Ah, the Holiday Season, the time of year when retailers and manufacturers the world over take every item they have and put them on sale, often drastically, just in time to feed the gluttony of the greediest holiday we celebrate: Christmas. Never one of my favorite holidays (far too many lumps of coal, which I am attempting to turn to diamonds using a top-secret process), I still shamefully look forward to all the media that floods the shelves at drastically reduced prices because not only do I love neat stuff but it allows me to fill holes in the monstrous collection without breaking the bank. This year, video game developers have released some bombshell games that will manage to suck up hours of your precious free time when you should be writing or sleeping and every day I am stunned to see all the hi-def television deals and massive DVD/Blu Ray/HD holiday clearances, sculpted to drain your bank account dry so I hope you saved more than I did. Since the big 3 games dominate this Digs I figured to start slow before unleashing the time-sucking morass you’re probably already aware of so let’s ease right into it, shall we?

Halloween: Now this is one of my favorite holidays but this year was marred by a necessary thing called work. Of course I was still determined to do a film blowout like every year but had to be choosier. I had originally wanted to do a “killed in the woods” theme but the assembled host wisely pointed out the lack of time to do it justice so, after a hasty ceremony involving candles, old books and a few other sundries, we headed to the horror library to see what was in store. First up was the double-header of Halloween 5 (1989) and Halloween 6 (1995). I had picked these up almost two years ago and never bothered to put them in, rightly so as they are merely watchable entries in the franchise, so we figured what the hell. Each have their moments, Part 5 being a direct sequel to the fourth installment with the returning Danielle Harris, Ellie Cornell and Donald Pleasence, Part 6 featuring Pleasence and Paul Rudd (!) fighting some stupid cult devoted to Myers. Neither seems to have the heart put into the first few but are strangely entertaining nonetheless. Rumors abound that Part 6 has a director’s cut floating about that is almost like a real movie and that Pleasence, who died shortly after filming, did so because he saw the theatrical version. Good fun but not outstanding. Severance (2006), which was brilliant, was next on the list. One of my favorites from Fantastic Fest a few years ago, it is the only film I know of that when the director was asked, “you set up two possibilities for the killer, which is it?” he responded with “who the fuck cares? all you have to know is people are being killed in the woods.” Brilliant. Much-maligned actor Danny Dyer is among a group of arms salesmen on a team building exercise in Eastern Europe when they encounter some bad news in the woods. Chock full of black humor and plenty of gore, Severance should be on all your bookshelves and deserves an 8.5 for sheer awesome. We followed that with another Fest favorite Wilderness (2006), about a group of British teen miscreants who are taken by juvenile officials to an abandoned island where they go through some tough-love bonding until they start getting picked off one by one. Another stellar “killed in the woods” pic, featuring Dog Soldiers’ (2002) Sean Pertwee and the Descent’s (2005) Alex Reid that would be an 8.5 and totally deserving of a place on your bookshelf (nestled between all the other referenced flicks). By this point, I figured I couldn’t do another film, even the outstanding Trick R’ Treat (2009) I had just bought for the evening so we went with The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) – the Ichabod part – the Tom and Jerry with Tom and the Witch and the first two Scooby Doo episodes… just enough time to have watched Trick R’ Treat. Sigh. All-in-all, not a bad evening but I feel it could have been better. Next year…

Friday the 13th: So, the third Friday the 13th we had this year occurred this month and honestly caught me off guard. I had pretty well covered the films the previous 2 13th’s and was honestly trying to figure out which one to run until one of our new monkey pals remarked he had never seen a Friday the 13th film! This is like saying “I’ve never seen The Wizard of Oz (1939)” or “I’ve never seen Star Wars (1977)” and the kid’s pretty cool so I figured that this a good time for some education. We nabbed Ninja Mike and sped to the casa for a marathon of the first 3 Friday the 13th films, all of them top-shelf. Little Mike, the tabula rasa if you will, thrilled to the cabin window being left open, Kevin Bacon lighting up a joint before his fate is sealed, strip monopoly, the gunny-sack wearing Jason in Part 2, the 3D madness of Part 3 with the snake and speargun and the first hockey mask and all the other assorted chills, thrills, foibles and clever kills that have cemented Friday the 13th as not only a premier horror franchise but one of the progenitors of 80’s splatter films. Sort of cheesy now (and then), people tend to forget how great these films were and I can certainly recommend a re-perusal of these bloody and entertaining gems, especially the next Friday the 13th.

