Like a lot of people, the new year is a time to take stock of things and to get rid of anything that's not needed. This year in particular that inventory included our gaming situation. I took a little time last week to look at all the ways we play and how that may change in the coming months.
For Christmas, we bought a Nintendo DSi to replace the old-style DS that we used to have. I finally get to play Elite Beat Agents again! We only have five other DS games and I'm not very interested in playing any of them. I read that Nintendo will be stopping production on their other DS models and sticking with the 3DS and the 2DS. The old games aren't compatible with the new models, so I'm hoping I can pick up some games on the cheap soon. The ones on my shortlist are Animal Crossing: Wild World, Trauma Center: Under the Knife, and the Professor Layton games.
We bought the family a couple games for the XBox 360 -- Fable II and Assasin's Creed II. Our favorite pawn shop seems to get more XBox games than anything else and I've already prepared my husband for the plan to pick up whatever games I run across at a good price instead of waiting for Christmas and birthdays. ABM has made comments about the consoles being unused, but I've reminded him that our kids have played through the few games we've already purchased. We've purchased maybe 10 games total for the XBox over the two years that we've had it. My kids are pretty good about replaying games, but that is asking too much. Now is a prime time to buy, too; with the new XBox One on the shelves, I suspect that people will be off-loading their old XBox 360 games (which are not compatible with XBox One) into my local pawn shop and Gamestop stores.
If I was going to make anything that resembled a New Year's resolution in regards to gaming, it would be to play more games with the kids. I haven't played many card or board games since a brief infatuation with hobby games a few years ago, but I discovered over the winter break that my kids have not forgotten that time. The prospect of playing Dungeon on Christmas day had them all racing to the table. Three of the kids got tablets, so we played Uno & Friends, as well. I also spent some time watching my eldest daughter play Red Dead Redemption. We even fired up the old consoles and played Parappa the Rapper 2, Frequency, and Donkey Konga. My son DJ said to me on New Year's Eve that playing games together was his favorite part of of the holiday and that we should do it more often. Awww!
