Friday, January 02, 2004  

It's 2004, so a proper Happy New Year to all. My New Year's Eve wasn't bad. Most of it was work, followed by a frantic race home in time for midnight to the vague tune of 24 (bleep-BLOOP, bleep-BLOOP, bleep-BLOOP). I did actually make it back by 11:48, saw two of my sisters and my grandfather home, wished them all a happy new year, and then sat down to play lots of Pac-Man VS and Mario Kart. Nothing special, but it was fun, and judging by reports from my friends of a bad night all around it seemed the right choice. Honestly, it seems as if 90% of people out there only go out on New Year's Eve because they feel obligated to. There's probably only something like ten people in Hong Kong who honestly think New Year's is going to be a blast and hype everyone else up... so all we have to do is find these ten people, stop them, and we'll end the curse of the overrated holiday forever. Forever!

Pac-Man VS is a lot of fun. It's a multiplayer take on Pac-Man for GameCube for four players (you also have to connect a Game Boy Advance to the GameCube). One player takes the GBA and plays Pac-Man apparently as normal. Eat the dots, avoid the ghosts and rack up a high score -- standard stuff. The twist is that the other three players control the ghosts, and the ghosts can't see the whole maze. The ghosts use the TV and each have only a small section of the maze available, and thus have to work together to hunt Pac-Man down (the player controlling Pac-Man can see the entire maze on the Game Boy screen). Whoever catches Pac-Man becomes Pac-Man in the next round. Simple, and fun.

I'm suffering from a serious bout of 24 Withdrawal Syndrome, but it will end soon. 24 begins again on Tuesday January 6th. Ooh. Ahh.

Posted at 9:44 PM

---