Birthday loot is a wonderful thing. I guess I'm at that beautiful time of my life when I'm young enough to get stacks of presents and old enough to appreciate the monetary value of them. In the end, I got Warioware smooth moves, Soul Calibur 3 and Psychonauts. Probably one of the most profitable birthdays I've ever had.

However, since I just bought Lunar Knights as well, I am now drowning in games. And there's the ever-present Dark Cloud 2, waiting in the back of my games drawer like a malevolent frog, ready to pounce on me and swallow me in the eternal guilt of failing to get proper value out of your game. I bought that monstrously long game about 3 years ago off Ebay for nearly $100 (Australian money, nubs) and I've been playing it on and off ever since. It's not that I don't like it, it's just that after slogging through 15 dungeon floors it tires me out, and then I end up in EB Games with $70 in my pocket and some high-concept 6-10 hour action-adventure on the shelf screaming "Buy me!", and how can I resist?

So DC2 gets a few hours of my time every time I run out of other things to play. By the time I'm 20 I might have beaten it. Every time I pick Wario's nose, beat up Zasalamel or switch to a different Terrenial, Dark Cloud 2 is there, staring accusingly at me, haunting my dreams. I feel like an unfaithful husband who's been shopping around. When I boot up DC2, I keep expecting one of the characters to yell "OK, who've you been playing with this time?" I'm considering putting a lock on my games drawer. Just in case.

By the way, it is fun beating up Zasalamel. That freak.