I read a while back that the reason dogs are so loving is that they evolved to have empathy, so that they wouldn't be abandoned by the human tribes they were a part of. They're not just nice for the sake of being nice; their niceness is a legitimate survival trait.

Yes, often dogs will lose their minds, and still do what they want - especially if there's food involved - but you only have to look at them a certain way, or use a particular tone of voice, and they'll slink off to their bed with their ears plastered against their head.

I used to own a lurcher called Finn, who was the most neurotic animal I've ever known. He seemed to exist in a constant state of neediness, always looking to me for reassurance, as if he was worried that he'd done something wrong. His almost constant anxiety-induced flatulence was something I'd never want to inflict on another human being. 

Nonetheless, I love a bit of neediness, so consequently I loved Finn, and I'm very much a dog person. Unfortunately, I also really hate faeces. Call me weird if you must, but I hate picking it up, I hate smelling it, and I hate treading in it. If you're a dog owner, these three things are unavoidable.

It's different with cats. I get absolutely no love from either of mine, let alone acknowledgment that I even exist most of the time (unless it's time for them to be fed). But at least they do all their shitting in next door's kid's sandpit.

My parents always seemed hard up.

Barring one visit to America, because my sister had moved over there, summer holidays were always spent in a budget caravan in some affordable spot of the UK. I remember fielding calls from Barclaycard's debt management department while my mother pretended not to be in. We also had numerous lodgers, and for a while I shared a room with my two older sisters, so one of these hairy waifs had somewhere to sleep. 

Yet at Christmas my mum always went all-out. Food would be stacked from sideboard to ceiling, and the pile of presents was always huge, and - with hindsight - probably rather vulgar. Spoilt doesn't even cover it, but it perhaps became a way to compensate for the rest of the year. I dunno. Or maybe I was the best kid ever, and just really deserved it all.

Apropos it being Christmas, here's a rundown of some of the best things I ever got.

Hey, guys! Check out this cool song:

Oh Nintendo!
Oh oh oh!
Ohhhhhhh-ohhh!
Ohhhh?

That was a real good song, even if I do say so myself, and it pretty much sums up my relationship with Nintendo these days; a series of "ohs" expressing different things.

Some of them are weary-ohs, some surprised, some affectionate, some frustrated. Here's what I say again, in case you've already forgotten: "Ohhhhh..."

It has been a weird, transitional year for Nintendo. It began with the company sliding its yellow, moist, torso into mobile apps and gaming, unveiling a miniature version of its first games console, that made everybody go a bit silly, before announcing its next console (which will console-idate its under-telly and handheld businesses), giving up on the Wii U, and revealing that it is moving into the theme park business.

Why, it almost feels as if Nintendo is having some sort of mid-life crisis. It'll be buying a sports car next.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it's about time we all made a bit more use of it. Preferably by not waiting until it becomes hindsight.

Listen to the average untrained self-help guru and they'll tell you to live in the moment. That sounds like reasonable advice - if typically more easily said than done - but sometimes it's nice to stop and take in the view from the mountain you just climbed. This year, more than most, we've not so much climbed a mountain as been dragged up one by a diarrhoeic, shrieking, mountain monkey.

And yet... despite all the celebrity death, despite all the depressing world events, despite the dangerous polarisation of Western society and the way everyone seems to be more entrenched and inflexible than ever, and despite a lying, exploitative, egomaniac becoming the most powerful man on the planet and proving to be everything many of us said he was... it has sort of been a pretty good year for gaming.

As we barrel towards the end of what few would deny has otherwise been a horrible annus, it felt like time to take in the view of the major gaming events of the past 12 months.

As the first big piece I wrote at the start of 2016 was about Virtual Reality it seems like that's a good place to start this retrospective. C'mon, kids!

Guest Review by Super Bad Advice

Like Wispa Golds, flared trousers, restraining orders and that putrid rash on your thighs that you probably should have seen the doctor about years ago, some stuff tends to just keep coming back. Sometimes this happens because you spend most of your time squatting semi-nude in the ivy bush outside your neighbour’s house doing toilet (see the last 2 points above).

Other times, stuff comes back simply because it’s too damn great to stay away for too long.

​That category certainly covers the Wispa Gold, and also this: Rez Infinite.

Given the title, you'd expect Steep to be a game about soaking things in liquid. You know: like dipping bits of cardboard in jugs of brine. 

But no. No no. You see, it's Christmas in a few weeks, and Steep resurrects the once-traditional practice of games publishers using the so-called Jolly Season as an excuse to release their snow games.

They always used to do this even though it hardly ever snows at Christmas in this country, thanks to the dastardly Chinese and their canny global warming hoax. Indeed, it doesn't even snow at Christmas in many places where Christmas is celebrated, such as Australia, ovens, and furnaces.

So why do we even associate Christmas with snow? Is it because Father Christmas lives at the North Pole? That doesn't make sense. The Easter Bunny presumably lives underground in a burrow, but who decorates their home with fake soil and rabbit dung at Easter, other than Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall?

Also, the North Pole is about as far away as you can get from the part of the world where the first Christmas story took place. You know: the Nakatomi Tower in Los Angeles..

Uh, yeah. So Watch Dogs was really popular, at least in terms of sales. When it came to the critical consensus this was the response: "Sir! That's not very good!" 

Because I'm The Man of the People, I sort of leaned towards those who bought the game. It wasn't perfect - essentially a sort of sterile, humourless version of GTA, featuring a middle-aged focus group's idea of what a hacker should be - but the central gameplay conceit was actually real big fun.

Being a pervert, I liked prying into people's personal data, and I liked using the city around me as a weapon by turning its connectivity against my enemies. Plus, frankly, I thought the shooting and the driving were vastly superior to GTA's offerings.

Still, the criticism must've stung UbiSoft, because they've gone all out to improve on the main thing that critics felt was bad-faced with the original: they got rid of the protagonist, and introduced a bunch of new ones. 

It's not unwelcome, but it does feel a bit like a work colleague being told they're boring, and then turning up at the office the next day wearing a piano keyboard tie, and blowing an airhorn, shouting "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED THEN?!"