Christmas 2012 - The re-birth of the fan boy

Christmas, up until recently I had lost the Christmas spirit. It was just a day where I went to my folks house, ate to much, fell asleep and then went back to my flat. Luckily, I met my wife and her huge family which certainly spices up Christmas Day. Since becoming a parent though, the magic of it all has come back to me and I am in love which this magical time of year.

This year, Christmas was extra special as youngest gamer is able to appreciate it properly for the first time. So the excitement levels on Christmas morning were close to danger levels. The Little Gamers tore into their presents like a pack of hungry lions ripping open a gazelle, pausing briefly to look at the occasional box or item. BooJam was overjoyed with her new LeapPad, just like her sister's one. Both the girls got a game each for their LeapPads. Boojam got the Letter Factory game and Betsy Lou got her Brave game. With the ritual un wrapping done the newly formed LeapPad twins sat on the sofa tablets in hand and played nicely until lunch was served.

As for me, I had already had mentioned that I wanted to save up towards getting a pre-owned PS3. Instead though, my parents actually bought me a brand new 12GB PS3 Super Slim with Skylanders Giants pack as my main present for Christmas (and birthday too!). Best of all my brilliant wife had got me Heavy Rain (the game I had been waiting forever to play) and The Dark Knight Rises on Blu-Ray. Perfect for taking my new toy for a test drive. Infamous turned up as well, courtesy of my wife's cousin as well. So I was all set to delve into the world of the PlayStation 3. Or so I thought.

You see of the 12Gb advertised on the Box of the PS3 only 9GB of that is usable for storage, after you deduct the space used by the system software and tools. Then, unlike the Xbox 360, most of the modern titles have a mandatory installation. In the case of Heavy Rain it is almost a 6 GB install. Then add in the space required for Infamous and I had filled my PS3 up already. So a quick scout on Ebay and Amazon and I had ordered a cheap 160GB hard drive and Official Sony HDD mounting bracket.

A quick trip to CEX saw alot of Xbox games collection turn to PS3 versions and also the addition of a couple PS3 exclusive classics. After the Vita had brought me back in to the Sony world, the transformation was complete. The Sony fan boy has been reborn. I would expect that the new few months on here are going to feature the phrases remote play, cross controller and cross buy. Whilst Sony are hoping for more PS3 owners to adopt the PS Vita. I have had the opposite experience the Vita has made me want a PS3 more.

Have I deserted the Xbox though? Not at all, the Xbox has permanently move in to the living room and is going to be used for a lot more Kinect based family orientated stuff. The Little Gamers are over the moon as they no longer have to fight Daddy for control of the Xbox when they want to play Just Dance: Disney Party or new favourite Kinect Party. Plus I still have Halo 4 and more to get through on the old Xbox, including finishing what appears to be many peoples game of the year The Walking Dead.

So looking forward to 2013 now and I cannot wait. This year is going to be a very good year for gaming.