Picked up my mail the other day and discovered that I had received the Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Fortune Hunter Edition.

It's basically a cardboard box that's designed to resemble and old, dusty, leather-bound tome. Inside was a copy of the game, plus that weird dagger thing that Nathan Drake carries around over the course of the game. Also: There were a couple of pages of art work from the game.

I've received hundreds of junky things like this over the years. I figured it was yet another overproduced PR stunt designed to make me curious about a particular game.

Teti has gotten in the habit of re-purposing this stuff via Swag Tester, which is a terrific idea. If I was in New York this week, it might have occurred to me to donate the fake book to Swag Tester. But I am on the West Coast, and I had to carry the giant book home from the office, so by the time I got here, I was pretty sour about the whole thing. I took out my dagger, put it on the shelf next to my Ezio figurine. I thought there might be something else in the box-book, so I tore apart the cardboard, only to discover that the rest of the box-book was hollow.

I put it next to the front door, in the name of taking it down to the recycling room.

This morning I found out from a colleague that only 200 of these things were ever made. And of those 200, only five ever made it to Canada. And that the special edition of the game, which wasn't made available to consumers, is going for up to $4000 on eBay today.

I got out the masking tape and set to work trying to resuscitate the destroyed box, thinking I could post the whole thing on eBay, then donate whatever cash I got for it to charity in Crispy's name.

But no. The box was too far gone.

Man. I really did a number on this thing. See for yourself.

:(

What a self-destructive, old fool I am! 

I sort of lost my mind yesterday and wound up spending $100 on the Collector's Edition of Assassin's Creed II.

I was in the game store, one thing led to another, and suddenly the cashier was asking me if I needed a bag for this surprisingly large, ornate tin.

"I do," I said. "I don't want anyone on the street seeing me with this thing. Ha, ha!"

"You know," he said quietly, "I'm a sucker for these things too. I don't know why. If there's a Collector's Edition, I have to have it."

Me and my newly acquired Collector's Edition made the walk home in the drizzly Vancouver rain together.

I opened the large, decorative tin and took out my detailed figurine Ezio. I set it on my desk. I looked at it for awhile. What have I done? I wondered.

I don't mind the figurine so much. I'm not sure yet whether I want it in my apartment. I'll keep it on my desk for a few days and see how I feel about it.

But what I do mind is the pointless, useless, over-produced art booklet. What am I supposed to do with this? Leave it on my coffee table for visitors to enjoy when I serve them coffee/danish? "Perhaps you might enjoy leisurely leafing through this 20-page booklet? I highly recommend the 'OBJECTS' section! Brilliant!"

I'm also confused about this large tin box with Ezio's face printed on it. Should I store my bagels in it? What the hell? Of course, I can't really blame Ubisoft. As long as people like me, and the game store cashier, get overly excited on release days and make terrible, reckless, regrettable decisions, publisher will keep making these things.

You still have plenty of time to create several poignant drafts of your Christmas list and plan your New Year's Eve DJ Hero-centric blowout.

But the year in gaming, as we know it, is over.

It is.

With the last of the year's AAA behemoths in stores today--Assassin's Creed II, Left 4 Dead 2, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii, among others--that pretty much puts a bow on 2009. Aside from a few last-minute stragglers like The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and EA's The Saboteur, this year in gaming is, as the French say, fin.

Seems a bit premature, no? I mean, weren't we just kind of getting warmed up here? Might December be in danger of becoming the new June in this industry?

2008's December releases included Ubisoft's reboot of The Prince of Persia, Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories, Banjo Kazooie, Sonic Unleashed, Rise of the Argonauts, and the Wii version of Rock Band 2.

OK, so maybe last December wasn't exactly gangbusters, either. Still, it was better than 2009's totally anemic display.

But you know what? I'm actually kind of glad it's over. Seriously. Whenever I visit my colleague Victor Lucas, I notice the stack of games next to his television. That stack, he explained, is all the games that Vic intends to get around to finally finishing. It's his to-play pile. Each time I visit lately, the to-play stack has practically become a kind of miniature fortress around him.

Games have been flooding into game stores--and cash has been flooding out of my wallet--at a record pace this year. In the near-constant avalanche of new games, it's easier than ever for smaller, unheralded titles to get buried, never to be heard from again. Which makes me wonder: Is there such a thing as too much to play?

When  I was living in Chicago in the early '90s, I'd take the bus downtown to Michigan Avenue and go to the city's only game store. I'd ask: "Do you have Super Metroid in yet?" The clerk, as usual, would answer: "No."

