Have you ever been wondering about what's all these decorations and all other stuff going on that keeps happening on every winter season year? well as you can see, these people are celebrating the holiday season that involves setting up the lights, bobbles and tinsels hanging on the trees, building up bunch of snowmens in every street homes, making roast dinners for families and friends get together, watching favourites family's winter films, singing jingle bells all the way, and of course Santa giving away all the gifts to kids while flying on the sleigh with the Rudolfs.
So what do you know guys it's f***ing Christmas because it's one of the biggest and most common holiday celebration in every winter years.
I had done listing my 5 most wanted Christmas stuff that I'm considering to get it on the day of Christmas or maybe it's week before the Christmas depending on how my planning went.
Okay, enough talking for now because we should be enjoying the Christmas holiday for now and without go further do here is my 5 Christmas Wishlist of 2023.
1 - Sonic Frontiers (PS4)
After struggling to find a decent Sonic titles over the years since my childhood starting from classic 16-bit platformers to modern 3D platformers.
Stuff like Sonic 1,2, 3, and Sonic & Knuckles are the prime definition of being a best 16-bit platformers that helped the hardware sales of the SEGA's 16-bit machine, and in years later SEGA had transitioned a Sonic titles into a 3D platforming action such as Sonic Adventures 1 and 2 which is heavily regarded as one of the greatest 3D platformer of the franchise, where as the games like Sonic Heroes, Sonic 06, and Sonic Unleashed are among being the worst libraries of the series that hurts the SEGA's beloved franchises.
It made a great comeback with the later games like Sonic Colors and Generations that got the game just right where it should be, then it became so bad again with the Sonic Boom and Sonic Forces, and then gone great again with the Sonic Mania.
SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog franchise had a shares with flaws when SEGA's development teams hasn't had learned their lesson from the past which is why it couldn't able to beat their rivalry with Nintendo's most successful franchises such as Super Mario is the major examples of how to make a biggest quality platforming titles that attracted the attention of young audiences can able to pick-up and play it on their system, which SEGA couldn't do any better with their blue hedgehog franchise is due to polarising reception of some titles from the media critics and gaming fans which made them turned away from the flagship franchise that helped the company since the era of early 90's gaming.
SEGA then trying to win their trust back to their fans which they had bought a yet better again with Sonic Frontiers which many gaming critics had labelled it as an improvement over the previous installiment which seems to be a good news for the Sonic fans can able to give those a blue hedgehog title a second chance, so this is what SEGA could have done better with the previous titles from the past.
As I am looking forward to play a Sonic's new installiment, this game is somewhat quite different from any of traditional 3D action-platformer with large open-world environments to explore, has multiple challenges, fight robotic enemies, gaining new abilities, and many single-player campaign levels, so this feels more like if SEGA had given us a new Sonic Adventure sequel which is why I am interested in playing Sonic games that doing something different rather than repeating a same old traditional 3D action-platformer from the previous titles.
2 - Virtua Cop: Elite Edition (PS2)
Being a fan of the light-gun shooter genre which is quite common back in mid-80s and early-90s. Stuff like the Nintendo's classics like Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley are the major examples of introducing the players with the light-gun controller that allow players to point and shoot things at the screen, which had became quite popular in Arcades and NES releases in 1985.
Then Taito did a same with the Operation Wolf which popularised the military-themed light gun shooters at late-80s, and pushing forward with the early-90s titles like Midway's arcade hit Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Konami's Lethal Enforcers uses the digitised sprite visuals that are looking quite realistic at the time.
There's one of the SEGA's franchise that caught my attention which is Virtua Cop, the very first light-gun shooter title that make use of the real-time 3D polygons in shooter game genres.
It was a huge success in 1994 on both the Arcade and Saturn releases which received acclaimed praise for its innovation such as 3D graphics, camera system, realistic animations, and ability to target specific body parts.
The success of the SEGA's 3D light-gun shooter title had influenced on later shooter games with 3D polygons being adopted by subsequent light gun shooters such as Namco's Time Crisis and SEGA's The House of the Dead.
It had follow-up title such as SEGA's Virtua Cop 2 which was released in 1995, a year after the first original, which also received similar praise hailed the game as a improvement over the original game due to its more interactive environments and higher intensity in the chase sequences making it feel more of the big budget action movie.
Both of these Saturn's classics light-gun shooters are also received a fully remastered releases for PS2 titled as Virtua Cop: Elite Edition which featured an enhanced visuals, gallery extras, and implementation of Namco's G-Con 2 light-gun support.
It's does sounds like a perfect titles for those who previously loves Virtua Cop 1 & 2 on Arcade or Saturn should consider checking these out for PS2.
3 - Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (Gamecube)
I really love the 3D action-platforming game in general which I grew up playing the classics from the mid-90s such as Nintendo's Super Mario 64, Rareware's Banjo-Kazooie, and SEGA's Sonic Adventure are the major examples of how to create the best 3D platforming title which fully defines not only it changes the whole gaming industries, but also our childhood that made me loved the video games as my all-time favourite hobbies.
