Monday, January 26, 2004

You may think I’ve been ignoring you, gentle reader, but the truth of the matter is that I have been ignoring you. I’m not sure why it’s so hard to stick to Highway Updated–the standard procedure is to update, to update half-heartedly, and then to stop for a good long while, effectively swerving off the Highway into a morass of neglect.

Fortunately for me, it’s a proven fact that everyone loves neglect. I originally wanted to reminisce about things that never actually happened, but I think your time would be better spent on something else. Paycheck time is fast approaching, so here are a few things that might help you fill your Poor01k.

Gabriel Márquez won the Nobel Prize in the 1980’s for his fiction. I’d like to quote a snippet from One Hundred Years of Solitude that proves why this book is so important. “It was around that time that Fernanda got the impression that the house was filling up with elves. It was as if things, especially those for everyday use, had developed a faculty for changing location on their own.” That’s from page 388 of the Perennial Classics edition. I bet Gabe wishes those italics were his. And I wish I had a Nobel Prize.

There’s something inexplicably charming and polished about Solitude, and I definitely had the same fuzzy feeling after finishing Beyond Good & Evil. There are a few trite moments, to be sure, but the yarn was spun well enough, the controls felt just right, the music fit the game, and it looked real purty as well. Unfortunately, this game garnered the dubious honor of being one of the fastest price drops in geek history. $49.99 to $19.99 in six weeks flat, or so I’ve heard, and to prevent the developers from going $19.99 to screwed I suggest you pick up a copy right now. Heck, pick up three copies for the fam.

If you’re feeling really dorky, you might want to check out Tron 2.0. This is another underappreciated title that clocks in at $19.99. You can also pick up the strategy guide for a mere penny at your local Best Buy, so the game and the guide will cost you what? Two weeks’ salary? I’m playing through the game for a second time now, partly because it’s fun and partly because it runs so smoothly on my crappy computer. My old hag is barely chugging along now, and I occasionally have to stick pieces of gum through the vents to make the thing run. If I want “mad” performance, all I have to do is insert a piece of beef in the DVD-ROM drive. Hurrah!