{"id":820,"date":"2007-12-18T19:25:15","date_gmt":"2007-12-18T23:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2007\/12\/18\/all-i-want-for-xmas\/"},"modified":"2007-12-18T19:25:15","modified_gmt":"2007-12-18T23:25:15","slug":"all-i-want-for-xmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2007\/12\/18\/all-i-want-for-xmas\/","title":{"rendered":"All I Want For Xmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

This time of the year is crazy. We all know about the shopping, the cooking, the travel (for some). I’ve also had some deadlines to meet and games to catch up on for my seasonal wrap-up. So I (once again) apologize for my silence.<\/p>\n

My gift list is usually pretty short since I’m not an acquisitive sort. My wife has been wondering what I want for my birthday and that was eight months to go – that sort of demonstrates how low personal trinkets are on my list. Besides, we’ve been married for over a decade. She should know by now, right?<\/p>\n

Since I’ve been conditioned to believe in Christmas miracles, here’s a list of things that would make my holiday bright and full of smiles not induced by egg nog.<\/p>\n

1) A Release Date For Spore<\/strong> – I usually don’t put much stock in the “countdown to release” stuff, and everyone wants to see Spore<\/em>. But the more I see of it (especially the long spread in this month’s PCGamer), the less sure I am that it is real. Can you really do all this stuff smoothly in a single game? A release date beyond the vague Q2 2008<\/em> would make me a little more confident that the most brilliant designer still working in the business still has it.<\/p>\n

2) A Wii<\/strong> – Yeah, yeah, get in line. But the thing is, I think this might actually help bridge the small divide that keeps my non-gaming friends from really appreciating what I do. The big problem I have with the Xbox 360 (a wonderful gaming console) is that it really isn’t social. It targets a certain market and aside from some of the lighter XBLA stuff, it’s pretty hardcore stuff. Even the sports games are hardcore. And I doubt an Early Americas historian is going to leap at Halo<\/em>. Wii Bowling on the other hand…<\/p>\n

3) An end to Senior Wii Stories<\/strong> – I hate the mainstream media’s coverage of games. It’s terrible. And the non-stop stories about how America’s seniors are turning to the Wii are terrible. I know I’m supposed to be happy that this coverage brings games to non-gamers and isn’t about how Viva Pinata<\/em> players are beating up classmates, but the point has been made. Over and over and over. Besides, granny is playing a Wii that could belong to me.<\/p>\n

4) Money<\/strong> – OK, this is a little selfish, too. But GMT Games has announced two more expansions to the Commands and Colors<\/em> game<\/a>. So if I want the core plus the three expansions, I need almost as much as I would need for a Wii. Having seen the Commands and Colors<\/em> game in action, it’s really impressive. And very attractive. This would be sixty battles, many of them based on a lot of conjecture. Having just finished reading a two volume biography of Pompey, it would be nice to see his brilliance represented, though I’m not hopeful that his victory over Mithridates makes an appearance.
\n
\n5) Success for friends<\/strong> – I have friends and colleagues who are undertaking new enterprises or pursuing career goals or beginning new stages in their lives. If this holiday season leads to lots of good news from them, then my stocking will feel stuffed.<\/p>\n

Expect sporadic updates for the next week or so until the holiday rush slows down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This time of the year is crazy. We all know about the shopping, the cooking, the travel (for some). I’ve also had some deadlines to meet and games to catch up on for my seasonal wrap-up. So I (once again) apologize for my silence. My gift list is usually pretty short since I’m not an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-de","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}