Because even henchmen want to enjoy the festive season...

It's here! The Boxing Day sales are upon us! Credit cards are taking a battering across the land, children are weeping (probably) with tears of joy at the glorious savings available, people are doing unspeakable things for bargain stock...

...Unless you do things the HUKD way, of course.

If you're looking to make the most of the Boxing Day sales, HotUKDeals is where it's at. Instead of scrabbling around, trying to steel yourself against the stampede on the high street, you can do it all from the comfort of your own armchair, immobile thanks to turkey. HotUKDeals will be gathering the best Boxing Day bargains together over on a special dashboard. Stick it in your bookmarks NOW!

Click here for ultimate Boxing Day sales satisfaction!

Ah...so that's how he does it.

[via Unreality]

Didn't fancy shelling out for the blockbusters this year? No matter, as the marketplaces had some absolutely cracking titles on show. There were games that re-emerged from ages past - with Joe Danger SE, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes HD and Beyond Good and Evil HD bringing quality to a fresh audience. But there was plenty of original talent on offer too. In a year that saw studios splintering and going indie, the likes of Supergiant's Bastion and Robot Entertainment's Orcs Must Die! were a critical darlings and public favourites.

NB. Click on the thumbnails for price comparisons and the game's title for the relevant review where available.

	Title	Description
	Bastion	The perfect way to kick of XBLA's Summer of Arcade this year, Bastion was so much more than just another isometric action game. With levels that were literally constructed before your very eyes, dynamic narration the likes of which we'd never seen before and a soundtrack so good that yours truly downloaded it as soon it came out, it made the games around it look amateurish by comparison.
	Dungeon Defenders"	While Orcs Must Die! successfully married direct combat and tower tactics, Trendy Entertainment's effort Dungeon Defenders went one step further by providing a persistent RPG element that invoked the likes of Diablo and Torchlight. Dungeon Defenders was an incredibly brave proposition from a small independent studio... and a hybrid gamble that paid off in spades. With four players leaping into the fray it was insanely good fun.
	Joe Danger SE	The best game on the PSN last year turned into one of the finest games onXBLA in 2011. Hello Games, by their own admission, got a second chance to turn a 9 into a 10, fixing all of the little things that they wished they'd hd time to do on the first pass. The result? A more complete product that lost none of its charm and added in a bunch of extras too.
	The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile	Vampire Smile delivered some of the most fluid, thrilling, visceral and satisfying combat to ever grace a console. Silva stepped things up from the first game and delivered a resplendent package that retained the dark and brooding sensibilities of its predecessor and added in a host of content and some brutal multiplayer shenanigans too.
	The War of the Worlds	The War Of The Worlds was a brave and uncompromising adaptation that succeeded thanks to its exceptional presentation and respectful treatment of the subject matter. A surprise tour de force that deserved your time, attention and money, Other Ocean game had a few frustrating niggles...but then again it also had PATRICK STEWART!

And so we bring another year to a close. It's been a big one - shedloads of cracking games, tonnes of crazy announcements and we've had a November release schedule that's ripped enormous holes in our pockets. But now it's time to kick back and reflect, maybe get stuck into that massive backlog we've amassed over the last twelve months, eat our weight in turkey and revel in the fact that there's still plenty to look forward to in the new year.

Thank you to everyone who's visited, commented, participated, corrected, tipped, hinted, argued and bantered over the last twelve months. We wouldn't be here without you.

Our Game of the Year 2011 season will be running until the end of the month, and you can catch up on the awards so far here. We'll have a couple of editorial retrospectives around New Year and then it's all about looking forward to a 2012 that's hopefully bigger and better than ever.

In the interim, though, put those feet up, grab a mince pie and a glass of the nearest festive spirit. Have a fantastic Christmas everybody, we'll catch you soon!

The Boxing Day sales are a smattering of hours away. A time when shoppers go berserk; when cashiers develop deep, lifelong complexes; a time when handbags become weapons of mass destruction!...

...Unless you do things the HUKD way, of course.

The Boxing Day sales are where it's at - the zenith of the deals calendar. But instead of scrabbling around, trying to steel yourself against the stampede on the high street, you can do it all from the comfort of your own armchair, immobile thanks to turkey. HotUKDeals will be gathering the best Boxing Day bargains together over on a special dashboard. Stick it in your bookmarks NOW!

