Games, games, and more games. If I’ve not mentioned my particular favorites before, why not check out:

• The Kingdom of Loathing
• Popmundo
• Lord of the Rings Online

Those being, of course, the few online ones I currently play. I don’t support the pay-to-play model, but I do enjoy games that thrive and survive on donations (the first two), or the pay for premium model (LotRO). After all, I don’t mind paying a little bit more for games I like, while the pay monthly to play model is, frankly, extortion… and exploitation of us poor folks with addictive personalities. 😉 Though I’ll be thoroughly screwed whenever Diablo 3 comes out… mmmm. <3

As for offline, my current spate o’ games are:

• The Sims 3
• Anno 1404
• The Sims Medieval 
• Dragon Age (I still need to check out the newest, though)

And old favourites that I still play the crap out of:

• Serf City: Life is Feudal
• Final Fantasy Tactics
• The first 3 and a half Pokémon generations
• The first three Civilizations
• The first three Caesars (and the Greek and Egyptian ones in the series, too)
• Evil Genius (love it forever. FOREVER.)
• Dragon Warrior/Quest (2-4 specifically)

And those would be the main ones. As is probably rather obvious, I like games that have a lot of replayability and require some thought… without necessarily descending into the puzzle game genre. Those are fine for app games on phones, or idle time fillers (everyone loves Bejeweled!), but I guess I like games that serve some sort of end purpose… like most anything in my life. I feel that, as a whole, ‘my’ sort of game has dried up over the years; it’s not like we’re buying Kill ’em Up 1-20 every month, after all. I can’t even remember how to explain what I like anymore, so long has it been since there was a regular sincere influx of such games. Kingdom building, city building and the like, sure, but not the Black and White-esque god game either. So I guess it’s good that I still like the games that I have and want to replay them, eh?

This, I should add, wasn’t a teenage or adulthood advent. I’ve been a gamer since I was a wee tiny. I still remember being 4, and playing Pac-Man on the Atari Saturday mornings before everyone else was up (but only during GI Joe, was I was forbidden from watching it… still ended up in the military though! xD). We got our first Nintendo shortly before my sixth birthday, and between parents working in electronics shops and an aunt working at a game shop, I was spoiled red rotten well into my second decade. Oh sure, my eyes might be getting worse every year (as is nearly everyone elses’ in this screen-heavy era), but my hand-eye coordination well outstrips my clumsiness (I type fast and I crochet fast – yay!). And y’know, keeps me quiescent, so can’t complain about that. 😉