The Top 10 Games of Christmas 2014

07. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

ESRB Rating: M (for Mature)

Price: $59.99

A classic first-person shooter developed by Sledgehammer Games and published by Activision, COD:AW is the game that we have been waiting for - and the game we have been dreading - all in teh very same package.

With versions for PlayStation 3 and 4, Microsoft’s X1 and X360, and Windows PC, Advanced Warfare hit the streets on 4 November and delivered precisely what it promised to: an entertaining and worthy next chapter in the COD series that is every bit as good as the rest of the Call of Duty series (and better than Ghosts - we're just saying).

While the dirty and largely unspoken secret of COD is how it has morphed into the Fight Club of military shooters in terms of online play, the game offers a cohesive and entertaining single-player story that follows protagonist Jack Mitchell -- a private in the US Marine Corps -- around as he makes his way through the world of 2054 as the questions posed by North Korea are finally answered. Sort of.

During a battle that literally shapes the future of our protagonist, bad things are afoot at the North Korean Circle K.

Jack ends up discharged from the Corps minus one arm, one best mate, and working for the family business of that KIA best mate - which just happens to be one of the largest and most capable PMCs on earth. Fortune favors the bold, and Jack is certainly that!

After securing a position with Atlas Corporation, Jack receives a very advanced and high-tech replacement prosthetic arm, and begins to do battle with the modern day version of terrorists - but smart and very well-organized terrorists mind you - and proceeds to uncover a massive and terrible conspiracy and that is all we have to say about that or risk hitting you with irrevocable spoilers.

Here is the important bits that you need to take away from this: Modern Warfare breaks the chain that has been growing in the mil-shooter sub-genre for years as even while it provides the online PvP side that gamers expect and demand, proceeds to break ranks with the established pattern by including a campaign (story) mode that is worth every moment of play and could have been 5 times longer with no complaints!

In fact you should consider the campaign mode the best reason for being gfifted with this one - and for gifting it - because the performances of Troy Baker and Kevin Spacey in their roles as Mitchell and Jonathan Irons respectively delivers a measure of entertainment that we really had no right to expect if the game had not broken ranks with the established trends.

If nobody loves you enough to gift you with this one, you are a bad person and you need to work on that. If you don't love a gamer enough to gift this to them, you are really a bad person, and you need to work on that! Sheesh!