Christmas Loot!

Ah yes, Christmas has come and gone for a 23rd time (for me, of course) and with its passing, I am presented with another season's worth of loot. I know everyone always says it's better to give than to receive--and it is--but receiving is a close second to giving in my book. Even though I never really want as much any more, just getting a few new things around the holidays is neat. Knowing that people care about me and actually want to give me something other than a fist to the face or a sword through the abdomen is comforting. So, what did I get (other than what I already told you Kristin gave me)? That's what you all must be wondering, right? I know I'm often curious enough about other people's presents so here's some of the stuff I got this year:

I've been wanting to get Doom III since it came out simply to see if it's as scary as all of the reviews say it is. That, as well as seeing if my computer will run the beast period. Thankfully my grandma and grandpa (no doubt on hints from my parents) picked it up for me along with a couple of Top Shelf graphic novels. It'll be fun to play it on the 17" LCD monitor my parents gave me... well, helped me pay for I should say. My old monitor, which was a CRT, up and died about a month ago so I needed to get a replacement. To maximize some of my desk space, I decided to go the LCD route and so far I'm liking it.

My grandmama didn't really know what to get me so she gave me some money to go pick up something I wanted. With it, I picked up two books that I've had my eyes on for a while now. The first was the gigantic Ultimate Spider-Man hardcover from Barnes & Noble. This isn't just the first volume hardcover, it's the uber-volume that contains all of the first 3 hardcovers within it. I've never read any of the Marvel Ultimate titles, and I've never read too much Spider-Man period, so I thought this might be a good way to start out.

The second book was the DC Comics Encyclopedia. Everything I've ever wanted to know about DC's myriad of characters can be found in this volume. I've had a fun time just leafing through the pages seeing who's in it so I can't wait to start exploring many of the characters from the DC univers I don't know a whole lot about.

Other than Doom III, I snagged a few Xbox games as presents to keep me busy--X-men Legends, Spy Hunter, and Spy Hunter 2. Kristin and I played probably 20 hours of X-men Legends while she was down visiting and I heartily recommend it to all X-men and action role-playing game fans. It's a totally immersive experience if you're an X-men fan. You get to fight many of the classic enemies with a ton of different X-men characters. You can also play around in the Danger Room, explore the X-mansion, play X-men trivia, and do tons of other stuff. It's easily worth the money.

The Spy Hunter games I've wanted for a while (yes, I know they're pretty old games) but never gotten around to picking up. Racing games have never interested me very much, but then I played the 007 games for Xbox (Nightfire and Agent Under Fire). In those games there were driving missions that were very goal oriented and structured. I found that I really liked that type of driving as opposed to simply racing. Both of the Spy Hunter games fall smack dab into that kind of driving game so I requested them for Christmas. I've delved into the first one and it's quite fun, if not a little bit hard.

Other than those gifts, I got the usual gift certificates and little knick-knack type things. Oh yeah, and I got a new headpiece for my cell phone since my current one kind of sucks. All in all, I think Christmas treated me quite well this year. I hope that all of you out there in internet land fared as well!