That Green Dude

It’s a bit late because of getting things ready for Christmas and launching my Resident Evil Memories but finally, it is time for my response to December’s Question of the month.

Question of the Month is a collaboration event hosted by Later Levels and anyone can contribute. There’s still some time to enter this month and you can check out the question

December’s QOTM comes from Daniel from Home Button. Daniel is a great gaming blogger who you should check out.

The question: 

“Most of us have been gaming our whole lives, so we’ve had a ton of Christmases that have passed us by filled with plenty of wonderful gaming memories. Whether it’s the best present you’ve ever gotten, or being with your family on Christmas morning while playing Super Smash Bros., we all have warm fuzzy memories of this time. Perhaps it’s because family always comes together or because as kids we’d receive the games we had dreamed of for months, or perhaps this time of year just tends to crystallize these memories that stand out forever.

“Were you the embodiment of the N64 kid and receiving a gaming-related gift that seemed legendary to you? Did you come together over a hefty meal and a game of Mario Party? What is your favourite holiday season gaming memory?”

My answer:

Last year I took part in the Creative Christmas collaboration project and one of the things I wrote about was my favourite Christmas memory. You can read that piece here – Creative Christmas: My Favourite Christmas Gaming Memory.

I do have another good Christmas gaming memory, one from 2009. Christmas that year was a weird one, there were no games I wanted at the time as I had all the games that I wanted in 2009. My parents wanted to get me a game and I had a choice between, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game and The Saboteur. I liked the Avatar film so I was interested in the game but there was something about The Saboteur that hooked me so I got that.

The morning of Christmas day arrives and I open my presents and I put The Saboteur in my Xbox 360. Within minutes of playing it, I fell in love with it. It’s an open-world game set in Nazi-occupied France and damn was it fun. The game merged two of my passions, gaming and history, the game was pretty much made for someone like me.

The game had a really cool feature, Nazi-occupied areas were in black and white and places free from Nazi control were in colour. It might only seem like a small thing but the differences in colour palettes highlighted the Nazi oppression in the locations, it was a great decision by the now sadly defunct Pandemic Games.

I like the game that much that I took it and my Xbox 360 down my nans and played it. It was whilst I was at my nan’s that something fantastic happened and became a fond Christmas memory. I was playing the game and both my dad and grandad sat next to me and watched me play it. They were enamoured with it and that was down to the setting of the game. They watched me play The Saboteur for a good two hours, asking me questions about the game and if I liked it.

It was a great memory, it was unexpected but I’m glad it happened. I was happy that they showed an interest in the video game I was playing. I want to say thank you to everyone who worked on The Saboteur, without you this would have never have happened.