Thyroid

That's a great list. I can't say I've read as many good novels as you have, but I can vouch for Michael Chabon. I've only read The Yiddish Policemen's Union, but it is superb. A character driven alternative history with insight into human nature and brimming with ideas. The prose is beautiful too:

Sounds like my most recent break-up, except mine was a year and a half. (Mind you, it was a dense year and a half. More happened in it than happened in any other relationship I've been in.) But anyway, movie sounds excellent. Thanks for the recommendation, miffy.

Finished season three of The Wire and I'm a cocktail of feelings. In the best way possible, I'm extremely upset. My only clear thought is that, if you love The Wire, chances are high that you'd love the Song of Ice and Fire books. And also that I'm feeling a little dizzy. No exaggeration, I was so upset for a while I felt like I was going to throw-up. I saw it coming, and it was inevitable, but I'm still really upset. Damn. Easily the best season out of the three. The Wire's become more than a TV show. At least, that's how it feels to me. I can't compare it to other TV, but to the more formative experiences of my life. All I can do is type half-heartedly into the Idle Forums and watch dust motes settle into my water glass. Can't think straight. Merry Christmas, guys.

That's my average year. This was the first time, ever, that I play more than a handful of games. I beat ten this year. That's more than three times my usual average.

So I beat it with a friend of mine. And it is *so* much fun. Not as good as Among Thieves, but probably better than the original. Oh man, no. Some parts were a bit, uh, underused, but some others were crazy fun. I ended-up liking the game a lot. They chickened-out on all the foreshadowing the game did regarding , but in a way I'm happy because I love the bastard. I also didn't like that the angle was basically a rehash of Among Thieves's. However, I'm happy that was resolved in a satisfying way too. is the heart of this series. The friendship between Drake and Sully is great, but she's the one who brings-out all the emotional stuff in me. I mean, sure; her character development needs some work. . But I just find her very likable. I know the games aren't particularly good, storywise, but the three main characters, as well as the occasional misfits they run into, are very fun. Co-op is fun, fun, fun. Can't wait to try more of it.

Ugh, Tanukitsuane, I'm so sorry. A bunch of friends came over suddenly and I couldn't get away... Did finish Uncharted 3, though.

Well, there's no monkey + pump = monkey wrench insanity, and no Myst-stuff yet. Actually, so far, the only puzzles have been "Find the thing in this room". In one case - finding the police station - the game starts, and you're looking directly at the station. So no real puzzles so far. I'll play for another hour when I get back from university this afternoon (which should give you another four hours before the sale switches).

That's from the Nemesis demo. I'm not sure if it made it to the final game. So far, Watson walks perfectly fine in Ripper. Quick impressions: it's bizarre. Don't expect Monkey Island-style gameplay. It's what I'd call a European adventure game: strange puzzles, low budget, clearly biting off more than it can chew but nevertheless determined. No particularly involving puzzles (one of the early ones involves looking for the police station), Holmes is waxing philosophy like an eighteenth century polymath (the first conversation has him talking about "the vanity of existence") and Watson seems quite a bit more modern than he was in the stories. It needs more computing power than screenshots indicate (I had to lower settings a bit). However, it's atmospheric. I'm enjoying it, but I highly recommend checking out a gameplay video before you plunge. It is quite cheap, mind you. I'd say go for it, but I'm more lenient than most adventure game fans. Sorry if that's not too helpful. Edit: It switches between first and third person. Quite a bit of reading involved, if you read the paper and such. I'm really enjoying it so far, but I'm putting it aside for a day when I feel like playing something slow-paced.

Give me two hours and I'll let you know what I think of the first part of Awakened. Or would you prefer I play Ripper? I owe it to you, anyway.

It does, but it's hard for me to criticize the game for them. They become irrelevant, and sometimes even positives - not dissimilar to how some music albums can have mistakes that make it more human - in my overall opinion of the game.

The gameplay looks fun, but I'm expecting to get tired of the world fast. That having been said, some of the creatures look nice. They clearly enjoyed designing those.

Why do developers hire half-talented hacks like RA Salvatore and Orson Scott Card to "imagine" their video game worlds? Honestly, it hasn't made a difference. Neither one of these people has created something halfway original, and, as far as I know, halfway good, since 1986. I wasn't a glint in my father's eye then. The world of Zeno Clash is more interesting and (as far as I can tell) original than the crap either man has contributed to. If your fantasy game has a variation on elves, dwarves, ye mighty rangers and orcs, you are - unless with a specific purpose - simply retreading old ground. RA Salvatore couldn't imagine a hot meal if he was starving in the Canadian wilderness - in February. Hyperbole aside, I'm not a fan.

First thing I read this morning, and it registered as being really, really dirty. Seeing I'm not still not awake...can't tell if that was intentional or not.

So my 50 minutes became 15 hours, but in my defense the game is really good so far. However, the constant barrage of supposed sexy, exemplified by the embarrassing female characters, has become annoying. Video games' attempts at erotica are about as hot as gonorrhea, but this manages to add a layer of sleaze on top that has actually made the game less fun to play. Do people really like this shit?

It works perfectly on mine. Shameless plug: my friend worked on some mods. Nab 'em.

Yep. Random button mashing will get you killed in the second half.

Oh hey, I've been here. Good luck, man. Do the right thing. Figure out what the right thing to do is, and then do the right thing. Don't do the easy thing; don't do the desired thing; do the right thing. I know that should be painfully obvious, but the irony of the situation is that you know the right thing is what you should do, but not what the right thing is. If that made sense. Good luck!

