Microtransactions aren't so bad, you guys. Sure, they tend to be most effective when parents don't realize their kids can make as many of them as they want for a whole half hour after signing in, but they introduce so many interesting new mechanics for developers to explore on top of new ways to make money. And I know just how to prove their worth to you: by defiling - er - improving your favorite games with their presence.

Come with me on a grand tour of what it would have looked like if a dozen classic games had microtransactions built-in from the get go. Trust me, you'll find the idea of a paid coin doubler much more palatable when couched in the familiar trappings of the Mushroom Kingdom. Heck, by the end of this gallery you could well be tearing at your clothes and shouting praise for new monetization methodologies.

It took me forever to get to Staunton Island in Grand Theft Auto 3. Y'know why? Four words (and a number): Bomb Da Base Act 2. It's so irritating that my ability to escape Portland and head to Staunton Island, the center of the GTA 3 world, hinged entirely on my ability - or inability in this case - to snipe dozens of thugs using clunky first-person shooting controls.

But there's an easy solution for everybody. GTA 3 simply needs a paid 'Cut to the Chase' feature, where players can pay a reasonable price for a set number of 'clapperboards'. Whenever you get stuck on one of GTA 3's checkpoint-free missions, you can just use a 'clapperboard' to skip it. That way players who prefer to bash their heads against poorly designed levels are free to do so, but everyone else can just pay up and get back to exploring the city.

You got a purple rupee! That's worth 50 rupees! Too bad your wallet was already full, sucker! Don't lie, how many times did you open a chest and groan when Link pulled out another shiny gem? It should be a happy occasion, but you know full well that you'll need every one of those wasted rupees to buy yourself another Goron or Zora tunic after some asshole Like Like eats you.

You could go through the hassle of a Gold Skulltula killing spree and unlock them one by one - all the while wasting rupees from every pot you smash and monster you kill - or you could just spend a buck to upgrade your wallet right now. Hey, the Giant's wallet is only $5 and holds two and a half times as much - we'll just need your Nintendo Network ID and password to confirm the transaction...

Aside from a musical cue here or a burst of gunfire there, everything in Half-Life 2 is so… quiet. I mean, is this a near-future dystopian city or a near-future dystopian library? It's fine if you like 'ambience' and 'atmosphere' and other fancy stuff like that, but what I could really go for is a disembodied voice that shouts whenever I manage to kill a couple Combine soldiers in quick succession.

That's where the Announcer packs come in. Fill out all that dead air with enthused hollering from a host of Valve characters! Thrill as the Scout shouts "bonk!" with every crowbar strike! Cheer as Louis observes how Gordon going for a health pack is not unlike grabbing pills! Also, you can craft them all into a badge. No, I'm not sure what that means either.

I wouldn't do a thing to change the challenging, rewarding experience of playing the original Super Mario Bros. Actually, I could find one little issue with that 'rewarding' part - the coins. You need to get a hundred of the damn things for them to actually be worth anything. When you consider how many of them you'll actually find in an average playthrough, it's just a poor experience for most users.

Enter the Coin Doubler. A proven staple of the microtransaction arsenal, it doesn't replace the Mario coin economy or let you buy your way to victory, it just gives you a little boost. Now that you get to those 1-Ups twice as fast, you'll really go out of your way to snag extra coins. It's a winning solution for everybody! And it's cheaper than a venti frappuccino.

Aside from its own campaign, Sonic Knuckles' lock-on technology lets players try out parts of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and 3 with the eponymous echidna, or access the new game's stages with familiar characters. On top of that, cramming the cartridges you already owned into the new one you just bought is still an oddly satisfying notion. The whole idea is so totally radical that it's a massive shame Sega didn't keep going from there.

Why stop building the lock-on tower at the second floor? Imagine a world with Sonic Knuckles Christmas, a low-priced cartridge that puts all the characters in Santa outfits and adds a North Pole level? Or Sonic Knuckles Hardcore, which removes the HUD and introduces permadeath? Mix-n-match however you want, as long as you can still fit it under the TV!

Did you know Suikoden has 108 characters to recruit? That's only 32 less characters than you can fit in a tweet. Sure, it's a role-playing classic and all, but how much time do you really have to devote to recruiting fictional cronies - many of whom you'll never even bother to add to your party?

Let's get real here. If you have a job or kids to take care of, you're not gonna find time to get all the 'stars' and unlock the secret ending. But don't give up hope! Just buy some Stars of Destiny Packs! Each one contains a random assortment of six characters with at least one holographic hero guaranteed per pack. If you get doubles, you can grind extras down to Stardust and craft them into the heroes you need.

Ok, you're pretty sure you need to talk to Otis in the prison next, but Guybrush keeps saying he won't because his breath stinks. That means talking's out, so let's try some other verbs. Use Otis. Nothing. Look at Otis. Ok, yes, you know what he looks like. Fine, let's get rough. Push Otis. Pull Otis. Turn off Otis? Arrrghhh!

