Chris' Christmas cravings: crazy toys and delinquent boys
All I want is a toy that giggles and something to laugh about -- like a game that lets me beat up small children
Like any right-thinking geek, my first choice for a Christmas gift is the TMX Elmo. This robotic imitation of a drug-addled man in the throes of a seizure, passed off as a children's toy, is a marketing masterpiece. You have to see TMX Elmo in action to appreciate how wonderfully deranged he is. Tickle his belly and he staggers about, falling over, giggling and wobbling like a drunken toddler.
Adults see in TMX Elmo the witless abandon of their youth, while children delight in its unpredictable convulsions and laughter. Never has a toy spanned generations so effectively, appealing to the city banker and the pre-schooler in equal measure. Whose Christmas would not be improved by the toy's inexhaustible frenzies and cries of, "Oooh! You tickled Elmo!"?
TMX Elmo's only flaw is the difficulty involved in tracking one down. Our mobile phone reviewer was fortunate to find a TMX Elmo hidden amongst the Barbie Dolls (don't ask what he was doing in that section) of a remote Toys 'R' Us not listed on any map. You'll be lucky to find one on the highstreet, but others in the Crave office have found the little critters on eBay.
This geek's second choice is the videogame Canis Canum Edit (or Bully), the best computer simulation of high-school violence currently available to buy. You play the part of a young student abandoned by his divorced parents and sent to Bullworth Academy -- a dumping ground for rich and privileged misfits. The school is populated by the kind of reckless children who, if their parents weren't so fabulously wealthy, would have ended up in 'juvie' (juvenile detention centre, for those unsullied by the onslaught of American culture). To find out more, watch our video review.
What's great about Canis is the same thing that was great about Grand Theft Auto. The game is sprawling, rarely forcing you to follow a linear plot. You can beat young children to within an inch of their lives, blow up the chemistry lab or save a fat kid from bullies -- it doesn't get much more Christmassy than that, does it? Everyone deserves a copy under the tree come 25 December. God rest ye merry gentlemen and to all a good night. Merry Christmas geeks, one and all. -Chris Stevens