. I much prefer the style of IX or the gameplay of XIII, and I still think VI is pretty much the best RPG ever, but you’d have to stick an icepick up my nose and scramble my brain around before I’d say any of them needed to be remade before VII! Even the simple act of announcing something like this would be the top news at whatever gaming convention it happened at, and when it finally came out, it would probably in at least the top 3 bestselling games of that year.

Perhaps the craziest part of all, though, is that Yoichi Wada, CEO of Square Enix, when asked at a shareholder’s meeting in June if a remake of the classic Playstation game would ever happen, said that he would absolutely consider doing it, and that the Final Fantasy team would happy to develop it, but only on the condition that they first made a new Final Fantasy that “exceeds the quality of FFVII’. What the hell? That’s like giving me a delicious cookie, and then refusing to give me another one until the baker can come up with one that’s even better. No wonder Square Enix has been taking so much grief over Final Fantasy lately. It’s like they’re trying to ruin our fun. Just remake our favorite game for us, please? Thanks!

4. Finally Bring Pokémon To A Home Console

Likelihood of this ever actually happening: 50%

Nintendo is a funny company, and as wonderful as most of their output is, they’re still some of the biggest trolls in the video game industry, and the reason why is simple. They rarely give us what we want. Putting a fully fleshed-out Pokémon experience on the console has been on the top of list for literally like fifteen years, and we’re still no closer to getting it. Literally, it’s like inconceivable to me why they wouldn’t even just do a straight port of one of their classic handheld titles with HD graphics. Even that would sate our appetites for a little while, not to mention make literally millions of dollars.

And of course, here comes the obligatory paragraph that tries to capture all our fantasies, where I put forth my perfect idea of what this game could be, and you all salivate over it, while simultaneously crying because it’s just a dream. HEY. NINTENDO.  CHECK IT. Here we go. One big game for the Wii U, okay? Get all the regions in there, give us like 40 badges to get, and keep all the Pokémon from each generation specific to the region they originally came from. Put a Pokémon Stadium somewhere in the mix, too. You know, somewhere we can all go to battle the Pokémon we raise in our DS and 3DS games in beautiful HD without having to pay fifty dollars for yet another Pokémon non-game console title. Oh, and just as a dope extra, in the Safari Zones, let’s use that cool panoramic video tech you guys patented for the Gamepad to power a Pokémon Snap-style photo-safari.

See? It’s that easy! I just spent five minutes thinking about it and writing it down, and literally, if Reggie just came out at E3 this year and read this word for word, I GUARANTEE you it would beat out any PS4 or Xbox 720 news you could throw at it, and investors would literally have to do everything in their power just to keep their heads from exploding into a mist of blood, eyeballs, and dollar signs. Actually, that was a little too gross. Moving on.

5. Release Every Good Virtual Console Game Everywhere Right Now

Likelihood of this ever actually happening: Hopefully 100%

Here’s the deal: Apparently, the idea of digitally releasing old video games is not something anybody fully understands yet. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have taken seven years since the Wii popularized it and everyone else jumped on board for us to have something that resembles a decent selection of games available across 3 platforms. It’s still not perfect, games are constantly being promised and then not being released for years, and until the Nintendo Direct conference on Wednesday, I’ve literally never seen a release schedule that went further ahead in time than about two weeks, but YES, plenty of good games are available, and I’m not just talking about Nintendo here,

Plus, there’s a bunch of amazing games out there that STILL haven’t been released! Where’s Earthbound and Mother 3? Or any old Pokémon game? Or Mega Man Legends? Maybe some Rival Schools action? It’s crazy! And of course, there’s all the excuses of like, “Oh we’re worried about legal action” or “There’s not enough interest in the title in the US”. What the heck are you talking about? The cost versus profit ratio on any of these titles should have put any of that talk to rest before it even started! Did everyone just suddenly get lazy? And even if they did, there’s more than enough well-organized fan movements out there that’ll probably handle most of the dirty work for you if you needed them to!

And then, every time a new console comes out, like the 3DS, PS Vita, or the Wii U, it takes months for games that have already been out on other platforms for YEARS to become available again. Hey! Not cool! And you know, I realize that everything requires effort and time and money, but, not that much guys! Especially when most of the work has already been done! Just give us what we want! We’ll pay you for it!