But wait! You don't need to fret, and you don't need to overcome your crippling social anxiety to call the Lucasfilm Games help line! Just use a Hint Coin! What, you're telling me you don't have any hint coins? Well, you're in luck - all you need to do is click the icon in the corner of the screen, put in your credit card information, and buy some! Better get a few extra just in case - this game's tricky. Remember, 500 coins is the best value!

Halo introduced the genre-shifting concept of a recharging shield to first-person shooter games, (mostly) ending the long and glorious reign of the health meter and inexplicably effective medkit. But damn if it doesn't take a long time for your shields to start coming back. And once it does, the tiniest little pop from a Needler sets you back to square one! Sheesh, more like Combat Devolved.

Sure, you could take cover for a while. That's fine if you want to be all tactical. But players who prefer to run and gun can just make sure they're stocked up on Instant Shield Boosts. Hit up the Waypoint Store and get back in the fight in no time flat! It's not an advantage over non-premium customers, it's just another way to play the game!

Narrowly avoiding ghosts is fun and all, but it can get a bit stressful. Hardcore Pac-Man players know how to ration out their limited supply of Power Pellets so they always have one to turn to when they're about to be surrounded, but the rest of us get all too familiar with that "byoo byoo byoo BWAP BWAP" sound effect.

Don't deprive yourself of the thrill of munching on frightened ghosts. Activate a Power Pellet Booster to turn 24 random Pac-Dots into Power Pellets, and turn the tables on Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde!

This is it. One win and one loss. It's the final battle to take down M. Bison and strike down his nefarious Shadaloo criminal network. You and Ryu have made it all this way and nothing's gonna stop you now. Just get back, set up a good hadouken and… Ok! You've gotten him down a third of the way, play it conservative… No! He pulled off a scissor kick! But you can still recover if you just... andddd he knocked you out.

But wait, you can start right where you left off! All you need to do is drop a quarter in the - oh, wait, you already know how continues work? Ok then.

Here's the thing about Super Metroid: it's almost too big. Zebes has so many huge rooms and tiny nooks to explore, and every time you equip a new piece of equipment you get to go back and look it all over with a new eye for detail - like revisiting a book as you learn the complexities of its language. It's incredible. It's daunting.

Thankfully, Samus' limited supply of Exploration Energy ensures that players appreciate each and every room they visit. Passing through a door will deplete her reserves, so make sure you've found everything you need before you head out! Exploration Energy will recharge after enough time passes in the real world, but why not speed it up by watching a commercial or by using some of those Chozo Crystals you bought?

Ah, the joy of a well-constructed base. Look at it hum with activity, SCVs scurrying back and forth from mineral deposits and fresh marines pouring out of its barracks. The only bad part is that it took you so long to get everything set up just right that you don't really want to move on to the next level.

That's where SCV Boosts come in! Accelerate your building speed so new facilities form instantaneously, and never worry about spending hours establishing bases again! Don't worry Zerg and Protoss players, Larvae and Probe Boosts are available at the same reasonable price points!

Those are just a few of the many classics that could be made even better with the help of the humble microtransaction. I know you can think of a dozen more old favorites just begging for dialogue boxes that exhort players to spend more cash, so let me know what you think in the comments below!

As long as we're dwelling on the past, check out these .

Ah Christmas. A time of heavy drinking, good will to all men, booze, generosity, excessive alcohol consumption, carol singing, and the odd beer or two. Oh yeah, and reflection. That’s an important one. See, it’s at this time of year we look back at our lives, and remember fond memories and failures alike. And, if you’re reading this, chances are your memories might involve video games. Flawless segue complete!

The GamesRadar+ team have been playing games for years. We grew up on them. And we have some wonderful, funny, tragic, uplifting, and very readable gaming memories from Christmas past. So, cosy up, and let us tell you about our favourite seasonal recollections.

"Christmas was always a big deal for my brother and I because it meant we would get a new video game, one that we had asked for. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, so they obviously didn’t want to buy us something we didn’t want, like… Madden. We’d discuss ahead of time and mull it over carefully because it would be a joint gift. I was reading Nintendo Power at the time for research, to make sure we were making the right decision. And I decided on Donkey Kong. After all, this was going to be the only game we would play every day for another 5 months until my birthday."

"It was 1994, and I remember this particular year because my aunt was visiting with her boyfriend and family visits were rare. It was probably the first gaming marathon I could think of, because I remember playing that game non-stop from Christmas day until New Years. My aunt stayed up and would watch us play and her boyfriend would join in from time to time. There was a lot of shouting whenever someone missed a jump, a lot of backseat gaming like, "GET THE BANANA!" or "THE K IS RIGHT THERE!" I also remember NOT getting yelled at by my parents to go to bed because there were guests in the house. Good times."