Click here for ultimate Boxing Day sales satisfaction!

GamerDadsUK have rounded up a few friends to deliver a special Yuletide musical greeting in support of games charity SpecialEffect. The song will be available on iTunes shortly, but you can donate simply by clicking here, with more info on the excellent work SpecialEffect do available here. You can also check out Jon's in-depth interview with SpecialEffect's Dr. Mick Donegan right here.

Plenty of quality for sports fans this year, with the usual franchises stepping things up a gear to try and keep things fresh. Control scheme overhauls for FIFA and PES, the addition of Move to Virtua Tennis 4, the list of tweaks, updates and new features for the likes of NBA 2K12 and Football Manager 2012 were almost endless.

NB. Click on the thumbnails for price comparisons and the game's title for the relevant review where available.

	Title	Description
	FIFA 12	EA Sports took a gamble this year, shaking up the FIFA series with a simple but game changing tweak to the way gamers approached defending. Of course it ran deeper than that - the Impact Engine and Precision Dribbling complimenting the realigned focus. It wasn't perfect, but it was a giant step forward.
	Fight Night Champion	Fight Night Champion was gorgeous to behold, the animations were smooth and Champion Mode was a glorious marriage between story and gameplay. Andre Bishop's tale was a cheesy one, a rags to riches frame with laughably clichéd elements, but it was utterly glorious all the same.
	Football Manager 2012	Another year, another Sports Interactive time sink. Bigger, better, and more life-sapping than last year's effort, FM 2012 was stuffed to the seams with new features.
	NBA 2K12	So good that EA still haven't bothered to put out any competition.
	PES 2012	Once again Konami's footie title came with a biblical controller manual, but once you'd gotten the hang of the new features, it was sublime. Improved offensive AI, silky smooth dribbling and the outstanding Off The Ball controls meant that picking the perfect pass was always an option...and more satisfying than ever before.

2011 was something of a transitional year for the strategy genre as studios looked to mix things up a little bit, with a large number of excellent genre mashups seeing the light of day. Dungeon Defenders and Orcs Must Die! were at the forefront of the partnership between strategy and action, with the former throwing in some excellent RPG mechanics in for good measure too. The Creative Assembly and Sports Interactive delivered sequels to their respective long-running franchises, with Shogun 2 bringing back much of the magic that the Total War series might have lost with Napoleon and Empire. And then, of course, there was Mode 7 Games' top-down, Tom Clancy-esque turn based gem, Frozen Synapse. A pretty good year for all concerned.

NB. Click on the thumbnails for price comparisons and the game's title for the relevant review where available.

	Title	Description
	Dungeon Defenders"	Orcs Must Die! successfully married direct combat and tower tactics, but Trendy Entertainment's effort went one step further by providing a persistent RPG element that invoked the likes of Diablo and Torchlight. Dungeon Defenders was an incredibly brave proposition from a small independent studio... and a hybrid gamble that paid off in spades. With four players leaping into the fray it was insanely good fun.
	From Dust	Eric Chahi's new twist on the god game was a slow burner, but beautifully realised. Manipulating the land and the elements rather than directly influencing your minions gave the game a rather unique serenity, catering more towards a patient and nurturing game style that made From Dust one of the most striking little games of the year.
	Frozen Synapse	Frozen Synapse wasn't just one of the best strategy games of the year...it was one of the best games of any kind! Fantastic pick-up-and-play appeal married to instant accessibility and a ridiculously deep and compelling level of cerebral strategy made for a masterpiece in turn-based strategy. Not only was it a fraction of the price of hundreds of the 'bigger' titles this year, but Mode 7's infinite combinations of maps and opponents, and excellent community features, made Frozen Synapse a game that we're still playing months down the line.
	Orcs Must Die!	Orcs Must Die! offered up a simple premise backed up with solid mechanics, some lovely, cartoonish presentation and a relatively low price tag. No, it wasn't particularly original, but Robot Entertainment created a gleefully violent blend of action and strategy that proved great fun in short bursts. We just wished we could have doubled the culling fun with a friend.
	Total War: Shogun 2	For some, Empire and Napoleon missed the point of the Total War series, which was getting stuck in with swords, not whittling away at each other from afar with muskets. Shogun 2 addressed this and plenty more besides, delivering the current definitive Total War experience...until the next game comes out. You should play just to see your ninja single-handedly capture a massive castle.

