Just playing single-player at home, now. You can work out what that means for yourself.

I've embraced Red Dead Redemption and am enjoying both the single-player story and online multiplayer with friends. I've also moved on to some newer games - newer for me - including Assassin's Creed II (it is, as people say, better than the original), Fallout: New Vegas (currently on hiatus, but I'll get back to it) and XBLA games like both Deathspanks and Microbot. I've not touched Beatles Rock Band for a while, for emotional reasons, but I definitely want Rock Band 3 and a keyboard controller, having had a go at a friend's place. I've also been playing some PS3 games, since I have one on loan; I bought Little Big Planet, but its strangely not very satisfying playing it single player. Heavenly Sword is great fun, and that reminds me: I'm also enjoying Enslaved: Odyssey to the West on the 360.

Also, Spelunky. Lots of Spelunky. I don't normally play PC games, as my laptop can't handle much, but Spelunky is building to a minor obsession. I can't wait for the XBLA version.

Well, not really. Less time than ever for gaming, sadly! I'm up to the final battle of Dragon Age: Origins; that's taken eight months. I've gotten into DLC and XBLA games, too. Bioshock 2 still sits in the pile of shame, as does Lego Indy 2 and Lego Harry Potter 1, though I'm playing through the latter co-op with my beloved. My beloved, by the way, finished Dragon Age waaaaay before I did. Awakenings, too. Hopefully she'll enjoy the new DLC I got for her!

Looking forward to the Scott Pilgrim game, and Arkham Asylum 2 - might get the Game of the Year edition of the first one so I have my own copy. All of this will look better when I buy a new TV, which is on the agenda for the next few months.

It's been a busy and stress-filled few weeks, with the Melbourne Fringe Festival and preparations for the fifth outing of my monthly sketch comedy group, the Anarchist Guild Social Committee, and so the distraction of games has been welcome. Perhaps influenced by that, Castle Crashers has been one of the best little game experiences of my life. Full of colour and fun and humour and stuff to keep you coming back... I was a little sad when I finally finished it a week or so ago, but that final boss battle is one of the best I've had in a game.

My girlfriend and I also finished it together yesterday, and that was also a wonderfully satisfying experience. She likes playing it because we get to go on an adventure together, and it certainly does feel that way - no doubt we'll want to go back and try the "insane" difficulty mode.

If nothing else, I still have about six animal orbs to collect and there are also plenty of gaps in my weapon rack, too... I'm quite proud of the fact that I have found them all on my own, except for the boomerang which I spoiled for myself while seeking boss battle tips on GameFAQs. But now I seem to have exhausted all the secret hiding places I suppose it's time to seek help in completing the collection...

I'm a bit of an old-school gamer. Not Asteroids/Pac-Man old-school, but Monkey Island and Star Control 2 old-school. I haven't forgotten those and new games get measured up against them. That's one of the reasons Castle Crashers took me by surprise; it's such a well-executed fusion of old and new, and it's shot straight into my favourite games list.

I took a friend's advice about Mass Effect and lowered the difficulty during the boss battle I was having trouble completing, though this is something I always try to avoid. I nearly made it on the first attempt, but then failed quickly every subsequent time - only to discover that the difficulty setting was stored in the save game and had to be reset each time I loaded up. I finally completed the fight and now I'm on some minor side mission on the Moon, trying to outwit some rogue military virtual intelligence.I'm struggling to care...maybe things will improve when I complete the next major story mission, assuming I can tear myself away from Castle Crashers for a while.

I found a second hand copy of Eternal Sonata for a song (ha!) and picked it up, and so far it is the most ridiculously cutesy game I've ever played. Polka, the initial character, has a dress as her equipped armour and attacks using a "cute umbrella". It's sort of fun; I wonder if my beloved, who is a musician by trade and loves classical music (by whch I mean orchestral music, not just the actual classical period), will be able to stand the cuteness to enjoy the Chopin-inspired storyline.

Not playing much else at the moment, though at some point I'll try and finish Braid - only 10 puzzle pieces to go! I find it harder to get a decent block of time to play in, though, so I tend to stick to Castle Crashers for it's easy pick-up-and-play style.

Currently at the top of the wish list: Lego Indy, Lego Batman and The Force Unleashed.

If only I'd held out for a few more months, I could have bought a black/crimson DS! Or a blue/black DS...I'm not sure which I prefer. But now I have a light blue one, and it's awesome.