"To be completely honest, I didn't own a video game console till I was almost 20. My parents would not let me have one. Like the Lambada, it was forbidden. But one Christmas break my brother and I threw caution to the wind and pooled our funds to rent an NES and a few games for the week."

"Our favourite game turned out to be Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. We played morning, noon, and night... for three days. There was no sleep and we lived off Coca Cola and Chips Ahoy. It was not a pretty sight. We played for so long that on the third evening, the back of the television started to smoke. And by smoke, I mean smoke poured out of the back of the set and it smelled like burning. We never did finish the game. I think we were both terrified the we would start an electrical fire. It became a running joke for us and years later he bought me my very own copy for Christmas."

"Back in 1991 I was desperate to play Sonic The Hedgehog. The game appeared in the UK in June, which gave me six whole months to nag my parents about how much I’d love a Mega Drive for Christmas. I remember the TV adverts featuring a guy playing the original Sonic, and it just looked so much better and faster than anything I’d played before. So, on Christmas day, I was thrilled to find a Sega-shaped parcel under the tree. I opened it: a Mega Drive with Sonic bundle! Hurray! Then I opened the box…

"Owing to some kind of heinous packaging error, I was confronted with a shiny new Mega Drive and… a copy of Altered Beast. Ugh. I tried my best to hide the disappointment, but it burned inside me like a flaming, brandy-soaked Christmas pudding. I even tried to play it that afternoon, but even my 11-year-old self knew it was a 4/10 game. My step-dad, to his considerable credit, took me to finally get my copy of Sonic at 9am on the 27 December (the minute the games shop opened after its Christmas break), and I was blazing through Green Hill zone by lunchtime, thoroughly contented."

”There were many, many Christmas mornings spent with Mario and his pals, but my strongest holiday gaming memory is attached to the Sega Saturn of all things. It was December 1995, and I'd spent the lead up to the holidays playing the crap out of Yoshi's Island, but I knew what the main event would be on the 25th. Sure enough, my younger brother and I opened up a Saturn that morning, with accompanying Virtua Fighter Remix, Virtua Cop, Daytona USA, and (ugh) Bug. Then my parents told us that, for this special occasion, we could play on the bigger TV in the living room, which was usually off-limits for games.”

”Seeing those big, blocky polygons come to life on a 32-inch, standard definition screen truly felt like the arrival of the future of gaming. My brother and I swore the games looked better than they did in the arcades - we were obviously deluding ourselves - and were very impressed at our father's skills with a light gun. From the far off couch, he shot from the hip and was landing the most difficult of shots with ease. My dad once worked for the sheriff's department, so shooting digital men in the hands was pretty easy compared to the real thing. In retrospect, perhaps he only let us set-up the machine in the living room so he could show off.”

“Let me tell you a story about a little game called Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. For some unknown reason - probably because I was a child with poor taste - I was wildly excited for this game. I loved Star Wars, I loved Age of Empires II on PC, and this game seemed to have the best of both. On Christmas morning I awoke to find a copy of Galactic Battlegrounds resting under the tree. I quickly threw the disk into the family computer and installed the game, ready to take the Rebels to task as the mighty Imperial army.”

“Come to find out, Galactic Battlegrounds has a lot in common with Age of Empires II. And by 'a lot' I mean literally everything. In Age of Empires II you have settlers who can collect wood from trees so you can build new structures. In Galactic Battlegrounds you have droids who can collect space wood from space trees so you can build new buildings. Why does Darth Vader need to worry about chopping down space trees? He has the whole freaking Galactic Empire at his command. In the end, while I appreciated my parents making the effort, this Star Wars-flavoured Age of Empires game ended up tasting sour, leaving me a bit wiser - and wearier - regarding future game requests.”

"My dad and brother were watching Lara Croft: Tomb Raider on DVD in the early hours of November 18, 2001. I occasionally glanced at the screen but was more concerned with pacing around, lying on the couch for a few moments before sitting up again, and otherwise personifying the concept of 'anxious fidgeting'. We were already a twelfth of the way into the release day of Nintendo GameCube, and somehow we weren't standing in line at the Target - even though my dad had assured we would go out and grab one as an early Christmas present. Mind that the world was still recovering from 2000's holiday-ruining PS2 shortages, so buying early seemed more important than ever."

"Eventually we made our way to the line, and Target employees started asking people about tickets an hour later. Did we have tickets? Did we need tickets? How many tickets would be distributed? Uncertainty gnawed at my Nintendo fanchild heart. But my father, ever a man of action, didn't wait around to find out - we drove straight to the K-Mart down the street where no distribution system beyond "grab one" was established and in the ensuing chaos snagged everything we needed (including a Memory Card, after some confusion). Then I geeked out over the wicked-cool shadows and drapes in Luigi's Mansion and collapsed of exhaustion a few hours later. Next month, when the holiday proper rolled around? Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2 Rogue Leader (yeah!) and XG3: Xtreme G-Racing (ok!). Best Christmas ever."