So, unlike every other year, I did play a handful of new games. One of them happens to be my favourite game of the ones I played this year: Bastion. The beautiful art and the genuinely good dialogue (monologue?) aside, the game is fun. It's a bit "light", but involving. The level design, and the way the levels build themselves, make for interesting exploration. However, it's the narrator who steals the show. He comments on varied and interesting things. Different dialogue is written for different weapon combinations, for instance, and there are several potential things he'll say when you start a level. There are many numerous things he comments on, but the best ones are when you die. I killed a Windbag at the same second it killed me. "The killed ended that Windbag, but it broke his spirit," said the Narrator. A prompt comes-up. Two lives left; press Escape to continue. Escape pressed. "Just not for long." The music gets a shout-out too, for combining different styles together so well. I bought the soundtrack and have been listening to it continually. Shameless plug: my friend did a cover of the song "Build that Wall" from the game, at my request. Do give it a listen. More important than anything, however, is that Bastion was my game of the year because Bastion was made with heart. That's more important than anything.:tup: Runners-up: Portal 2: Not as consistent as the original, nor as energetic or as creative, but still great. Some parts are so funny I had to pause the game; Costume Quest: A game made by people who wanted to make it. Pure joy, but a bit too formulaic to beat out Bastion. Potential games of the year I still haven't played: Dark Souls, The Witcher 2.

Smart-ass youngster doubles up with survivin' old man as they fight a supernatural threat in a world with the art direction of the Uncharted games. So it's Uncharted. They could do better than that.

I did! "Bug" was the wrong word to use: I posted that in the afterglow of a full day cramming. Sorry. I just think it's funny no-one at Bethesda thought they should account for this. In Morrowind, I was told I had no shame undressing in a tavern and talking to one of the people there. You'd kind of think a game with an 8 year advantage, tech-wise, would take that a bit further and at least have people wonder, out loud, where their clothes are.

I watch The Wire whenever I have an hour to spare, and How I Met Your Mother when I'm essentially dead with a half hour of consciousness left in me. The two inevitably got compared in my head. Then again, I compare everything with everything. It's probably a mistake, but I can't help it. This sounds great for my end-of-exams celebrations in two weeks. Thanks.

Bethesda's bugs are funny. Everybody get naked.

So, questions. Maybe I've turned cynical lately, or maybe it's because I'm 9 episodes into season three of The Wire and everything is shit by comparison, but: - Does anyone like How I Met Your Mother? I really try to enjoy it, but the main character is a prat. No, look; I don't mind prats. Ignatius J. Reilly is a prat doughnut, but I think A Confederacy of Dunces is the funniest novel I've ever read (this in addition to it being heavy on the literary stuffing). But Ted is a delusional fool on the quest to find "true love" (whatever his definition of that is), but it's prompted by his best friends getting engaged. He has the emotional maturity of an alcoholic teenager, and the show seems oblivious. The whole thing isn't very funny either, but maybe that's just me: I really can't get over puppy-eyed Ted. I don't mind flawed, broken characters; hell, that's how I like them. Vanilla's boring. But at least the show has to be aware of it. Does no-one else have this problem? Or is this something addressed later on? Because I made it through most of season one before becoming very exasperated with it. - Parks and Recreation: this didn't impress me too much when I saw it, but in its defense I was on a plane and very tired, and maybe I was a bit harsh by saying it was essentially a rip-off of The Office. (Mind you, that pissed me off more than is normal for a sane person, since it ripped off the American version, and not the British one. I don't want to sound like a pretentious, elitist dick here, but I think the American version did very little better than the BBC one. Why rip off something inferior?) Anyway, what do you guys think of it? I've been catching odd episodes on late night TV in between bouts of solving assignments, and it's really quite bipolar, in the same way Doctor Who is: sometimes I like it, other times I think it's poor. - Community: everyone loves it but me. Maybe I'm prejudiced towards stuff that tries to appeal to geeks, but I can never make it past 10 minutes into a single episode. My friends all say it gets better after the first episode, but I simply can't get into it. I'm going to take Idle Thumbs's word on this: continue the thing, or should I just look for laughs elsewhere? - The Big Bang Theory: the single most popular show in Jordan. This thing can die in a fire. I say this without shame. Unlike the other shows, there is nothing redeeming about this. Fuck The Big Bang Theory and its tired, . I actually find this kind of offensive, and as far as I know I'm very difficult to offend. I normally wouldn't hate something as woefully stupid as a TV show, but I sometimes think the world would be a better place without The Big Bang Theory.

I've been playing Uncharted 3 at four hour spurs with my friend on weekends. I really, really like it so far. . The Arabic in this game is the real thing, although (amusingly), the . However, the best moment so far was a man yelling the Arabic word "Sharmoot". You have no idea how much that made me and my friend laugh. "Sharmoota" is a word that works only for females, and it means "bitch", but in the most degrading way possible; by removing the "a", it applies to men, and it essentially means that the character called Drake a "bitch", but implied he was also fuckable. It's...one of those things that's way funnier for us. One thing I didn't like is . Anyway, we just finished-up the . Fucking loved it, too. Don't think we'll be playing for two weeks, though. Shame. I miss it already.

The art direction in this thing is stellar, you guys. I keep stopping to look at how beautiful the city is. I've only played 50 minutes, but I'm forcing myself to stop. I have way too many things to get done and this damn game will kill productivity. I'm disappointed you say it doesn't get harder, but as long as it makes me feel like I did when I was five and watching the animated series, I'll take it.