Game characters' (probably hopeless) New Year's resolutions

Same old new year

Yes, It's that time of year once again, when running around naked and screaming "What year is this?" is no longer the sole domain of confused time traveller,s but a right of passage for every drunken reveler without a wristwatch. Huzzah! 2014 certainly was a hoot now wasn't it? Well aside from that time North Korea forced us to put Destiny at the top of our GOTY poll. No, not really , but I know a few of you wanted to believe it, didnt you? Muahah!

Today's big silly list of stuff takes a mad-eyed gander at gaming's New Year's resolutions, or to be more specific, those of its many well-loved characters. So, if you've ever wanted to know what Sonic and chums get up to during the festive break, (I'll give you a clue - it rhymes with '4G') or just who plans on kicking their alcohol dependency then read on dear reader, read on!

Ratchet wants to kick the drink

See that yellow shock of fur there? Yeah it's uh, not supposed to be like that. Seems Ratchet has been supping from the sauce bottle a wee bit too eagerly as of late, an activity that's all but put the kybosh on his interplanetary adventures. Clank meanwhile has taken to a life of petty crime, funding a nigh insatiable 'ladybot' habit via the sale of black market e-cigs. Truth be told, he'll pay just about anyone to yank his crankshaft these days, even good old captain Quark... As for that liquored up Lombax, Ratchet is planning to go sober in 2015, just as soon as he downs this next 'new year's liver-splitter'.

"Don't youuu dare don't you, uh dare feel sorry for me, I was I was the big kahuna around here. Wait, wait, is that even a word? Kahooona. Sounds ssdddefnjw to memnewcj *momentary loss of consciousness*. So like I said, Clank hands me this bottle of chassis polish, and I tell him I tell him, aint never gonna be no black president! So I slam it down in one go, and they called up the umm, the umm ambambulances man and he pumped up my stomach. That's err, that's a, that's when I knew that it was time to make a change. Waaaazzzup!"

Pikachu wants to learn a new skill

Selective amnesia received a major PR facelift in the form of Pokmon Red & Blue. Old memories being wiped out by new ones? Sounds terrible, right? But introduce a set of indentured, uber cutesy animals into the mix and suddenly everything's gravy. 'Charmander forgot how to use "peripheral vision", but he learned "flamesplosion", 'Bulbasaur forgot how to tie his own shoelaces, but he learned "cut!"' - a state of affairs not unlike babysitting for an irate two year old. In keeping with his forgetful nature, Pikachu is planning to learn yet another new skill this year, just like he's been saying every NYE for the past 18 years

"Pika, pika, pika Pikachu, piiiika, pika-chu. Pikachu, pika 'woodworking seminar' Pikachu."

Batman wants to spend less time online

Aside from the odd impressive deduction, Arkham's brooding bat-bloke is really rather bad at detective work. For one thing, he's much too reliant on that neon-tinged gismo of his. Detective Vision? Pah! More like 'Defective Vision', amirite? Nope, no one? Suffice to say the mighty Sherlock Holmes wouldn't be seen dead wearing one of those. It's just well it's just plain cheating, isnt it? You're supposed to scan the environment for yourself, scrutinize the evidence, pit your wits against the world at large - not sign up for the 6 o'clock TRON tour. Judging by his New Year's resolution, Batman evidently agrees. Its time to fob off Oracle, hang up on Alfred and bid a fond farewell to those brightly coloured skeleton men. Bats is a big boy now, he can do his own damn DNA testing.

"Bat-computers? Detective Vision? More assistants than an overstuffed Apple store? What happened to you Bruce? You used to crack crimes with nothing but a big rubber suit, a smile on your lips and a song in your heart. Look at you now, moody, getting into fistfights with perfect strangers, developing a really, really hoarse throat. Maybe it's time I cut out all the technology. It can't be doing my eyes any good, and these latex fetish sites are getting a tad pricey. So long 'catwomenoncam.com', I think I'll miss you most of all."

Poorly rendered background character F wants to see the world

Let's hear it for the unsung heroes of the video game landscape. No, not the guys and gals who forgo sleep, sustenance and acceptable hygiene standards in the name of developing great games - the folks I'm talking about right now are the background characters, those poorly-rendered, barely seen strangers who exist purely to pad out the periphery. These guys truly put the C in NPC, what with their mangled faces, Minecraft-like bodies and desperate 'please kill me' expressions. Surely they deserve something of a vacation - a chance to glimpse the world beyond the hellish extremities of Forza Horizon 2? Well that's exactly what crowd asset no. 11, aka hog lady, aka the phantom of the bleachers had in mind.

"*prolonged screaming*".

