I thought I might divert slightly from games themselves a moment to talk about food, perhaps starting with a recipe for lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce garnished with truffle paté, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam. Or possibly not.

Actually, I was inspired by my own gourmet lunch today to consider the ideal gaming foodstuff. It should be quick to prepare (while in a battleground queue, for instance), easy (can’t waste time skilling Cooking up to 300 in real life), cheap (so as not to encroach on monthly MMOG subscriptions) and long life (so you can stock up on vast quantities at the supermarket every couple of months, reducing time away from the game). Filling those criteria admirably are instant noodles, or ramen, staples of students and coders. My favourite variety of these are Blue Dragon 3 Minute Noodles, the “chicken with chilli bits” flavour. The only drawback is they do need some highly technical equipment to prepare (a saucepan and bowl); for a while, they were usurped in my favourite noodle spot by Nong Shim “shin cup” noodles (like Pot Noodles, but actually edible), until the supermarket stopped selling them. In trying to hunt them down again, a Google search turned up an “undeclared presence of irradiated ingredients“. Oh well!