Christmas Gaming

Christmas time presents the perfect window for publishers to deliver the major game releases of the year. Christmas has changed from being a time of religious celebration to a celebration of consumerism. Lets show the world how much we love capitalism by spending. Lets support corporations by giving them our hard earned dollars. Of course, as a means to provide the perfect focus for our holiday spending games such as Mass Effect, Guitar Hero 3, Rock Band have all managed to find a way on to our christmas wish list. Their glossy posters and internet advertising are just a means for us to focus our short attention spans and desires on the need to have something new.

In order to celebrate this time of year in typical cynical fashion I thought that it would be a good idea to dig in to some second hand games that I have picked up. In order to celebrate non-chistmas corporate cheer I thought I would attempt to buck the trend and find some games which weren't new that I could dig my teeth in to. To not give something back to the corporations for a change considering they get it pretty good anyway and my hard earned dollars are just that, hard earned.

I recently acquired a PS2. I have managed to resist the temptation to purchase the Sony console for some time. I am not a big fan of their controllers to start with. However, there were a number of PS2 games which I wanted to play. I hadn't entered the world of Final Fantasy since number 7 was on the first Sony console. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it and I wanted to see where the franchise was headed. I picked up Final Fantasy X & X 2. There were also a couple of Grand Theft Auto games which I hadn't played. I own Vice City Stories on the PSP, but I didn't like the controls so I had never played it through. I also managed to get Liberty City Stories as well. Then there is the classic racing series Gran Turismo which I hadn't played since GT2. This seemed like an eternity ago. One other game which I had managed to pick up which had been on my most wanted games list for quite some time was the Atari Activision collection. The main reason I wanted this game was for the original River Raid. An absolute scrolling shooter classic and a game which I still rate.

As a gamer with a limited budget it can be difficult to buy all the games you want at the time of release. I already believe that my contribution financially to the game industry far exceeds the norm. With all the games that I own for the Xbox 360 now taking up more than a shelf on my bookcase. With the PC Games that I purchase as well I think that the gaming industry gets far too much of my income. Picking up games later can be a good way to save money.

Having some time off work I hope to make these old, second hand games my holiday focus. Rather than give someone a new release game this year for christmas give them several second hand games. You will, potentially, increase the amount of play time that they get and buck the system at the same time.