"Outside of the novel setting, the individual multiplayer games have nothing substantial to offer a person other than progression. This is pretty ordinary stuff.<br />
<br />
There are so many things to do in the actual game that you'd want to do with other people: you'd want to play horsehoes, or Poker, or Blackjack. Even those would be diversions, though. You'd want to drive cattle, or steal them; you want to cut a slice of that country out and see what you could make of it – or get yours riding rough over the smaller towns. As it stands, you're given desperately limited access to a sterile, stricken place without heart or memory." (RDR is great, no question of that, but I think Tycho's right about the missed opportunities of Free Roam. More on this in a proper blog post, coming soon).

"Now, the cordial racist shopkeeper and I have a relationship. Every five days I return to Armadillo; he warmly greets me, and I kill him. I've even found ways to avoid tedium. Sometimes a single shot to the head does the trick; other times I lasso and hogtie him before letting him have it. If I've had an especially bad day on the range, I let him tell me about the Jews before plugging him multiple times in the piehole, courtesy of my Dead Eye slo-mo skill. Occasionally I even shoot up the store. I guess you could say I'm a loyal customer." And still the myth of Rockstar's "open-world" is punctured by rendering players impotent against things they – rather than their character – have a problem with.

"Do you see this? It's the world's tiniest open-source violin." Yes.

Dan on Torchlight and Borderlands: "…they both tickle the same fetishistic urge to collect, developing bigger and better attacks to have much the same effect on bigger and better monsters as your last set of attacks had on the last set of monsters. Every single decent-sized beastie in each one drops loot when they die. Throw in a two-car carport and this is a precise map of adult life, except fun." I really need to do my goty.cx write-up quite soon.

"Use [ffffl*ckr] to find the photography you like using the simple idea that people whose work you like, probably like stuff you'll like. You start with a set of pictures – if you authenticate, it'll use 20 of your last 100 favorites – otherwise it'll start with somebody's favorites. Click any picture to load more. Don't like what that person likes? Scroll back and click a different picture you like. It's that simple."

Fascinating: GPS satellites are both high enough, and travelling fast enough, that you need to correct for relativistic effects in order for them to be effective.

"To whomever it may concern, In response to the unfortunate circumstances, some wives of Rockstar San Diego employees have collected themselves to assert their concerns and announce a necessary rejoinder, in the form of an immediate action to ameliorate conditions of employees." Jesus. Once again: the games industry treats its staff appallingly. As the first commenter says: "It's a video game people. Find a way to make one without imposing unethical, illegal, and debilitating working conditions."

"One of the world's finest compact fountain pens, the excellent Tasche measures just 98mm closed, but opened up becomes a full-size pen at 145mm long. The secret is the extra-long cap, which almost entirely swallows the rest of the pen when closed, but posts firmly onto the top of the pen to create the full length." Possibly another distraction before I succumb to buying a Vanishing Point