As the holidays approach, many of us might be considering what gifts we hope to receive from, or plan to get for, our loved ones. But as you contemplate your shopping lists, take a moment to consider budgeting in a little random kindness. There are so many less fortunate folks out there, and innumerable charitable organizations that aim to help. I'd like to make a suggestion from one gamer to another: Child's Play.

If you're not familiar, Child's Play is a charity founded in 2003 by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins- better known as Gabe & Tycho from Penny Arcade.

Child's Play exists to help children who are stuck in long term hospital care due to severe illness. Hospitals can be scary, lonesome places for adults, let alone children! Imagine spending the better part of your childhood in a place where "going out to play" means being wheeled down a sterile corridor to be shoved inside a loud, dimly-lit machine for a few hours!

Child's Play works with hospitals to raise money for the purchase of toys, games, books, movies, and other forms of entertainment. The hope is that by providing entertainment outlets, kids can forget the IV needles, machines, monitors, and tests for long enough to feel like a kid again.

Nearly 70 hospitals around the world are associated with the program. They include the US, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, and even Egypt! Child's Play accepts cash donations, or donors can opt to browse one of many hospital-specific Amazon.com wish lists to purchase gifts and have them shipped directly to the hospital of choice.

Child's Play operates throughout the year but has recently launched the 2009 campaign, hoping to raise a total of $1 million in cash and/or gifts just in time for the Holidays. They're almost halfway there thanks to the generous support of corporate sponsors such as Amazon.com, Microsoft Game Studios, Sony Online Entertainment, Bungie, and Google.

So I simply ask, gamer to gamer, that you consider giving- even just a little –to a very worthy cause.

-Amo

PS- If you do choose to give, don't forget to check with your employer to see if they offer any kind of donation matching!

*Special Thanks to Brendan Sinclair and the Gamespot Hotspot podcast crew for the reminder/suggestion*

Preface

Upon hearing about the PSP Go, I was thrilled. I truly believe that out of all possible avenues through which console makers can pursue the digital-download path, the portable market is an obvious first choice. However, as the release date drew near and I learned more details, my excitement wavered, ebbed, and extinguished completely before being reborn as a fiery phoenix of righteous indignation toward the system. Now, possessing all the facts, I can't imagine why any well-informed person would want to purchase the PSP Go, excluding those who simply must have the latest-greatest stuff, in spite of logic or rational thought. What follows is a colourful literary account of a would-be PSP Go purchaser- You. As you read you may become nervous or frightened. Take solace, though, no consumers were harmed in the making of this story!

So there you are, skipping gleefully out of your favourite video game and/or electronics boutique, shiny new PSP Go in-hand. You briefly wonder to yourself, "Was it worth it to cough up the extra cash for the PSP Go or should I have settled for the budget-buy PSP 3000?" The price difference, after all, was fairly steep. With the money you would've saved on a PSP 3000 you could have started off your game collection with two new releases.

But the doubt is fleeting, for you love how much smaller and more portable the PSP Go is compared to the PSP 3000, not to mention the futuristic gadget coolness of the sliding (albeit smaller) screen! And with digital content installed to the colossal 16 GB of built-in storage, you'll never have to carry around (or lose/have stolen) a case full of UMDs ever again. The PSP Go even grants you über-trendy Bluetooth support so that you won't have to fuss with tangled headset cables either… except on planes, that is.

No, you care not for the few extra dollars you spent on the system because you'll make it up and then some via the savings you'll accrue from discounted digital purchases. Since digital content doesn't require packaging & distribution, those savings get passed on to the consum… wait, what's that? You didn't get your discount on that first game purchase? "Well, that's just rude," you say as you turn on your heel and march back into your favourite video game and/or electronics boutique! And as the sales clerk informs you that digital games cost exactly the same as retail boxed UMDs, the fantasy world in which you are satisfied with your PSP Go purchase begins to crumble and burn.

Your brain tries to rationalize and come to terms with the explanation given to you for why prices are the same: because Sony can't risk the ire of its retail partners by enticing consumers to abandon retail products en masse. You console yourself with the idea that if Sony undercuts the middle man so dramatically while he is still necessary in other areas, they risk severe financial consequences.

This thought assuages you until further consideration of the "digital only" concept culminates in the ideological connection that the bonus of not needing to carry UMDs also brings with it a consequence: the inability to bring certain games with you at all. You unwillingly embrace the simple truth that some games that have already been released on UMD won't ever be available digitally, due to other behind-the-scenes complexities of the business side of gaming, like licensing for example.

