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.