When I quit last fall, I told my guildmates I might look into WoW again in the summer, when I had free time again. Since that time period is now imminent - and I was bored the other evening - I decided to check into what's happening in the new and expanded Azeroth. That may have been a mistake, because now the sci-fi undertones of the newly added geography and the augmented engineering craft list have really tickled my fancy.

There is a 10-day free trial deal going on at the moment, which I'll probably plunge into after finals. After that... I may not be able to resist. Gunpei help me.

Craving a real Star Fox fix after the travesty that was Star Fox Adventures, I was looking forward to Command before it came out. Then I learned about the weird tactical scenario planning that you do in campaign missions - a bit unusual. Still, I thought it would be worth looking into for some good space-shooting action. Then recently I played some wireless multiplayer with some friends, and the touch-controls are just awful. Who thought it was a good idea to use the same input method for aiming and for maneuvering gestures? Trying to boost makes me pitch up. Fantastic.

I still haven't seen much of the single-player, but now that I've sampled the control scheme, I think I'll pass on this one.

Progress: Gave Up -- Played a few rounds of multiplayer

I haven't played Secret of Mana since I was like eight, which doesn't even really count; all I remember is something about a big cannon and pink trees. So recently I decided it was time to get back to basics and brush up on the 16-bit classic. Thus far I haven't gotten very far (at least I don't think I have), and I'm currently experiencing some manner of frustration with the controls, but this may have more to do with my aged equipment than with the game itself. I will say that the music is splendid and surprisingly vibrant for its time.

Progress: Pandora

Inane questions and near-duplicates (hot or cold? heat or ... cold?) are starting to get to me. Honestly I think the channel is limited by its own design, e.g. short question, two (really) short options. There's not much you can do with that. The scope should have been broadened, and a dedicated polling staff should have been brought on to keep good questions going - the fact that you can submit your own shows that Nintendo is not doing much work itself on this.

Anyway, a cool concept but ultimately unsatisfying. If these questions keep up I'm going to stop turning on my Wii every few days to check up on it.

Progress: 283 points

Lunar Knights has grown on me, what with its diversity of weapons, and occasionally challenging combat scenarios; to be sure, slashing up elemental dogs and firing sun-grenades at fat pigs can be pretty fun. But there are still many situations where the engine shows its age and lack of finesse - especially in the final dungeon, which seems to go on forever with largely unremarkable level design. The new stuff (weather changing, space shooting) is cool at first but the novelty wears into tedium quickly.

A fun game on the whole, and with a ton of replay if you're willing to put the work in for it, but I still think they could have done better.

Progress: Finished Normal mode

This entry made from the freshly updated Wii Internet channel.

Glog appears to work super-good. This is the best embedded browser ever.

Progress: Won the Internet

As I attempted to meet the herculean crest requirements to unlock the final kingdoms of the game, I found my skill increasing alongside the rising challenge. The scoring system is deep and involved for those who enjoy competing for a high score - combo multipliers from certain sequential actions, beat bonuses for clap-collecting. Getting more difficult crests requires becoming accustomed to flowing through levels and collecting beats exponentially, which was fun, but difficult enough that I probably won't bother going back to earn the crests I missed. Trouncing the final-final-boss is satisfying enough.

At the end of the day Jungle Beat is a unique and fun game wholly deserving of at least a try.

Progress: 54 crests, beat Ghastly King

Chances are if you've heard of this game, you've thought to yourself, "Self, how does one play an action/platform game with bongo drums?" Though I've already described the technical aspect of how it is done, there is still the matter of doing it. It is unintuitive, as you have just implied in conversing with yourself, and in addition requires powers of coordination untapped by most non-rhythm games. Though the big ape is taking it somewhat easy on me even in its final throes, I can tell that I'm poor at it. Don't lie to me Donkey Kong. I am on to your little game.

Though there are no less than 16 kingdoms, each with its own boss, there are really only four bosses. One is a monkey, with whom DK exchanges fisticuffs, here it is all about the dodges and jabs. Another is a boar, who enjoys tossing melons at you, but is unable to see his own demise in your ability to kick them back. A third is a flying roc, carrying a black egg below it, which I assume contains its heart because breaking it spells certain doom for the bird. And the fourth form of boss is a mechanical elephant whose trunk has a penchant for being clogged by explosive pineapples. They are re-ordered in successive kingdom groups, and each iteration comes with slightly more difficult variations, but suffice it to say that the boss encounters are not much of the game's breadth.

Conversely, the stages are extremely diverse. At one point I fancied that they would be out of ideas, and then I found myself grabbing a bird's tailfeathers as I directed it up through a clocktower. I'm not sure where they keep their clocktowers in the Donkey Kong jungle, but apparently it is not a very safe place.

