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| | November 20, 2007
One lucky bird
So I made a difficult – but necessary – decision this year: no Thanksgiving turkey for me. It almost sounds like heresy, doesn’t it? At least, for a dedicated carnivore like myself. But as I said to my boss, it’s not that I don’t love celebrating Turkey Day, I just get really, really tired of slogging through Leftovers Week. No turkey soup, turkey sandwiches, or turkey pot pie for me this year; just ham and taters and freedom from a fridge full of bird. | |
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No matter what you choose to nosh – on Thanksgiving or any other day – I have a great suggestion for what to do afterwards: play games! A bit of videogame excitement can easily alleviate the post-prandial carbohydrate coma. (Did you know that the whole “turkey tryptophan makes you sleepy” thing turned out to be an urban legend? So much for that great quote from Mystery Science Theater 3000. If the culprit is really too many mashed potatoes, though, I’m perennially doomed.)
If you also would like to battle the after-dinner sleepies, we here at MSN Games would like to help. To that end, we offer the ultimate Thanks-gaming special: every PC download game on our site is 50% off during the long Thanksgiving weekend. Yes, all of them. Even the hot new Diner Dash installment, Hometown Hero. Even the games we just launched last week. Everything. Try to get a deal like that at your local shopping center. Hah. What are you more likely to find at the mall this time of year: fabulous games priced half off, or a teeming horde of aggressive shoppers, harried parents, and cranky kids, plus ugly sweaters that would never sell if they weren’t marked down?
Do I really even need to ask?
But here, ahhhhhh, here we have all the best casual games, unfathomably cheap prices, cheerful forums, an endless supply of multiplayer backgammon or UNO opponents, and plenty of peace and quiet. So where better to spend your Thanksgiving weekend? Besides, this is the perfect opportunity to check out some of the games I’ve been raving about lately, like Plant Tycoon, Build-a-Lot, 7 Wonders II, Grimm’s Hatchery, or Miss Management. Even at full price, these games were worth every cent. Now they’re impossible to pass up.
More great recent games that I haven’t had the chance to rave about yet: Gold Miner Vegas, Mortimer Beckett and the Secrets of Spooky Manor, and Safari Photo Africa Wild Earth. The last two of these are big files and may take longer than usual to download (and to type… what is up with the really long names?), but you’ll be thrilled that you took the extra time to grab them. And I’ll reiterate again that they’re cheap as heck right now!
Some older favorites that you should definitely try: Plantasia, Westward, Virtual Villagers 2, Bookworm Adventures, Alice Greenfingers, Jewel Quest 2, and Hexic. They may be a year old or even more, but I go back to these again and again to enjoy them (particularly if I’m having a stressful day). I’m taking advantage of the 50% off sale to buy some of these for my folks. (If you’re reading this, Dad, happy Thanksgiving! You’ll love Westward!) Thinking of which, this might be a good time to snag a few games as holiday presents to friends. Hmmm…
Wriggler Redux
Okay, just one more piece of news, since I can’t resist squealing over it: we now have a free web version of Bookworm Adventures! It’s a great introduction to the download version of the game for those who haven’t played before, and a welcome treat for Bookworm Adventures junkies like myself. The developers did a great job with this one: instead of just reworking part of the download version, they created a whole new prequel story with new monsters to defeat. Lex has to venture into the depths of the Great Library basement and prove once again that the pen – or at least the PC mouse – is roughly equal to the sword. I just can’t say enough good things about this game, in either version. Yay vocabulary!
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| Tech Talk
Several folks have written in lately to say that we’re having trouble with the advertisements that run before your game launches: either the ad stays on the screen after it’s done playing and the game never starts, or the ad sticks around over the game, making it impossible to play. We’re working to get this resolved right now, but we need your help to track down the problem. If you see one of these wonky ads, could you please snap a screenshot and send it to zmaster@microsoft.com with the subject line “AD PROBLEM SCREENSHOT”? We’d really appreciate it! Here’s how to capture a screenshot:
Press the PrtScn (or Prt Sc) key on your keyboard. Although the location varies between keyboards, it’s usually located above or near the Delete key.
From your Start button, select Programs, then Accessories, and choose Paint.
From the Edit menu, select Paste.
From the File menu, select Save As, and name the file Error.jpg
Attach the file to an email and send it to us. And thanks so much to anyone who responds with screens to help us solve this particularly bothersome issue!
See you next time! | |
