As the holidays approach, we all get grumpy, even if we pretend otherwise. On TV, everyone smiles and buys stuff, but your soul twists with hatred because you despise the very idea of this festivity. Then, on top of that, there's dinner with relatives, the drunk uncle, the ever-present recriminations from some octogenarian grandmother, your sister's kids who never stop screaming and keep hitting the cat... Ugh, so much stress! The perfect moment to relax a bit and laugh right in Santa Claus's face, in the name of all the super crazy games made in his honor. Sweet revenge! Ho ho ho.
That said, Christmas Eve is approaching and we couldn't miss the chance to talk about Christmas and some of the video games related to it. The developers' freedom of interpretation regarding the original Christmas story leads us to live very particular and extremely strange stories. In this selection of weird games you'll find everything: knocked-out elves, exploding elves, an evil Santa, and another who has the power of metal at his side, among other things. And as always, at NeoTeo we think of you: if you follow the links, you can download and play each of these oddities. Can you save Christmas?
Daze Before Christmas (1994)
If you had (or still have) a Sega Mega Drive/Genesis or a Super Nintendo and got bitten by the Christmas bug, Daze Before Christmas is the game for you. It combines a great platformer with a sober story for our friendly man in red. It was released in late 1994 and developed by Sunsoft (creator of Batman, Arabian, and Ikki for NES, among many gems of the era) and Funcom (which brought us Pocahontas for SEGA and Speed Freaks for PSX). This is an excellent game and the most politically correct on this list. It has 24 levels, one for each day leading up to the long-awaited Christmas Eve. In the levels, we have the premise of rescuing our reindeer and elves, kidnapped by an evil snowman who, like the famous Grinch, seeks to end Christmas and the hope in the world.
The graphics of Daze Before Christmas are excellent, both the character design and the scenery, all very colorful and pleasant to the eye. The music, though somewhat repetitive as we progress through levels, doesn't stop us from enjoying this 16-bit classic that can't be separated from its classic carols.
The gameplay is most intuitive and friendly. Santa has a snow power to defeat his enemies and the ability to open presents, which give us both good items and unpleasant surprises. What makes Daze Before Christmas even more fantastic and strange is the possibility of transforming into an "evil Santa" after drinking a cup of coffee. The coffee, additionally, has the peculiarity of making us immune to enemies, though it prevents us from opening presents/items. Anyway, the effect lasts only a few seconds.
Daze Before Christmas doesn't present much difficulty, but still we want to finish it. It surely isn't in our top 10, but what is sure is that controlling Santa a few days before the holidays can be more than rewarding with this very good platformer.
Download and play: Daze Before Christmas + SNES Emulator
Elf Bowling Saga (1999-2007)
Probably my favorite Christmas saga, it has 6 sequels since its birth back in 1999. Full of curiosities and very controversial, the Elf Bowling games, mostly developed under the wing of Nstorm, were released for PC (like its sequels), although later it had a terrible version for Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS.
There are several colorful facts surrounding Elf Bowling. The first happened when it was released for PC, since the game had a .exe extension. In those days you could still attach executables to send by email, so the amount of viruses circulating was terrifying. That's why many people suspected the game was a virus because of a warning that arrived in email inboxes:
TO ALL IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED ANY OF THESE GAMES = FROGAPULT.EXE ELFBOWL.EXE (FROG GAME) & (ELFBOWLING GAME) PLEASE CAN YOU DELETE THEM COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM AS THEY BOTH HAVE A DELAYED VIRUS ATTACHED TO THEM THAT WILL BE ACTIVATED ON CHRISTMAS DAY AND WILL WIPE OUT YOUR SYSTEM. LET EVERYONE KNOW OF THIS.
Translated, it reads: "To all of you who receive any of these games = Frogapult.exe, Elfbowl.exe. Please delete them completely from your system because both have a delayed virus attached that will be activated on Christmas and will erase your entire system. Spread the word." Obviously, paranoia grew, though in the end it was confirmed that this email was nothing more than a hoax, a false alarm to saturate servers and generate buzz. And that's how this first part of seven became a sensation!
In 2005, a version for Game Boy Advance (GBA) and Nintendo DS called "Elf Bowling 1 & 2" was released, carried out by Ignition Entertainment Public, which was not authorized by Nstorm, the game's developer, and was also cataloged as one of the worst games in history.
