Well, in times of penury, there is only one thing to do - PLAY PIRATED COMPUTER GAMES
Commentary on Gabriel's new monster rig withheld in my fits of rage.

Anyway, here are the latest games I got hold of.

First, in contrast to my 18-hour binge of Metal Gear Solid 2(10 hours of which were spent watching cutscenes ... I kid you not),
I have been to the other extreme in terms of games - from the graphically cutting-edge to a game with no moving graphics:)

King of Dragon Pass, ladies - the closest I've seen to a gamebook online. FANTASTIC shit. It's based on the Runequest
RPG world of Glorantha, which will mean nothing to everyone except the most hard-core RPG people around. You command
a small clan and must lead it to glory... by allocating really cool stuff like magical power(to Destiny, Growth, Battle), managing
your herds, arranging hero quests - sounds like generic empire building? Well, this one is accompanied by brilliant
still art work, *long* epic descirptions of conversations, interactions, events...(at the end, your whole accomplishments are summarized in a saga
format that's surprisingly good to read)... and there's a real feeling that what you do in the game affects everything else that
occurs after on. And your advisers and populace have *really* good personalities. Any game that has a talking head that says
this gets my vote:

"By taking a Trickster onto our ring, the other clans expect us to sow disorder. Let us confuse them further by refusing to do
so."

Other games on my list:

Stupid Invaders - really good animation, and majorly cornball voice-overs. It's a very linear, straight-forward, Ren-and-Stimpy humour type adventure game,
just click to pick up items, look at items, interact with items.. but it's got good production values(and an artwork style that has a strangely Nickelodeon cartoon feel to it),
some very nice jazz tracks at the start of the game, and some good satire amidst all the toilet humour(a lot of farts, burps, green goo, green goo, and more green goo).

Project Eden - this one is a strange beast to review. It's got a pretty decent 3d engine and a team of elite armed cyborgs, but the fps shooting isn't the major premise of the game(or third-person rather, it uses a camera angling reminiscent of Tomb Raider - after all, it's done by the same people. Lots of puzzles, cross-character interaction(you control 4 dudes sent to the "Real Meat Factory" to investigate the disappearnce of some technicians.. ), and a fairly good engine that does lighting efects well, but is clearly meant for the PS2 with its bland textures.