Georgia

After a long life of eating, napping, companionship, and plotting to overthrow humanity and rule the world, Georgia has left this world.

Georgia was adopted by my aunt, who learned that she was allergic to cats and invited me to adopt her.  I brought her back to my puny 1-bedroom apartment in Denton, TX, and our lives have been joined since.  She was the perfect lap-cat, whether I was reading, playing video games, or just watching TV.  I think she was also very empathetic; able to sense when I needed comfort.

I will miss her greatly, but I also understood when I left for Colorado that I might be saying goodbye to her for the last time.

After the jump I've included a couple pictures and stories of our time together.

Machinarium

Some games don't need a lot of explanation for me to tell you why they are so good.  This is one of them.  Machinarium is an adventure game where you play a little robot in a world of robots.  Each puzzle is just enough shades of difficult to make solving it feel good.  It's available for the iPad 2 and on Steam.

Zeldas

I've recently been playing and enjoying Skyward Sword, the latest entrant in the Legend of Zelda franchise. And while the gameplay and story and all deserves its own writeup, this review looks at the titular sometimes heroine/sometimes captive that is Zelda.  This look back is spurred by one very noticeable distinction of the newest Zelda.

BANGS.

BANGS.  BANGS.  BANGS.

It isn't as though she is ugly per se - in fact, the half-Twilight Princess/half-Wind Waker blend of realism and cell shading really comes off nicely.  But it's hard to take her seriously with the yellow bangs threatening to suddenly transpose this kindly spirit maiden into a hanger-on for an 80s rock band called The Gorons, singing along to their one-hit-wonder power ballad: You Hookshot My Heart.

Zombie Takeover

Sure, we've all got time to kill - but are killing enough time for the undead?

Zombie Takeover is one of those resource management, time-based games in the same vein as FarmVille; you allocate coins and gems to make certain enhancements (which in turn make you more coins), but everything takes a preset amount of time.

The game contains some RPG elements, where you buff up your zombie army (and later vampire army, and werewolf armies) and then battle pesky nearby humans.

Graphics are in the range of the undeniably cute, which is a great fit for the device.  Give this game a shot (it's free, after all)!

Temple Run

Temple Run is a free, iOS game available for iPhone or iPad.  You play an unnamed adventurer on the run from guardian monkeys who are chasing you for stealing their prized gold idol.

There is no substantial objective to the game, but to run - through the temple - Temple Run thusly being a fitting title to the game.

The game has upgrades you can purchase by collecting coins during your runs through the temple, most of which enhance your ability to run further and collect more coins.

While the game itself certainly has the potential to become repetitive, it is surprisingly addictive to try to make it further and further.

If you've got an iDevice, and want some fun, no nonsense gameplay, check out Temple Run.

Economists

Holy Steam!

Steam is doing a big Holiday thing - and there's still a few days left to gather coal for the grand prize giveaway. What's at stake?  Only every game available on Steam (a quick search tells me that this would be 1,488 games).

I want to win it, but it's a potentially terrifying proposition.

Game of Thrones (Television)

Having finished the semester (and the titular text Game of Thrones), we decided the time was ripe to marathon through Game of Thrones' HBO treatment.

The show stayed incredibly true to the text, including the dreadfully slow beginning.  The scenery, at direction, casting, dialogue, and acting were all wonderful.  Sean Bean was an excellent Eddard Stark; and, despite the fact that I didn't care for her at first, Michelle Fairley perfomed well as Catelyn Stark.

A real delight in casting was actually Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who portrayed a much more vibrant Jamie Lannister than I had pictured in the books.  His hair and make-up gave him that perfect "Prince Charming" look (which was deliciously deceptive).  Lena Headey was an excellent Cersei Lannister, as well. 

The actors who portrayed Joffrey and Viserys were well chosen and excellently scripted.  We hated them. 

And while he was no Varric, Peter Dinklage brought Tyrion Lannister to life excellently - conveying the right balance of womanizer, intellectual, drunkard, and noble.  And because Tyrion is my favorite, I hope to see a lot more of his character to come.

Flash Game Friday: Rocket Santa

Rocket Santa is the best holiday-themed launch game I've played this Christmas season.  It's a vertical launch game where you must help Santa to deliver presents to the moon.

Like all launch games, there are upgrades that make it easier and easier to accomplish your goals, culminating in a fun ending.

Merry Christmas!

(P.S. Rocket Santa would encourage you to visit my Amazon.com gift list.)

Fallout: New Vegas - Old World Blues Wins DLC of the Year

This really shouldn't come as any surprise, but Fallout: New Vegas' DLC Old World Blues has been named by www.insidegamingdaily.com as DLC of the Year.  I've blogged about this DLC twice now.

The lack of the surprise should come by the fact that even though the game didn't offer tremendously different goals, gameplay, or graphics, it more than delivered on story, dialogue, writing, and voice-acting.  The B-movie backdrop allowed some great over-the-top moments that would be impossible to synthesize in almost any other environment.

Bethesda has a lot to be proud of, and has certainly won this award.  Well done, you!