[nir] up until dark crusade, dawn of war's second expansion, the single player aspect of the previous game and expansion has been interesting, if exceedingly frustrating (in the latter) and limited (in both the former and latter). multi-players have been enjoying the full dawn of war experience since the beginning, but single-players like myself have pretty much only experienced two of the factions properly, and one or two more only briefly. come dark crusade, and relic has packaged absolutely everything it's done and much more, and opened it all up. instead of a storied campaign, which up until now has felt like a weak excuse to present new missions anyway, dark crusade turned it all into a sort of elaborate board game. choose to play one of seven factions, and get to battle all other six over a plethora of territories, each its own map. go to full-scale war when you attack a territory, go to full-scale war when you defend a territory. the location and race combinations are near limitless. attacking the home base of an enemy or trying to win one of several special-ability artifacts also results in extremely specialized missions which have you do much more than just wipe out the enemy. once you've won the game, which should take you a good twenty to thirty hours, feel free to do it all over again with a different faction. of the seven factions some are a little samey (specificially the standard military factions), but many play vastly differently such as the eldar (warhammer's version of space elves?) or the robotic and ghoulish necrons which seek to wipe out all life. dark crusade scratches the deep itch induced by the installments before it, and implausibly makes all the preceding frustration totally worth it.

[nir] console gaming? what's that? telltale adventures and dragon age being the only games i've played on the PC in the last few years, valve's steam, which last time i looked at it just about let me register my retail copy of half-life 2, has since become an unbelievably great way to catch up with years of missed PC gaming since I took to the wiis and xboxes of the world. and boy, has it been a homecoming. a $50 deal on the complete THQ pack including nineteen games from the last few years ignited weeks of adrenaline-fueled real time strategy, as only a PC is capable of, in the form of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and its three expansions. I haven't even gotten to the Company of Heroes series, a world war II themed RTS, all of the installments of which were added to my steam library as part of the package. and Red Faction: Guerrilla was fun on the XBox 360, but it's a much snappier and more responsive experience on the PC. a few more strategic bargain purchases later i've ended up with over 30 games i have every intention (but perhaps not enough time in this life) to try. it wasn't at all expensive either, and this is really the great thing about steam. as long as you're willing to hold off on the absolute latest, you can enjoy the kind of gaming experience one would likely fall short of being able to dream of with what feels like an amorally inexpensive and broad selection on the most hard core of platforms. sure, you can't easily share your games with someone else, but as long as you have your steam log in you're guaranteed to be able to download and re-download everything you've ever purchased till kingdom come. and if you don't feel like updating your gaming rig, or even have a "gaming rig", then the past is your friend, my friend.

[nir] Tower Defense games being a pure tactical exercise aren't known for their arcade aspect. PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe manages just that however while bringing the level of depth and strategy involved to absurd new heights for a Tower Defense game. The arcade aspect is manifest through the fact that you don't just click spots on a map to build and upgrade towers, but actually control a character which runs around, turns trees into towers and lingers to slowly upgrade them, and collects coins and upgrade gems left behind by streams of vanquished monsters. Preventing all twenty of your... offspring perhaps? presents a fair challenge as each one of the dozens to hundreds of the monsters who slips by your defenses takes with it one of the twenty, but to save all of them you would need an excruciating knowledge of the various tower types and power levels, their relationship to each type of monster, the layout of the level and the path each wave of monsters takes. Better be quick about it too, as there is precious room for error at virtually all times. New and weird enemy types are thrown at you toward the end of the first island, and only become weirder as you progress to the second and third islands. Over forty wildly varying levels will keep you busy for hundreds of hours if you seek to perform perfectly in each one, which makes it ideal on the PSP for long bathroom sessions or the like. PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe is one of those rare delights which packs immense entertainment value into a very small and approachable package. Tough as nails, but extremely rewarding.

[nir] santa possessed by a corporate demon? moai heads need saving from an erupting volcano? a gay eurotrash vampire is creating an army of the dancing undead? time travel? spacefaring mariachis? it's all there in sam & max season two, one of the best things to happen to games in years. telltale are bringing back the adventure game with a vengeance, masterfully synthesizing and amplifying the very best that the genre had to offer not just as an example of how much more gaming could be, but also as a reminder of how much more it used to be.

[apopheniac] I bought this primarily because parts of it were filmed at Voewood - a rather attractive country house in the village where my parents live. It turned out to be one of the nicest, most heart-warming films I've seen in a long time. It's based on a 1936 novel written by Edward Plunkett, the 18th Baron of Dunsany, called "My Conversations with Dean Spanley." The person conducting the conversations is one Henslowe Fisk (Jeremy Northam) who is struggling to maintain a relationship with his elderly father (Peter O'Toole) as a result of the father's refusal to mourn the death of his other son, Henslowe's brother Harrington who was killed in the Boer War. Whether by coincidence or design, Fisk Junior encounters Dean Spanley (Sam Neill) three times during the course of one day and, intrigued by the Dean's interests and behaviour, persuades him to come to dinner. Acquiring the necessary beverage to ensure the Dean's attendance draws in local middleman and Mr Fixit, Wrather (Bryan Brown). Soon, both Wrather and Fisk Senior are also listening to Dean Spanley's rather unusual reminiscences... To say any more would give away too much of the plot - this is the sort of film it's worth seeing without even watching the trailer. It's a gentle, beautiful looking Edwardian period piece that makes the most of East Anglia's towns (and occasional chunks of New Zealand countryside!) and a stellar cast on top form.