Where Are All The Christmas Games?

Christmas is looming large on the horizon. Do you see it? That big white cloud bursting at the seams with so much festive fare from the realms of film, TV, books and music it could pepper the wintery landscape with enough tinsel draped treats that we’ll be buried to our necks in it until the new year.

It happens every year. Other entertainment platforms get a serious Christmas makeover. Big screen extravaganzas backed by Bing Crosby dreaming of a White Christmas, small screen specials backed by Bing still dreaming of a White Christmas, festive music collections fronted by Bing being all like, “Is it snowing yet?” and books, largely based on how to screw up the Christmas dinner completely Bing free as he’s rage quit and gone home to sleep. I wonder what he’ll dream of?

However, my train of thought has derailed slightly. My point is, I have often felt that us Santa hat wearing, mince pie chomping, videogame fans get missed by the season of goodwill and are left to our own devices, which by and large means playing through games entirely devoid of Christmas cheer.

So that’s what we do. We go online and ‘sleigh’ our enemies, we play sports franchises that feel older than old Saint Nick himself, we fight zombies and alien hordes on distant planets, and if we’re lucky it might even snow on Christmas day in this other far-flung galaxy. But it usually doesn’t.

There are a few games out there of course that hold some shred of seasonal greetings. Mafia II finds the true meaning of Christmas as players beat the crap out of each other in the opening chapter to the dulcet tones of Dean Martin singing Let it Snow. Some games put on their festive clothing, such as those seen recently in Fortnite. There’s a Home Alone game…well, I say game. But the pickings are slim, and I want a proper big fat Santa sized Christmas romp to play. Or at least I thought I did.

However, what I discovered some time ago is that a festive theme is not all that important in getting engulfed by that warm, fairy light dotted, Christmas feeling. Like Wet Wet Wet’s Marti Pellow, I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes, and it might be frostbite, but I think it’s more likely to be love. Love for the weird games that bring me some Yuletide cheer every time I boot them up.

As a prime example of what I’m talking about I turn to John Madden.

John Madden Football nineteen ninety-whatever was a game I absolutely did not understand. I found it a little slow, a lot confusing, and a bit of a drag. However, I did persevere with the game in nineteen-ninety-whatever, and I did this in the run-up to Christmas. It was one of those glorious Christmas build-ups the likes of which gradually diminish with age. The sort where you will happily tap a toe or two to Cliff Richard whilst sitting under the steely glare of your Guns ‘n’ Roses posters, where you’ll loosen the headlock on your little brother in the spirit of Jesus and proclaim you have saved him, and where, when you’re not playing videogames, you’re generally to be found bouncing off the walls in utter unbridled excitement. And by the eve of the big day I had acquired something of a taste for this game I still didn’t understand. I was getting by, and enjoying a little something that felt like diluted fun as my blocky little team ran around the screen.

But little did I know, John Madden was also installing himself into my subconscious as the real Santa Claus.

I became aware of this fact when a weird tingly Christmas feeling coursed through me as I booted the game up in mid-January. John Madden’s baffling pixelated American football game was sending me off to Christmas (recently) past quicker than I could say Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special!

And this phenomenon…is it a phenomenon? Probably not, this, we’ll call it a thing because I don’t want to type phenomenon again. This thing has repeated itself again and again to the point that after some time I realised for myself that the game need not be decked out in its festive finest to bring festive cheer to the player. The reality is that the true Christmas games are simply those that bring memories of those magical days and nights of play towards the end of December flooding back. My own include such Yule-free offerings as; Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Call of Duty 3 and Mortal Kombat. Each about as far removed from the spirit of the season as can be, yet each brought me glad tidings in abundance.

This strange relationship between these games and the ability to send me off into a hazy stroll down memory lane where I swear it snowed every 25th December, left me considering why these games, in particular, had this effect? I mean I did get other gaming gifts to play as well. And I put it down to the shared experience of play and the genuine magic that comes from sharing the game with others. I played Grabbed by the Ghoulies with my son, who at the time was four-years-old and experiencing his first taste of videogame nirvana, that was special. Everyone got involved in the Mortal Kombat year and it was a day filled with laughter and violence just like Christmas should be. And Call of Duty 3 was my first step into the online world, I shared that game and a part of my Christmas with countless others, of which some remain friends to this day. And John Madden? Well, I was just an excited kid who shared his Sega Mega Drive with his little brother, and the occasional headlock.

I used to go in search of the Christmas game. There were definite prerequisites. It had to have snow. And fairy lights on trees and houses. And if possible, a battle axe-wielding Santa Claus riding a sleigh pulled by zombie reindeer. If possible. Yet, by the end of my search, I left with the realisation that the only thing you really need is John Madden and a reasonable memory.

I’m interested in your own experience of gaming over the festive period. Does any of this ring true for yourself? Do you have certain games that bring on the Christmas vibe regardless of the time of year? And what is it that made that certain game stand out as a Christmas game? Or, have I missed some genuine Christmas-themed classics? Let me know in the comments below.