With this holiday season upon us, we, the editors of Destructoid, think it’s important for people to remember that we are all one family here on Earth. Everyone, from Africa to Australia is our brother or sister and that we have a global sense of duty to love each other. With that in mind, I would like to explore how Christmas is traditionally celebrated in a little known country to the north known as Iceland.
Iceland, or Ikkelanden, as it’s natives call it, is a land almost perpetually frozen in ice. At certain points, this ice can reach depths of 30 to 40 meters and it’s common to look downward to see people, animals and small cars frozen beneath one’s feet. Due to this great abundance of ice, the Icelandic people have eked out a living based on carving ice sculptures, harvesting tiny ice shrimps (which, are more closely related to the barnacle than they are to a shrimp) and becoming famous indie pop singers.
While Anglo-Saxon countries have a tradition of erecting trees and hoping for Santa Clause to bring them gifts, Iceland does things a bit differently. On Christmas Eve, they attach their three finest dogs to the door of their house and any one foolish enough to walk too close to the dogs are promptly eaten in the night. Upon awakening the next morning, the parents of the household untie the dogs and retrieve anything left of the devoured people which they distribute amongst their own children. Of course, bones and bits of flesh go to the eldest children, while socks and mittens go to the younger ones who have a harder time staving off the cold Icelandic nights.
After a day of disinfecting their new treasures, the entire family gathers around the yule fire and they sing the traditional “Ik sbhuc ine cuvid”, which translates roughly to “I found an elf in my shoe”. Later, they will all stumble back to bed drunk on Ice Brandy, and with bellies full of delicious Ice Turkey.
Now that you know a bit more about the traditions of this mighty land, don’t you feel a bit closer to them? I spent 5 years in Iceland sleeping with anything that had a pulse and the proper bits and if there was one thing I learned, it’s that Bjork is totally nuts.
Oh, and I guess I’m supposed to talk about what the editors have been playing too. Read below if you DARE!
Dick McVengeance:
I’m actually picking up Guilty Gear X2 again since I have a friend nearby who can play it on the PS2, so it’s thouroughly enjoyable. I’ll be leeching off of Borrie’s DS charger, since mine is MIA, but then I shall be tackling Trauma Center once again.
Nick Brutal:
Now that I have finally hit all of the achievements for Lumines Live, I am finally free of the chains that have (up until now) bound me.
Elebits; Super Swing Golf; and Twilight Princess are my Wii games of choice right now. And despite what I said in my review, it seems that I will actually go back and complete as much of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin as possible (I will 40,495% the game!!).
Other gaming tasks include working on getting the remaining single player and co-op achievements in Gears of War, making a friend who will play Assault Heroes with me, and clearing Guitar Hero II on expert (I have to practice for the online multplayer coming to Xbox 360, right Harmonix?).
Aaron Linde:
Next week’s Bargain Bin Laden is still up in the air. I hit up GameStop last night and collected another handful of gems, including Disaster Report, P.N.03 and Shenmue II (now that the 360 supports it, unlike every other Xbox game I own), so there’s a lot to play in the classic arena. Meanwhile the future treads ever onward, and I’ve got copies of Elebits and Final Fantasy XII staring me down, demanding that I play and maybe even finish them.
Incidentally, I took stock last night of my PS2 collection, and here’s what I found: I own 59 PS2 games. Of those, unfinished (but half or nearly-conquered) games number around 15, virtually unplayed games around 10, and still sealed games at 4. There’s something fuckin’ wrong with me.
Nex:
This week I picked up NCAA Football 2007 for my PSP. As much as I still stand by my assertion that it sucks, it does do sports games pretty damn well and being able to play my favorite college football game at PS2 quality while stuck at work is fantastic. Plus, with the addition of 1-AA schools, I can now win the BCS championships with every school I ever dropped out of!
Also, I’ve been playing the hell out of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. There is something so devious and flat out rad about shooting a guy in the head with a tranq dart and then kidnapping and brainwashing him just so he can become your army’s TOP NUTRITIONIST! You’ve never had granola until you’ve had granola prepared for you by someone with a case of Stockholm Syndrome.
Ron “He’s Not Fat, He’s My Camaro” Workman:
The 360 is the only thing I played this week. Viva Pinata takes the top spot this week also. Oddly enough… I am starting to have dirty dreams about these things. Maybe I should put this game away for awhile. Call of Duty 3! Anyone that said this game sucks is an idiot. It is better than COD2 in many ways. It’s immersive as hell in single player and I hear that multiplayer is tight. I havent tried it yet though. Ninety Nine Nights is a shocker for me. I really thought that this was going to be nothing but button mashing crap but it’s seriously not. Granted… you can BS your way through the early stages, but I’m telling you, this game has some stategy to it. I was very surprised by the lack of buzz for this game. I know it’s been out for awhile, but this is my first hands on. You really do battle 100’s of people as once. If you are into Dynasty Warriors, then be sure to check out Ninety Nine Nights. Grey Bush out!
Orcist:
This week, I’m playing Final Fantasy 1, Soul Calibur III, and some friends have an epic SSB tourney planned. Of course, I’ll win, again. They just can’t stop Samus’ Vegita Cannon, the Slayer of Heroes.
CyberneticTigerZ:
I am in love with Kirby Squeak Squad. It’s a great title to pick up for the DS. Well, that is if you get it for free. The game is way too short. Granted, if you’re a Kirby fan, you expect it to be short. The story premise is that Kirby is chilling trying to eat a cherry cheese cake thing when all of a sudden it gets stolen from him. So he thinks that King DeDeDe did it and goes to fight him. After you defeat him, it turns out a band of thieves called the Squeak Squad stole his cake. So the whole point of the story line is that Kirby wants his cake back. Awesome huh? There are 8 levels and about 30 power ups to eat. Some of the new power ups are excellent and they updated a few of the old power ups as well. My favorite had to be the updated Fighter power up. It basically mimics Ryu/Kens fighting style. You can even do a hadoken! The game doesn’t rely heavily on the touch screen. The bottom screen acts as if it is Kirby’s stomach. Every time you eat something, you see it come in and instantly disappear. Some food and power up items are trapped in bubbles throughout the levels. If you eat those, they’ll stay within your stomach until you want to activate them. It’s a cute concept, but it gets old really fast. It doesn’t help that the bottom screen doesn’t respond well to tapping. If you plow right through the game, it’ll last about 3 to 4 hours at best. If you try and go for 100%, probably about 6 hours.
Nagiko:
Well, I just got my DS lite last week, so I’m alternating between Nintendogs and New Super Mario Bros. For PS2 I’m still chipping away at Final Fantasy 12 in bits and pieces. Weirdly enough, I also found myself in the middle of a Diablo 2 craving after our Blizz battle post and whipped out the old assassin character. Good times …
That’s it for us. We’re off to enjoy all kinds of nog, egg and otherwise. What have you kids been playing this week?
Also, we wanna wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Boisterous Kwanzaa and totally kick-ass snowday if any of you live in a place that global warming hasn’t quite fucked up yet. The best gift you guys could have given us was to keep reading this site and based on the tiny droids we have spying on you, you’ve already comitted to doing just that. Jesus would be proud.
