PixlBit

Started the day with a little virtual fireplace. It's an Indie game on Xbox Live called simply Fireplace and you can set it up anyway you want and watch it burn. Toasty. I roasted my chestnuts too.

               

Then I hooked up the N64. . . yes, that's right. The N64 and played Clayfighter 63 1/3 Sculptor's Cut. I started with Bad Mr. Frosty because I had the crazy idea that I'd beat the whole game and unlock Sumo Santa the normal way. Silly me. On normal difficulty, the AI is hugely unfair, and I only got through a couple of fights. So I looked up cheats and got the one to unlock playable Sumo Santa. I played as Sumo Santa on Cookie and Easy difficulty. I finished Cookie, but got stuck fighting High Five on Easy.

               

             Tried to take out High Five with the Blubber super combo, but got poked instead.

It was fun listening to all the Sumo Santa one-liners: "the kringle krush", "belly launcher", "I'm adding you to the naughty list", "my elves hit harder than you", "jingle this all the way", "Santa's gonna sit on your lap", but my favorite was "stocking stuffer.". The move results in the opponent being covered in a giant red stocking, then takes damage stuggling to get out. How I got the move to execute was anybody's guess. I just hit one of the yellow d-pad buttons and then swept the analog stick around. I used to know the moves, but for this play, I just winged it. 

                

                                                           Stocking stuffer!!!

Then I went back to Xbox 360 and booted up A World of Keflings. I don't know why I thought there was Xmas DLC for this, 'cause there wasn't, but I always associate the Keflings games with Xmas because that's when I played A Kingdom For Keflings. The sequel, A World of Keflings, came out on Dec 22, 2010, so I played that on Xmas too. It's become a bit of a tradition with me and why not; playing a relaxing building sim like this is perfect for a Xmas weekend.

               

I played the weekly challenge map a couple of different times. The second time I wanted a more organized building plan, and so I focused on putting certain building types in their own place, creating a manufactoring area, a residential area, a school area, and a market area. I also focused on Kefling dwellings first above all else. I was never short of those little buggers doing that.

Then I thought what would be good is to hit some super old school stuff because the only console I ever got at Xmas time was the Atari 2600. I opened Game Room on Xbox Live and started playing each game I owned at least three times each and marking down high scores on my backloggery page. Some favorites there (I didn't get to them all today) were: Detana!!! Twinbee, during which I kept screaming "detana!!!" every time I unleashed a big attack driving my friend nutzo; Gyruss, during which I kept mentioning how close I was getting to Uranus - I should grow up -; Lunar Lander, as always fun but challenging; Mega Zone, during which I delivered a rant about the rediculous difficulty of old school arcade games - much to my friend's further annoyment; and Shao-Lin's Road, during which I kept yelling things like "get over here!" and "I'll kick your face off!". Yea, I was out of control, but that's as it should be playing video games in my humble opinion. 

               

     Game Room is so neglected now that it crashes every time you go back to the dashboard.

Speaking of my friend, I should mention what he was playing. He was playing Xbox Original Sid Meier's Pirates! on Xbox 360. He totally mastered that game during the week. He found all the family members and had a 40 gun ship that was slaughtering everything that got near it. I asked him how he managed to beat all the dancing games and get married and he said he just avoided buying those shoes that I bought. Those shoes were advertised to make my dancing better, but boy were they more like cursed Shoes-of-Tripping because they took away the prompts in my game that made dancing much easier. Then he was playing Ticket to Ride and then Bejewelled 2. He told me Candy Crush is basically Bejewelled and nothing more. I believe it. 

And that was day one of Xmas weekend. Day two starts in 8 hours and will begin with the best cookies on the East Coast, sold by Hope's Cookies in Bryn Mawr, PA. Then I'll finish up all my Game Room games and start some PS2 games that, in my brain, are associated with Christmas, although, I'm sure no one else will.

Say goodbye Sumo Santa and Blob.