So with all the games coming out this holiday season, deciding which ones to purchase now, and which ones to wait 6 months till they drop below $30 was difficult. I already bought Fable 2 (just finished the main story line last night… a little disappointed) and what I was in need of was a multiplayer title as COD4, though still fun, is getting a little stale. That immediately ruled out Dead Space and Banjo-Kazooie (sue me, I want a platformer) and all that was left was COD:W@W, GoW2 and Left 4 Dead.

I played the COD beta and though it was somewhat enjoyable, I couldn’t justify spending $60 on yet another WWII game. Since I wasn’t a big fan of the original Gears multiplayer the decision was easy.

The demo has been a blast to play, even though it’s only about 20 minutes long, it never gets dull. Now, if all my friends come to the same conclusion I’ll be in good shape this holiday season.

My wife and I get along well, we’re best friends, but we definitely have our disagreements. One of the major parting of ways is my love affair with video games. I’ve grown up as a gamer owning most major systems since Atari, along with playing many of the original DOS games. My cousin and I have some of our fondest memories from playing games together, it’s always been our main connecting point.

The argument she likes to throw out is how I should have grown out of this by now. Obviously I disagree, and I’ve heard that the average gamer age is somewhere in the mid-thirties. However, even I was a bit surprised to read an article on Ars Technica about the demographic of gamers.

One of the biggest misconceptions about games is that they’re the domain of adolescent boys. According to the Entertainment Software Association, the average age of gamers is now 35. Approximately 60 percent of gamers play video games with their friends, 40 percent of gamers in the US are women, and almost a quarter of all video game players are over the age of fifty.

Did you catch that? 40 effing percent of gamers are women! Later in the article it states that there are more women gamers over the age of 18 then there are male gamers under the age of 18.

So, confident with my new knowledge that I was ready to drop in front of my wife for a little statistical smack-down; blindsided, she caught me with a left hook…

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’re cool.”

Someone have any material to help with me that one?