• What: Saints Row: The Third
• Where: Green Man Gaming
• Current Price: £13.29 (use voucher code FIFTY-SAINT-XMASS)
• Saints Row: The Third PC price comparison
• Saints Row: The Third Review

Been wanting to get stuck in to the dildo-waving action in Saints Row: The Third, but too worried about the yo-yo-ing price? Well Green Man Gaming are offering 50% off their price on the game until Boxing Day. All you need to do is stick the game in your basket and enter the code FIFTY-SAINT-XMASS in the voucher box to save yourselves several pretty pounds.

So video games are supposed to empower you to be able to do things in a virtual world that you wouldn't normally necessarily be able to do in the real one? Hmmmm....tell that to this guy...

Another close category, this one, and the result could have gone any number of ways. Mario finally made his appearance on the 3DS, reminding us just in time for Christmas why we'd bought one in the first place. But cast your minds back all the way to January and you might remember that it was Sony's young pretender, Sackboy, who kicked this year off in style, with Media Molecule handing over a gargantuan suite of creation tools to play around with. Ubisoft's Rayman returned in a busy release window, but that couldn't stop his quality showing through, and 2011 saw GLaDOS try to kill us all over again as Valve got a chance to explore the world of Aperture Science on a larger scale.

NB. Click on the thumbnails for price comparisons and the game's title for the relevant review where available.

	Title	Description
	LittleBigPlanet 2	Brendan had it right when he said in his review that LBP was no longer Media Molecule's game...it was ours. With the release of LBP2, everything was blown wide open. he possibilities were endless, with the vast array of creation tools giving creative types the chance to build and design pretty much any game type they wanted. And if you didn't fancy it, well you could always just play the role of consumer...the banquet of choice was enormous.
	Ms. 'Splosion Man	If you were spoilin' for more 'Splodin' there was only one game that would get you your fix this year as Twisted Pixel returned with their 'splosive follow up. Ms. 'Splosion Man hardly strayed too far from the formula set up by her husband/partner/occasional paramour, but then again she didn't really need to. Fun, funny and full of 'splosive action.
	Portal 2	With Portal 2, Valve finally got the chance to deliver the a full sized game with a full sized budget and a full sized team. And it was excellent. Working through areas together, relying on one another to solve the various puzzles, combined with a gesture system that allowed for instruction without headsets, Portal 2 offered up one of the most interesting and satisfying multiplayer experiences of the the last twelve months and let players immerse themselves more fully in the wider goings on at Aperture Science.
	Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One	Insomniac broke new ground for their platforming series with All 4 One, introducing 4-way co-op. The series' trademark humour still tickled funny bones, the action was fantastic and, even though the level design was a little more linear than before, the co-op more than made up for it.
	Rayman: Origins	Rayman Origins was mechanically brilliant, perfectly-paced and drop-dead gorgeous. Michel Ancel showed that he and his team still have the magic, with the colourful anarchic fun quadrupled when you threw three more players into the mix. As close to platforming perfection as gaming's ever been.
	Super Mario 3D Land	Taking some large cues from Super Mario Bros. 3, SM3DL served to remind 3DS owners just why they bought the portable console in the first place. Striking the perfect balance between nostalgic hints and forward-thinking level design, it was 3D Mario in the palm of your hand...even if it threaten to totally not but maybe promote tanuki fur farming.

Some good news for Nintendo. It's reported that 3DS is on track to cross the four million mark in Japanese domestic sales by the end of the year. Using statistics from Enterbrain, Japanese publication Nikkei reported that 390,000 units had been sold from the 12th to the 18th of December to put the lifetime figure at 3.6 million.