"A few years after the Xbox 360 came out - and before I had one of my own - Christmas was on its way and I told my mom we should get one for my Halo-loving dad. She ignored me for the most part. I tried to convince her once more on Thanksgiving, since I was going to be accompanying a friend of hers to a midnight Black Friday sale at an electronics store (where he would be picking things up for some customers of his). She brushed me off and I got irritated, but let the matter drop. While at the sale, her friend grabbed a 360 and put it in our cart for one of his customers, along with a copy of Final Fantasy 13. I wanted both of those things very badly, and stared at them wistfully until we checked out."

"Christmas comes around, everyone opens their presents and all is joyful. We finish and start cleaning up, when mom tells dad and me to sit down while she runs into the other room. She comes back with two identical boxes, hands us each one, and tells us to open them. Turns out that she had saved up enough to get us each a 360 and tricked me into picking up my own system without me being any the wiser. And while I sat there dumbfounded, she handed me FF13. Never underestimate moms."

"Ah, Christmas, 1992. My parents knew I wanted a Mega Drive and had obviously bought one because they said: "Now, we're not saying you've definitely got a Mega Drive for Christmas, but here are some vouchers for money off Mega Drive games, so if you wanted to buy some that you like, you can". Obviously I did. So I ended up owning the two most used-yet-never-played copies of Sonic 2 and Super Monaco GP 2 in the world. I carefully took the cartridges out of their boxes and marveled at them. I put up one of the Sonic posters they came with (and gave the other to my mum, who duly put it up inside her wardrobe door). I read the instruction booklets over and over again.

"And then, when Christmas Day arrived, it turned out I did indeed have a shiny new Mega Drive. Even though I had carefully considered which game I was going to play first (Sonic 2), the first game I ended up playing was Sonic 1, as it was a pack-in bundle and quickest to get set up. I still remember collecting that first shield in Green Hill. But one freeze frame in particular, for some unknown reason, is still emblazoned into my memory. Every time I jump to collect the rings in the little secret area near the end of Chemical Plant Act 1 (pictured), I am transported back in time to Christmas afternoon, almost 22 years ago. Just for a second."

"First things first, I'm a wee bit younger than the rest of these guys. How much younger, you ask? Well, let's just say that if this were the movie 'Logan's Run', I'd be legally entitled to hunt them down for 'age crimes'. The reason I'm telling you all this is so that you're not unduly shocked by the fact that my first ever console was the Sony PlayStation. *exaggerated faint* No SNESs or SEGA MegaDrives for me, oh no, I was still too busy trying to get over that awkward 'foetus stage'."

"Anyhoo, I was seven, it was Christmas day 1997, and the movie Se7en had just transformed a young Brad Pitt from Hollywood eye candy into proper 'big school' actor. Life was good, and it was only about to get better as I hastily unwrapped my brand new PS1. Everything was in order, all the necessary kit was there, it even came bundled with three (count them, three!) exciting titles: Porsche Challenge (8/10), Crash Bandicoot (9/10) and Adidas Power Soccer 97 (-13/10). I was of course delighted, though it seemed my older sister had some other plans for my machine. Her's was the only television in the upstairs bedrooms, and so I'd need to plug in there to play. Everything had been arranged and was ready to go, when she savagely demanded first dibs on the joypad. I therefore proceeded to spend my first couple of hours as a gamer watching somebody else play my games… Some nights I still wake up screaming."

"It's December 2008, and I'm back home from college for Christmas break. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is the latest MMO hotness (or should I say coldness, given its icy theme), and like a relapsing addict, I'm hooked once more. But I've been out of the WoW raiding game for some time - so my cousin and I feel quite lucky to find a random pick-up group for the redone Naxxramas instance on Christmas Eve."

"Before we can face the final boss Kel'Thuzad, we have to down his pet frost dragon Sapphiron. Problem is, our raid group is having the darndest time downing the beastie - and I suddenly realize that my mom's been shouting up the stairs for the past 15 minutes that Christmas Eve dinner is waiting, along with the rest of my family. In that moment, I realize: contrary to WoW etiquette, I don't owe these complete strangers a second more of my time. I jump up from my computer, rush downstairs, and enjoy a delightful meal with my relatives, my mind far removed from visions of epic loot. I learned something important that night: Christmas should be spent with family, not a bunch of people who you only know by their virtual avatars."

So, those are our Christmas gaming memories. What did you think? Hopefully one or two of them raised a smile. If you feel like sharing, why not drop your own festive recollections in the comments below. Excellent.

Want more Xmas features and that? Here's one about .