Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus��

Like a greasy, cat-sized rodent trapped in your walls, the holiday season has arrived, keeping you up nights as it skitters noisily in the drywall for two weeks before dropping dead and stinking up the house, forcing you to unintentionally and repeatedly rend its liquefying corpse as you fish it out through a wall outlet you pried off with the sharpened foot of a Barbie doll because you can��t risk having a single Phillips screwdriver in the house after ��The Cheese & Kitten Incident�� of ��02. To celebrate the single worst part of the year, we at CGW have coughed up another gift guide, and like every year, it��s pretty much worthless. Oh, there��s some nice stuff listed, don��t get me wrong��it��s just that the things gamers (and I) really want aren��t listed there.

But things have changed this year. I��ve got the big, bearded guy in the crawlspace, bound in intricate knots with little more than a coating of Nutella to protect him from the elements. I��m pretty sure it��s Santa��that or former editor-in-chief Johnny Wilson��but either way, I��m not releasing him until my demands, er, wish list is fulfilled.

An apology from Microsoft

Is it worse that they made us wait two years for a PC Halo or that they delivered the PC Halo they did? Let��s see, the most-overrated shooter ever came out with nonupgraded textures and environments, bugs, no co-op play, no map cycling in multiplayer, and chugging like The Little Engine That Couldn��t at higher resolutions on beefy PCs��I��d say the latter. While you��re at it, a mea culpa for the known but unpatched Outlook hole that let Half-Life 2��s source code get stolen, thus delaying the game��s release even more, would be nice.

Original titles

You can no longer use the following words in the title of any game again ever: Dark, Extreme, Angel, Mystery, Warrior, Dragon, Crystal, Legend, Tycoon, Kings, Age, Battle, Throne, War, Destiny, Shadow, Evil, Lords, Sword, Star Trek, and years. Unless your game is Lord King Tycoons of the Star Trek War Throne 3113: Battle for the Extreme Dark Sword of Shadow Destiny��An Evil Ages of Crystal Legend DragonAngel Warriors Mystery. And while you��re at it, enough with the subtitles already. Any idiot can slap five extra words after Tomb Raider��that doesn��t mean it��s going to suck any less.

Original titles, part deux

This is for you, Stainless Steel Studios��stop letting your publisher��s marketing weasels name your products. We all know Rick Goodman worked on the first Age of Empires, but calling the studio��s first game Empire Earth in order to exploit the Ensemble connection was just kind of lame. And calling your next game Empire: Dawn of the Modern World is just plain sad. Listen, if you��re going to let the suits mislead the public, at least commit to it fully. Put a giant, three-eyed topless showgirl with a flaming monkey on a leash shooting laser beams from its eyeballs on the Empire box and do it right.

No more crystals

Seriously, enough already��we��re gamers, not friggin�� geologists. I don��t want to harvest crystals, I don��t want to wield crystals, I don��t want to use crystals to power something, I don��t want to collect the five crystals of power, and I really don��t want to discover the Dread Crystal of Wrath before the Dark Lord Vestik uses it to bring unending darkness and torment to the world. Go ahead, Vestik, I just don��t give a damn anymore. The only crystals I want to deal with are the severed limbs of pandering nonfunnyman Billy Crystal. If you make a game like that, I��m preordering.

Let the first add-on to The Sims 2 be The Sims 3

Whatever the merits of Makin�� Magic, the hard truth of it is they should��ve just called it Makin�� Money. I suspect the only reason this is the last expansion pack is that Maxis couldn��t come up with a catchy, kitschy title to describe and market a self-addressed envelope and a demand for $25 in cash. You want hardcore gamers to care about The Sims again? Don��t dilute and diminish your franchise by trying to upgrade your mattress stuffing from $50 to $100 bills.

Oh, there��s plenty more, believe you me. But I��m not greedy����tis the season of giving, ��tisn��t it? If I found just three of these under my tree, I��d be, well, probably not a happy man, but certainly a less openly hostile one. At least for a couple of days. Don��t do it just for me��do it for Johnny, um, Santa.

Now, if you��ll excuse me, I��ve got a New Year��s Resolutions manifesto to compile.

Copyright © 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Computer Gaming World.