Being able to download games from home has meant my game collection has gotten unbelievably huge. Seriously I now have a collection of well over 400 games over my XBox 360, PS3, Mac and DS. At least 150 of these are XBLA or Indie titles (Xbox being my favourite console!). I appreciate being able to download a game on a whim. I appreciate being able to have a game I want without having to go out and get it. But it's not always how I want to get my games.

That might sound incredibly awkward and I really don't mean to be this awkward. But don't you think the current availability of 'Games on Demand' makes us this way? We now have the choice between having games delivered straight to our computers on the day of release, or going to the shop, queuing, hoping they've got it in stock and coming home. Downloads are readily available again and again, so you'll never know the pain of a broken disc. Downloads never run out (to my knowledge) you're never going to be told to come back tomorrow, or try another store. Which is great, you know you're not going to be behind the lucky bastard who gets the last copy, but don't you think it's taking some of the magic away? It may sound childish but I love going out specifically for a game. I can wander round the shops, get info on new releases and look at older games I had never considered before. Some of my best loved games are the result of 'last-minute' buying at the till.

I understand that all the information you can glean from staff in the games shops is readily available on the internet but don't you feel like you'd be missing out on an experience? Chatting to other gamers about your purchase, exchanging GamerTags to play online, discussing tactics and DLC. Gamers are a community, and whilst it is mostly carried out online, via forums etc. But why should it only be available there??

Midnight launches are a rite of passage for most gamers, an absolute must for some. I have a friend that goes to every midnight launch, just because he likes the atmosphere. Do we really want that atmosphere to disappear? If more games become available for download on the day of release, game shops will start to become redundant. One day maybe all games will be a digital download. But then what happens to the shiny stuff you get in the special editions? Posted to you a week after release, or gone altogether? One day maybe there won't be anymore game shops on the high street, who knows?

Whilst it is great to be able to just grab a game you fancy without moving from your sofa (funds allowing obviously) it is also great to go out and grab it and read the case and manual on the bus on the way home. Theres a sense of nostalgia to a manual, and you just can't beat the smell!!

Downloads are great and discs are great and I think it is important to find a happy medium between the two, so that they don't end up cancelling each other out.

Hi. I've been following Destructoid for about a year on Twitter and Facebook and decided to check in when I read the tweet about the 'Bloggers Wanted' section.

For quite some time I have been trying to increase how much I write. I'm currently studying English and would love to be able to write for a living at the end of my degree. I guess we'll see whether that happens, but it doesn't hurt to try does it? I have a blog (details in the about me) but sometimes lack a focus to write about, whence me feeling like the bloggers call would be ideal for me.

I'm a HUGE fan of games. Any games. Literally. I play anything I can get my hands on, and in my house we have a massive games collection so I'm never going short. I am currently playing (to name a few) Fallout: New Vegas, Brink, Pokemon Black, and a last mop up on LA Noire.

I have always been a huge fan of this site and it's dedication to real reviews so hopefully we'll all get along :)

Whilst the freedom to create your own characters in games is amazing, until fairly recently there were very few that allowed you to be a female character. As a female gamer it can be quite annoying.

If I'm creating a character I am (hopefully) going to be playing with for a massive amount of hours I want to be able to make what I want. Not just vary the size of some jock's muscles. I want to create ME (albeit a better version, I mean I am literally never going to be able to jump through a Mass Relay *sadface*). I want to feel a connection to my character, so that I will actually rush to heal them, feed them, and basically fulfil their needs. I am always the good-guy in games where there is a choice (I just don't have it in me to be as badass as some of them, for example by blowing up a town, WTF!) and that is always easier when you feel a connection to your character.

I have played over one hundred hours on Fallout:New Vegas without actually completing much of the story and it is simply because it is so damn fun to run around hunting Deathclaws with someone that is vaguely based upon me. There are more and more female gamers picking up a controller every week (maybe after being bullied by their boyfriends, but whatever) and I think the gaming industry needs to start acknowledging that fact. And that doesn't mean by releasing yet another cutesy animal game, or another 'Get Thin Quick' scheme. Many females like to play exactly what the males do (shock horror!) so why shouldn't there be a female preset available for the females, who, like me don't wanna spend the next x amount of hours playing with some douche bag muscle man? Nah we definitely need more female heroes, and not just for the lads who still drool over Lara Croft....