Image via Complex Original
While we're all resting from hacking and slashing gift wrapping paper from all the gifts received yesterday, we thought it would be great to dig up a few not-so-happy moments from holidays past. Believe it or not, there were games created that were meant to inspire a holiday spirit but instead caused gamers to scratch their heads in pure disbelief. Imagine a game where you hurl a bowling ball at a group of defenseless elves. How about a game where you play a snowman tasked with delievering packages to Santa? We're not talking about Young Jeezy either. Check out our list of The 10 Worst Holiday Moments In Video Games and see if you're not even more grateful for not getting one of these horrifiying titles as a gift.
15. Santa's Christmas Caper
Back in the old days the consoles of yore certainly weren't hurting for holiday video games. Santa's Christmas Caper follows Santa once again, who's trekking through Lapland (who comes up with these names?) to find all of the presents he accidentally send spilling out all over the world. Mayhap Santa's insurance will go up since he keeps having so many accidents. Santa's mission in Lapland, summed up, is a bizarre, uninspired platformer that's about as Christmas-y as The Walking Dead.
14. We Wish You A Merry Christmas
How do these games continue to find releases on the Wii? This is a collection of holiday mini-games designed to get you into the spirit before someone in the family inevitably ruins it. It features hot chocolate brewing, Christmas tree decorating, and more elf bowling. It's also a motion-controlled mess that isn't even fit for the naughtiest children on the list. Why was this made?
13. Frosty the Snowman
The Commodore 64 had its turn again with a largely throwaway Christmas adventure. This time around it turned the spotlight on Frosty, who's tasked with delivering a present to Santa himself. Already the premise is sort of out of place. Shouldn't Santa be doing all the legwork? Frosty can also miraculously sprout limbs when jumping as well -- perhaps it's some sort of strange snow-power we just never knew about all these years.
12. The White Door: Crisis at Christmas
The title's fairly ominous, so it's fair to assume that some serious shenanigans are about to go down, in this ZX Spectrum release. But that's not exactly the case. This text adventure finds you scouring the house at Christmastime looking for missing gifts. They've miraculously disappeared from beneath the tree and the entire game encapsulates you finding the missing gifts. Riveting.
11. Daze Before Xmas
Santa rides again in yet another horrible platformer, but this time, his elves and reindeer were whisked away by a wayward snowman. What possible use could a snowman have for a team of elves and reindeer? Is he going to be making the gift run instead of Santa? Doubtful. Santa's on a journey to take the snowman out, chugging coffee and beating the tar out of anyone who dares to get in his way, and powering forward to attack that evil snowman. Again, we say, weird.
10. Santa Claus Saves the Earth
For some reason, there's a strange fascination with games following Santa, who's unable to deliver presents to the kiddies. Who'd want to help him do that? Worse still, who'd want to play a game about it? This bizarre GameBoy Advance title has you guiding Santa through an escape from the evil fairy Nilam's realm, which is decidedly anti-Christmas, teeming with pyramids, sand, boulders, and other weird decor. And Santa's only defenses are snowballs and his bag of toys. Totally lame.
9. Cave Story
Cave Story is a particularly colorful adventure all its own, and it's a great game to boot. But tossing a Santa hat on Quote when the game is played on Christmas Eve seems a bit out of place. The silly Santa hat doesn't serve to improve gameplay at all, and it's a random augment for the platformer.
8. Bully
You wouldn't expect any holiday cheer to ooze from Rockstar's high school opus Bully, but there's an entire mission dedicated to aiding a delusional drunk in decorating his hovel so it can be a little more Christmas-y. He does think he's Santa, after all. Coupled with Jimmy traipsing about in a gaudy reindeer sweater, you've got a fairly festive game that certainly came out of left field.
7. Special Delivery: Santa's Christmas Chaos
This bizarre 1984 adventure follows Santa on an 8-bit journey to fulfill all the Christmas wishes in the world after oversleeping. He's got only five hours to do it in, too. For a game with such an innocuous premise, there sure are a lot of child zombies and demons running around everywhere. And these zombie kids drink Santa's blood. Yeah, we're not so sure either. And why do these kids deserve toys for Christmas anyway? You'd probably be better off skipping this holiday massacre.
6. Snatcher
Neo Kobe City is all decked out with Christmas cheer in the 1988 MSX release Snatcher, which later gravitated to Sega CD in the early 90s. It's a game chock-full of sex, violence, and holiday cheer that's a classic--it just doesn't seem to fit very well amidst the environments with gunplay and gore. Whose grim idea was it to set Snatcher against a festive backdrop? We're looking at you Konami, This was your doing.
5. Christmas Lemmings
What better way to embody the holiday spirit than sending defenseless rodents shuffling off a cliff to their death? Psygnosis did just this with Christmas Lemmings by dressing up the mass suicide simulator in garish holiday garb. It originally saw a demo release but the festive Lemmings caught on like wildfire and an entire retail release was conceived. Happy Holidays! Now follow the herd to certain death.
4. Home Alone
The quintessential movie for every young child out there (stupidly) wishing their parents would lose them or leave them alone for the holidays inexplicably received its own video game adaptation filled with embarrassing animations, horrible platforming, and a bad story to boot. It's good to know the Home Alone tradition continues with the even worse Home Alone straight-to-DVD releases these days.
3. Christmas NiGHTS
NiGHTS was excellent, save for the fact that without guidance, it tended to make little sense. Not to mention it was one of the trippiest games available on Sega Saturn. Adding Christmas decor and a creepy instrumental of "Jingle Bells" didn't exactly help matters, and neither did the bizarre Christmas models for familiar NiGHTS characters. Someone laced Santa's milk and cookies with something strong, we think.
2. Elf Bowling
First of all, the concept of elf bowling doesn't exactly sound like an imaginative or wonderful idea in any capacity, unless perhaps you've rounded up a group of good little elves and are rewarding them with a riveting game of bowling. But that's not the case. Instead, you're playing as Santa, bowling over a group of defenseless elves huddled together at the end of a lane. It's brutal. It's cruel and unusual punishment. Most of all, it's a horrible game. It's got all the grace of a free mobile app and the seriousness of a drunken kindergartner. Seriously. This is not a Christmas moment you want to be a part of.
1. Santa Claus is Comin' To Town
Watching this holiday classic is a much different experience than playing it turned out to be. The tale of young Santa is weird enough on its own (though it does feature that catchy "Heat Miser" tune) but being reborn on Wii as a Christmas-themed platformer was a strange move. It's a slapdash attempt at translating the childlike innocence of the popular Rankin-Bass animated adventure that ended up as a ridiculously easy platformer that takes barely any effort to complete. And what genius decided this even needed to be a game rather than some kind of interactive storybook? Seriously. Not one of the holiday moments anyone's actually proud of, that's for sure.