Play on

Talking about holidays, especially if you have kids, you may start by buying a nice controller with at least as many buttons(12, 4 are on the side in pictures) and joysticks(2) as this one: DualShock2. Be careful to be PC compatible so you'd not get into additional steps.

Then, if you didn't knew it by now, there are some dedicated people that made a truly wonderful effort in emulating the Playstation2 >on Windows< and Linux. <- download from the link

To configure it I have >made a few screenshots < so it would be easier for beginners, but if you get into trouble I highly recommend you >to start here <
The project is mature, I wouldn't blog about it otherwise, but it is in constant development, so do check their site from time to time.

What does it mean? Well, it means that if you have a sufficiently powerful computer (I'd recommend starting from 3Ghz HyperThreading), you will be able to enjoy some games that never made it on PC until now. A while ago, even I have made the wrong assumption that any worthy game was ported and thus I have played :)


Also, some games from the Nintendo's side made their way to the portable console, the DS. Guess what, another dedicated fella made a huge amount of effort and realized an emulator that you can download from here: http://www.nogba.com/no$gba-download.htm

accompanied by this program that will make your emulated DS to be bigger and work better, but I don't remember where I found it: No$Zoomer

So, talking about that Christmas with the little ones, Kingdom Hearts 2 is a wonderful experience to share, the kids will love to meet and play Disney stories and characters, starting with Donald and not ending with the Pirates of the Caribbeans, but just getting warmer. While as a parent you may find it "Goofy" as a concept, you'll be amazed when your kid will drag you to help them in the quests that are so wonderfully intricate that will also have the kid to drag you away from the gamepad :) Music, style, rhythm and joyful gameplay.

>Final Fantasy IV< is a game that shines in game design. The battles in this one and the dynamics of the story are intelligent indeed, and you may feel the most challenge here from all the series that is now somewhere at number XIII. A good start and if you beat the game, you may dwell further perhaps with Final Fantasy X for Playstation2 and more, but I'll write hopefully something more comprehensive about them at another time. For now I note down another gem for DS, from the classical game design point of view but also for its fun gameplay, Zelda Phantom Hourglass. And back to more serious business for me :)

I will return with further recommendations in this post, for now I stamp it with the dynamic label.

P.S. I've just stumbled upon this >Yale course in Game Theory<, so nicely presented it gets a shout here;
and a link to download section, as from the main it gets very difficult to download.