Too Much Bad News? Here's A Roundup of Games, for Distraction

Over at C|Net, there is a handy round-up of upcoming computer games. My current favorite is BioShock, and BioShock Infinite is a first person shooter where you assume the persona of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt. He is assigned to investigate the flying city of Columbia -- a rescue mission to save Elizabeth, who has been imprisoned since childhood. A thematic storyline and cool abilities to unlock make this a good distraction.

My current favorite board game is Carcassonne, which, surprisingly, doesn't use dice. Players draw tiles out of a bag (the random factor) to build out a 16th century French countryside, and build cities and roads. Each tile might feature a city, a road, a monastery, plains or some combination. They are placed adjacent to tiles that have already been played, in such a way that cities are connected to cities, roads to roads, until all tiles are places. Players get points, and the player with the most when all tiles are placed, wins. Here's a video of game play.