Christmas time is here. The hot chocolate is flowing, the crazy shoppers are raging, and Hallmark is playing an impressive array of movies that are all basically the same. It is also time to get your handheld and check out these five Christmas games!
Elf Bowling
Are you ready to play as the big man, Santa himself? How about bowling down your little helpers, the elves? That is exactly what you do in this game. You are bowling your elves down and trying to get the highest score possible. There isn’t much to it besides that. It is an okay game and the elves have some funny reactions.
Daze Before Christmas
This platformer has you controlling Santa Claus. He is on his way to save Christmas from a mouse who stole it? It is oddly pretty competent and a decent enough time. One part that I thought was fun is that if you drink tea, you become “Anti-Claus” and turn blue with the power of invisinsibility!
Elf
I love the Elf movie, it is a favorite in our house. The game? It is not good at all. It is a very poor platformer that is not fun and kind of frustrating to control. I wanted to include it, but the games included on the DVD special features may be better than this. You could play The Santa Clause 3 for the GBA as well for an equally meh platformer.
Snatcher
Snatcher isn’t that much of a Christmas game, but it takes place during Christmas. So take that Die Hard fans, I am on your side. The game takes place in a Steam Punk universe and is a point-and-click adventure. This is an early Kojima game that has some interesting/weird Kojima things, but the art style and story are a ton of fun!
The Grinch
Okay, so this is a licensed game that is actually good. I really enjoyed playing The Grinch as a kid. It is available on PS1 and Dreamcast. You play as the Grinch and you play through the events of the movie/story. It has you using platforming, puzzle solving, and even some stealth. I fired it up the other day and I don’t know if it was the nostalgia speaking, but it was still a pretty fun experience.
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The perfect Christmas game for me, has always been the Holiday Hare episode on Jazz Jackrabbit 2, also known as Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Christmas Chronicles.
Of course the two Holiday Hare episodes on the original Jazz Jackrabbit are also pretty good.
They just perfectly capture the holiday for me. Short, sweet, fun, Christmasy, cosy and good music. 🙂