Christmas Presents!

Well, I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas.  Father Christmas (videogame division) was generous to me this year, though  I had been very good.  I received Assassin's Creed II on 360 and Professor Layton and Pandora's Box on DS from my lovely wife (ha - I know she reads this) and Uncharted 2 on PS3 from my smelly brother (I know he doesn't).

Getting a videogame for Christmas has been a a regular part of the festivities for me since the mid-eighties.  I particularly remember getting Knight Lore in 1984 or 1985.  I knew (before Christmas) where my Mum had hidden it (as yet unwrapped) and, most weeknights when my stepfather went out to pick my Mum up from work, I would sneak it out from its hiding place, load it up and have a pre-Christmas sample of Ultimate's finest, making sure to turn it off as I heard our car approach.  Of course, whether my Mum would have recognised the Christmas present game had I left it playing after her return is an interesting point.  She might have had an inkling on Christmas morning though, when my 'new' game looked suspiciously like the one I'd been playing (weeknights only - no weekend illicit gaming opportunities presented themselves) for the previous few weeks.....

I've only scratched the surface of ACII so far but it is shaping up to be an excellent game (when I've played it some more, I will post on it).  I  haven't sampled the other two yet  but I am sure (or as sure as you can be by relying on reviews) that they will both be great too.

I'll make a rare non-videogaming comment and mention getting one of Lisa Snelling's Poppets for Christmas as well (second on the left, reading a copy of Neil Gaiman's 'The Graveyard Book').  Cool.

EDIT - Since I first started drafting this 'Christmas present' post, my Mum, mentioned above, has died from cancer. Shit.  She (and my stepfather, also now fighting cancer) purchased my first gaming platform, the ZX Spectrum, back in 1983, starting a hobby that has given me countless hours of enjoyment over the last quarter  of a century.  This is one of the many, many things that I have to be thankful to her for and the world is a worse place without her.

To quote from Dylan Thomas, 'Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'  The rest of the poem is available here and is well worth a read.

Normal service - and my membership of other virtual spaces - will be resumed soon.