Favourite Gaming Christmas Memory?

[Happenstance]

As we’re coming up to Christmas I thought it’d be interesting to hear about everyone’s favourite gaming Christmas memories. Plus the forum is so damn quiet today, I need conversation!

Mine would have to be getting a Gameboy Colour, Pokemon Blue and a copy of the guide for Christmas. I probably said two words to my family for the next few days after that. I just remember lying on the couch and blasting through that game. I struggle with any Pokemon game after that but that first experience was amazing and is the reason why I tried most generations to regain that feeling (even if I never did enjoy the games the same way again).

[Cube]

I got a Nintendo 64 for Christmas, along with GoldenEye 007. I read all of the briefings and stuff for the Dam and tried to play through it, I got killed a lot by the enemies inside the Dam itself. 

On the agent difficulty, you don't need to go into that section, but I did not know this: from reading the briefing and knowing that you had to jump off the dam, I spent ages and ages looking for some bungee rope because I couldn't see any in my inventory. 

[Jonnas]

Christmas is like the time of year where I have next to no specific gaming memories. I have plenty from other holidays, but the one where I'm spending two whole days with my family is just exactly that. And even getting videogames as gifts was something that only happened on my birthday.

...

So I guess I'll talk a bit about New Year's instead

• When I was much younger, I remember that my cousins ended up somehow playing Carmaggedon on the PC, and watching them smash cars together ended up being the most striking memory from those holidays;
• As an adult, I decided I was going to pull an all-nighter to play Portal 2. And I did, full playthrough in one single night. Cave Johnson's lemon rants definitely made sense to my sleepy self, trying to figure out that one puzzle with the white paint everywhere;
• Pulling an all-nighter during New Year's Eve is a bit of a tradition for me. It just so happens that the last two times I did it, it was for N-E related stuff: one to finish the SNES Mystical Ninja (for the Monthly N-E Videogame Club), and another to write the Dandara review (for which I had months' long writer's block). The former made Mystical Ninja even more bizarre, whereas the latter taught me how to browbeat writer's block. Maybe. Whatever, I had fun doing it.

So yeah, that's a bunch of non-Christmas stories.

[Aperson]

I could probably go on a huge list of games that I got on Christmas on a year by year basis... in fact I think I probably will and then elaborate on things.

 

2000: Who Want's to Be a Millionaire and Pokemon Pinball

2001: Didn't get any new video games

2002: Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer

2003: Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup

2004: The Gamecube, Mario Kart Double Dash, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Spider-Man 2

 

Yeah this one is easily the biggest gaming Christmas I'd ever had. After being told I wasn't allowed to have home consoles for years and living in a small room we eventually found a solution where the old TV had been replaced so I was able to use that old TV on a specific mounted wall bracket hard drilled into the wall in order to play Gamecube games. Didn't matter that I didn't have TV signal, I just wanted to play Gamecube. This Christmas is notable just for being the biggest sea change in my gaming habits at the time as I'd previously been PC and handheld only.

 

The wall bracket saw six months of use before we moved house and I got a more conventional TV setup. It didn't last too long!

 

2005: Mario Kart DS

2006: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

 

So I go this on Wii even though I didn't have a Wii, it was technically my first ever Wii game.

2007: Metroid: Zero Mission

2008: Sonic Unleashed, Wi-Fi access and Donkey Kong Country

This Christmas was notable for finally allowing me to play online on the Wii thanks to our new Wi-Fi router, also unlocking all the Wii's online features that I didn't really have access to for the first two years of owning the console, so in addition to the main game I was getting on the console, Sonic Unleased, I delved into Virtual Console to finally play the classic Donkey Kong Country I'd heard so much about.

2009: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

2010: Donkey Kong Country Returns

2011: Not sure on this one, it might be a digital 3DS game so either Metroid II or Link's Awakening or I might have bought either.

2012: Didn't get a game this Christmas

2013: Ratchet & Clank on PS2

2014: The Wii U.

10 years on from getting a Gamecube it was almost a mirror image in how I obtained a new Nintendo console with Mario Kart bundled in it about halfway through its life and also coming with additional games in FIFA 13 and Mass Effect 3. This time I supplemented that lineup with Super Mario 3D World and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. And like the Gamecube the Wii U has been useful for so long after its retirement in part because of its digital librarly, seriously the Virtual Console has kept my Wii U in use for years in addition to its original library.

2015: Xenoblade Chronicles X

I think its pretty indicative that my Wii U library of games that aren't Virtual Console was about 90% complete by the time this Christmas came around, the limited library was a curse in the long run but I think the Wii U had a pretty solid 2015 all things considered. This coming out towards the end was actually my first modern open world game. Even if I did drop it after about 25% of the way through to play Undertale  

2016: No game this year

2017: No game, already had too many games to go through and Chrono Trigger and Xenoblade 2 ensured I'd be busy

2018: No game, I just played Kingdom Hearts instead to prepare for III.

 

I think by this point I just stopped getting games for Christmas. Most of the time games I'm interested now I'm just old enough to go out and buy on launch day.

[darksnowman]

Same as above, I could go year by year if I thought about it or had a list of November/ December Nintendo console releases to go off. Here are some years that spring to mind now, not necessarily limited to the games mentioned:

- SNES bundled with Fifa International Soccer and a Super Gameboy
- Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!, Cybernator, Mickey Mania, Pop n Twinbee (this was when I started to have a backlog.)
- Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble  
- Diddy Kong Racing, Lylat Wars, Duke Nukem 64 (possibly more??)
- Ocarina of Time and Gameboy Color + Harvest Moon
- Wario Land 4
- Twilight Princess

Disappointment: DK 64  
Massive disappointment: DKC Returns  

Edited December 22, 2021 by darksnowman