As I sat down for my Thanksgiving pizza (a quarter century tradition in the Tritone vegetarian household) I couldn’t help but gape in slack-jawed wonder at the metaphorical groaning board of gaming goodness, a bounty of such richness: BIOSHOCK, MASS EFFECT, CALL OF DUTY, THE ORANGE BOX, ASSASSIN’S CREED, HALO 3, SIM CITY SOCIETIES*, QUAKE WARS, TABULA RASA, UT3, CRYSIS–all harvested in the last couple of MONTHS, for cryin’ out loud. Has there ever been a better spread of quality games? And, seriously, let’s give thanks for all the designers, programmers, artists, producers, writers, composers, sound editors**, and QA testers that create all these cool toys for us to play with.

*there you go, Brixtone. $5. ka-ching!
**ditto