Borderlands: Man, X-Box really knocked it out of the park with this one. I must admit this escaped my attention until a buddy of mine pushed me to try it and damn, talk about crack. The game runs on the Unreal engine so it’s a first-person shooter (sold) but you get to do some small upgrading of your dude (who advances in levels) and you get a ton of guns that are all better than the one you have, along with a huge map to do your killing on so it’s got RPG elements but there are story and extra missions you can do as you progress so it’s open-world like Grand Theft Auto….whew. And it’s online so you can team up and help each other out with missions and give each other loot, especially lower-level guys, to give them a leg up. You can also co-op split screen, which we always seem to do more of anyway. Good co-op games on the same tv are rarer than you think so Borderlands gets extra points for that but as mostly free-roaming post-apocalyptic future first-person blow them away as I accomplish my goal-type games go this is a lot of fun. I was able to finish the game and all the quests and began a brief foray into my second playthrough where every enemy is tougher but the weapons are so much better and ended up a level 37 Siren. I will probably go back to it, seeing as Mexomorph hasn’t finished and I do have some guns for him I’ve been shlepping about so the replay value should be seen as “high.” Would give this the Outstanding rating I gave to Mercenaries 2 (which is what I would give all 3 of the entries this month) and would strongly suggest it to anyone with a 360.

Left 4 Dead 2: This one has been done to death in the media and justifiably so; it’s only one of the most anticipated sequels this year. Once again, you are back as one of four choads (none of whom we like at all, especially compared to the first set of dudes) set to survive in your corner of a zombie-infested future and, let’s be honest, you wanna make your corner a little bit bigger. Thus continues the unending struggle between the undead and stone killers like myself. You know how you sit around with your buddies and complain that some sequel, say Halo 2, sucked and all they woulda had to do is just release, say, Halo again with a bunch of new maps and a gun or two and things would be awesome – kind of like Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 did? Welcome to Left 4 Dead 2. Valve Software knows what the fans want and they delivered a game that was pretty much the same as the first with a bunch of new baddies, 5 new campaigns with a bevy of new levels, some new weapons of unliving-slaying and some new online modes. Co-op play is intact for offline players (such as myself due to a mishap of “national news” proportions) but the online is meaty, though I’ve been informed that everyone playing online is really bad at the game. By far the best additions are the melee weapons. In the previous game, I would eschew the heavier guns and completely dominate with the pistols but in this new installment, I cannot believe I used the pistols in lieu of a cricket bat. My personal favorite is the frying pan because it damages a good amount of zombies, has a nice knockback and makes such a satisfying “gong” when you brain a corpse. I have killed 99 zombies with that pan on one level, is how much I like that weapon. The blood is great, body parts fly and explode, the threat omnipresent, my skills undiminished and the game delivers a solid, replayable experience, both online and off. I sense a lot more zombie-killing in my future.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2: $310 Million in 24 hours. That’s what Modern Warfare 2 made it’s opening day. Everyone’s beloved Dark Knight only made $150 million it’s opening weekend. Aside from being a possible game industry record, it is also one hell of a game and may be my favorite over the zombie game and the apocalyptic throwdown. The multiplayer, which is the payoff, is mighty indeed and will cause many, many, many a sleepless night. The single player story is short (6 1/2 hours for me) but challenging while it lasts, it’s cut-scenes really…interesting… and you die in them a lot… but the killing part is great…also while it lasts. What really ramps things up is the new co-op feature. It is not, as you would expect, the story mode playable by two people; instead it is a series of special missions completable at three levels of difficulty (regular, hard and veteran) designed to be as damned complicated as they can be regardless of difficulty and getting worse from there. New sets can be unlocked depending on how many missions you have completed at the varying skill levels, giving you a wide range of compulsive and frustrating challenges to waste countless hours of your time on (12+ for me and counting) when you should be doing other things (like writing). Watch out for the dogs, is my advice and bring all your skills to the table because the Valve guys are evil and I cannot stress enough how frustrating some of those challenges can be. Oh, you’re a stone killer like me – you’ll get through them – but you will curse and strategize and curse some more and take a break and curse again and strategize and fail again until you crack it. Then you get to do it again on hard. It sounds repetitive but this game is highly recommended and will waste more of your time than is healthy. If you have a 360, get these games. If you know someone who has a 360, encourage them to get these games – they all have a co-op feature. For your pleasure, someone killing someone else by knife in multiplayer.