OMFG WTF!!!!!

OMFG! He's updating! The world will surely end now!

So, it's 2005. New Year's Eve used to mean hanging out at home, eating a spread of tasty finger foods, and maybe getting a sip of champagne if I asked nicely enough. That was a long time ago. This year, we had New Year's in a pub very near (nearly in) my apartment and had champagne from a plastic cup. Awesome. On a better note, since the last time you heard from me, I got engaged to my lovely and talented girlfriend of 3.5 years. Also awesome, but not in an ironic fashion.

2005 looks like it will probably be, well, much like 2004, just with more World of Warcraft. Same president, just surrounded with more evil geniuses and fewer (read: one less) actual voice of subtle moderation. The various wars and other travesties caused by my nation of birth will likely continue through the year unless stopped by some foreign superhero of the kind mentioned in passing in Astro City. Y'know, like the "Birds of Paradise" in Rio de Janeiro. Like in those books, these heroes' involvement will likely be reduced to one panel.

As for games, well, my inside sources for that dried up months ago. The deeper you go into the industry, the more your general contacts dry up. Now I know tons about what my current company is doing, but little about what anyone else is doing. I know now the phenomenon of "developer tunnel vision," which prevents developers from being aware of each other's "new features" and which causes five games to come out at the same time with the same sparkling new technologies. At the same time, I'm more aware now that games really do take a long time to make, and so a lot of the concurrent technology development really is a coincidence.

I imagine that Resident Evil 4 will be pretty good, and that a number of other games will rock. That's good enough for me.

In other news, and this probably deserves an AWESOME NEWS bit, EA has purchased controlling shares in DICE (the developers of Battlefield: Ad Nauseam--a completely baffling and unexpected departure from official EA developer-gobbling policy, I'm sure) and a fair chunk of Ubisoft, as well. I've heard that the French government is considering tossing Ubisoft some money to combat the apparently hostile procurement of shares, mostly because it's too hard to translate "EA" into French (I believe it would come out to, roughly, "Electroniqueaeouxois Artimapotomous" or "XRG"). I'm thinking that this whole thing might be good, because it's only a matter of time before we see Samwise Fischer in Shire Cell: Blanket Fish Together Gel.

Anyway, so, my New Year's wish for everyone is that 2005 be at least as good as 2004 time a bajillion. And I know I'm supposed to make a resolution, but I prefer putting the responsibility for stuff firmly on the shoulders of others.