Crap. It’s already December. Mercifully, I haven’t heard much Christmas music in the stores I deign to visit, but that probably now ends. The holidays are bearing down on us like a sugar-infused child.
Christmas definitely isn’t my favorite time of the year. I make the most of it, but not only am I a spiritually-devoid husk, I also once worked a job in retail over the holiday season. If you ever want a reason to give up on humanity, that’s how you do it.
So, I’m bitter about the holidays. Not only that, but I’m well-practiced at being bitter about the holidays. Maybe you are, too. If that’s the case, I invite you to learn from my years of humbug-slinging and celebrate the way I do: by playing a bunch of marginally Christmas-related games that pay no respect to the holiday.
Batman Returns (SNES, 1993)
Batman Returns is easily and inarguably the best Christmas movie ever made. It has an excellent cast, including Danny DeVito as a sad vomit man and Christopher Walken as Christopher Walken. A woman gets pushed out a window by her boss, and Batman lights a clown on fire. It’s a great movie for the kids and really captures the spirit of the holiday. When I was younger, I had a Michael Keaton action figure.
You could probably argue any of the many versions of Batman Returns. I know a lot of people swear by the Amiga B-Man, but for my money, I like to walk down a street devoid of holiday shoppers and smash clowns into guardrails in the SNES version. It’s a great way to work out my ample and boundless seasonal aggression. It’s also over rather quickly, which is always something I hope for when it comes to the holidays.
Die Hard (NES, 1991)
Die Hard is easily and inarguably the best Christmas movie ever made. It really captures the holiday spirit by having a guy walk barefoot across broken glass. That’s actually a mechanic in the NES game, by the way.
I wrote about this before, but while Die Hard is sometimes considered to be kusoge, it’s rather interestingly designed. In a lot of ways, it plays like an early immersive sim. You’re set loose in Nakatomi Plaza, and you need to save the day using only your skills, your bare feet, and your knowledge of the movie’s plot.
Also, there are Christmas trees on one floor of the game, so it counts.
ToeJam & Earl (Genesis/Mega Drive 1991)
A game about two allegedly funky aliens being stranded on the hostile and uninhabitable planet Earth may not seem like it has a lot to do with Christmas. One might also say that ToeJam & Earl isn’t even a Christmas game. But really, one of the central mechanics of the game is picking up presents, opening them, and finding out what’s inside. It really captures the all-encompassing spirit of the holiday.
If that isn’t enough for you, the central religious figure the holiday supposedly represents makes an appearance. That’s right, Santa Claus. He flies around in his jetpack. If you spot him unawares, you can take part in everyone’s favorite holiday tradition. Sneak up behind him, grab his butt, and watch as presents spray out of him in all directions. Merry Christmas!
Christmas Massacre (PC, 2021)
Christmas has long been a fixture of horror movies because trauma is super effective during the holidays. Puppet Combo’s Christmas Massacre taps into this classic buster of holiday cheer by casting you as Larry, a slasher killer in a Santa outfit. Larry’s Christmas tree tasks him with killing naughty people, which seems to just be everyone.
Christmas Massacre is a mostly enjoyable mess of a stealth game. But, more importantly, the image of a man wearing nothing but his underwear and a Santa mask getting directions from his Christmas tree really captures the warmth of the holidays. Then, it gives you the opportunity to extinguish it.
Parasite Eve (PS1, 1998)
1998’s Parasite Eve begins on Christmas Eve, one of the many overt links to the word “eve” that it makes. One of the earliest cutscenes in the game shows an entire opera house full of people catching fire like a Yule log and melting like a plastic tree. It really captures the warmth of the holidays.
The story stretches across the holiday season, but while it’s the (allegedly) most wonderful time of the year, there won’t be much celebrating in Manhattan. It gets evacuated due to a strange threat that turns rats into beasts and people into bubbling pools of liquid consumers. If you can get over the narrative’s obsession with mitochondria, it’s the perfect game to distract you while everyone else pretends to be happy for a couple of weeks.