Anything I missed? Hate my guts? Need a burning question answered? Leave it in the comments below, or follow my Twitter @FacianeA

These days, as Journey’s Austin Wintory makes history by being the first video game composer nominated for a Grammy, it is becoming less and less crazy to consider that video games, those beep-boopin’ screen pictures from the 1980’s, may finally be accepted by the general population as an art. However, we’ve also just made it through another holiday shopping season. You hear about it all over the place. Microsoft moved 750,000 Xbox 360’s Black Friday weekend. That’s huge, but it’s also actually DOWN from the 960,000 they sold last year. Wowee. People literally fight each other for the privilege to purchase the best and most popular games for their kids. Yikes. AAA video games make more money than most blockbuster films. Nuts. Obviously, art or not, when it comes down to it, video games exist primarily for one simple reason. That’s right, dudes: makin’ money.

And yes, I can totally see why this might seem depressing, but guess what? Gamers are passionate about the games they play. There’s an entire culture built around the consumption of this media. People’s lives can be improved by enjoyable video game experiences. We freaking love video games, and evil/capitalist or not, it’s possible to make a lot of people happy and still make a bunch of money off of them. You just gotta listen every once in a while, and give the people what they want.

After all, every gamer has their holy grail, that one beautiful thing that would bring with it total satisfaction and bliss, if only the powers that be got their crap together and made it happen! And so, we’ve compiled a list. Below you will find the five most obvious and frequently fan-requested things in the world of video gaming that, if they ever existed, would just absolutely succeed. Each one of them will make your heart hurt. Ladies and gentlemen, the five biggest no-brainers in gaming:

1. Reissue Old Consoles For Cheap

Likelihood of this ever actually happening: 20%

The other day, I went to my local mom n’ pops video game store, and I felt like playing a bunch of old games, and so I bought a RetroDuo, which plays both NES and SNES games with ease. It cost me $70, and it works beautifully. Here’s the thing, though: It’s just not the same. The RetroDuo is small and light as a result of the more modern methods of production that were used in building it. It’s silver and black, not that classic gray, and while impressively similar, the controllers don’t click and clack in exactly the right way to make me say “Aw, yeah. I’m playing a freaking Nintendo”. I also had to do a fair bit of searching to find one, because RetroBit Games, the company that made it, is significantly smaller than the guys that just sold 400,000 Wii U’s all over the world.

But hey, what if you could walk into a Target or a GameStop, head to the retro area of the electronics section, and just grab a NES or a SNES off the shelf for $20? That would be incredible, right? Or what about a Genesis? Or a PSOne for everyone who doesn’t wanna drop $250 on a PS3 just because they want to replay Chrono Cross? This would  be great for companies like Sega and Atari, who could sort of halfway get back into the console market, without even having to developing more games. Plus, imagine all the cool homebrew stuff that would probably pop up if all the retro consoles were available to the mainstream again. The possibilities are endless, and they’d sell like hotcakes. Someone get on this, please?

2. Everybody Copy Playstation Plus

Likelihood of this ever actually happening: 80%

Playstation Network, as most of you know, is totally free. You can play video games online with friends out of the box. On Xbox 360, it costs you about $60 a year for the same features with the Xbox Live Gold premium service, which is kind of a bummer. PSN has a $50 premium too, but since online play is free, they had to come up with a bunch of other things to offer. This service is called Playstation Plus, and by golly, it’s great. It downloads updates for your PS3 and all your games while you sleep, you get a bunch of cloud storage so you can access your save files from anywhere, certain games are available for purchase at discount prices, and OH YEAH, THE FREE STUFF. Besides a bunch of great free themes and avatars, you are also able to download around 20 major titles for both PS3 and Vita, which you can play for FREE as long as you have the service. Titles are available for a few months until they rotate in new ones, but as long as you have them downloaded, you can continue to play them, even if they’re no longer available. You’re also able to download Full Game Trials, in which entire brand new games can be downloaded and played within a brief, yet adequate time limit in order to try them out. Yeah, it’s freaking amazing. You can basically just pay $50 a year, and as long as you don’t absolutely need to buy the newest games as soon as they come out, you’re pretty much good on content for the whole year. It’s crazy.

So, why the hell isn’t everyone else doing this? Shoot, I’d pay $50 MORE per year for a similar feature on Xbox Live, and if Nintendo did this, and it applied to the 3DS as well as the Wii U, well, then you’d probably just have to butter my butt and call me a biscuit because that’d be it. I’d be done. There’s literally no reason for any console manufacturer not to do this, and in fact, even though it’s not a thing that has ever been promised to me, I’m actually sort of mad at Microsoft and Nintendo for not getting on this already. Damn, guys, step it up!