Big Boss wants to spend more time with the family

You just know that if the Snake family were a real thing, there'd be some god-awful TV show charting their every argument. "Liquid, did you use up the last of the shampoo? Curse you, there now exists a stylish, if ultimately tragic blood feud between us". They'd probably call it 'Breaking in with the Snakes' or 'Genome Shore' or something equally offensive. Come to think of it, maybe they'd be more like a travelling band - the Jackson 5 but with way less platform shoes and a few more pained soliloquies on the nature of fate. Anyhoo, this year Big Boss intends to spend more quality time with his psychotic sprogs. Good luck to him.

"What is a family? Is it the men you serve with, the nation you belong to, your actual family? Is family simply a construct of the socio-economic machine, a means to grease the wheels of capitalistic progress, to drive the uncertain future towards their projected ideals? What is an ideal? Is it the notion of change that inspires good, or are we mere puppets of a system devoted to the fiscal domination of the collective will? METAL GEAR?!?!"

Scorpion wants to stop smoking

Deadlier than a spinal extraction, smellier than Mileena's mouthwash, smoking puts more folks out of action than a spiked ceiling trap. Cool but treacherous - like grabbing a quick selfie with Sub-Zero - smoking is an ever-present concern for MK's Scorpion. Hailing from Earthrealm (by way of the fiery pits of hell), Scorps has reason enough to be fuming, not least that incessantly flaming head of his. Add to that a bosom buddy in Smoke, aka the veritable poster boy for inconsiderate enablers, and you have one hard road ahead of this newly-quitting ninja.

"I get real cranky without my smokes, yanno? Like, even when I can get em, it's not like I'm allowed inside anymore. It's like, just because my skull's wreathed in flames I'm not entitled to stand indoors? Like, what's up with that, man? Oh, yeah, everyone loves Sub-Zero, picking up chicks with the whole 'This champagne doesn't have any ice, uhh wait a minute, KAPOW!' shtick. What does he have that I dont? Used to be that I'd just offer to light their cigarettes for em and they'd be all over me. Nowadays they're all too busy shivering in the Wetherspoons car park to even notice. So yeah, this year I'm giving it up for good. It's time to 'Quit over here!!'. Get it?... You get it, right?"

Gordon Freeman wants to learn French

Gordon Freeman is a man of few words. Fortunately he's really rather handy with a crowbar and as such nobody seems to mind. Despite the fact that Valve have never deigned to offer a canonical reason for Freeman's silence, a shrill and girlish voice would seem to be the likely culprit. What better place to send him then than to mainland France. Ha ha! Take that France, that's for whatever it is we don't like about you at the minute, apparently

Asura wants to cut down on coffee

Yep, they're doing a 'caffeine cravings made him angry' joke, so just deal with it, okay? No, wait come back! It'll be great, I promise. We can poke fun at those teachers who were constantly tweaking back in high school. Weren't they amusing? With their mood swings and their violent adult tantrums? Good thing they weren't responsible for a legion of impressionable teens, right? You might say that Asura had even more on his plate, what with being a demigod accused of regicide, who then gets chucked off a cliff and killed, before reemerging as some sort of avenging angel. Yeah, that's plenty to be mad about, right? If only he'd had his morning coffee HAHAHAHAHA! No but seriously that dude needs to chill the hell out.

"The wife always told me I had anger issues, even after I did everything I could to 'Asura' I was fine. Hur hur hur, I crack up all the lads with that one. This year I'm giving coffee the old heave-ho in favour of green herbal teas. It's already been 5 minutes since my last cup of joe and I feel fi" *planet implodes*

LocoRoco wants to get in shape

Plenty of folks feel like an amorphous blob monster by the time January 1st rolls around, what with all that Christmas dinner and New Year's tipple sloshing around in their stomachs. In LocoRoco's case, he/she or it actually is one. A monster, that is, not an ill-advised round of shots with the boss at the office Xmas party. It should come as no surprise then, that ol' Loco - as s/he's known to his/her eses in the barrio - would want to kickstart the new year with a fresh commitment to fitness. No more lazily cascading off metres-high cliffs, oh no - the newly improved Roco will slap the ground like a gelatinous thunder strike, rolling more like a cube and consequently killing off the entire franchise.

"This is the year I'm taking charge of my life. No more splurging on brightly coloured forest folk for me, nuh uh. I've had enough of conforming to other people's needs, whether that means working double overtime or subdividing into a dozen smaller clones, I'm through. If you want to flip your PSP like a noob playing a racing game, then be my guest, but I'm over it, and under it, and even occasionally between it."

It'sa not gonna last five minutes!

"I felt a great disturbance in the festivities, as if a million gym memberships were suddenly set up, and were suddenly silenced" If you have any gaming resolutions you'd like to share with the class then feel free to post them to the comments section below. Happy New Year folks, may a small proportion of your dreams come true!

And while you're too stuffed and slovenly to move, why not stay here a while and check out some of our other festive features? The 8 most Christmassy games (that aren't actually set at Christmas) would make a fine start, as would 12 games where you beat the everloving cheer out of Santa Claus.