Secret Santa for… Shoot the Rookie!

“Lightning” Ellen kindly organised a Secret Blogger Santa event this year — and I drew Pix1001 of Shoot the Rookie fame. If you’re unfamiliar with the premise as Ellen set it, the idea is to ‘gift’ your person a fictional item from a video game (or other piece of media) that fits them.
Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is having a fantastic time be you still working, enjoying a no doubt well-deserved break with family and friends or anything inbetween.
I must apologise though — because I don’t have a gift for you. Well, unless you’re Pix1001. Then I do! Hi! Yes. Come sit down. We’ll have to head outside for the gift, but we’ll get to that shortly. No rush, no rush. Hopefully you didn’t see it on the way in!
How did I pick?
Well… A combination of things. Starting with the obvious — your About page noted that amongst your favourite game series (even though it didn’t yet have a ‘My Favourite Series‘ post) was Final Fantasy.
Add to that a clear and ever-present love of Anime, with perhaps this post on the collision of Anime and Games being amongst my favourites — and a bit of a picture starts to emerge on what might be of interest.
But then to really cinch the ‘what’ is a hint that you may well love travel. Reading about your visit to Berlin’s Computerspiele Museum brought a real smile to my face. Not only at what they had, but also your clear love for it all.
With the ‘what’ out of the way, there was still a question of ‘which’… Final Fantasy IX being your first certainly holds powerful sway. There is always something about your personal first Final Fantasy that resonates across time. But as another commenter noted, your post on The Roles of Women in the Final Fantasy XIII series put an infectious level of passion for it on display.
Then, given the proclivity to visit the history of gaming entertainment — would a version from an older entry be interesting and meaningful? Possibly. But risky. Not a call I would be confident yet in making.
So Final Fantasy XI is the version of choice…
…Which I suppose leaves nothing else but the reveal! Let’s head outside to the back. Yep. There we go. You can pull the tarpaulin off when ready. Ready?
Right!

Now, it’s no Invincible.
But it is still an incredible view from up there, and most anywhere you might want to go will still have somewhere you can land it.
I hope you enjoy it! … Er, although I haven’t looked into the insurance though. Good luck! ;)