The Games of Christmas Past

Cast your mind back —if you will— to a Christmas of your childhood, any one will do. What was the hottest game that festive season? Which new release did you pray would be waiting for you under that tree,concealed under brightly coloured, pristine wrapping paper? Every Christmas brings with it a few must-have games that top the wishlists of gamers — young and old — all over the country. Let’s look back at the top games, released in November or December, that dominated our Christmas mornings over the years.

10 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 24th November 1992

The return of everyone’s favourite blue-dude-with-a-‘tude was bound to run away with Christmas 1992. Sonic was the gaming mascot for “cool kids” who moved fast and basked in the glory of Sega’s Blast Processing —whatever that was. Mario had better move aside with his pot belly, sluggish movement and… erm, blast-less processing? Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was essential for any child of the 90s who took the Sega side of the console war against Nintendo, and Christmas morning was when many of them got their hands on this platforming classic.

9 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - 8th November 2011

Say what you want about the Call of Duty franchise, there’s no avoiding the fact that it was an unstoppable juggernaut in its heyday. By virtue of its yearly November release, it also happened to find its way into the hands of (probably too many) young-uns on Christmas morning. Several series entries could have feasibly made it on to this list, but MW3 was — and still is — the best-selling Call of Duty game and one of the top-selling games of all time. So here it sits, as a symbol of the franchise as a whole.

8 - Tomb Raider - 22nd November 1996

In the winter of 1996, Lara Croft and her polygonally rendered features,shall we say "caught the eye” of the gaming public in Tomb Raider. The varied locales, fiendish puzzles and sheer ambition of the project helped ensure its critical success, although something tells me that the innovative gameplay wasn’t the primary reason it was found under the Christmas trees of a certain demographic: teenage boys. A quick look at the game’s various adverts and posters will make it abundantly clear what drew the attention of those adolescent gamers. Phrases like “Bikini babes with machine guns” — as found in one particular magazine ad — pretty much encapsulates everything a teenage boy looks for in entertainment. Of course Tomb Raider was going to be in hot demand come Christmas.

7 - DOOM - 10th December 1993 (US Release Date)

What else can be said about DOOM that hasn’t been repeated elsewhere? You’d be hard pressed to find a single more important and ubiquitous title in gaming. It misses out on a higher spot on this list due to the fact that, well… Santa wasn’t going to leave this under the tree for little Johnny was he? Rest assured though, enough people were completely immersed in the carnage of DOOM that Christmas 1993 completely passed them by, and because of that, I think it more than deserves a place on this list.

6 - Halo 2 - 11th November 2004

Nowadays, there are too many big online games launching on consoles to count. Hell, one of them has already been mentioned here. The same just wasn’t true 15 years ago, and although consoles could play online back then, nobody really took the capability seriously; games certainly didn’t make the most of it. That is until Halo 2 came along, featuring a multiplayer mode leaps and bounds ahead of any console game that came before it. Bungie’s beloved shooter jump started the relatively new Xbox Live service and created the first ‘must-have’ online console game. Xbox owners who wanted a taste of the newfangled ‘online gaming’ PC players were proud to show off were bound to beg Santa for their own copy of Halo 2.

5 - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 7th December 2018

Hopefully it won’t take much effort to recall the distant memory of…last year. The Nintendo Switch was — and still is — selling like ice cream on a summer’s day, and the launch of Smash Bros. Ultimate in time for Christmas 2018 meant that a copy of the outrageously fun fighter undoubtedly came wrapped up alongside almost every new Switch console. The ‘pick up and play’ quality of Smash combined with its insanely large roster of recognisable characters proved to be ideal for the whole family to get involved and beat the ever-loving hell out of each other post-christmas dinner.

4 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 11th November 2011

In stark contrast to the intensely social, party-friendly Smash Bros, up next is arguably the ultimate ‘shut yourself away without any human contact for two weeks’ title. Bethesda’s games were certainly popular before 2011, but the release of Skyrim saw the company achieve astronomical levels of popularity. People who weren’t typically interested in Bethesda, RPGs or even games managed to lose themselves in the world of Skyrim. It may not be conducive to Christmas family-time like other entries on this list, but the sheer quantity of copies unwrapped on Christmas morning makes this a worthy mention.

3 - Mario Kart DS - 25th November 2005

A year on from the launch of Nintendo’s hyper successful DS and the console was picking up serious speed, in no small part thanks to first-class games like Mario Kart DS that were a perfect fit for the handheld. For the first time in a portable Mario Kart game, local multiplayer actually worked well (even if online didn’t) and on Christmas 2005, the swaths of people with new DS consoles got to experience that joy first-hand. It also helps that a limited-edition Mario Kart DS console bundle came out in time for the festive season, bright red and adorned with cool hot rod flames.

2 - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 11th December 1998

I feel completely justified in calling Ocarina of Time one of the most anticipated, beloved and influential games of all-time. To discover that it came out so close to Christmas made it a no-brainer for a lofty position on this list. It can’t be understated how big of a leap the move from 2D to 3D gaming was, so for Nintendo to take two initial stabs (Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time) at translating their 2D franchises to 3D and absolutely nail it both times is a testament to the genius of Nintendo’s employees in the N64 era. I may be too young to have memories of sitting cross-legged on the living room floor with wrapping paper at my feet, clutching a copy of Ocarina of Time and preparing to have my little mind blown, but I know that it was a defining childhood moment for countless others out there. For that, it claims the number two spot on this list.

1 - Wii Sports - 8th December 2006

Bear with me, it may not be the most revered release of all-time — it’s practically a mini-game collection — but Wii Sports is the epitome of ‘Christmas phenomenon’. The Wii was the absolute must-have item for Christmas 2006. It was accessible, simple and most importantly: every console came bundled with a copy of Wii Sports. I doubt there was a single thing — gaming related or not — that was unwrapped more than the Wii that Christmas. That means hundreds of thousands of families played Wii Sports simultaneously. Parents, grandparents, in-laws, uncles, aunts; everyone joined in for Wii Tennis, Boxing, Bowling, Golf and Baseball. It absolutely stole the show that year, and to this day it sits in the top five best-selling games of all time. There really couldn’t have been anything else at the top of this list.