In other new, the peurile Penny Arcade sense of humour completely failed to ruin Ron Gilbert's touch on Penny Arcade Adventures 1, which I am enjoying quite a lot. Certainly more than the annoyingly full of sci-fi cliches talk-fest that is Mass Effect. The latter is also one of those games - Oblivion was another - where there's one huge, end-of-the-world quest, but all these side quests which rather require extreme suspension of disbelief to take. I mean, come on - when all organic life in the galaxy is threatened with extinction at the hands of ancient cybernetic beings, and it's your job to save it, would you really take time out for unrelated geology? Yet many of the side quests involve just that - surveying planets to find items of archaeological and mineral interest, and minor quests to track down raiders and space pirates - none of whom threaten the whole galaxy.

All this, plus the fact that the first major on-task mission I selected seems way too hard from my party at this stage, has lead to me taking a break from the game. To play what? Well, The Orange Box and the fore-mentioned Penny Arcade Adventures 1, mostly. Portal was as good as everyone said; Half-Life 2 is beautiful but, never having finished the first one, the storyline has yet to engage me as much as the world. I'm having fun, though.

It makes me both happy and sad to report that it seems Nintendo have had a gangbuster holiday season with sales of the Nitendo DS Lite. Happy, because I really like their stuff and I fully admit to feeling a bit of brand loyalty, so it's nice to know they're doing well. But sad, because my Mum wanted to buy me one but couldn't find one for love nor money.

That was on the Gold Coast, but here in Melbourne, it's the same. One of the JB Hi-Fi stores in the CBD had a few left, but only in pink, so I passed. Ideally I'd like one in Enamel Navy, but that seems to have been released only in Japan and China, so I guess I'm out of luck there. Ice Blue would do, but really I just didn't want a pink one.

There's no telling when the DS drought will end; the guy in EB advised me to find the place with the cheapest price (JB so far, at $188, if you're wondering) and pre-order. Maybe I will. On the other hand, it's only $11 cheaper than everywhere else, and the local K-Mart said they might get some more in tomorrow...

But it's not just the console: nowhere seems to have Puzzle Quest either, and that's the game I really want at the moment. I might get Zelda as my first game instead, though the wish list also contains Pokémon Diamond, all the Brain Training games, and the soon to be released Final Fantasy titles, Revenant Wings and Tactics A2. The Advance Wars DS game looks good too, and I think there might be a Fire Emblem game for it as well...

In short, I'm all ready to own a new portable console. Here's hoping I can find one!

I only own one console, a dusty GameCube which has gone unused for some time now, though I did have a GBA SP until it was nicked back in April 2007. But I now live with a friend who has both a PS2 (similarly dusty) and a 360, and after trying out Obliivion (nice RPG setup, but the story and very generic-feeling fantasy world failed to grab me) I decided to hire out Lego Star Wars II.

I got hooked pretty badly. That game is a hell of a lot of fun, and I decided that I'd buy the 360 edition of Complete Saga when it was released. My housemate very obligingly bought a second controller (we've since enjoyed some co-op matches of FIFA 2007) and, once I found it for a reasonable discount, I snapped up a copy. I played through all of Episode I with my girlfriend and completed the prequels on my own (quick and dirty story mode only) over the course of a week or two.

Then, during my fifth or so attempt to finish the Lego City level (when I'd finally caved in and looked up what I needed to do to get the final few thousand studs), the Red Ring of Death cast its baleful eye upon me and my fun died. Housemate hasn't had the time to organise a replacement yet, though no doubt he'll find the time in the new year since his FIFA senses must be tingling.

After all that, the important thing is that I remembered the dusty PS2 and brought it out into the light. I haven't gamed much this year, I've been too busy, and the holiday season was definitely a chance to relax and have some fun. I kicked off with Jax and Daxter (the first one), a game I'd never played before, and it's an awful lot of fun. Still playing it, but after reading about the GTA-like style and atmosphere of the sequels I'm intrigued and might pick them up. I also received Final Fantasy XII as an impromptu Christmas present, and it's very, very pretty. The combat system is great, and the story political and interesting, a contrast to X's heavily spiritual mythic storyline.

So that's where I'm at: enjoying some older games and newer ones for an older console. And loving it. If I had the money, I'd buy Guitar Hero and hardly ever leave the loungeroom on my evenings off.

Okay, so on SBS here we get the Global Edition of the Daily Show, which appears to be the normal Daily Show only with special bits tacked on the beginning and end of John Stewart addressing the global audience. But is that it? Why bother? He doesn't talk about world news any more than in the rest of the show, and only the initial chat to camera seems to have a studio audience. Is that really the only difference? Or is the show edited together for us from bits of the full Daily Show in the US? Inquiring minds, as they say, want to know...