Hello! Here's the second Christmas newsletter but unfortunately it is one that comes bearing some bad news. Revue, where this newsletter is hosted, is shutting up shop really soon, so I'm going to have stick it somewhere else in the next week or so - more information about this is stuck to the bottom of this week's issue.

This week is about my favourite Christmas games, be they explicitly festive or simply games that remind me of the festive period. Next week is the final newsletter before the big day, so I've got a big one planned. Hope you enjoy this one and hopefully I will see you next week - wherever it ends up being published.

Shenmue

Like a few games on this list, Shenmue isn't a Christmas game thematically but with the game starting on November 29th 1986, even if you absolutely beeline through the story it's very likely going to take you past Christmas Day on the in-game calendar. From December 15th onwards in game, things take a festive turn and decorations start to appear throughout Dobuita Street and its surrounding areas. It's that very believable switch, seemingly overnight, from cold, wet and murky November to the festive period (albeit in real life usually happening about a month earlier, which I'm sure we can all agree is ludicrous).

Perhaps less impressive with every live service game under the sun now having a Christmas event, but Shenmue's progression of time and the sudden appearance of all things festive sets up a very believable Christmas period in Yu Suzuki's masterpiece. The music that plays during that period is also some of the best in the game.

Diddy Kong Racing

Rare really understand the difference between a simple snow/winter stage and one that outright captures the Christmas vibe. It was a toss up between this and Banjo-Kazooie's Freezeezy Peak level but the brilliant music of the Frosty Village course clinches it for Diddy Kong Racing, which is a mad audio tour through several Christmas classic soundalikes. The stage itself features massive candy canes, decorated trees and a few buildings in the 'village' section of the course that have that lighting to them that is inexplicably festive. I also got the game for Christmas the year it came out, which as you will see is a recurring theme throughout these picks.

Fuck the silver coin challenge on this track, mind.

Christmas Nights

An amazing cover disc on the UK's Official Sega Saturn Magazine, Christmas Nights was basically just a one level demo of Nights but it is jam-packed with festive content. From late November and throughout December, the demo of the first level is completely Christmas themed and actually changes every hour. The main character, end of level boss and even all the little A-Life lads are all sporting appropriately festive gear, with the music also being changed to some full on Christmas tunes. It was wild to get THIS MUCH unique content in what was a demo of one of the Saturn's flagship titles.

As well as the Christmas themed stuff, there's additional content should you play the game on New Year's Day and April Fool's Day and 25 unlockable 'presents', one of which includes a playable Sonic The Hedgehog which actually marks the first time Sega's mascot was seen in full 3D. There's so much content in this free demo it is almost criminal - a word that would now become associated with creator and alleged inside trader Yuji Naka in the past month or so.

Donkey Kong Country 3

A game that isn't particularly Christmas-y in of itself but one that, like a few other games on this list, is intrinsically linked with the Christmas period for me. It came out in late November 1996 and a mate got it - somehow - as an early present. We pulled an all-nighter, playing through the majority of the game in one sitting and, with a copy of the UK's Nintendo Magazine System to hand, inputted the MERRY cheat which turns all of the bonus stages in the game into festive versions where you're collecting baubles and presents, the music changing to reworked versions of classic Christmas songs.

This was a period where Christmas meant a new game for me, as that is pretty much all I asked for, and this unexpected chance to get stuck into one of the year's biggest releases was a great way of getting into the festive spirit. Great days, tanning a box of Quality Street and playing the weakest of the Donkey Kong Country games.

Raw Danger

A PS2-era classic and a game that I recommend you check out immediately if you've never played it before. Raw Danger is a survival game - not one in the mould of current 'survival' titles that have you crafting in some big randomly generated open world but a game that has you trying to survive a natural disaster. Torrential rain has caused a big underground future city to begin to flood and you play as six different characters (including the brilliantly named KEITH HELM), each with a different perspective on events, and have to manage things like how cold, wet and hungry you are as well as avoiding a bunch of obviously perilous shit. You can also choose to play the game as a total sociopath, as some of the dialogue choices on offer are wildly inappropriate.

It's set during the Christmas period, there's decorations and festive stuff all over the place and there's a group of terrorists behind the whole thing. It's basically Die Hard - you know, that Christmas movie.

The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

Yes, I know this one isn't a 'Christmas game' at all but for me, this is the ultimate game that represents Christmas itself. Excitement. The big day. Being unable to sleep the night before and the sheer joy when I unwrapped it, before going to my room and spending most of the day playing Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil. Yes, that was how I prioritised things on Christmas Day in 1998.

Once I'd had Christmas dinner and did all the things I needed to do that day and knew that I was free and able to really settle in for the evening, it was time to start Ocarina of Time - the biggest, most important game of that year and one that remains one of the finest to ever do the damn thing. It was like a little ritual - get everything in order, get myself a drink and a sandwich made of leftovers and boot it up for the first time. That intro sequence will be forever ingrained in my memory as one of my favourite Christmas moments. A time before things like 'responsibilities' getting in the way but also being old enough to really appreciate the quality of the game I was about to play. It might lack anything even remotely festive but for me, Ocarina of Time isn't just a Christmas game, it's those brilliant childhood Christmas Days distilled into a game.

IMPORTANT UPDATE

Right, as some of you might know, this newsletter platform - Revue - is shutting down in a month so from next week I'm going to shift over to the awfully-named BEEHIIV because one of the platforms I was recommended relies on some sort of Mastodon style backbone that I don't really understand and Substack hosts Glinner, so I'd rather avoid that for now. I can, apparently, migrate everyone over to that automatically so in theory you won't have to subscribe again but if for some reason you're absolutely against receiving emails from Beehiiv, now is the time to unsubscribe from this newsletter. There also is a chance it won't work as advertised and I'll need you to all subscribe again over there. Fuck knows, to be honest.

THANKS FOR READING.

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