Hello there, best keep your distance, for I am ill. Not just ‘bit of a sniffle/put a bigger pullover on, you great ninny’ ill, but ‘noxious substances violently erupting from everywhere’ ill. My daughter started going to nursery about three months ago, and has been bringing back a delightful cocktail of viruses and bacteria ever since – it’s been a relentless assault on my immune system, and while I’m oddly proud of how long it stood against this microbial siege, it has now collapsed in gruesome style.

It’s OK, I don’t want your pity. Unless it’s a special magical form of pity that renders me instantly able to eat again. I want to talk about games.

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A forum post by Blizzard has offered some insight into what the company has got in mind for World of Warcraft and it includes a PLEX-esque system for exchanging gold for game time.

It’s not a definite announcement yet, more of a “we’re exploring the idea and want to know what you reckon” kind of deal.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Somewhere inside The Secret World is a splendid single-player RPG. Awakened to the supernatural horrors in our world, we join a secret order fighting against them – and other rival orders. Unfortunately, we do this inside an MMO. The Secret World is still quite pleasant as an MMO, one with a fab premise and an ace class-free skill system, but having started playing a few months ago I find myself wishing so often that it were simply single-player.

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Elite: Dangerous is out. Somehow that happened after all these years. Remarkable, really. As previously discussed, a full review/Wot I Think of the game we’re not supposed to call Elite 4 will arrive next year. It won’t be from me, as despite my fondest wishes otherwise I can’t spend the Christmas break in a Cobra, but what I can do is whip out my big joystick and give you some initial impressions over the next few days. You can call it a review diary if you like, but I’m more sharing what I think as I go along, not intending that it reach some final judgement. If you’d care to join me, SUIT UP.

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Blizzard has announced the roster of StarCraft 2 tournament ladder maps for 2015 season 1. It’s only the 1v1 maps at the moment team maps are being announced “soon” but below is the list of what you can pick from in the first season of the new year.

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2014 wasn’t exactly a bumper year for standalone flight sim releases. Apart from the flak-nibbled IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad, and eccentric WWI curios like ILYA Muromets and Canvas Knights simulated clouds had simulated skies almost all to themselves. Fortunately the add-on sector was as vigorous and ambitious as ever. Today in The Flare Path I catch up with five top flight sim supplementers, all of whom have worked their windsocks off this past twelve months. Recently discovered the delights of DCS World or purchased the A380-sized bargain that is FSX Steam Edition? Beware! What follows may pluck at your purse strings.

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As someone trying to overcome a fear of horror games I downloaded Pac Man: The 8 Pages.

It’s a riff on Slender: The Eight Pages, a game which scared me so badly I could only play it in broad daylight while eating a nice sandwich and STILL managed to drop my mouse out of sheer terror.

What you do in the game is pretty much what you would expect wander a Pac Man-style labyrinth looking for pages pinned to the walls as a monstrous ghost (Blinky) pursues you. The thing with the game is that it isn’t scary, but I did really like the connection it draws between the collection/evasion in Pac Man and in Slender.

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Over their long, illustrious history point-and-click adventures have starred everything from wannabe pirates and odd teenagers to private investigators and obnoxious wizards, but never a goat herder. Happily, the aptly named Goat Herd and the Gods has just been released to right this heinous wrong by casting Atl the Aztec goat herder as its protagonist.

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Whoa whoa, hey there! What are you doing in such a hurry? Are you trying to play> The Watcher? There’s a fairly big clue in the name there, buddy. It’s a short game you can poke at in your browser for free. You might want to play with the little aliens building a spaceship, but they’re a skittish sort. Don’t touch anything. You’ve got to wait. Sit back and watch the hand-drawn cuties scampering, and enjoy the music. When your time to interact does come, you might wish it hadn’t.

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I’m torn. On one hand, I would very much like to play as a lady in Payday 2. On the other, I don’t want to support the foolishness that is selling the only female character for 4 as DLC. I still feel a bit of a wally for buying Killing Floor‘s lady zombie-shooter. But I do like how the Payday gang’s female member, Clover, is a sweary, excitable Irish lady (hey, this link will make loud noises). Ah, I’ll decide later. This week also brought a new DLC heist, but it doesn’t sound like a great buy.

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