Now you can really feel your energy being drained. And, upon thinking of energy, your mind alights on the design decision to remove the user-replaceable battery from the PSP Go. You begin to imagine yourself on an airplane with your PSP Go (unable to use a Bluetooth headset for fear of catastrophically disrupting sensitive equipment) and you're running low on power. Alas, with a PSP 3000 you could have simply saved your progress and swapped to your spare battery. Or, better yet, you could have started the trip with an extended-life battery. Unfortunately, your imagined-self is going to have to finish out the flight by watching Big Momma's House instead of playing Gran Turismo. Oh, the horror!

What else, pray tell, must you endure? What shocking new revelation will be next in line to bludgeon your soul? What other changes has Sony made in order to humiliate you, the unsuspecting consumer?

Your body falls limp and you collapse into a sobbing heap right in the middle of your favourite video game and/or electronics boutique as you come to grips with the fact that the final insult involves no change whatsoever: You never needed a PSP Go to get on the digital distribution train in the first place. What remains of your consciousness, in defiance of Sony's best marketing efforts, has just come to the realization that all of the digital content intended for the PSP Go, full games and minis alike, can be loaded onto an old fashioned, PSP 3000-compatible, Pro Duo memory stick, which sell for much, much less than the comparable PSP Go-compatible M2 micro memory cards.

But as you lie there, gasping for breath, the shop employee ready to dial 9-1-1, your mental cogs complete one last revolution- you have not yet opened the package and still have your receipt!

Quick as a fox, you leap up from the floor. With renewed vigor you set your recent purchase on the counter and request a refund in a tone so confident that Napoleon Bonaparte would have felt obliged to obey you. Fervently you scurry back to the shelf to retrieve a PSP 3000. As you make your way back toward the register your eyes meet a newly released game you wanted badly, but could not afford along with your PSP Go purchase. Cheerfully you pick up a copy, knowing that even after purchasing the PSP 3000 and a respectably sized memory stick, you will have enough credit left for the game as well.

With purchases in hand, you exit the store. The sun feels warm against your face and the air smells crisp and clean. Birds sing, flowers bloom, and the whole world seems to be in harmony as you make your way home to break open your new toy, the PSP 3000.

If God were the sort of deity to concern Himself with such worldly matters, He would have looked down upon this outcome and declared, as eye-witnesses say He did during the creation, "It is good." And after that, He likely would have smote Sony for fleecing His children. Well, and because every story needs a good smiting.

Tall tales (and smiting) aside, the PSP Go just isn't a good value. It isn't any kind of value at all, actually. Considering that the reduction in size and addition of Bluetooth support are the only rabbits that the PSP 3000 can't pull out of its hat too, it hardly seems worth it to sacrifice the experience of playing those games that will inevitably be unavailable to the PSP Go, let alone spend an extra $80 for the privilege of that sacrifice.

Take my advice: Whether you own a PSP now or not, until Sony comes up with a UMD conversion solution and makes every UMD game available for digital download (which will never happen), pass on the PSP Go.

Ladies, Gentlemen, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, after a very long wait it is finally time for the third and final installment of my "10 Things I Hate About…" trilogy, Ten Things I Hate About the Microsoft Xbox360.

As I've said twice before, I am no fanboy. I own all three consoles and each have their unique and independent flaws. As I gamer I love all three for their unique and independent strengths, but because I love them I also feel the need to roast them.

So, without further ado, the exciting conclusion…

10) MS Points

Does $1 really have to equal 80 points… really? So an 800 point game is really about $10 and 1600 point expansion is $20… oh, my head hurts. I work in the financial industry, which means I work with numbers all day long. But when I come home and buy something on Xbox Live I still find myself wondering "How much did I really just pay for that?" If they insist on using "points", why couldn't it at least be 1:1? And don't even get me started on the fact that I have to use points in the first place. It boggles my mind that even though I have a credit card "attached" to my account, and MS is perfectly willing to auto-charge my card each year for my Gold membership dues, they won't let me buy the content I want ala carte. Oh I get it, by forcing me to buy points Microsoft effectively gets to "keep the change". I just think that it borders on robbery to force users to do business this way, especially when they have a de facto monopoly on much of the content available on Live.

