It’s December and Christmas is right around the corner. With that said, we figured now would be the perfect time to look at a couple of Christmas focused video games. You’d be surprised to know that there are actually a bunch of games released for every single platform based on the Christmas season. From the NES to the PS4, we have scored nearly every platform from every era to bring you this insane Christmas list!
- . Daze Before Christmas (Mega Drive)
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Daze Before Christmas is a traditional platformer with a strange story. The game was developed by Norwegian company Funcom for the Sega Mega Drive and published by Sunsoft in 1994 exclusively in Australia. The game sure had quite the journey before hitting store shelves! You play as Santa Claus trying to save Christmas from an evil mouse who has cursed all the worlds presents.
The game is a strange one if we stopped right there but the developers felt it needed a bit of Christmas edge as they implemented the ability to shift into Anti-Claus, Santa Clause’s evil twin brother. I’m not sure how that even works on a biological level but we know that in order to turn into Anti-Claus you need to have a cup of tea. Australia seemed to like the game well enough and many consider this one holiday hidden gem today in those parts.
- . Santa Claus Junior (Game Boy Color)
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We would have loved to be in the room when these Christmas games were pitched to the development team. We are making a Christmas game that will be relevant for one month out of the year and we are going to release it in the middle of summer. Santa Claus Junior is a strange concept that sees you play a small boy who watches Santa Claus get kidnapped by and evil witch while playing on your Game Boy. You pick up Santa’s robes and gain the powers needed to rescue him and save Christmas.
What’s strange is that the game is actually a really solid, if really basic action platformer. It’s no Mega Man or Mario, but it’s a good game that just feels like it would have done much better by not being Christmas related and with a bit more challenge. We are all for saving a princess or saving the world, but saving Santa from a Halloween witch didn’t have us reaching for this one when it was on shelves, which is a shame because of all the games on this list Santa Claus Junior is one of the best and worth a play.
- . Santa’s Xmas Adventure (Switch/PS4)
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Releasing on the Nintendo Switch and PS4, Santa’s Xmas Adventure is a weird one. We figured that these sort of shovelware games were a thing of the past but that does not seem to be the case. Still, many people out there seem to actually like this one, probably considering it retails for under $10 for a physical disc or cartridge around the holidays; the perfect pickup for grandparents looking to get the little ones one one of those video games that are all the rage. What we get is an actual mobile game that’s nothing more than single screen puzzle game that takes up a tiny portion of the screen.
The game doesn’t even bother to change the menu UI keeping the same mobile interface with useless icons like volume and pause. Santa’s Xmas Adventure is essentially that pipe puzzle game you all know. You move tiles around in order to get Santa to the end and that’s about it. You can also pick up presents for extra points to earn that classic mobile three star rating in certain modes. Look, it’s a cheaply made game that might make for some holiday fun for under $10.
- . We Wish You a Merry Christmas (Wii)
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The Wii was a fantastic console that sold like hotcakes. It also had a huge install base of people who wouldn’t consider themselves gamers. We knew a lot of adults and people who bought a Wii for Wii Sports alone. Those people also tended to have a handful of cheap games that were trying to piggyback on the success of Wii Sports and the use of motion controls. Think of those $10 PC video games you see at Office Depot and Walmart on a rack in the back corner of the electronics section and you get the idea. The only difference is that on the Wii you could now charge $40 for the same, if even less effort.
We Wish You a Merry Christmas is a very cheap (both in price and quality) Christmas video game. A full 100% playthrough of the game might take you less than an hour of total playtime. The game is simply five cheap mini-games slapped on a disc with some waggle controls. You can also spend time in the house and decorate the tree, roast marshmallow, listen to Christmas music, and open the Advent Calendar each in the month of November day to unlock decorations and more. This might be the cheapest looking game to ever release on the Wii.
- . Christmas Nights (Saturn)
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Technically not a full game like all other games on this list, Christmas Nights was released as a sampler disc for the Sega Saturn during the 1996 holiday season. That said, it has more content that a lot of the games we’ve already talked about. This is one of the coolest promotional discs to ever release and we knew a number of kids back in the day who never played the full Nights Into Dreams, instead only playing and putting hours into Christmas Nights.
The game isn’t simply a Christmas reskin as it features its own unique story that takes place right after the original game ends. The disc even features a number or secrets and unlocks that make the sampler a pretty packed experience. There was even a Sonic Into Dreams mini game that could be unlocked! The sampler was so successful that it’s found its way onto a number of Night remasters over the years and the only Christmas game we play every year during the holiday season.
- . Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Wii)
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Based on the 1960s television special that your grandparents love but that no one ever really sits down to watch all the way through, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for the Wii tries to take the magic of the stop-motion classic and turn it into a video game. Instead of crafiting a Christmas-themed platformer or point-and-click adventure game that retells the story of the movie, the game instead is made up of four minigames. That’s even less content than We Wish You a Merry Christmas of which we featured above.
Each game is timed but at least this time two players can compete against each other making for a more fun experience considering the holidays are usually spent with others. Unfortunately, the game suffers with very limited gameplay, poor visuals, and even less content than other Christmas games released on the console. Stay away from this one and just watch the special on TV or just go out and pick up a boardgame instead. Your family will thank you.
- . Icicle Works (Commodore 64)
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Boulderdash was one of the first big multiplatform hits in the early days of 8-bit gaming. From the NES to the Macintosh and every 8-bit computer around the world, the game was huge and influenced a number of clones and copycats for nearly every mico and console. Icicle Works for the C64 is one such title, and while that might seem like a bad thing, the simplistic nature of Boulderdash makes this one a fun time around the holidays.
Most people of a certain age look back on this one really fondly on the C64. Even decades later the game holds up well as you take on the roll of Santa Claus and collect presents in each maze area. When you collect enough the exit open and you move onto the next stage. The trick is avoiding falling snowballs (boulders in the original) that come lose as you clear snow to reach the presents and other challenges in later stages. A fun little puzzler that holds up even in 2022.
- . Christmas County (CD-i)
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Quite possibly the most obscure title on this list and one of the most obscure games of all time (ther exists only one video on YouTube featuring the game), Christmas County had a lot going against it right from the start. A Christmas themed video game is already a sales challenge, but pair that up with it being a release for the ill-fated Philips CD-i console and you have a perfect recipe for disaster. This Mario Bros. clone takes inspiration from Super Mario Bros. 3, but replaces Mario with an elf and the Mushroom Kingdom with with a bunch of snowy levels.
The game looks like one of the free shareware DOS games that you’d find and lacks pretty much any heart and soul. Hell, we don’t even think the game features any music during gameplay, something really weird with the copious amounts of public domain music that exist about Christmas and the CD-i literally focusing on the CD aspect. Imagine owing a Philips CD-i console and when your NES owning friends come over all you have to show off the power of the $700 console is a cheap Mario clone with no music, that looks bad, and plays even worse.
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