Merry Christmas Gamers, You Can Open My Gifts Early

Merry Christmas Eve! Gather round gamers, and I'll tell you a story. My nana used to love Christmas. We'd go around to her house on Christmas Eve and all sit around the fire, you know, one of those electric ones old people use that was so hot you couldn't put it next to the artificial tree because the plastic would melt. We'd all have a Christmas Eve buffet, watch a movie, and around 6 o'clock my nana would pick up one of the presents underneath the tree and tell us to open it. Just one, she'd say. Then we'd open it, and she'd give us another. That one was small, she'd say. Just one more. By 7pm we'd have them all open. So, this Christmas Eve, I'm bringing the tradition back – let's open our gamer presents early.

First up, I got you 50 clicks. You know all those times you see a headline and you think, 'I really want to read this article, but for reasons I no longer remember or understand, I hate this website'? Great news! These free clicks can be used then, so you can click on those articles all you like, and it won't cost you a thing. It's the gamer equivalent of giving you a voucher, because now you can get whatever you want. Those super cool 'saved you a click' accounts who condense complex opinions and entertainment down into digestible sentences with no concern for context or enjoyment have been putting me out of work – seriously guys, it makes a huge difference and you're definitely not wasting your lives – so this is my revenge. A dish best served scalding hot by a searing electric fire.

That was just a small one though, so why don't you open another one? This time, it's a mirror. One, so you can look at your gorgeous gamer face, but it also acts as a handy little opinion shield. Whenever you see a games journalist review a game and give it a score you disagree with based on a grand total of zero minutes yourself, this mirror comes in handy. Instead of arguing with a journalist who has sunk in 50 hours and written a thousand words of analysis that you have taken offence to because they don't end with the number 10, just hold this mirror up. Then you can chat with the only person in the world who thinks Skull & Bones is the greatest game ever made.

Actually, there's another present that goes with that one, so why not rip the wrapping off that, too. Yeah, go on. You deserve it. It's stickers! Not just any stickers, though. These are all stars and numbers. That way, when you see an outlet only give a game four stars, or the Metacritic rating only comes out to 79, you can just slap these stickers over your screen and continue to live in a make-believe world where review scores are as important as you think they are. It works both ways, too – some of them are blank, so if some goddamn Xbox shill gives Starfield five stars, you can put them in their place by covering your screen in stickers until it gets the three stars you know it definitely deserves, based on your entirely unbiased view as a gamer covered in Sony tattoos.

Finally, here's the big one. Yep, that one with the big fat bow. Go on, you might as well. Undo the string, tear off the paper, and take a look inside. It's… okay, look. I know it seems like nothing, but it's actually the most important gift of all – it's good taste. I have so much to spare I'm giving you some of mine. I've seen what games you think should be winning Game of the Year. You all need it.

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