Hello all, hope you're doing well. It's the weekend again, and that means that a lot of us have some free time on our hands. And some of my favorite things to do with my ever-shrinking free time is dive into a large game world and just explore. With that in mind, I thought we could start a little conversation about free-roaming video games, and open-world games in general.

Some thoughts to ponder:

• What are some of your favorite free-roaming titles?

• What keeps a free-roaming or open-world title from getting boring?

• What are some of the more unique ways to populate a large game world?

• *Is Just Cause 2 the best free-roaming game ever? The answer may surprise you!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Edit 2019-01-16: Add the link for Week #11 below.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9 · Week #10 · Week #11

My face is slightly asymmetrical, and one side of my lip points up, so it looks like I am smirking at people. At least, this is my theory as to why people feel uncomfortable around me without getting to know me first. But maybe it's something else entirely, or a combination. How can I make myself more approachable / likable? My work is in a field where I need to communicate with others often.

The idea of faking smiles and acting overly friendly pains me, but if it's the only way I'll do it.

hiiiiiii everybody guess who drunk for the first time this year ayeeeee

we're back

i love it

i hate it

i miss you

how damned lazy

is the poet

who only ever writes.

how wasted

is the painter

who drowns out his lines.

how atrophied

the pianist

who cannot bend the light

if this is art then it isn't mine.

.

a screw

driver is useless

when nails

are the nuisance

an easel

is pointless

with verbally

mindless rhymes.

.

to what length in an artist?

if you cannot wield

every edge of the

toolbox right?

.

not every thought

is at best

through emo

writings expressed

kid, sometimes

you have to

know your lines.

.

to better outline your problems.

(better outline your problems)

better sketch out your issues

(guarantee she don't miss you)

better sculpt out the tissue

and try to attend to

the shit you

can only rhyme.

.

what a waste of an artist.

.

what a waste of an artist.

.

you call your poems cathartic

but that's your only

medium, right?

.

you wanna be a God

you better step up

better learn to

do your makeup

hopefully you learn

to draw her thighs.

.

better off dead otherwise.

.

if you're not the greatest it's a guise.

ich lebe noch von dir

so if i won't be remembered

then by your God

i should prolly' die.

.

what the fuck is an artist.

.

wjo is reallt an aritst.

.

you call your poems cathartic,

but that's your only

medium - right?

I think we can all (generally!) agree that the right-wing is too easy of a target here, and most of us seem to be left-ish. So, waves, what's leftism currently doing wrong, or on track to start doing wrong?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.