I would go home again and play more Super R-Type, Super Mario World, or Super Street Fighter II: Turbo (those were super times), until I could practically beat M. Bison while wearing several blindfolds. I squeezed every bit of juice from those cartridges that they had in them. And then I squeezed them some more.

These days? I'm lucky if I get the chance to graze less than a third of all the titles that come across my desk.

Good games are getting lost because of this. Look at our recent Games That Time Forgot feature. There's a long, rich history in this medium of good games falling through the cracks. And it's getting longer and more rich all the time.

So tell me: What great game of 2009 do you think didn't get the credit it deserved? What game do you think will wind up on a future installment of GTTF? Beyond that, what can we do, as an editorial staff, to combat the disposable nature of videogames? 

If it sounds like I've forgotten all about my quest to make good on my promise to complete Final Fantasy XII, GUESS AGAIN, HATERZ.

I actually miss my old friends, Vaan and Penelo and I even miss Kytes a little (but only a little).

My intention was to haul my slimline PS2 back to Vancouver with me, but in my haste, as I did yet another photo-finish airport run (why do I continue to insist on doing this to myself? WHY?), I left the PS2 and my Memory Cards sitting in my office in NYC. Of course, genius that I am, I managed to packed the cords for the PS2, but the PS2 itself got left behind. Tech Tip: PS2 cords are useless without a PS2.

A neighbor has retrieved the Memory Cards for me; I had to explain to her what a "PS2" looked like, in addition to what a "memory card" is. She has put the cards in the mail and addressed them to me. Even as I type this, my saved games--which are, if you think about it, actual memories of actual experiences--are flying through the air towards me. w1ndstorm: They should be passing over your house NOW. Be sure to wave at them as they go by.

I consulted my RPG Sponsor, John Teti, about potentially re-starting FF XII from scratch, playing it on my PS3 (which is backwards compatible).

"Absolutely not," he advised. "You can't start over at this point."

So I wait. I sit at the window, and watch the rain fall in Vancouver.

I eat my soup, and I hope that the whole "neither wind, nor rain, nor sleet" thing applies to Canadian postal workers as well.

I was never a fan of the original Assassin's Creed. I stuck with it for awhile. But eventually the game just felt too hinky and too ambitious for its own good. I was lost all the time. I had no sense of direction, or that I was getting anywhere. I shelved it and moved on with my life.

The original sold enough copies to merit a sequel, much to my chagrin. When Ubisoft announced that the sequel was imminent, it was like being told that you have to re-marry your ex.

My response: "I tried to love you once. Now you want me to try to love you again?"

Give me a break.

Last week I loaded up Assassin's II with the lowest of expectations. I didn't know what the hell was going on for the first 40 minutes or so. Kristen Bell is back, playing a character who looks and sounds like Kristen Bell, only now with a weird mouth. And Nolan North--NOT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!--voices the guy who has to go into the Animus. Or whatever it is called. The two of them run around for awhile in some sterile science place, but eventually the game shifts mileus to Florence, Italy during the Renaissance.

And once it does, things get remarkably more bellissimo, not because the gameplay is remarkarbly improved--it's not--but because I found myself for the second time this year totally suckered in by a story (the first time: Uncharted 2 and Nolan North did it to me a few weeks ago). I started to really care about the game's lead, Ezio, and his family. Early petty errands had me tracking down a lothario who'd cheated on my sister, but the game quickly ramps up the drama, and soon I was assassinating a fat dude who'd screwed over my entire family.

Plus there's an air of maturity about the whole operation. There's sex. My own mom tells me to stop chasing "vaginas" all the time! I love it.

The overall experience still feels like it could be tightened and tweaked. And I wish Ubi would ditch the meta-narrative (it's boring and largely pointless). From a PR stand point, Ubi also didn't try to cram the game down our throats with coy teases about THE AMAZING REAL STORY behind the game (the dumb meta narrative), as they did with the first game. They showed me a few trailers, then left me alone, and let me discover the game on my own terms.

Which I did.

Of all the games I've consumed in the past week--Left 4 Dead 2, Modern Warfare 2, New Super Mario Bros., etc.--the one game that I found myself craving more of was Assassin's II.

Weird.

Who knows. After this, maybe I should give my ex a call, see if she wants to give our old, totally crappy relationship another go. 

Right now, even as you read this, thousands of gamers are affecting coughs and dialing their employers to let them know that they won't be coming into the office today, thanks.

The truth? They were totally up all night totally playing Modern Warfare 2, dude.

Well, while you were meeting your buddies online and living it up at 4 a.m.--I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW AWESOME THIS IS FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!1--far craftier folks were busy trying to unload their pre-ordered copies on eBay and Half.com in the name of making a quick buck.

