Sundays are for whinging about your winter lurgy, and once again rounding up the best writing about video games from the past week. I’ll offset the whinging by quickly mentioning how I much I enjoy doing this: there are so many stupendously talented writers out there, and it always warms my heart when it turns out they appreciate being featured here. Even when all I do is pick out the parts I disagree with. Merry Christmas!

For SideQuest, Melissa Brinks waded into the goose discourse. The goosecourse takes no prisoners, but Brinks picks her way through it with aplomb.

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This week, Star Wars is everywhere, many games launched Christmas events, and some even combined Star Wars and Christmas. But not in a ‘Holiday Special’ way. Read on for more of the week’s PC gaming patches in The Weekly Updates Update.

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On day 21 of the RPS Advent Calendar, we invite you to open the door with some care. There may be more warthogs than you expected.

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Every year we are put in a cardboard box full of straw and carefully packed away in the treehouse attic, until Graham wakes up on January 3rd and chains us to our desks again. It’s a cosy little break for us, but we don’t want you to feel alone. That’s why we’ve left these special crackers for you, for every day of the break! You can find more articles, or just help us buy a clean box for next year, with the RPS supporter program.

Now, time to enjoy your lovely joke!>

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Oooh, he’s coming!! He’s on his way!!! He’s checking his list at least several times!!!!

Here are some free games about Santa, his friends, and all those things which may or may not accompany him on his jolly midnight ride.

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Ho ho hello! A merry Winterval to one and all. We’re taking two weeks off to fully celebrate the winter solstice then will return on Tuesday, January 2nd. We’ll have a few posts coming across the break, including opening more doors of the calendar to reveal our favourite games of the year and oh god more Christmas cracker jokes. But we’re going away to feast for the solstice then spend a solid week recovering from the carb blast. See you next year!

What are you playing this holiday? Here’s what we’re clicking on!

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CD Projekt Red announced today that they have reached a new agreement with the author of The Witcher novels, Andrzej Sapkowski. The announcement is short and light on detail but is aptly timed to suggest new Witcher-related projects are in the works at the Polish games studio.

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It’s been a weird, weird year for games. My perspective has been particularly odd and hard to square, as I’ve now been full time staff here at RPS for nearly six months. Six months! That’s … oh my god, I still haven’t extended my rent.

It’s quite strange suddenly being able to talk about games in real life without having to apologise, but other than that it’s nice. In that time I’ve played somewhere around 1,200 to 1,300 games (an exact count is impossible for boring reasons), almost all of them little known.

There have been many, many excellent games. There’s a refrain you see around the internet sometimes that “this was a bad year for games”, and I’ve honestly never understood it. I lived through the 2000s, people, I remember that wasteland. But this year, even after a solid 2018, has been so replete with interesting things to play that I cannot fathom how to be disappointed with the games. Sure, the industry, the culture, these are often garbage things for garbage people. But the games, man. The gaaames. Don’t hold it against them.

So here it is then. It’s time for the very best of Unknown Pleasures 2019. The finest of all that we’ve got through since last year, in a mostly random order.

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I will forever be impressed with the imagination of players in creative games. I admire from afar grand Minecraft monuments, luxurious Sims 4 houses, and beautifully dense Stardew Valley farms but know that I’ll never have the dedication to make any of them myself. User “Mr_Hemi” on Reddit has taken a page from the past and spent over a year building Detroit as it was envisioned by a city planner 200 years ago. They did it all in Cities: Skylines.

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While every other game is adding snowflakes and presents, Borderlands 3 is skulking off to a dingy old casino ship for its first story expansion. Moxxie’s Heist of the Handsome Jackpot is out as of yesterday. If you were missing dear dead Jack, he’s back in hologram form to berate you as you shoot and loot your way through his derelict money trap.

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