AS CHRISTMAS is just around the corner, I thought it timely to tell you about some of the games and game-related items which will probably be all over everyone’s Christmas lists.

All of the big Christmas releases are out, so here’s a look at what exactly they all are. I’ll start with the two new consoles: The Xbox One and the PS4.

First, if you’ve not already ordered one, you probably won’t get your console before Christmas now due to demand – but that is probably just as well as both consoles are experiencing problems at the moment. The XBox is more expensive than the PS4. That’s probably because it is an ‘all-in-one box’ (meaning you can watch TV on it among other things). The PS4, however, is focussing more on the gaming aspect of things. But you can still watch films on it, and they will be in even better definition than before.

Unfortunately, neither of the consoles are backwards compatible, which means you cannot play the games you already have on either of them.

The Xbox One looks like the XBox 360 in a new shiny box (I’ve even heard it has been mistaken for a VHS on occasions), whereas the PS4 is a large upgrade on the PS3. Sony has taken all the best bits from the PS3 and the XBox 360, made them both better and turned them into one console which, in my opinion, is by far the better of the two.

That being said, I would advise you wait a while and buy one of these after A: the price has gone down, B: more games come out for it, and C: the problems have been fixed.

Now onto some games.

The new Call of Duty game: Call of Duty Ghosts came out recently. It was just like the others, but now there are dogs you are supposed to gain emotional attachments with to enhance the experience (or so Infinity Ward tell us). From what I’ve seen and heard it’s literally just “hey look, bad guys! Better kill ‘em!” again. Conclusion: fairly entertaining but nothing special.

Call of Duty’s arch enemy Battlefield 4 also came out recently and sadly, I think it is just the same story as with Call of Duty. It is better purely because you can use vehicles online. The online is a lot less refined or controlled than CoD’s and I think that gives Battlefield the edge here. Conclusion: The online is awesome; the single player is so bad it’s gone passed being good again and it’s back at bad.

Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag has been praised as being ‘an improvement on the third one’. I imagine it has the same premise as all of the games, that being: ‘those people are evil, we must kill them to stop them making more people evil’. But, the one main improvement I have managed to understand (mostly from the end of the third game) is Desmond is in it no more (REJOICE!).

To me, the third game was good (apart from Desmond) already, so this game must be really good. Conclusion: It’s going to be good, there is no doubt about that – whether it is your cup of tea is a different thing.

I previously wrote about me enjoying Skylanders. The new one, Skylanders Swap Force, is pretty much the same (which is a good thing) but now you can mix and match your little figurines to make various combinations. I think it is just another way to make people pay even more for the little guys but who cares when the game is so good!