Bamp, because I intend on buying Madworld, also I think I need to expand my taste game wise. I've hardly played any RPGs OR RTS games and I suppose I'm looking for recommendations. I already know to pick up Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires, and Total war but I'm fairly lost when it comes to RPGs in general. I'm assuming the playstation and the SNES are good places to start then?
Start with Earthbound, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 on the SNES to understand some of the major points in the genre (maybe Dragon Quest 4 DS as well to see the first story-based RPG as well as to get an understanding of how RPGs started out). Then move onto Final Fantasy 7 (more just to understand how it influenced the rest of the genre than anything), then try Final Fantasy Tactics (I would recommend the PSP version if at all possible as it's much MUCH better written), Xenogears, Star Ocean 2, Tales of Destiny, Grandia, Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross and honestly you could almost pick whatever you want from the PS1 era as long as it isn't Beyond the Beyond and you'll be all right.
When you hit PS2 stuff, if you don't somehow play Shadow Hearts: Covenant (you may want to play Shadow Hearts 1 first so as to get the full impact, though Covenant does a great job of using flashbacks), Digital Devil Saga, Xenosaga (you could just play 3 and read the encyclopedia that's in-game if you wanted but playing 1 and 2 would be better), Persona 3/4, and Final Fantasy XII (to see the evolution of the battle system), I will kill you. However, the PS2 has a TON of great RPGs as well so again, it's pretty hard to go wrong there.
You could seriously have something like a college course just on RPGs and how design changes, character ideas, usage of cliches, plots, writing, and all that have changed over the course of the genre and how certain games have impacted both the RPG genre itself and how they've impacted the rest of gaming.
Also, I played through and finished Star Ocean 4, which was great. Beat the first bonus dungeon and now I'm not really looking forward to the second one because it's ridiculous. I'm also playing MadWorld and it is unbelievably great. Motion controls work great and feel very satisfying, the story's pretty cool, the art style is fantastic, the soundtrack is amazing and it's just plain fun.