After an entire year of waiting, everyone’s favorite time has come — the secular winter gift giving season.

Coming up with gift ideas, however, is no easy feat. Guys shopping for college girls have it easy and can default to some nice jewelry or clothes. Ladies, on the other hand, might find themselves facing a tougher decision when shopping for college men.

What do guys always like to get? Clothes don’t work, because some men couldn’t care less if they walked around wrapped in a bed sheet. Stereotypical macho things, like tools and grilling utensils can be a miss either because not every guy has those needs or cares about looking manly. Sports similarly fail, as some guys don’t like sports.

Thankfully though, there is one catch all category men will appreciate, and that’s games.

It’s true — men love playing games, and there are all kinds for every type of guy. Bear in mind, though: Many of these gift ideas assume that the guy in question has access to either an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3. That, based on two and a half years of college, is not an unreasonable assumption. Plus, if the guy doesn’t have access, well there’s your gift idea right there.

The guy with too much testosterone

We’re a pretty bro-heavy school, and that’s OK, since there is an overwhelming amount of testosterone here. On a weekend, or at any given party, there are only so many fights to be had, beers to be chugged, raging to be done and girls to be got. Plus, what can a bro do the rest of the week to blow off that manliness? Virtually kill other virtual people while talking mad shit to — probably — children in “Call of Duty.”

The important one to buy this holiday season is “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.” With it, a guy can have hours of fun killing his fellow man (online of course) with a wide array of guns, explosives and other creative means.

If they have a microphone, it also allows them to get all that anger out on complete strangers. Yes, most of the time the person they’re talking trash to is at least five years younger than them, but those are often the mouthiest and foulest people in online games. If not, they’re just talking to carbon copies of their broish selves and it’s like beating your head against the wall — and who doesn’t love that?

The guy who loves sports

For the guy that spends every Sunday watching football or never misses an Arizona basketball game, a sports game would be right up his alley.

But both basketball and football games are so worn thin and boring, plus the selection today isn’t all that exciting. What’s all the rage this season is “FIFA Soccer 12,” by Electronic Arts. Not only is it the most accurate installation in the series from a physics standpoint, but it also has dozens of both club and national teams. It’s a blast to play, and takes time to master. A sports guy will love to have this game, hone his skills and then stomp his friends, bragging about it the whole time.

The guy who’s a history nerd

These guys do exist, though sometimes they hide this fact. Still, right now there is a game out there designed specifically for them, and that’s “Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.” It’s actually the fourth game in the series, and if the guy hasn’t played the others those might make good gifts too, but it looks to be the best. In this game, players explore early 16th-century Constantinople, playing as leader assassins. There’s a lot more to the story that’s established in the previous games, but it is essentially a mix of religion, realistic history, general badassery and an end of the world scenario.

The gameplay is rather unique too, and there is a lot of extra content to keep playing after the main story is done. That might not even matter, though, because a real history geek will be too busy looking at how accurate all the pretty buildings are. But that’s cool for them.

The guy who probably played Dungeons & Dragons

This type of guy is either really easy to spot or almost impossible. Regardless, while “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” is the perfect game for this kind of guy, I’m under the impression that anyone with a realistic attention span will love it. It’s an open world role playing game where the player’s character at the middle of political plots, the return of dragons and really whatever they want.

The beauty of the game is within its freedom and the sheer content within. When I say a character can do anything, I literally mean they can do almost everything. I think the only thing they can’t do is kill kids, which is probably for the best. If emphatic stressing doesn’t sell the point, know that there is so much to do in this game, beating it entirely would take around a year, and that’s if Bethesda, the maker, doesn’t release more content.

That kind of freedom is exactly what this kind of guy loves in his games, and if you ever see them again after buying them “Skyrim,” they will thank you for it.