• What: Lord of the Rings: War in the North
• Where: Green Man Gaming
• Current Price: £8 (use voucher code WARIN-SNOWY-NORTH)
• Lord of the Rings: War in the North PC price comparison
• Lord of the Rings: War in the North Review
  

Snowblind's expansive hack and slash gives LOTR fans the opportunity to look behind the scenes of the main saga and see what some of the supporting cast got up to while Frodo and Sam went off on their long hike. Die-hard fans might well find more to shout about than I did in my review, but one thing that can't be denied is GMG's excellent price. Use the voucher code WARIN-SNOWY-NORTH to knock the price from £20 down to £8, but be quick - the code expires at 3pm tomorrow!

EA are rolling out the festive deals to try and get people involved with new digital distribution platform Origin, offering half price discounts if you buy two or more titles from a selected range of blockbuster titles.

It's been an excellent year for racing fans. Codemasters have once again had a cracking twelve months, with two games to make our shortlist this year and a renewed focus following the poorly-received Bodycount to redouble efforts on their flagship racing franchises. The Xbox 360 finally got an answer to Gran Turismo 5, although Turn 10 played to their strengths, eschewing cold simulation for all-encompassing vehicular adoration. The 3DS got the fun multiplayer game it needed in the irrepressible Mario Kart 7, and there were plenty more fantastic games worth mentioning that didn't quite amass the votes to make our shortlist - TrackMania 2: Canyon and WRC2 to name but two.

NB. Click on the thumbnails for price comparisons and the game's title for the relevant review where available.

	Title	Description
	DiRT 3	So what was the most complete package this year? Forget MW3 for FIFA 12...it was really all about DiRT 3. A frankly astonishing amount of content, numerous game modes and slick online play in no way compromised the feel behind the wheel. A stunningly realised, comprehensive offering from Codemasters and the definitive rallying experience.
	Driver: San Francisco	Anyone coming into DSF cold could be forgiven for thinking that the storyline was written on hallucinogens, but that didn't matter. Equipped with the innovative 'Shifting' mechanic, DSF was an utter blast, bringing back some of the adrenaline-fuelled, high octane automobile action that used to be the series' staple. Some excellent multiplayer options helped it surpass Ubisoft's original expectations.
	F1 2011	Codemasters and F1, the two go together so very well indeed, and this year's instalment was no exception. No, it wasn't a far cry from its predecessor, but the dev team only tuned up what was necessary, streamlining and perfecting rather than overhauling. With cracking physics, gorgeous visuals and a co-op career mode, this was one of the more niche, but utterly rewarding, time sinks of the year.
	Forza 4"	Rammed with content, with more depth everywhere you looked, on the surface Forza 4 might not have looked much different to its predecessor. But under the hood there was a game that could appeal to car fans everywhere, no matter how good you were at video games. Slick, perfectly balanced and with some fantastic online options that really served to foster a sense of community, Xbox owners could be delighted with Turn 10's effort this year.
	Mario Kart 7	It's Mario Kart. On the 3DS. FINALLY!
	MotorStorm: Apocalypse	Motorstorm's single-player game found itself streamlined a fair bit with Apocalypse, but it made up for it with more forgiving AI and some true blockbuster moments with some of the best destruction not just in racing, but in gaming itself, making it the first racer that actually made you feel as if 3D added something to it. The online perks and gambling setup added to the longevity too.

Ok...so it's basically Christmas. Thanksgiving is just an early version of Christmas...except involving the mass genocide of an indigenous people rather than the birth of a baby demi-god...but just imagine there are carol singers.

And then run...because this guy is clearly INSANE! By 'best' I did of course mean 'most sinister'.

NB: NSFW due to disturbing subject matter and many swears.

There was something for everyone this year, even the most hard-bitten anti-social gamer would have to admit that 2011 held a veritable plethora of group gaming options from the co-operative delights of Portal 2 to the expansive battlefields of...well...Battlefield 3. Most encouraging, perhaps, was the sign that local co-op was still alive and well with drop-in play the central feature of the likes of Dungeon Defenders, Skylanders, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One and Rayman: Origins. Let us not forget, too, that the 3DS finally got the multiplayer game its social capabilities had been crying out for in Mario Kart 7. Games like Forza 4 and Dark Souls fostered excellent communities through online features that were a little different than all of the rest.

NB. Click on the thumbnails for price comparisons and the game's title for the relevant review where available.

