10. Churchill, 9. Chamberlain, 8. DoW, 7. More DoW, 6. National Review on GTA IV, 5. OTRSPOD, 4. Iron Man, 3. Indy, 2. Bioshock, 1. ???

10. Reading Old Copies of Old History Books
10. I just finished Book One ("From War to War, 1919-1939") of The Gathering Storm, that Churchill book I mentioned previously. The book chronicles most of the mistakes after the first that helped cause the second, and ends the night before the Germans invaded Poland, starting World War II. Churchill is not yet part of the government, so takes his defense as his own responsibility ...

There were known to be twenty thousand organised German Nazis in England at this time, and it would only have been in accord with their procedure in other friendly countries that the outbreak of war should be preceded by a sharp prelude of sabotage and murder. I had at that time no official protection, and I did not wish to ask for any; but I thought myself sufficiently prominent to take precautions. I had enough information to convince me that Hitler recognised me as a foe. My former Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Thompson, was in retirement. I told him to come along and bring his pistol with him. I got out my own weapons, which were good. While one slept, the other watched. Thus nobody would have a walkover. In these hours I knew that if war came -- and who could doubt its coming? -- a major burden would fall upon me.

The next book starts on the first day of the war.

9. One more thing from the book

Neville Chamberlain often gets a bad rap, even among gamers. He deserves a certain amount of blame but I love this letter he wrote to Hitler shortly before the fighting began ...

It has been alleged that if His Majesty's Government had made their position more clear in 1914, the great catastrophe would have been avoided. Whether or not there is any force in that allegation, His Majesty's Government are resolved that on this occasion there shall be no tragic misunderstanding ... I'm sure you'll all want to read the whole thing

8. Dawn of War

I have fully fumigated and fustigated furiously for four fortnights but I cannot find a game to interest me. Well, OTRSPOD (MORE LATER) interested me for a few days. So it's back to the old faithful -- Dawn of War. Doing the Dark Crusade campaign again, only as Space Marines instead of Imperial Guard. I'm really bad at Space Marines and much better (still awful) as IG. So evidently IG are severely underpowered because I'm blowing through the campaign as SM on hard (not that hard).

You'd think that a game with nine races would be impossible to balance, and evidently you'd be correct.

7. Just when it appeared I had forgotten, More Dawn Of War

This is very, very old. But I had never seen it before. A nice little article on Gamasutra about Dawn of War and why it's not a great competitive game. Who responds but the lead developer on Dawn of War who, surprisingly, concurs :

The design philosophy of Dawn of War was aimed at making a more casual, more fun, less eSports RTS. I personally thought it was foolish to try and outdo Starcraft, because even if you make a better Starcraft, who cares because Starcraft is awesome and no substitute will do! I had no illusions that we could take away Blizzard's audience, I wanted us to find our own audience.

Pretty interesting. And smart. The Whole Article And Comment (Look for Jay Wilson's comment)

6. National Review on GTA IV

I like National Review (a American conservative bi-monthly) but they typically write very little (absolutely nothing) about games. So I was pleased to see a bit about GTA IV in the last issue :

... It is true that we'd rather see young people immersing themselves in the music of Bach or the drama of Shakespeare than in the shenanigans of Niko Bellic, but we are also reminded of noir novelist Mickey Spillane's response to critics who called his work garbage: "But it's good garbage."

LexisNexis Saves Me From Typing The Whole Thing

5. OTRSPOD, or Penny Arcade Adventures : On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

Good gameplay. Very funny. Fantastic writing from Mr. Holkins. I'm in much less interested in Art than Writing but I found the art quite fascinating as well.

More Please.

4. Iron Man

What is it about Comic Book Movies, that they can just crank great ones out like that? Iron Man just seems lame -- how can the movie be so good?

And when will they start making video games this good? And doesn't it just hurt, that after a hundred bad video-game based movies, that the one movie based on a board game (Clue) and the one movie based on an amusement park ride (Pirates of The Caribbean) are better than all video-game movies put together?

I guess the acting must help, or at least it can't hurt. Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, and Jeff Bridges were in the movie. Jon Favreau directed -- no heavyweight, but Elf is a favorite of mine.

Of course, Mario Brothers had Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, and Katherine Hepburn as a Goomba (uncredited), and that didn't help.

More Please.

3. Indy

This is really long, so let's just agree that a hundred blogs the size of this one could not do the horror of this movie justice.

2. Bioshock

Was stoked about it, bought it, played through the first act, saved the Little Sisters (I'm such a sucker for being the Good Guy in games), then I kind of quit. It's great in every way except lacking that drug-like goodness that makes me finish games.

1. Juno and Spiderman

I watched Juno with the wife tonight. Cool movie. Bizarre but fun music. J.K. Simmons was Juno's dad -- he's also in one of the Law and Orders (shrink) and is Peter Parker's slimy but funny editor in the Spiderman movies.

Probably my favorite part in all the Spiderman movies is in the first when Green Goblin breaks into his office and threatens to kill the editor if he doesn't reveal the location of Spidey's "Pal" Peter Parker. Peter is right there, but even his totally slimy, completely amoral boss risks his life and says he has no idea who Parker is. I just love that the most morally bankrupt person in the movie (outside of the villains) is still truly heroic when push comes to shove.

If you read this far you deserve a prize. I can't believe I didn't get to The Venture Brothers.