The holidays were kind, this year. The triplets were polite and generally well-behaved, making out like bandits. My wife loved the presents I got her, which included The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, among other things (In short: awesome game, poorly aging graphics, wonderful bonus CD). We had a ton of food, saw lots of family and friends, and were generally given many reasons to be thankful.

Steam Holiday Sale
The undercurrent this holiday season - unbeknownst to my wife - was the Steam Holiday Sale that had been going on for half of December. I have been playing World of Warcraft since October, but the Holiday sale piqued my interest in acquiring new games for the first time since Super Mario Galaxy, which I bought used back in 2010. My World of Warcraft account is now set to expire at the end of January.

The past two years of blockbuster titles have been primarily filled with derivative franchise titles and "me-too" first-person shooters. My Top Five Most Anticipated Titles of 2011 were mostly duds. The games I've been most interested in - in retrospect - are all indie titles, a mixture of old-school platformers, base defense games, and rhythm titles with strong game mechanics, great music, and/or novel artwork.

When all was said and done I came away from Steam with 16 new games representing a wide range of genres:

• BIT.TRIP.BEAT
• Bioshock
• BIT.TRIP.RUNNER
• Braid
• Capsized
• Frozen Synapse
• Jamestown Deluxe Pack
• Limbo (Completed)
• Orcs Must Die! (plus expansions)
• Osmos
• Peggle (Free)
• Plants vs. Zombies
• Portal 2
• Super Meat Boy
• Trine

While my time in Azeroth is soon coming to an end, I am now flush with games to play in my spare time!