A quick scan of eBay this morning revealed several hundred Modern Warfare 2 auctions. And, from what I could gather, nobody is really making any money. An auctioneer known as spearhead64 sold his copy of the Xbox 360 version of the game for $60. Yes, the final bid was for $60.

Over on Half.com, someone named bigsexyc21 was trying to unload the Harden (?) edition of the game for $69.99. To bigsexyc21's credit, he/she (OK, it has got to be a he) admitted to having already opened the package/fondled everything inside. Thus, his item was under the "LIKE NEW" listing (a.k.a. I Made A Mistake and Took Off the Shrink Wrap).

Another one from Half: punti_in must have gone temporarily insane when he posted a listing for the PC version of MW2 for--here it comes--$105.

Most dubious auction? The person trying to sell a DL code for Modern Warfare 2 wallpapers. "I will email you the code after the auction," he writes in his product description. Riiiiight.

So what's the takeaway here? It's this: There is no shortage of MW2 whatsoever, meaning Activision printed and shipped enough copies of the game.

One more takeaway: CEO Bobby Kotick is setting fire to dollar bills today BECAUSE THAT'S WHO HE IS. NOW SAY GOODNIGHT TO THE BAD GUY.

While in NYC last week, I frequented a number of local game stores, including the totally batshit-insane GameStop on 33rd and Broadway (be sure to stop by there the next time you are in New York; it's worth the trip). Each and every store I walked into featured the same digital countdown clock for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2. As those clocks wind down today--THREE! TWO! ONE!--as launch events nationwide fete the game (actual disturbing subject line from an email: MODERN WARFARE 2 TAKES OVER NYC'S UNION SQUARE!), I find myself experiencing one of those rare, exclusionary, I-don't-get-it moments in my beloved medium.

I played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I didn't play it when it first came out because I was too busy playing the shit out of BioShock at the time. But I got around to it eventually. I think I saw what everyone else saw: a tight, taut single-player experience that clocks in at a lean six hours, and some terrific multiplayer.

Make no mistake: Infinity Ward can do things that no other developer can do. The visuals in the first game, and from what I've seen in the second, are nothing short of stunning. I have no idea how they get the PS3 and 360 to dance the way that do. Few games achieve the ridiculously high pants-crapping-to-minutes-played ratio that the original Modern Warfare did.

I get it; it was great.

But at what point did Modern Warfare, and the Call of Duty series, go from being quality games to achieving cult status?

I went to the Apple store here in Vancouver yesterday. And my personal shopper, Elliot, and I lapsed into a discussion of games. What couldn't he stop talking about? Modern Warfare 2.

Canada, need I remind you, doesn't even have an army. And if they did, it would be a very polite army. "EXCUSE ME, ENEMY, BUT I'M ABOUT TO SHOOT IN YOUR DIRECTION." (Blam.)

And whenever I purchased anything at any game store in the last few weeks, I was asked repeatedly if I'd like to pre-order Modern Warfare 2. "We can hold a copy for you for only five bucks," I was told. And when I'd decline, without fail, each and every cashier looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

On a more global scale, what's interesting is how a host of other AAA titles, suddenly, and very mysteriously got delayed until Q1 of next year. Bayonetta. BioShock 2. Mass Effect 2. Lost Planet 2. (I've never seen such a loaded Q1 as the one we'll experience in early 2010.) It's as if everyone just said, "The hell with this," and got out of the way of the Modern Warfare 2 juggernaut.

Will it be awesome? Yes.

But while the rest of the gaming world floods the MW2 servers over the next 48 hours, I'll be here, quietly playing Dragon Age: Origins, and trying to five-star that one set list in DJ Hero, and listening to the sad, mournful ballad of Gay Tony.

You kids have fun out there without me.

I've been chipping away at Final Fantasy XII over the past 10 days or so. And, to my surprise, I'm actually getting into it. I find myself looking forward to the little theme song that plays when the game first loads up. Doot, doot. Doot, doot. Doot, doot, etc.

One thing I've been having to learn how to deal with is the inherent ambiguity of the genre. I can't stand ambiguity. I need the world, and my books, and my movies, and my games--especially my games--to make perfect sense. (Music, less so.) I have a friend in Boston who made a baby about a year ago, and since his gaming time is severely limited now, he refuses to play anything but Rock Band. His reasoning: There is absolutely nothing about Rock Band that is ambiguous.

But FF XII throws a bunch of stuff at me--armlets and wolf pelts and fancy leather wear and various types of stones--and basically says, "Here. You figure out what to do with all of this shit."