9) Networking Issues

Anyone who has ever peeked under the hood of a router knows that there is no setting for Open, Moderate, or Strict NAT. I understand that they don't want to confuse the computer-illiterate folks out there, but where are the "advanced settings"? Where can I see the nitty-gritty details I need without spending hours hunting on Google? By dumbing down the interface they make life more difficult for those of us who actually possess the skills to get the job done.

8 ) Advertising

The man who coined the phrase "AdBox360" is a genius. I don't mind seeing one or two frames to show me what's new and exciting in the world of DLC, but do we need eight or ten frames on each of eight or ten menu bars? And just in case I didn't notice that The Guild was sponsored by Sprint by the time I get to the actual download page, I get one more blurb as I start the video. I own a Verizon phone, thank you very much.

7) Cluttered Menus

In the old days of the "Blades" I always thought the Xbox360 interface was superior to the Wii or even the PS3 interfaces. Now I am not so sure. The word clunky doesn't even begin to describe the act of locating the content I want on my Xbox360. By my estimation, it takes no less than 1,738,903 clicks to launch a downloaded game like Shadow Complex. How about searching for new content? Oh, an actual search field would be too easy so instead we have pages upon pages of content buried within layers upon layers of menus. I honestly do most of my purchasing through Xbox.com specifically because there is a search bar there.

6) Ambient Volume

What was that? I couldn't hear you over the cooling fan on my Xbox360. Watch a Netflix movie? Yeah, that would be great but I'm going to have to buy a 110" TV and sit in the other room so I can actually hear it. I never imagined my neighbours would call to ask that I stop taxiing F-18's in my living room.

5) Lack of High Def Support

I understand why an Xbox360 doesn't have BluRay, in a word: Licensing. But they sure didn't go out of their way to promote HD-DVD, did they? I'm not as concerned about watching movies because anyone with a clue knows that streaming is the future. But what about storage limitations? When it was announced that Final Fantasy XIII was no longer a PlayStation exclusive, I started to get excited and then stopped, realising that it would be about 12,000 discs on Xbox360 as opposed to one BluRay disc on PS3.

4) Lack of Bluetooth Support

And while we're talking about common sense technical limitations, let's talk about Bluetooth support… or lack thereof. Why do the headsets and controllers use proprietary wireless technology? Bluetooth is a proven technology and just about everyone on the planet already has a Bluetooth headset… wait, if everyone already has a Bluetooth headset then I guess MS wouldn't have been able to charge everyone $60 for their proprietary wireless headset, huh? That leads me to…

3) Lack of Value

Where do I even begin? The wireless headset is bad, but you can get away with not having one. The wireless networking adapter is also highway robbery at MSRP $100, but again you can find cheaper ways around that problem or do without entirely. Perhaps the proprietary HDMI cable? The one that blocks the optical out port, forcing you to pay $50 for what should amount to a couple of bucks in cabling? No, not even that compares to the egregious raping of the consumer that is the 120gb hard drive! At the time of this writing Western Digital sells a 500gb external USB drive for about $70 but MS wants a whopping $149.99 for their teeny tiny little 120gb and doesn't even offer an option for anything larger. When the PS3 was still $600 MS could get away with this, but now that the PS3 is $299 MS had better make some moves in a more consumer-friendly direction.

2) Miscellaneous Hardware Issues

Anything OTHER than RRoD. My Xbox360 routinely won't eject the disc tray, which is known to be a design flaw in the drive. Plenty of people have encountered one version or another of the "Disc Read Error". Many others get system-bricking errors that MS won't fix under the extended warranty because they don't c|assify them as RRoD errors. You know something? My ten year old PS2 is still running. It's not coughing or hacking and it hasn't been sent in once. It just keeps playing games, just like it should. Unfortunately MS cut not just one too many corners, but about a hundred. You and me, Johnny and Janey consumer are left holding the bag, which leads me to the worst of the Xbox360's flaws…

1) RRoD

Need I say more?

I really do love the Xbox360. Due to the software lineup and quality of Xbox Live it's probably my favourite out of the three, but the PS3 is a very close second. I love to chat with my friends in party chat, I love to watch movies over Netflix, and I even love the controller. But as with Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft has made some missteps and who doesn't love a Top Ten list?

But that's it, three systems, thirty complaints, seven months in the making. I hope you enjoyed this trilogy. Stay tuned for another exciting post, which I will make a sincere effort at writing in less than three months this time!