A New Years Resolution

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday, unless you don’t have any this time of year, in which case I suggest you get a better religion (preferably one that focuses on candles, bunnies, or gifts). I had an excellent vacation in NY with my family and friends and got to participate (or instigate) many video game related activities. I picked up Zelda Four Swords while doing some last minute gift shopping, forced Pat to play Fire Emblem in the terrible traffic on the ride home, then made our way through the Final Fantasy 12 demo (neither of us were impressed), spent an hour or two playing Metropolismania then got to 4 Swords. I also convinced my brother and brother in law to play Guitar Hero and got my brother’s girlfriend hooked on Wario Ware Twisted. Then for Festivus my girlfriend (finally) gave me Paper Mario 2 and Psychonauts. Then there was some other crap with a tree, family dinner, baking cookies, etc. Overall, it was an excellent Winter Solstice.

New Years is a pretty stupid holiday. As far as I can tell it’s the celebration of calendar sales and an excuse for TV to waste hours giving us a recap of the past year just in case we were in a coma. New Years resolutions are a waste of time because, despite what astrologers tell us, the rotation of the earth around the sun has no bearing on will power or sound decision making (ignoring “winter blues”). But a paragraph long entry solely describing the video games I’ve played in the last week would be pretty sad, so I will be making a resolution this year and it is thus: I will not buy any new generation console for more than $150.

This would be a bold statement if it were entirely based on principle and not my bank account. It also means I’ll need to find some more writers with decent salaries pretty quickly. The saving grace of this resolution may be the Revolution’s launch price, which is rumored to be around $150. The line between fickle and fanboy will blur but at least I’ll have something to play come next Kwanza.

I encourage everyone to make a resolution that limits your choices for no real reason. It will save you money and build character. The closer you can link your resolution to a real or imagined cause the better. For example, make a resolution not to buy any EA games this year, or a resolution to only buy original intellectual properties (which encompasses the first suggested resolution). I could easily imagine a progressive gamer only buying games with black lead characters (enjoy your game this year) or heroines who have at most a C cup (enjoy your game free year) but some people want a resolution that doesn’t try to fix the world. How about only buying consoles that have enough degrees in them for a full circle, or consoles that are designed by someone with initials that are one K short of KKK?

Whatever your resolution this new year, make sure you keep it or feel horrible about your complete lack of will, you pathetic piece of crap. You’re worthless and no one will ever love you because you can’t even keep a resolution to buy only Sean Connery based games. Who’s the man now dawg? Not you. Anyway, if you come up with any particularly interesting resolutions feel free to let me know. Have a happy new year and go buy a calendar.