Okay, I admit it,....

I caved. I surrendered to the Dark Side. I can no longer sneer at console owners. I am one.

I've bought an Xbox 360.

But there was a reason (not temporary insanity): too many good games either out already, or coming out soon, that are console only: GTA IV (and yes, I know there's a PC version coming in the next few months -- I didn't know that when I ordered the Xbox), Force Unleashed, Fable II, and Fracture, just to name a few.

And I really like being able to go into EB Games, and look at two walls of the shop :-P

Do I think PC gaming is dying? No. The PC is too versatile, and my experience with Perfect Dark Zero leads me to the conclusion that first-person shooters are still better on a PC (mouse and WASD beats analog joysticks). And games like Spore and "proper" flight sims are still PC-only.

4th Edition

Had a chance to play with Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition today. I admit, I was a little apprehensive -- I've been playing D&D since 1st edition (the original AD&D) -- and while I'd liked the changes made for 3rd Ed, 4th Ed looked "too different".

Still, open-mind and all that: got together with a couple of friends, and ran through the adventure in the back of the DMG. Constant referrals to the rulebooks followed through three combat encounters, but that was to be expected. And we thoroughly enjoyed it. There seems to be more emphasis on teamwork now, with powers that smash enemies and heal allies (the paladin's divine judgement was well appreciated).

And it's tougher! Our party of six 1st-level characters (as this was testing the rules, we each had two characters and shared the DMing load -- not something we'd ever think of do if we were playing "for real", as it were) had real trouble with kobolds. Kobolds!

Only gripe really, was that it was sometimes tricky to find where in the rulebook a particular rule was: the index, particularly in the PHB needs overhauling.