Most of the e-mail I've received since last week -- as well as the e-mail sent to me until next Monday or Tuesday -- will remain unread until I'm back from the US of A, I'm afraid. I've had waaay too much to do (I'm totally exhausted; good thing I don't have to get up at 4 AM to catch a plane to Amsterdam, and then spend 10+ hours in a cramped seat-- oh, wait...), and personal stuff -- including this site -- is temporarily put on hold.

Exhausted. Yeah. Truth be told, I'm really not looking forward to a long trip right now. If I could stay a week in my apartment, just sleep, eat, write, and watch movies, I'd be a Happy Boy. Well, that's what Christmas vacation's for, especially the 'writing' bit. That's happening real soon. Can't wait.

Played around a bit with the new Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets game for the Xbox the past few days, and it's not as much fun as it could -- should -- have been. It's all right. It's fun, albeit a bit too kiddish (much more so than the book, and, I presume, the movie) for my refined, adult taste (pft!). It got some really good reviews, so I was expecting a lot more, especially the exploring Hogwarts bits. The school just doesn't feel...real. And even though it isn't (real, that is), it should feel real. That's the key to great storytelling, be it for games, novels, TV, or movies. That's the appeal of the Potter novels: that the world feels real, solid, populated, logical, and complete. The game doesn't. Hogwarts feels like a set. It feels fake. It feels like a collection of walls and doors and paths that don't really lead anywhere, except to a series of "authorised" locations. You can't explore it like a real place. And the students and faculty populating the school feel like robots. They don't say much. They don't do anything.

Maybe I expect too much, but that's what I want from a Harry Potter game. That's what I would have tried to do with the game. Not that the developers have done a bad job: Like I said, the game's pretty good. But it's nowhere near great, and it should have been, given the setting, the characters, and the story.

Right. Sleep soon, then travel. I probably won't be able to post anything until next Monday, so...sayonara!  ¶ 22:39