Peggle

The true meaning of Christmas is getting good presents. So it's no surprise that we get more free stuff sent to us than usual at this time of year. And we have just received a good 'present'.This is it.

Everyone gets lucky in games. Whether it's a fluke knife throw in Modern Warfare 2 or a foul that goes unpunished in FIFA, there's almost always the chance that something 'lucky' will happen in a game. 

But are some games actually based on luck? Are you ever truly in control of your destiny?

Anything new and relatively untested will be subject to more misconceptions than facts. Ridiculous and sensational news reports about the seedy underbelly of Animal Crossing and batshit-insane lawyers like Jack Thompson have diluted the truth about gaming. Combine their ignorance with our own misconceptions as gamers, and there’s a lot of nonsense to sort out. We can’t sort it all out, but we can at least hit some of the bigger points of confusion with our hammer of truth and brief internet research

Every Fourth of July, Americans proudly celebrate the casting-off of British oppression by doing what we do best: staring at explosions.

Much like the Oscars tend to ignore movies released between January and September, end-of-year game awards usually forget the top-notch software released in the first six months. It’s true that the holiday shopping season is stacked with surefire hits, but let’s not forget the games that kept boredom at bay when 2009 was still the New Year.

I’m not a miserable sexist ass; I’m just a practical observer. One thing I’ve observed is that men and women are different (I figured that one out pretty early on). Since I’m a rational person, I’m aware that nothing is entirely one way or another. Even the divide between life and death is ambiguous (uh, zombies, amirite?).