A late list, but I went out of town for Christmas and had to make up the hours at work while sick. I have to say that I actually got a lot this Christmas. Here's the list in the order in which I had received them.


Growlanser: Generations
I got Growlanser Generations for myself through Goozex since it filled my cheap ass gamer quota of being 2 games in 1 and an SRPG. I waited about 4 months in my queue for it and about a week and a half for shipping. Then I waited another day because my mailman decided I needed to go pick it up at the post office instead of actually leaving it in my mail box. Finally, I had it and it was in really good condition (IE no Game Stop stickers half pulled off the cover). I opened it and pulled out the disc, placed it into the PS2 tray and sat in my gaming chair. All of a sudden my PS2 sounded like it was in a jet turbine. Lots of grinding noises and I realized its a blue bottom game. Crap. My PS2 no longer plays blue bottom discs. Much like it did with Chulip and Way of the Samurai, I was stuck with a game that wouldn't play. Not a very merry Christmas.


Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
My wife got me SMT: Nocturne which admittedly disappointed me originally. Already down from my Growlanser experience, it was a PS2 game that tried to replace the PS2 game that I couldn't play. Not that Nocturne was a bad gift, but I've got Persona 3: Fes and Devil Summoner in my backlog with no real want to complete either. But I plopped it into my PS2 entered my name and played a bit until I realized that running across Yuko Takao, Chiaki Hayasaka, and Isamu Niita sounds weird with an English name. So I reset the game and renamed my character Hiro. I thought it was a cute play on the DQ games with their Hero. Kinda lame...but my wife smiled. Once I got into the game I found out its better than the other two. No 2 hour intro, no hard to recognize place names, no controversial guns to the head. Just simple Pokemoning in post apocalyptic Japan. Good game that holds up really well after so many years.


Nintendo DS
My aunts gave this to my wife and me and I was a bit wary since I'm not really a handheld gamer as I don't travel enough to justify a portable, but my wife was excited so I can't complain. I let her take the DS and set it up, and then she gave it to me to play with. I realized that it doesn't allow for multiple users on the firmware. So reading my wife's name and having her colors (a bright lime green...ugh) on it was a bit disheartening, but once she realized this she changed it on her own. She's sweet.


Professor Layton and the Curious Village
This was my wife's present. I have yet to play any of this game. It hasn't been a week since we got the game and she just beat it. She wants the Diabolical Box now. This is all I know of Layton and his curious village. Other than this.


Guitar Hero: On Tour and MYST
Guitar Hero: On Tour was actually supposed to be my present, but I'm pretty unenthused about it. I have GH III and On Tour isn't better than that so meh. My wife however was all over it trying to figure out how to strum and play. We had to put on a screen for the bottom screen since she was strumming so hard.

I actually got MYST with the next two games. Game Stop ran a "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" sale and with a new handheld that sounded great. We actually were trying to go see Avatar, but that was sold out until the next day so I suggested we brave the lines and take our date to Game Stop to use a $20 gift card I got on some games for the DS. One of those was Myst that she booted up once to see how it looked and then put in Layton again.


Hotel Dusk: Room 215
This was the second game we bought. I like visual novels, and somehow I convinced my wife that she would want this. So far we haven't done much more than boot it up and play a short bit, but its sitting there waiting for us to finish the games that are distracting us right now. The art style is something to behold though and I can't wait to dive into it.


Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2
So my wife had two games (in her mind) that she had bought, and now it was my turn to get something. I looked through the games and found nothing. Since it was a used game only sale I was looking through all the games without original boxes and found nothing I really could see myself buying. A few weeks earlier I wanted Chaos Wars (since I was getting Growlanser), but they didn't have it. I actually even got help from the clerk to look for The World Ends With You with no luck. They only had new copies of Retro Game Challenge, Knights in the Nightmare and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor so those were a no go deal-wise. My wife started looking at me like it was hopeless and she really wanted me to buy something for myself on my gift card, so I was stuck between a rock and a hard place until I decided to ask if they had FFTA2. They did so I got it.

FFTA2 is the game I've been playing the most out of my Christmas/Chanukkah collection. Its not as good as the other two Tactics, but its structure is fairly addicting. Its also the game that justified the DS as a gift for the both of us. I've never been an early to bed person while my wife is, so with this I learned that she can put up with the two little screen lights and I can game on right next to her peacefully.

Short 1 paragraph impression (skip if you don't care):
It's story isn't as thought provoking or interesting as either of the earlier tactics. The main characters have more attitude, but not really more personality. I was never a big fan of the Law system (and I'm still not), but they did lessen its necessity as it rewards those that follow it with status upgrades. There is no death which removes strategy elements, but doesn't hurt the obsessive compulsive aspects. The pub system however is quite addicting as you actually get to participate in each diverse little mission which is pretty refreshing. FFTA2 is equally as good and bad as the first Tactics Advance game, just in different ways. Still not as good as the original however.


Xbox Live Gold Card (Halo ODST)
I haven't been a big supporter of XBL or the 360 this year. With Sony closing the gap in many different ways this year, Microsoft's pay to play isn't justifiable. I did however see a Sears 19.99 deal that was obviously the wrong price, but that Best Buy was deal matching. So I went in with a print out and tried to pick it up. The Best Buy near my house would have given it to me if they had it. So I went to the one about 5 miles down the road and picked it up with a rewards zone coupon for 14.99. I doubt I'll be playing a lot online but I did buy these next games because of it.


Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Zombies (I'm not gonna type out leet speak)
I bought Marvel VS Capcom 2 for the 360 when it went on sale for 560 points on Christmas. It was on my Holiday List, and I couldn't pass up the deal. I booted it up and I've got to admit I'm disappointed. I've only played online once and got my ass handed to me, but the level of presentation that was in the Dreamcast game isn't there. There are a lot of good features, but I was kinda hoping that I would have to play through to purchase the costumes and characters all over again and they were all unlocked. I am going to have to actually buckle down and remember how to play this as hard mode was a little bit harder to get through than I remember. I'm just gonna blame the controller until I get better.

While thinking about purchasing MvC2, I also had to think about how to spend the rest of my Moon Money. I only had 900 points which is a pretty rediculous number to wind up with. So I started looking into the indie games. I figured I could buy a few of the indie titles to finally get me back to 0 if bought 500 MS points through the 360 itself. Zombies was the first game I've bought without trying a demo because I've had that song stuck in my head since I first saw a video of it. I've tried it and its not brilliant, but its a dollar. For what it does that's more than enough. Hopefully my wife will play some co-op with me.