Assorted animals and the weekend

Two on the gaming scene, and one in real life.

Gaming 1: The Game Developers' Conference (GDC) was held last week. There were a number of things that looked pretty darn cool (like Mario Galaxy, which looks like the first true 3D platformer, and LittleBigPlanet, in which players can design platformer levels for other online players to mess with - the game has been described as 'a big toybox'). But I have to say that the very neatest thing was the demo trailer on this page demonstrating one of the key concepts for the upcoming Fable 2 RPG for the (sigh) XBox 360. In this half-hour video (don't say I didn't warn you!) Peter Molyneux demonstrates the bit with the dog. The dog is a fantastic bit of AI that, well, acts very doglike. And he loves the player totally and unconditionally. It's a wonderfully cool-looking thing.

Gaming 2: In Zelda, I figured out the business of getting a fish to the cat! The solution struck me as a bit less straightforward than it really ought to have been; perhaps the game developers just really didn't want to let Link equip a fish. (Can't imagine why not. Maybe they're waiting for the Monty Python/Zelda crossover game.) Anyway, Link now has all kinds of neat toys as a result! He's got a half-full bottle of milk (the huz is jealous; in Ocarina, he's found a potion shop, but the shop will not sell stuff unless you have your very own bottle in which to store the potion), a slingshot (and *enemies* all of a sudden - convenient that none happened to be about till a weapon was acquired), a sword, and - woo woo - a lantern. Now Link can finally find out what the heck he's got in his basement. Surely the kid lost in the forest will be fine while Link goes home and finds this out, right?

( Real life: A kitty non-emergency )