What we’ve been unwrapping – Christmas Day edition

25th December

Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we’ve been playing over the past few days. This week it’s all about Christmas presents and video game memories we associate with the festive season – what we’ve unwrapped, gifted, or otherwise been somehow involved with at Christmas time over the years.

Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.

A pop star and Need For Speed: Underground 2, PS2

I don’t think I have any amazing Christmas memories that are tied to video games I received. Most of my video game gifts as a child were on my birthday, just a couple of months earlier, but I do have a couple of lovely memories of giving the gift of video games.

My son, cursed to be obsessed with video games like his father (me), was surprised with a Switch and a bunch of games five years ago. In classic video game tradition we did the whole “And one more thing” reveal, and he was obviously over the moon. Lucky so and so.

Of more interest to you, reader, though, is likely the time I gave a copy of Need for Speed: Underground 2 on PS2 to a cousin who would go on to be a UK chart-topping pop star in the early 2010s. I say cousin… the family relationship is a little more complicated than that, but I’m going with it.

Happy Christmas, everyone! Let me know if you have given a present to someone famous.

-Tom O

Can you beat the joy of Zelda at Christmas?

I haven’t asked for any games this year – the curse of being a games journalist is that there’s usually precious few gaps in your library by year-end – but I will likely be playing varying degrees of NYT Sudoku this holiday, as well as finally tackling Star Wars Outlaws. For reasons even I’m not wholly sure about, that’s the big blockbuster from this year that’s calling out to me the most at the moment. Not Dragon Age. Not Silent Hill 2. It’s Star Wars, of all things. Though with a lot of travelling between families this week, I will likely load up my Steam Deck with a bunch of great indie games I’ve missed this year as well. Top of the pile? UFO 50.

I haven’t even given many games as presents this year – just Unicorn Overlord for my younger brother, as he’s already decked out with most of this year’s major RPG fare, which is his go-to genre these days. If there was a new Zelda or Xenoblade just out, those might have been good presents for my two older brothers – and yes, Echoes of Wisdom was in contention at one point. Then I discovered my younger brother already has it, so there’s a very good chance they’ll have just borrowed his copy instead due to our ancient family law of never ever double-buying anything (which I willfully ignore all the damn time, mostly because I just live much further away from all of them).

I do love getting a big Nintendo game for Christmas, though, and Zelda games at Christmas has always a bit of a personal treat for me – apart from the time I got Twilight Princess for the Wii for Christmas, but no actual Wii to play it on because I didn’t ask my parents to pre-order one in time and so had to wait three more months before I finally had a Wii to call my own and play the damn thing. The less said about that, the better, really. But I still can’t forget the sheer joy and excitement I felt unwrapping Majora’s Mask in the Christmas of 2000. It wasn’t just that it had a special gold cartridge. It was because it was all mine – a present for me, and not something I had to borrow from my brothers. Most of our other console games up until that point were all shared between us, but Majora’s Mask was finally something I could call my own – something they had to borrow from me this time, if they wanted to play it (which they didn’t really, in the end, as my older brothers were off to university at that point). But cor, I really did love that little gold cartridge. Steam credit just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?

-Katharine

A Christmas Dream(cast)

The first time I saw Sonic in full 3D on a Dreamcast I was astounded. Though I grew up on the original Sonic Mega Drive games, I shifted to Nintendo for the N64 and fell in love with Zelda instead. But once the Dreamcast was released my heart was all a flutter as my beloved blue blur was chased by an orca whale, running around vibrant, rollercoaster-like levels in proper realistic graphics, not just a side-scrolling pixel.

I never actually owned a Dreamcast, though. I had friends who did and I distinctly remember Soul Calibur sessions after school, taking turns on Crazy Taxi, and one particular all-nighter at a house party playing Sonic Adventure from start to finish. Yet once the GameCube was announced – and subsequently swept up a load of previously Dreamcast-exclusive games (Sonic Adventure 2 and Skies of Arcadia specifically) – the dream was cast aside.

That’s why my partner and I have decided to gift ourselves a Dreamcast this year – the one console neither of us have owned. And then we’re going to scour second hand shops for all those iconic titles. I can finally play the likes of Shenmue and Jet Set Radio. I can kick his arse at Power Stone. I’ll have an excuse to play Skies of Arcadia again. And, no doubt, I’ll play Sonic Adventure once more and remember how it’s a bit crap actually but I still love it regardless. Christmas is all about nostalgia, after all. Which games should I catch up on?

-Ed

A flaming hot Christmas (Spyro 2: Season of Flame – Game Boy Advance SP)

Unwrapping the Spyro 2: Season of Flame cartridge for my shiny pink Game Boy Advance SP is a vivid memory I have of a christmas in the early 2000’s. My sibling and I sat on the floor underneath the tree unwrapping presents to christmas music while my very tired mum (that we got up at the crack of dawn) sat on the sofa excitedly watching our reactions to each gift we were fortunate enough to get. Then, it happened, I had Spyro 2: Season of Flame in my little hands – one of my first Game Boy games. I still remember ripping the paper off and seeing the iconic purple dragon adorning the case.

To this day, if I’m in need of a comfort game that’s not Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, I’ll always hop back to Season of Flame. The gist was to hop across realms through portals to get back the missing Fireflies and having to navigate different themed areas. Candy Lane in Celestial Plains was themed around sweet treats, Moon Fondue in Starry Planes felt like you were on another world with the green sponge-like rocks around you, and (my personal favourite) Tiki Tropics in Sunny Plains where you feel like you’re battling your foes in paradise.

It was a pivotal game in my childhood as it was also one of the first ones I finished. I vividly remember the moment I clocked you could use different breath types to stop enemies: Ice Breath to freeze Rhynocs to make it easier to charge them, Lightning breath to bring machinery to life, and it wouldn’t be Spyro without flames! My little mind was blown that Spyro could now do all these things.

Also, this could have easily been my first experience with playing different characters in a game’s universe. There were levels where you could play as a Kangaroo called Sheila, Captain Bird, and Agent 9 (whose levels were ones that really tested my patience – and still do.) At this time, being able to play as anyone other than the main character blew my little mind and was the coolest thing on the planet.

But, the above are just the minor reasons this game has stuck in my memories since getting it all those Christmases ago.

The reason this Season of Flame is such a fond christmas memory is that, as I was only young, I did find some of the levels tricky and I just remember sitting beside my sibling after christmas dinner while they taught me what to do. From using Spyro’s glide and hover ability to get to platforms far away or how to outsmart the Rhynoc playing ice hockey, these are just a few of multiple moments my older sibling helped me get through. Learning to beat the game was, indeed, awesome but having that time just sitting together and being shown what to do to someone who was, frankly, the coolest person ever, has played a huge part in my video game journey and taste has been one of my favourite gaming christmas memories to date – and I’m playing it again this year!

-Marie

That’s us done of the year, but we’ve got plenty of Game of the Year articles to come. Please do share your video games at Christmas stories in the comments, and we hope you’ve had a great holiday.