I typically avoid lists like the plague, but Scott Jones’ Hartford Courant writeup caught my eye, even if it was a reason unrelated to the article itself.  Offering ten suggestions on what games NOT to buy your child this Christmas, number one:

1. Your kids have lousy taste when it comes to games. I know Little Johnny is precious and cute as all get-out. But Johnny doesn’t know video games. The truth is, kids want the games they’ve seen advertised on TV or in magazines. So they’ll give you misinformation and bad advice and fill their wish-lists up with total tripe. They just don’t know any better. They’ll tell you that they want ” Hannah Montana: Music Jam” or “Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Mermaids” or “Crash Bandicoot Xtreme.”

Remember how Crash was Sony’s answer to Mario?  How the first three games sold twenty-one million copies, and the fourth was the best Kart game of that generation?  (Yeah, suck it, Mario Kart 64.)  It’s pretty easy to pinpoint Crash’s turn towards irrelevance with the moment Naughty Dog went to hit up the Jak series.  But falling so far that someone lumps it with Dora and Hannah?  At least when the latest Sonic game comes out, we spend a week wishing Sega could get their act together.