	Title	Description
	Battlefield 3	We're not entirely sure why Battlefield 3 needed an Online Pass seeing as you'd never buy it for the singleplayer component anyway. Thankfully, DICE's FPS lives up to its name in multiplayer, serving up an expansive set of warzones, rendered beautifully thanks to Frostbite 2.0 and, if played on PC, hurling teams of up to 32 players against one another. Online, Battlefield 3 was simply astounding, with the clear emphasis on teamwork helping no end, the exceptional visuals and stunning sound work contributing to an atmosphere that was epic, frantic and a whole load of fun, whichever class you were inhabiting.
	Brink	Brink was something of a melting pot of cracking ideas, a crucible of FPS innovation and, sadly, niggling design flaws. It had its problems upon release, but they were swiftly rectified giving those that invested in Splash Damage's shooter some of the finest co-op action to be had this year. Curiously addictive thanks to a progression system that rewarded you for playing to your class strengths rather than simply spraying lead everywhere, Brink was a flawed gem.
	Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3	Of course Modern Warfare 3 made the list. With more to do, more to unlock and more customisation options than ever before, MW3 served up a familiar but expanded platter of multiplayer delights. Elite was simply the icing on the cake...when it worked.
	Dungeon Defenders"	Orcs Must Die! successfully married direct combat and tower tactics, but Trendy Entertainment's effort went one step further by providing a persistent RPG element that invoked the likes of Diablo and Torchlight. Dungeon Defenders was an incredibly brave proposition from a small independent studio... and a hybrid gamble that paid off in spades. With four players leaping into the fray it was insanely good fun.
	Portal 2	One of the finest, most unique co-op experiences of the year - one, indeed, that provided a true representation of what it meant to co-operatively game - Portal 2 was just as astounding with two people than it was one one's own, if not more so. Working through areas together, relying on one another to solve the various puzzles, combined with a gesture system that allowed for instruction without headsets, Portal 2 offered up one of the most interesting and satisfying multiplayer experiences of the the last twelve months.
	Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One	Insomniac broke new ground for their platforming series with All 4 One, introducing 4-way co-op. The series' trademark humour still tickled funny bones, the action was fantastic and, even though the level design was a little more linear than before, the co-op more than made up for it.
	Uncharted 3	Uncharted 3 was yet another game that offered the complete package this year, just beating out Gears 3 in the nominations to make the grade. More modes, more options, more customisation, and the bespoke co-op mini adventures made for a multiplayer experience that delighted PS3 fans everywhere. Simply superb.

The hype train has had many stops this year, some good, others less so. We've seen big companies laid low through their own lack of caution, undermined by smack talk, and the best laid plans revealed to be sorely misjudged. In terms of games, we've had darlings of the press - games that have won critics over through previews and interviews, buffet spreads and bright lights - only for the end product to be rather lacking.

In the midst of our Game of the Year Season, it is only right the we look back and reflect for a moment upon some of the disappointments of the past twelve months. It should be noted that the games that make this list aren't necessarily bad (although one or two are), but rather proved to dash our hopes in some way. We weren't necessarily cross...just disappointed.

Though there's room for both at the top end.

10. We Dare

Forget Dead Island...anyone who finds themselves disappointed by a game on the grounds of a CG trailer only has themselves to blame. The worst culprit of any sort of trailer fiasco this year probably has to go to We Dare. Did we get a raunchy party game for adults? No. Did we get girl-on-girl spanking? No. Were PEGI right to give the game a 12+ rating? Yes. The mainstream press went nuts, with the Daily Fail as usual doing absolutely no research into the actual game; but the disconnect between the trailer and the actual game was pertinent. At the end of the day, We Dare failed to launch in this country, with reports from across the Channel being that the game was about as sexy as Salacious Crumb.

9. X-Men Destiny

What was it that Silicon Knights did with that multi-million dollar bankroll from the Canadian government? Well it can't all have gone on X-Men Destiny? Can it? Really? Oh dear. Having an X-Men game in which you can't actually play as any of the X-Men was a warning from the start...the awful combat and mind-numbingly boring missions didn't help. We knew it was going to be bad, just not this bad, hence the low position on the list.