So, in my soon-to-be-over unemployment, I scanned this new house for things to do. I am living in a house full of men, one of whom has a 'gaming corner'. In it, I found Zelda: Twilight Princess. I decided to try it.

Now then. I will come out and say it: I enjoy this game. Although the oscillations between interesting puzzles and ****ing endless, endless, why-am-I-wolf-where-is-that-****ing-horse-when-you-need-it tedium a bit hard on the ol' soul, everything else is fine.

Taking a step back, I began to question this. Many other games offer puzzles, often without making you cross vast in-games distances to, say, collect one of those lights marbles from a bug or find some grass to recall you wanderlust-filled steed. What Zelda is (speaking of which, where the **** is Zelda? I've been at this game for a while now, and she's been in it for a whole 2 minutes or so, apart from Midna occaisionally mentioning her to slag her powers of leadership) is this: a mute, girly-looking elf-creature with a retarded hat riding a fat-bottomed horse around some folksy wonderland. It's like GTA: The Two Towers or something.

So why do we continue to play it? For me, the puzzles get me through the tough wolf/horse-related tedium times. Then there is the plot - this magical unnamed, unseen bad guy who's ****ing everything up has not, as of yet, given any reason for doing so. I really can't think of any political motivations for making the whole world be covered in moving dead pixels and generally ****ed up. How come, when you are a wolf, people can't see you but the horse/some (I am not shitting you) squirrels is/are more than happy to chat?

See, I thought Zelda was a fringe pursuit until I set up my iGoogle and the thing started offering me Zelda-themed wallpapers for the top of my page. I don't want to open my internet to see He of Pointy Hat, kthx, but the fact that it's high up in the rankings means that a lot of people do. More than want characters from GTA, or Final Fantasy, or Spiderman, or any other popular geek-type thing you care to mention.

Either that or it's just that people who use iGoogle have a predisposition to horse features and elf boy. I don't know, but I figure it's worth asking.