Since everyone's writing Christmas/New Year's blogs about the games they either got as gifts or used gift cards to buy the games they actually wanted. Me? I got a few and those who read my birthday blog know I already got Mario Kart 7 for my 3DS (I can share codes if you want) as well as my friend gave me Skylander Giants for my Wii mainly because he won it off a Facebook contest and already had it for his PS3 and passed it off to me. And I don't hate that game, there's waaaay worse shameless cash in kids games that don't try to be halfway good to milk money and while I did get an elemental figure of each type just to get to all areas I don't plan to buy the entire set but enough of that on to Christmas.

A quick note, for those who read my "Precarious Situation" blog know that my access to my PS3 is limited now. My husband takes it to his mom's during the week while he's at this new job at least until we can find a new house so for now I'm making the most of my Wii playing the handful of games I was interested in until I finally decide to trade it up for a WiiU. But here we go.

I haven't opened this one yet. After playing a pretty crummy demo and seeing even worse reviews, I'm almost dreading it. I defended the first Epic Mickey for at least trying to make an interesting game with a liscenced property when so many especially anything based on a kid's property is a crappy cash in but someone forgot to tell Disney interactive that when you make a sequel you are supposed to IMPROVE things that were wrong with the first not make them worse. I get the feeling Warren was under pressure from Disney to get this game out for Christmas as well as fear that the kids will grow out of the "shameless milking" phase if they waited to improve the basic things. It's a shame too because presentation-wise it improved a lot. I'll play it until either I beat it or throw my controller down in frustration and mind you I played Sonic Next Gen to the end.

I guess I just like Kart racers but I'm going to put these two together for a major reason, if you are wanting a Kart racer not starring Mario and are unsure, Sonic is the way to go and no I'm not saying that because I'm a Sonic fan. While Sackboy's racer has the charm of LBP and can be fun, it seems like a liesurely drive in the park next to Sonic's racer. Sonic's game is a high adrenaline thrill ride and could easily be the "Best Mario Kart Clone" to date. The only thing Sackboy has over Sonic is the level creator and unless you're hard up to make your own tracks, go buy Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed. Sega took everything that was good about their first karting outing, ramped it up to 11, brought in more franchises, more characters, cars you can mod and the transformations between car, boat and plane put both Diddy Kong Racing and MK7 to shame. Nintendo, if you're working on Mario Kart U, you may want to take some pointers from Sumo and Sega here. Just sayin'

Unlike Sony, Nintendo wasn't big on releasing compilation discs of their big franchises despite a lot of major anniversaries going on during the Wii's run. After all why put them all on a disc, when you can make more off the Virtual Console downloads. Mario fans just got Mario All Stars without Super Mario World (WTF?) in a special package. Zelda fans got orchestral CD with Skyward Sword (which I love the CD mind you) and thanks to Other M, Samus didn't get an anniversary celebration but Kirby got a huge package. 6 old school games, a soundtrack CD, a history book, and 3 episodes of Kirby Right Back at Ya. Currently working on a few titles on here I didn't play the first time around like Crystal Shards. Though I would've gladly dropped the TV eps in favor of a few GBA or DS titles added on but this is worth having if you're a Kirby fan. Here's hoping Nintendo makes HD WiiU collections of Mario, Zelda, etc.

So with some gift cards, I picked up Mario's need paper adventure and I don't get it. We complain about Mario doing the same thing over and over again with the "New" series but then when Nintendo tries to change up the formula with something like this (or Sunshine) we complain that it's "too different." I only started this so I can't really form a solid opinion on if I like or hate this yet. I find sticker collecting very addictive though though I think Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door was the peak of the PM series and a testament to the "Mario can't have deep engaging stories" argument.

And finally with a $50 PSN card my husband put in my stocking, I felt I had to download this because everyone wouldn't shut up about it. Hell even Spike's VGAs in effort to try to shake the notion of "only appealing to dudebro gamers" nominated it for Game of the Year. And I will say I found myself engaged in it. I passed on the other PSN "art house" titles like Flow and Flower and while Journey is more "gamelike" than the previous it is more of an interactive experience and I always feel the need to download the occasional indie gem from time to time as I did with Lostwinds, World of Goo, and Super Meat Boy before it. I'll be writing a review of this one as I beat it in 2 hours as soon as I figure out how to review it.

So that was my Christmas, I also got some books and DVDs and finally another MST3K box set so I have a lot to keep me busy for now.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year