Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

Teenagers are so hard to shop for. Not sure what to get for that thumb-twitching, over-caffeinated gamer in your life? Commonsense Media has helpfully compiled a list of the top ten games to avoid (because of " excessive violence , negative role models, extreme gore, sociopathic behavior") this holiday shopping season. Of course, these are exactly the games your little sociopath is asking for, assuming he/she hasn't already bit-torrented them. Now you know what to ask for at GameStop. The list: Assassin's Creed II Borderlands Brutal Legend Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Dead Space: Extraction Dragon Age: Origins Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony Demon's Souls Left 4 Dead 2 Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Remember, nothing says love like automatic weapons fire. Merry Christmas!

LucasArts has announced the Tales of Monkey Island for PC and Wii later this summer - a new game in the Monkey Island series. As if that weren't enough they'll be releasing The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition , with new high-res graphics (and the option to play old-school, with the original not-so-high-res graphics). My God, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. These games were household favorites with my kids and were great fun: well-written and challenging enough to be fun without being frustrating. Youngest son was (and is) a particularly big fan, as well as a fan of other LucasArts games in this series: Sam & Max (also back, in a new format). As an aside, check out ScummVM - an open source application that lets you play a number of LucasArts games (and other games using the "Scumm" game engine) on Linux, Windows and other platforms using the original game data. This is a lot easier than trying to get a DOS game to run.