In its first installment, the main menu shows us a legend that tells the situation at the North Pole. There, online sales of Christmas gifts had doubled the existing demand and the elves couldn't keep up, so the elf council decides to attack Santa's workshop. In response, President Claus knows there's only one way to solve this problem... Elf bowling!
If you decide to venture into Christmas games, Elf Bowling is probably your first choice, with lots of sarcasm and humor; you'll have a good time knocking down elves in the snow. We also recommend the last title of the saga called "The Last Insult", which has very good gameplay and especially compatibility with the latest versions of Windows. Oh! And they also had a movie that should be on a list of cinematic atrocities, but that's for another time.
Download and play: Elf Bowling 7 The Last Insult
Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams (1996)
This very good game of only two screens is a special edition of Nights into Dreams (one of the best in the Sega Saturn catalog) and was released by Sega in December 1996 as a Christmas bundle. Besides the Christmas expansion, the game has three other editions worth reviewing.
To start, the first thing we'll see is the option to sync the date, so if we choose December 25 we'll have some bonuses and visual details in the game. Then it will let us choose between two characters: Elliot and Claris. The gameplay of Nights into Dreams is excellent and very intuitive, reminding us of several Sonic games (it's worth noting the game is developed by Sonic Team) and leaving the ill-fated Sega Saturn in a very honorable place.
Sega Saturn had its gems, and Nights into Dreams is an excellent opportunity not only to play it but also to go through it again and again, both the original and its extensions, and of course the Christmas version.
Download and play: Sega Saturn Emulator + Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams
Santa Claus Saves the Earth (2002)
"Not everything that snows is good"... or something like that, but it's a good way to refer to this Christmas game. Released in 2002 for PlayStation, one of the best-selling consoles in history with hundreds of extraordinary games. Undoubtedly, Santa saving the Earth is not one of those games. Will Santa Claus Saves The Earth have what it takes to make it onto this list of strange Christmas games? Let's see.
Aimed at a more childish audience, Santa Claus Saves the Earth has a premise that invites us to forget common sense and coherence. In this hallucinating story, Santa has to deliver his presents to all the children in the world. But an evil fairy named Nilam, who can see everything that happens in the world through her magic pot, gets furious when she sees that Santa was again going to bring joy and happiness to the world. And, with a spell, she locks him in one of her magic lands a few hours before Christmas Eve.
There begins our fantastic adventure, with dreadful gameplay, very ugly graphics, especially considering this game was made for PlayStation in 2002, when there were already countless brilliantly achieved titles. The sound section is quite poor and at times it becomes unbearable to keep playing without lowering the volume or covering it with some of our music selection. Each level is quite long, and if we lose late in the screen we'll go back to the beginning. We also have a super power that is totally unusable and vital data that we only see when pausing the game, not on the gameplay screen. It seems incredible that this game went through several heads until it got commercialized, but perhaps the Christmas spirit took pity on this specimen. Even so, Santa Claus Saves the Earth fulfills its "strange" quota to make this list. You can download the PlayStation emulator here and the game from here. If you don't want to dedicate so many megabytes to this game, you can download the Game Boy Advance (GBA) version.
Download and play: GBA Emulator + Santa Claus Saves The Earth
Bonus Track: Santa Rockstar
We couldn't say goodbye without first bringing you a saga that's vital to rock and metal out the holidays: Santa Rockstar. Developed by BekhoTeam, this saga, which can be played online and for free, has several games to its name, in which we'll go through different melodies and Christmas carols tinted with rock, Guitar Hero style. There's also a HD version for PC and one for Android in the catalog, which we leave below so you can download and play.
Download and play: Santa Rockstar HD PC + APK Android
Without a doubt, these video games introduce us to a series of DC-like multiverses. In some, Santa has curses, in others Santa is a Rockstar, there's also the game where he explodes his elves, and there's the one that's horrible and has the lousiest enemies. Want more games? We can highlight some that didn't make this list like Santa's Xmas Caper (for Commodore and PC) and Snatcher, a great game by Hideo Kojima (creator of Metal Gear) but with some nods to Santa. So you know, if you want to wander a while with our friend Santa in magical and meaningless adventures, this list is the starting point. Merry Christmas to all!