I also being grateful with some of the 3D platformers like Rareware's Conker's Bad Fur Day and Ubisoft's Rayman 2: The Great Escape, as well as the later ones in modern day era such as Activision's own remastered titles like Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited Trilogy which is why I really loved playing the 3D title with real-time 3D environments, open-spaces levels with full exploration and goals, and platforming filled with puzzles and obstacles that keeps me playing all day night and long.
There's one of the game that caught my interest which is SEGA's own obscure title that some of you may or never heard of this before such as Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg which was released exclusively on Gamecube in 2003.
what made the game quite interesting is that the game was created by a same team behind the success of SEGA's flagship series such as Sonic the Hedgehog.
It is a 3D platform game which involve rolling throughout the levels with the gigantic egg which allows the player to perform several of cool techniques with the egg, such as egg dunking, slamming, dashing, and shooting which adds the uniqueness of platforming gameplay style that are quite different from any of the traditional 3D platformers.
This is the kind of the 3D platforming game that I'd like to play that are doing something new which is why I really wanted to play this on Gamecube, so despite the game's poor commercial sales and had received an average reception from gaming media which didn't really stop me from picking this game up because I also heard plenty a good things from those who previously liked this 3D platforming title, so it's quite a shame that it never got any of sequel and remastered, and of course it still being remained stuck on one console platform which makes Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg as one of the SEGA's most forgotten gem in years.
4 - Wolfchild (SNES)
Speaking of hidden gems related-stuff, I love spending my time to collect many games libraries to add it to my gaming collection, but when it's comes with the hidden gem titles that are sorely being long forgotten or is it a failed to notice that are being completely ignored by the public's eyes which is why we had an internet that allow us to discover and browse the games that are not being well remembered or is it met with the poor overall sales.
Sometime these forgotten games can also be labelled as an cult-following by the fans communities or maybe these games are actually plays pretty good that are worth owning to our collection.
I was considering to get a copy of a obscure SNES action-platformer called Wolfchild, a 1992's title was originally released for Amiga, Atari ST, SEGA Mega CD, Genesis/MD, GG, SMS, and of course SNES was developed by Core Design, a development team behind the commercially successful series such as Tomb Raider.
After watching the YouTube gaming channel such as Console Wars who recently made the video comparison between the SNES and Genesis/MD to see which are the best version of Wolfchild to pick up and play, so it's easy to say that I might be interested in to pick an SNES version in terms of gameplay and graphics quality.
Even though it never been released outside of the U.S which likely the U.S imports will not work on PAL format consoles, but I also had a SNES converter adapter that allowing the imports games being played on any region consoles makes it easier to bypass the SNES's restrictive region-lock system.
5 - Contra 4 (DS)
Contra is one of the Konami's well recognisable series that defines the Run n Gun genres back in the mid-80s.
Stuff like we had Contra and Super C on NES which many of gaming press had labelled them as being one of the best arcade to console conversion for 8-bit platform, where as the later titles like Contra III: The Alien Wars on SNES and Contra: Hard Corps on Genesis/MD really showcasing the 16-bit hardware with greater level of parallax scrolling details and aggressive use of visual effects are surprisingly looking impressive for the 16-bit standards, while sharing with the solid gameplay action filled with over-the-top action-platforming levels, unique weapons power-ups, and of course frantic boss stages is what made Contra so special back then.
There's one of the game for DS that caught my attention which was came out at the year of 2007-08 in the U.S and Japan lacking the UK/EU releases, so that is Contra 4 developed by WayForward Technologies, a same development team behind their well-known indie series such as Mighty Switch Force and Shantae.
The game serves as a direct sequel to SNES's 1992 title as Contra III: The Alien Wars to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the franchise.
What made the Contra 4 so great is that it made the return to the form for the franchise since the previous entries such as Contra: Legacy of War and C: The Contra Adventure for the PS1 are completely flopped that destroys the franchise's legacy, where as the Contra: Shattered Soldier for the PS2 made an improvement over the previous twos.
Contra 4 is one of the game that Konami should have been sticking to the traditional 2D scrolling shooter, instead of wasting their time on crappy 3D style top-down shooter like the two PS1's titles that I've mentioned above.
The good news is that most of the DS games are fully region free which means that it can be played on any of the region DS system without any restriction, so there's the chance that I will able to play it on my Nintendo's dual-screen system someday.
Honourable mention:
Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution (PS2)
Rygar: The Legendary Adventure (PS2)
Raiden 3 X Mikado (PS4)
Super Fantasy Zone (Genesis/MD)
Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes (Gamecube)
Bomberman Generation (Gamecube)
Maken X (Dreamcast)
New Super Mario Bros 2 (3DS)
The Lion King (SNES)
Super Smash Bros (N64)
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This is Zeeshan Mirza's Blog and I'll see you next time, happy blogging and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
