Secret Santa Makes Me Play 'Retro' Video Games

Many different packages have shown up in my mailbox over the last few weeks and I'm grateful for each and every one of them.  Don't worry, I'll get to them all eventually, but I figured I'd start with one of the more recent ones I've received and that's because it part of this year's Secret Santa run!

I received a PWE with the below contents.

I happen to know who my Secret Santa was because the front of the envelope it came in gave it away.  I'm curious if I would have been able to guess if not for that return address.  In any case, this gentleman is absolutely right!  2008 insert minis are a great big pain in the ass to try and find, and it was a joy crossing these off of the want list.

Quetzalcoatl is from a set called Ancient Icons that features old deities or symbolic people from their era.  I believe Quetzalcoatl was an Aztec god.  Don't quote me... I'm not doing any research... this is coming straight out of my 9th grade world history brain.  I'm pretty sure this particular god got famous (over the countless other Central American gods) because of its awesome name and because something happened with the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes.  ...or maybe that's just what I remember Age of Empires telling me.

The second card is from the Team Orange insert set which is essentially just a set containing whole bunch of made up baseball players.  It's kinda weird, but the blurbs on the back of the cards really pull the set together.  Here's the back of a COMC card because I forgot to scan the back of mine!

In any case, these creative and fabricated players made me again hearken back to my childhood and pull out an old staple.  Backyard Baseball 2001.  Yes, I know there we a few different versions of this game and we could argue about which one was the best, but this was the version I grew up on and the first that featured the 'backyard' kids alongside the pros.  Glorious.

Thanks for the great Secret Santa package Chris, and thanks to other Matt for setting this all up!