As I hinted paragraphs ago, controlling it is becoming a little trying as I approach the title's event horizon, but it is still much fun. And though I forgot to mention it before, the presentation is spectacular; contextual sound effects along with the drumming mechanic make the whole affair sound great, and it looks just awesome, from the flowing water to the hair on DK's arms and the hyperactive ninja monkeys that flit about in the rain.

Progress: 34 crests

I've been putting off this entry since the inception of the Glog over six months ago. The story of my time with WoW is one of bliss, and of sorrow; fulfillment, and disappointment; anxiety, and terror. What lay below is an account of how WoW changed my life, and how I was able to change it back.

You see, back in the before-times, I lived, breathed, and ate video games. Cruising through high school was an enabler for me to consume games at a rate some might consider bizarre. Then I graduated, received WoW for xmas in 2004, and began playing in January '05. The next two months were a blur - Mirkon, a proud engineer of the Gnomish race, became engorged of the delicious experience points from blowing up monsters in the wild, and reached the game's plateau of Level 60. Here he remained, experimenting with crafted gadgetry, exploring hidden and ominous areas, and following other pyromaniacal pursuits, until the middle of that summer when I finally decided I needed to get on with my life.

Yet Azeroth's pull on me would not so easily concede defeat. My roommate Matt, who started playing before I had (when the game was released in fall 2004), continued through that summer. He and several people I had formerly played with were now in The Raiding Game (more on this later), and though I had been apprehensive at first, I decided that winter to join them in the deepest, dankest dungeons the World of Warcraft had to offer. And thusly Mirkon toiled and triumphed (and meanwhile I fostered other characters, including a warlock to 60) until the autumn of 2006*, when I made the difficult decision of putting schoolwork before WoW and quit again. I have been clean since, and have returned to my former lifestyle, though the Burning Crusade expansion continues to tempt me at regular intervals.

What struck me the most when I started playing over two years ago - striking enough that I remember it vividly today - is how brilliant the game formula is. World of Warcraft is essentially a combination of the quick and simple action RPG gameplay of Diablo II, and the rich and enormous world environment an MMORPG can pull off. Playing the game, not just turning it on and being there, but actually enjoying it, is absurdly accessible and rewarding. And it continues to be throughout the entire game (though it helps a lot if you have friends to play with). From the snowy hills of Dun Morogh to the fiery peaks of the Burning Steppes, the rainy shores of Stranglethorn Vale, the mysterious arctic reaches of Winterspring, the barren desert of Tanaris, the lush dangers of Un'Goro Crater, and even the blighted Plaguelands, the World of Warcraft is a beauty to behold and a joy to inhabit.

Though I am wont to forget many games I have played, WoW's geography is permanently etched in my fond memories. The feeling of exploration in this world is too good for words. When roaming around the zones of the game, finding new things, even if they were only new to me, felt like a groundbreaking discovery. While a denizen of Azeroth, I made it my primary directive to simply collect knowledge about this strange wilderness, and I was both pleased and enticed with this goal for months at a time.

Don't mistake my obsession with the world as an indication that WoW is some sandbox crap. There is always something to do, thanks to the genius implementation of quests. Where other games may require a player to grind on sewer rats and birds of prey to gain levels, World of Warcraft has thousands of quests that NPCs will task you with. These quests will frequently involve slaughtering animals and other forms of evil, but many are in fact quite different, entailing a treasure hunt, or a reconnaissance mission, or a foot race. And all of these quests take you to new places, show you new things, and give you a little insight into the rich backstory of WoW, which is quite laborious.

The problem I ended up having with WoW was in the endgame, and is the same thing I hold against most MMOs, namely that the content runs out. Of course it is difficult to help this, and in fact the endgame is something that is almost constantly being worked on in monthly content updates; I have heard that it is no longer as contentious as it once was. But nevertheless, the magic simply could not last forever. When you've reached the maximum level, the game really starts pushing the Law of Diminishing Returns, and for me the fun factor just couldn't keep up with the required time investment. Some people enjoy this kind of thing but I'm not one of them.

By normal standards World of Warcraft is nothing short of amazing. Even at a retail price of $50 and an additional $15/month, the return I got on that investment in terms of number of gameplay hours easily outdoes any other game I have ever played. And I don't even tend to like multiplayer games very much. If I had to sum up WoW's flaws, I can only conclude that the game is too good: enough so to create unrealistic expectations for the game to continue, and to significantly disrupt my very lifestyle. One of these days, I intend to see what's new in the expansion.

• It was around this time that the Glog first appeared, though most historians agree that this is just a coincidence.

Progress: Gave Up -- 60 Mage, 60 Warlock (PvE)

Progress: Gave Up -- Lost interest