10 STUPID CHRISTMAS-THEMED GAMES

Would you like to read my new Christmas poem to get you in a Christmas mood? Here it is:

Christmas is a time of cheer,
Put yourself in a Christmas sphere,
Roll straight down a Christmas slope, 
"Merry Christmas!" - from his maj' the Pope.

That's a well wicked poem. It's better than you could do - and no mistake!!!

Why aren't there more Christmas-themed games? Well, it's pretty obvious. Why would you ask such a stupid question? Obviously, it's because of their limited shelf-life, and because they would melt on January 1st.

Consequently, most appearances from Christmas in games have been limited to single levels, or the Christmassing is pushed into the background - such as in Robocod - or are mini Christmas-themed instalments of otherwise popular games - such as Christmas Lemmings and Sega's Christmas NiGHTS Into Dreams.

​Here are ten other examples of the non-phenom' that is "Christmas games".

DAZE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

It's sad to say, but in the current climate there's no way of avoiding putting Father Christmas under the spotlight. Think about him - eccentric manner, charity work, bright clothes, surrounds himself with hairless, child-sized people... remind you of anyone? And we allow this man to enter our homes once a year, in the dead of night, to leave "presents" in our living rooms. Why does nobody attempt to regulate this? Is he above the law? 

Père Noël? More like "Pedo Hell!!!". Hmm... That's not very Christmassy. Oh well. Who cares?

This 1994 platformer was released for the Mega Drive and Super NES in the UK and Australia alone, for some reason. It was all quite standard fare - Santa saving his North Pole workshop from an evil snowman, who had imprisoned all the elves inside Christmas presents. Oddly, if Santa found and drank a cup of coffee, he would transform into his own "evil" alter-ego: the invincible Anti-Claus.

Please note: Santa's main form of attack was to swing his sack around. 

Look, I'm just saying that the evidence is all there, and we probably shouldn't ignore it...

ELF BOWLING

A cheap and cheerful 1998 PC release, Elf Bowling saw the North Pole elves going on strike. As punishment, Santa forces them to act as pins, while he lobbed bowling balls at them. Remember: this man is a hero to billions of children, and here he was being portrayed as a violent anti-unionist.

Other inappropriate imagery in Elf Bowling included the ability to murder passing reindeer, frogs and rabbits, and the sight of the elves baring their weirdly hairless anuses at Santa, should he fail in his attempt to bludgeon them to death.

SPECIAL DELIVERY: SANTA'S CHRISTMAS CHAOS

Released in 1984 for the Commodore 64, Spectrum and Atari 8-Bit, Special Delivery saw Santa collecting presents in his sleigh, before clambering down chimneys and placing them beneath Christmas trees. If he woke any sleepwalking children, he would fail in his mission.

​Unfortunately, we were spared the sight of the children waking by screaming and never stopping - which, I am led to believe, is what happens if you wake a sleepwalker.

"Ssssh! Don't wake her."

"But she's got a knife..."

"You just have to let her murder you."

FROSTY'S BUSY NIGHT

Pumped out in 1990, like post-sprout guff at the very end of the Commodore 64's life, Frosty's Busy Night was a side-scrolling platformer, which found the titular snowman collecting presents from the elves, to deliver to Santa.

Inexplicably, Frosty's quest was made more dangerous by the presence of deadly Christmas puddings and sentient bottles of booze. Notably, it was a simultaneous, two-player game, implying there were two Frosty The Snowmans.

Depressingly, despite being a later Commodore 64 release, it looked as if it had been made at least seven years previously.

According to the song, Frosty the Snowman was "As alive as he could be". Do you think, when he came to life, that he had guts and stuff? Would he bleed if you cut him open? Did he have teeth, and a larynx, and all that shit? It annoys me that nobody ever goes into enough detail with these lyrics.

THE POLAR EXPRESS

I dunno about you, but if I woke up in the middle of the night, and there was a massive steam train outside my house full of children in their nightclothes, I probably wouldn't climb aboard. Even if it was being driven by Tom Hanks - a man so nice that he's got to be hiding something.

However, in The Polar Express, boarding dubious Christmas Eve night-trains is not only encouraged - but rewarded. The 2004 multi-format video game tie-in did little to dissuade players from this course of action. It was a surprisingly decent-looking interpretation of the film - albeit with a jarring grab-bag of playing styles, from platforming, racing, and rhythm-action, which rendered it this: appalling.

VISCERA CLEANUP DETAIL: SANTA'S RAMPAGE

An add-on for the infamous post-FPS title, in which players have to clean up the levels after a gratuitously violent battle, the Santa's Rampage expansion had you doing the same thing - albeit in Santa's workshop.

Success could be obtained by removing the evidence of bloodstains, elf and reindeer body parts, and whiskey bottles. Disturbingly, it was revealed that Santa himself was responsible for the slaughter, having snapped under the pressure of distributing Christmas gifts.

After all, nothing says "Christmas" like a mental breakdown!

Remember when Arthur Fowler had his "Christmas troubles" in EastEnders, because he'd stolen the Christmas club money? No? Well, it was 25 years ago. But there was this bit where he was carving the Fowler family turkey, and it was twenty or thirty times more disturbing than anything in Santa's Rampage.

DEAD RISING 4

That's right: Dead Rising 4 was set in the aftermath of a zombie uprising, which had occurred at Christmas. Consequently, many of the weapons you could find and construct were Christmas-themed. Technically, it took place in April, but all the decs were still up and that, making it the game version of that neighbour we've all got who still has one solitary snowflake window sticker left up in the middle of June.

DIE HARD TRILOGY

Is Die Hard a Christmas film? Only, I've never heard this question be asked before. Except... FOR EVERY RUDDY CHRISTMAS. You're not being original, you know. Also: does it matter? It's a film set at Christmas. If some people choose to see it as a Christmas film... good for them. Your attempts to provide a definitive categorisation is utterly futile. It's a film. It's not like you're trying to work out different types of quark.

Die Hard Trilogy waters down the pointless conversation even further, by including levels based around the distinctly non-Christmassy Die Hard With A Vengeance.

BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS

Like the movie Die Hard, Arkham Origins was set at Christmas, but doesn't go out of its way to explore Christmas themes. Unless your Christmas typically involves a billionaire in a leather bodysuit punching poor people in the mouth. Let's face it: that's as good a metaphor as any for the overt commercialisation of the festive season.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS: OOGIE'S REVENGE

Oh, everyone goes on about Die Hard, but nobody ever stops to ask whether The Nightmare Before Christmas is a Christmas film or not. It's not an issue in America, where Halloween, Thanksgiving - whatever that is - and Christmas all sort of blend into one long, amorphous, holiday.

In the UK, though, the lurch between gothic horror and Christmas cheer is more jarring, and thus I am happy to declare - definitively - that The Nightmare Before Christmas is NOT a Christmas movie.

Oogie's Revenge was a direct sequel to the movie, set a year later - with a similar (albeit playable) mix of disturbing visionary, blended with Christmas niceness. Tim Burton's a weirdo, yeah?

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