I didn’t get anythin g lol. Did get my parents tickets to see Billy Joel and Elton John in concert. They’re excited about that.

I got a dock for my iPhone, some snowpants, a leather wrap for my Mazda3′s stearing wheel, and other sundry stuff.

I too got the MGS4 pack for LBP for myself.

Bought a stack of games in the sales the week before xmas, and a pair of dualshock 3′s (at full price , and a few psn bits and pieces. Not really as xmas presents for myself, but now’s just a good time to buy or it’s finally been released here (and i’ve got a few weeks off work).

Prince of persia – looks really really nice with a pretty solid frame-rate, the leaping about is much better/more fun than assassins creed, and there’s a bit of humour (assassins creed was too dull and serious). Nathan Drake as the voice is completely wrong though, at least they could’ve had someone with at least a bit of a middle-eastern accent, surely … (same with the chick) – even his characterisation is too similar: tomb raider/treasure hunter, even most of his grunts and exclamations and random flirty chit-chat could be straight out of uncharted. But I guess they made it for the american market, who can’t seem to listen to anything but hollywood accents. Oh and you can’t ‘die’ – which is good cause you do it a lot – and being forced to re-load after dying would be an utter pita. It streams the levels too, so if you’re navigating `on foot’ it doesn’t need to stop and load. The ‘magic plate’ mini-game stuff is annoying though. Seems to have a pretty decent auto-difficulty too. If you keep dying the enemies get easier to beat, and/or it gives you more time for context-sensitive blocks and moves, and as you get better they get a bit harder. I was just impressed, on a technical and gameplay level it is nice to see this level of polish (it was even cheaper than the others).

Resistance 2 – i’m still sore on the lack of invert x. But the visuals are really nice imo – the water, lighting and textures are all impressive – and the solid frame-rate is a big plus from me (you can make a still screenshot look fantastic, but they make it move too). Some of the learn-by-dying-and-repeat stuff is a bit crappy though, and the scripted ambushes are still too scripted. The lack of invert-x makes fire fights more frustrating than they should be – which is a pity ’cause they seem well done.

Motorstorm 2 – well it’s the same again i guess, with splitscreen. Looks better of course, although some of the ground textures are really shitty. The split-screen mode needs some more intimate tracks, otherwise you just drive around, sort of lost the whole time. I might not have bought it but it was ‘free’ from a credit card ‘rewards’ thing that I had to spend by 2009.

Tomb Raider – not surprisingly, haven’t had time to even open it yet.

Also got singstar (ps2) for my girlfriends daughter (as an xmas present). Probably a waste, she doesn’t seem interested in anything much – at least it was on special so I got a bungle+another disc for the price of a bundle. Although I detest karaoke, it was interesting to see how they’ve done it – it is a well put together and slick package, I can see why it is such a successful title (it even got me to play a couple of times – and i wasn’t even drunk!).

PSN. The MGS LBP levels. Pretty nice – the sort of thing I’d spend $10 on – the same as the price of the 4 costumes, on which I wouldn’t. The gun should really add a HUGE dimension to the game – it will be interesting to see how it gets used in the user-created levels. Pity you can’t grab when you’re holding the gun though, and the animation looks weird the way he holds it steady – out of character for the sack-lad.

Savage Moon – although i didn’t really like pixeljunk monsters much, and i haven’t played any flash variants, i want to like the genre. Some of the graphics are a bit ‘busy’ (hard to see with detail over busy textures), but the models are very nice when you zoom up, and they know how to triple-buffer (no tearing!). Sound effects are suitably boomy and surround-soundy. Technically – nicely done, slick presentation, quick loading, etc. The gameplay is a bit busier and complex and the towers are pretty different and so on. I think the best part vs ‘monsters is you’re busy thinking about what to do next rather than scraping ever-so-slowly across the screen picking up bloody coins and gems.

Hmm, what else, the toy home expansion pack – well it was cheap (xmas special). Girlfriends daughter plays that sometimes. Should really have been in the base game to start with though.

Planet Earth on Blu-ray is awesome! I prefer the BBC version myself.

I have been playing lots of Crash Commando (PSN). Have not touched LBP in about 3 weeks. Also amusing myself with about 30 minutes of PS Home beta a day. The social aspects are fun…. I play a hot chick and in 20 minutes get 3 friend invites…. play a super ugly chick (or guy), and yep, nothing… lol. seems 90% of the conversations are to hook-up…reminds me of my irc days minus the op wars, plus 3D avatars…….

Any trips planned to Japan?! Cool masks.

I got a PSP and have been taking advantage of the great boxing week deals on software for that platform. 2 for 20$ at Rogers for new games has been the best score by far, cheaper than used…

As far as the PS3 goes I got Wipeout from PSN but that’s it. I’ve been replaying some older games from my collection and trying to figure out what to ebay in the new year.