Sorry for the delay...

...I wanted to finish Half-Life 2: Episode One before posting this.

So let's get that much out of the way: I was able to pick-up Episode One a few days after my last post, and I just finished it about 15 minutes ago; it's a short game, but a fulfilling one. I spent somewhere in the neighbourhood of two weeks of very casual play on this game, and even though the final scene came about sooner than expected, the road leading to it was engaging to say the least. It was standard Valve fare, so there's really not much more to say. If you enjoyed the first two Half-Life games with their clever puzzles, creative enemies, and epic storyline, then you'll enjoy this. Really though, for $20, you know you're gonna try it anyway. Also, the trailer for Episode Two looks very promising... And green.

So what else is new... Ooh! I've come across the laptop to end all laptops, and by all laptops, I mean all of my laptops. I found me an IBM ThinkPad X22 in pristine condition, complete with a docking station. Highlights include an 800MHz Pentium IIIm CPU, 640MB of PC133 RAM, an ATi Mobility Radeon, a 30GB HDD, integrated 802.11b, and a DVD-ROM and a floppy drive in the docking station. So it's an upgrade from the Toshiba Portege 3480CT I was using, but here're the best parts: It weighs well-under 4lbs, has a 12.1" screen, and is no more than one inch thick! Also, I've installed Ubuntu 6.06 on it without issue (wireless and power management work great), and on top of all that, it's got the fantastic IBM laptop keyboard! Who's a happy boy? That's right, I am :)

Anyway, back to games. I kinda took a break from every other game I've been playing lately to finally get around to finishing Golden Sun: The Lost Age for Game Boy Advance. Still a lot of fun, if kinda easy to get lost (especially if you haven't touched the game for many months and can't remember what you were supposed to do next), and very easy to overpower most enemies. Oh, and the dialogue... *snore*. Still, as I was saying, a lot of fun to play. It's a relatively simple, yet satisfying, RPG. I'm almost done, with just a goal or two left to achieve before I can finally get into Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. I've heard good things, and I'm getting excited.

Finally, the Japan-only release of the "SEGA Ages" remake of Panzer Dragoon for PS2 has come and gone. This news inspired me to dig out my old PC port of the game and see if it was still compatible with Windows XP... And compatible it was! There was something inexplicably entertaining about playing an old SEGA Saturn game in high resolution on a 3.6GHz CPU with an XBOX 360 controller.