Picross 3D is the Game of 2010.

Forget cinematic stories that lead you down a 60 hour path of glory.  This New Year, pick up a copy of a simple game that will give you the perfect pick-up-and-play experience for twice that amount of time - with no distracting emotional investment!

That’s right: never again be ashamed to tell your friends that someone’s death in Final Fantasy VII made you cry; there ain’t no death here!  It’s just miles of logical puzzle solving goodness as far as the eyes can see.

Buy it.

Oh, what else was good?  Uh….  Mass Effect 2.   Heavy Rain…..   Halo: Reach Multiplayer.   ( Probably Vanquish once I get a chance to play it…. )

Anyone who says that RED DEAD REDEMPTION is their game of the year did not finish said title.

I played through the thing, and like it’s cocky cousin, GRAND THEFT AUTO IV, it’s a flashy gasbag.

No offence to the well-intentioned folks over at Rockstar Games; their world-building technology is second-to-none.  Their stories, however, are seemingly running ten hours too long.  The basic missions of RED DEAD are repeated so often that once halfway through, I felt numb to any of the crawling narrative to really care.  While the end is satisfyingly different, the game’s length after the supposed climax is way longer than is warranted after wanting to see credits so long before they came.

Further, the West was wild, yes - but not this wild.  It would have been a monumental struggle to really challenge their current open world design and design a tighter, more nuanced game.  Instead, they went the “Hell-on-Wheels” direction with the action.  Instead of involving players in every bullet’s consequences, the waves of baddies just keep coming.  Nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s a far cry from the True West experience the PR department would have us believe.

My John Marston murdered nearly 200 men.  The outlaw jesse James killed around 20.

Get off the horse, Marsten and take a jog.

“Dude.  Dude.  Hey,” say the dead.  “What are you doing?”

— You got it good, kids ( ! )…

LOANER HEARTS
From personals posted in January to online classified sites in China. Chinese New Year was celebrated on February 14. Translated from the Chinese by Spencer Woodman.

I’m looking for a temporary boyfriend who is kind, honest, and can show the fullest under-standing of the diffi culties of being a woman. The leasing period will be through the Lunar New Year holidays. When we go our separate ways, you must never speak of this to others. Each day’s pay will be $15; the wage is not much, but please show some understanding. I guarantee my parents will cook meals containing meat.

My parents and relatives nag me to no end to bring home a girlfriend for the New Year. They have warned me that next time I come home, I absolutely must bring back a girlfriend or every member of my family will lose his dignity in front of the community.

Ah! New Year’s has come again, and I still have not bothered to find a boyfriend. Every year I come home single and suffer attacks from my siblings. I have been driven beyond the limits of my patience, and I have promised my family results this year. I want to go home again to celebrate the New Year and eat my parents’ delicious homemade chicken. Just thinking of all their succulent cooking, I feel my mouth watering. It seems I must rent a boyfriend. If you join me, it will be like a sightseeing trip to an interesting, bucolic family, with plenty of good food and drink. You will get to see the beautiful scenery of lakes and mountains and experience the social customs of a new place—all this and I will pay you! You must be about 135 pounds and under fi ve and a half feet tall. You must wear exquisite glasses, have a high-bridged nose, profound eyes, and a slightly melancholy demeanor.

I am a young woman (but on the older side), who has been told by her parents that she must bring home a boyfriend for the New Year. If you are an expert in proper banter, if your appearance does not make people lose their appetites, if you do not have to go home this New Year to display fi lial piety, if you are clever, honest, and pure of mind, if your workand school experience is beyond commonplace, and if you’re single, then please act as my temporary boyfriend and come home with me for the New Year. You should not be too old or too young. Your pay will depend on your performance.

Allow me to introduce myself: I am no longer young. I have squandered my education and life skills and have amounted to nothing. I don’t have a car, a house, or even a boat ticket. I have not returned home in two years, since I broke up with my girlfriend. In order not to disappoint my parents, I’d like to rent a girlfriend to bring home for the New Year. Girl must be twenty-seven or older, between 5’ and 5’8” tall. Must have a normal form—outwardly fashionable but inwardly conservative. I like a woman who can cook and knows how to tidy up the house—who can clean the kitchen after each meal so well that it appears as if no cooking had taken place. The New Year visit will last about eight days, for which I will pay you $150 in total. I am willing to bargain.