Each time I collected something new for my inventory, a little bit more panic accrued in my panic tank.

And, in the vernacular of Gus Mastrapa, I had the unnerving, futile feeling that I was doing it wrong.

So I went on a real world question over the weekend, to Brooklyn, to seek the counsel of Old Man John Teti. (I also went out there to see the new cats, and his new apartment, and his lovely wife, AND his mom, who was in town for the weekend. But also to seek counsel regarding FF XII.)

While his wife and mom were busy doing other stuff, Teti and I had a private moment. I told him that I was going out into this desert area, and there were some hyenas, and I killed them, and some annoying bunny things (killed them), and some strange bipedal owl-like creatures (killed them; but sometimes they killed me). Penelo and I would kill as many of these things as we could, collect our XP, and then we'd limp back to the nearest Save Stone, and rejuvenate our health. Then, it was back to the desert to basically do the same thing. Then, some werewolves killed me and Penelo, and I remembered that an NPC had previously told me to STAY AWAY FROM THE WEREWOLVES, but I didn't heed said advice.

After an hour or so of this, as I explained to Teti, I began to wonder: Am I doing it wrong?

And this bit of anxiety gave rise to other bits of anxiety. Did I have the right equipment, you know, equipped? Was I on some advanced quest that I shouldn't even be on? Should I travel to the far side of the map and look for the zebra-unicorn thing that w1ndstorm suggested I look for?

Teti said: "You're fine."

Then he explained that one of the great pleasures of the game, and the FF series in general, comes from figuring out how to play the game. "Nothing is ever explained," he said. "Just stay with it, and you'll figure it out. No matter what you're doing, you're not doing it wrong."

In other words: the answers will reveal themselves eventually.

Later that night, back in Queens, I purchased a couple of +15 Broadswords for Penelo and myself. "We've really earned it," I reasoned. "Look at all the Hyena Bs and Hyena Cs we've slaughtered!" But when I went to equip them, the game had the Broadswords grayed out in my inventory. I cursed a blue streak.

Then, just as Teti has promised, the answer revealed itself to me. 

Duh, I thought. I don't have the proper LICENSE to wield these swords.

Back into the license menu I went. Proper licenses were acquired for both of us. And the two of us went back into the desert, leaving a trail of perpetually vanishing Hyena corpses behind us. My AT Rating (Ambiguity Tolerance): +2. 

1."Now who the hell is this guy?"

2. "Battle legs? I have to put my 'battle legs' on? These ARE my fucking legs!"

3. "Where should I go? Queens Harbor or Container Terminal 3?"

4. "Ooof, that Hillary Clinton clone snuck up on me."

5. "Hello infamous panty-flash juggle."

6. "He's a big one; I'm going to get a lot of chicken from him! And money!"

7. "Shit, I should have opened those crates. Shit, man!"

8. "Man, why not just MAP IT TO THE RIGHT STICK?"

9. "I need to get my eggs over here."

10. "It's funny. No, wait; it's stupid."

So it looks like I'm really going to go through with this whole FF XII thing. I kind of can't believe it. I'm not having a terrible time so far. Which is more than I can say for most games. The dialogue is uneven, but actually pretty good in spots. Though I do wonder at times why all the citizens, even the elderly ones, are wearing half shirts and tiny, sleeveless vests.

I care a little bit about Vaan and Kytes and Penelo. They're street urchins who are always scheming. They are the Little Rascals of Rabanastre. Most recently, Vaan is scheming to find a way into the Palace; and Old Dalan might have a crystal that can help him accomplish this.

I also defeated the Rogue Tomato this morning. He was a total push-over. He was a tiny dude who only came up to about my knees, with a large, red tomato on his head. I don't really even know what he was, technically speaking. He didn't seem too viscious. He was barely aggressive at all. I slapped him around, until he fell over and his corpse vanished and I was awarded some serious XP-age.

I also killed some orange wolves and some cute anthropomorphic cacti for the XP-age. (One cactus was actually sleeping! I killed him anyway. F*** him. I need XP-age! I need to be a Level Four!)

After the Rogue Tomato was dead and gone, I spotted a very large T-Rex skulking in the distance. I thought, Man, I'm only Level Three, I can't deal with that! So I ran back to the town. Later on, I told Teti about the dinosaur, and he said, "Oh yeah. That dinosaur would have torn you to pieces!"

I took this as a sign that perhaps my RPG instincts are starting to come in finally. They're still just little buds, but maybe with proper care and feeding, they can actually continue to grow, and maybe even flourish.

OH, and Vayne made his first appearance this morning. Which Vaan was very, very interested in.