roof of the holiday season hit me quite hard on Saturday when I saw an absolute flood of people at Best Buy. I didn’t enter a Walmart, but I’d imagine the scene wasn’t any better. Keep that in mind if you plan on venturing out to Walmart sometime next week as holiday pricing is in full effect.

Epic Games likes to keep things interesting with unique playlists for Gears of War 3, and the holidays are a great time to do so. Starting at 12 a.m. November 24, GoW 3 will have a special “Thanksgibbing” King of the Hill event. All shotguns on maps will be replaced by a Boomshot called the Cluckshot. Yes, it’s a poultry gun that shoots exploding chickens. Send the family off to watch the football games, this is going to be too much fun. The Versus Booster Map Pack is available this week also. The free download features five maps for public matchmaking. Two, Bullet Marsh and Clocktower are fan favorites from the first Gears. The other three, Azura, Rustlung and Blood Drive are from the recently released Horde Command Pack.

Mobile gaming is huge. For the price of one normally priced console game, you can download dozens of Android games in return. Giving Android games from the Android Market as gifts isn’t as easy as it should be. Unlike the Amazon Appstore, the Android Market doesn’t have gift cards or an option to gift apps. One way to get around this is to give someone a prepaid debit card and suggest some games to them. That’s what this guide is for. We’re going to tell you what are some of the most worthwhile Android games available right now.

Christmas in the cloud? It’s real, and it’s happening this year thanks to OnLive. Starting tomorrow at 3pm Pacific, OnLive will begin taking orders for a few bundles that are meant to be given as gifts this holiday season. The gifts range from $10 to $159.99. You can still gift a game to someone, but if they’re dying to experience all that OnLive has to offer, there’s a bundle for that exact situation.

Each year Target brings out a bevy of holiday themed gift cards to offer a variety choices and allow you to include a bit of holiday novelty when you give someone a gift card. In the past we’ve seen some pretty cool tech cards but this year Target has decided to revive last year’s featured card. And, yes, it’s still pretty cool.

Under the heading of “WOW Holiday Gift Cards,” Target is offering a mini Lego set. While last years’ was intended solely to make the Target Bullseye dog, the 2011 version includes several more pieces to allow you to make three complete figures: The Bullseye puppy, a snowman and a polar bear.

The company that brought you the bacon mints, bacon air fresher and killer unicorn toys is giving away free rubber chickens to the first 100 people who visit their retail location (not the web store).

Also, if you order form the web site before Midnight, April 1, 2011, you’ll get one, too.

Want to make this Valentine’s Day a romantic gaming experience that you will never forget?

Well leave it to Dr. Jessi (it’s an honorary title) to give you a few tips on making this February 14, 2011, the absolute perfect game playing experience that you and your lover will remember for days to come. If these don’t work, then maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.

Each year I amass holiday greetings from various game and entertainment companies in the form signed postcards (from PR staff members),

Here’s a collection of Christmas and Holiday cards I’ve received (so far) celebrating 2010…

Happy Holiday, Merry Christmas and salutations for every seasonal celebration!

We’re planning to spend some extra time today (December 25, 2010) with our family and friends celebrating the holidays by playing extra video games, drinking a moderate amount of wacky wassail and perhaps (accidentally or accidentally on purpose) consuming fruitcake.

We will return tomorrow (December 26, 2010) with plenty of groovy news, updates and other video game goodness.

If you cannot wait until then, check out these Christmas-y posts both past and present…