Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas (it’s Christmas day as I write this, you see). While it could possibly be argued that 2013 was a disappointing year for gaming (too many sequels, too predictable), I nether-the-less had a lot of fun at home with my various forms of electronic entertainment. Here are my personal top five moments of gaming related joy this year…

#5: Jack Tretton mic bombs E3

Sure, it’s all said and done now. The consoles are out and Microsoft has totally reversed track on their whole online DRM nonsense. But if you step back to E3 2013, you might just be able to re-catch that excitement of a certain Mr. Tretton stepping out on stage and basically announcing; “Enough of this shit! Let’s just play some fucking games!” It was a moment in time that excited the blood and stirred the senses… Also to see Microsoft scrambling back over themselves in the wake of it was pretty hilarious.

For just a few seconds, he became the patron saint of gamers.

#4: Metroid Madness!

Earlier this year, I had a very strong urge to revisit the world of Metroid. That urge soon turned into a full blown bout of obsession. Over the course of about a month I played through and finished; Metroid Fusion (twice), Metroid Zero Mission, Metroid Other M and Super Metroid. Along the way I discovered that Other M isn’t a complete dog of a game and Fusion is actually my favorite 2D entry in the franchise. If Nintendo ever get around to making another full Metroid game, the WiiU is as good as bought!

Apparently, Samus gives no quarter to the disabled.

#3: Bioshock Infinite

I loved Bioshock Infinite. That came as a bit of a surprise to me, because I didn’t particularly love the original Bioshock. I thought it was a decent FPS adventure with oodles of atmosphere, but love it… Well, no. But I was in love almost as soon as I set foot in the world of Bioshock Infinite! With it’s floating cities, amusement park style visuals, alluring science fiction detailing and extreme violence, the title just blew me away. Even better, the game had awesomely fun combat mechanics as well as some memorable emotional peaks. I loved every second and ended up playing through the game twice.

Yes I would… Just sayin’.

#2: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

God bless PSPlus. After playing through the “Best Game Ever Made (c)” Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and finding it merely a solid game, my wont to play the insanely hyped third installment wasn’t particularly high. But in a moment of boredom, I decided to download the free 40GB digital version on PSPlus. Man am I glad I did because it rocked the shit! I felt that it was a far superior title to Uncharted 2 in every conceivable way… Oh, and it was better than the Last of Us too. The plot line, dialogue, combat mechanics, atmosphere, set-pieces, gameplay variety… It was all pretty much perfect. I was flipping out the whole time whilst playing! So much so, in fact, that I went back and replayed Uncharted 2. And whilst I did enjoy that game incrementally more than last time, it still didn’t come close to the thrills of Drake’s Deception. See… Sometimes (Michael Bay pay attention) a little restraint can work wonders!

Where’s the trifle and cake?! Some desert this is!

#1: Becoming a gaming ‘journalist’

Wow… How egotistical does that sound. It kind off makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little. Still, I don’t know how else to say it. This year I started this website (patronized by all of 10 people… and thank you for that, btw) and the (slightly) more successful Axehead Assembly podcast over on Epicbattleaxe.com. These endeavors have added a lot of work into my free-time, especially editing the podcast, but getting together with friends from around the world, chatting about games and entertaining people while I’m at it… That’s a very special thing indeed. And as ramshackle as my website is, I fucking love it. Which is why I’m writing this blog on Christmas day instead of playing Minecraft! So thank you if you’ve been part of either my website or podcast. Happy 2014 to you all!