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Christmas Cheer Entertainment Games

Best Holiday Gaming Seasons Ever? 71

Posted by simoniker from the ho-ho-half-life dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for their feature discussing the best videogaming holiday seasons of all time, as they point out: "Most of the biggest and best games, and many of the best game consoles, have all come out during the final months on the calendar." Their nominations include 1982, in which "Ms. Pac-Man ruled the arcades, and the previous arcade king, Donkey Kong, could finally come to our homes, packed in with the snazzy new ColecoVision", and 1996, where: "With the introduction of Mario 64 in September, gamers discovered the joys of games in 3D. With the release of Tomb Raider that same month, gamers discovered their hormones." What was your all-time favorite gaming Christmas?
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Best Holiday Gaming Seasons Ever? More

Best Holiday Gaming Seasons Ever?

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  • 1994/1996... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BTWR ( 540147 ) <americangibor3 AT yahoo DOT com> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @08:45AM (#7647089) Homepage Journal
    1994... that was the year I got Tie Fighter.
    1996... that was the year I got Civilization II.

    It's tough to choose which one gave me more entertainment:

    Tie Fighter: My routine when high school clases finished:
    2:30-4:30 = sports (fall soccer, winter track, spring tennis).
    5:00 until dinner (~6:30) = Tie Fighter.
    7:30 = homework/tv (depending on the day)

    Civ II: Routine: Didn't have as much of a routine as Tie Fighter, but I usually started playing around 8-9, earlier or later depending on homework volume. It was NOT uncommon for me to not realize that it was 1am and I had been playing for 4+ hours, even though I only meant to play for "a few minutes..."

    Man, I'm not one of those cynical "games today aren't what they used to be" people, since I've loved some recent games (Battlefield 1942, Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime), but nothing since Civ II has given me a "can't wait to play it later!" feeling. Anyone know a more recent game like that? I would love to have that attachment to a game again (not that I really have the time, but still...)
    • Did you play Alpha Centauri? I assume you would, being a Civ 2 fan. AC really had that impact on me. I just loved it. Still install it about once every year. But really, it's not very recent. Halo and NOLF 2 are the only games which have given me that feeling in the last couple of years.
      • I own it, but strangely, I never played it. I always assumed it was similar to Civ II so I never tried it. I'll definately give it a shot after finals...
        • Alpha was a very interesting game. Nothing like CIV II I'd say.

          Not entirely I assure with the article about Tomb Raider. Surely that was a sign of the coming apocalypse, not christmas...

          Since I never get games for Christmas, I'm largely indifferent to what the holidays have to offer. (Actually, not strictly true, I did get a PS1 game for Christmas in 2000:))

    • It was NOT uncommon for me to not realize that it was 1am and I had been playing for 4+ hours, even though I only meant to play for "a few minutes..."

      Boy... those were the days. I never really got that good at the game (considering I wasn't too old at the time), but nothing ever was so addictive to me. Every now and then I have this sudden urge to dig out my old copy of the original Civ and re-install it. It brings back oh-so-many good memories of telling my parents "just a couple more turns... Hon

    • i loved tie fighter so much i played it 2-4 hours a day at least

      i rebought it with xwing and something else a couple years ago, tie fighter rules...i wish theyd remake it,with multiplayer; it could really kick some ass

    • Simcity 4, but I'm a lamer :-)
      • Well, Sim City 2000 did it for me too, but it came out around one of those 2 games (Tie and Civ2), so it was replaced. I never got into Sim City 3000 or 4.
    • I'm really diggin Railroad Tycoon 3 [railroadtycoon.com] right now. Great game for any fan of the Civilization/Colonization/Sim City-types of games. Of course, everything is much better on my new Samsung 213t 21" LCD :)

  • 1982 (Score:1)

    by ed333 ( 684843 )
    My parents got me an Atari 400 with Pac-Man. I was 5 and it was teh shit!

  • Intentional Planning (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jnguy ( 683993 )
    Well, I'm pretty sure developers try to release their games during the holiday season simply because people already have money to spend, on gifts and games. You might as well make it a new release, so that it can be the new cool thing to buy. Many games for the xbox were delayed this holiday season, ninja Gaiden, Halo 2 was intended for this holiday season, and I'm sure a whole slew of other games. Fact of the matter is, publishing houses and developers wanna push for a holiday release. My 2 cents.

  • 1992 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by i88i ( 720935 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @08:56AM (#7647122)
    was given a SNES with Super Mario World. That game was so simple, so fun, it's still my all time favorite game. Now i get to waste even more hours of my study time with the GBA version :D
    • I'll second that. SMW was the best Mario game ever. I also thought Zelda 3 was my favorite Zelda game, but Occarina of Time is pretty close.
    • It was '92 for me because of the SNES and Street Fighter II. That game rocked. Does anyone else remember how expensive SNES games were? I seem to recall them being $60-$70 for some titles.

      • Brand new SNES games ran from $39 for the budget titles such as Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest all the way up $74.99 for some of the 'large' 16/24/32 megaBIT games such as Mortal Kombat II, Secret of Mana and Street Fighter II Turbo. It seemed like the large majority games sold for $59 with the occasional sale putting some of the games around $49. Finding a good game for $45 was a rare treat.

        Speaking of good holiday seasons gaming wise, I remember 1993 as a good year. I got Out of This World and Secret of Ma

    • As I recall, that same christmas my brother and I were given an SNES. This is when systems came with games and an extra controller so you didn't have to play by yourself or bug mom and dad to get another controller! Oh, besides SMW, we got F-Zero also, which were the two games my bro and I played for that whole year until we got through both games completely.

      Ah those were the days.
    • Yeah, I would say 1992, too. The SNES was a great system during that time, and Street Fighter 2 was an obsession!
  • got a sega genesis w/ sonic 2... i was hooked

  • The year (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @09:23AM (#7647197) Homepage Journal
    that Mario 3 came out.

    Hands down.

  • 2003! (Score:5, Funny)

    by PatrickThomson ( 712694 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @09:58AM (#7647358)
    Half-life 2!

    Oh. Wait...
    • It's going to be hard to tell which was better - 2005's release of Half-Life 2, or 2050's release of Duke Nukem' Forever.

  • games that should be mentioned (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dreadlord ( 671979 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @10:02AM (#7647384) Journal
    other games that I really enjoyed in the final months of the previous years include Half-Life (1998), Quake III Arena (1999), No One lives forever 1 and 2 (2000, 2002), Diablo 1996 ...
  • While most remember the colecovision, few remember the ADAM [techtite.com]. It was a PC + a full fledged colecovision.

    Though I was very young and with no adult help (my step father was the anti-geek) so I never used the computer for much more then word processing. But still, on a nastalgic geek scale the system itself is a 10. Of course, when I opened that box Xmas morning I was a tad bit dissapointed. I had been asking for an Omnibot 2000 [jeffbots.com] and the box was the right size.
    • I remember it because I had had an Apple //e for a few years when the ADAM came out. I was torn between apostasy because the ADAM ripped it off, and envy because, hey, it was a computer AND a colecovision.
    • I thought 1986 was a great christmas as well.

      I got a C64, not knowing that a soon to born obsession with computers and electronics lay in front of me. Wow.

      Strangely, I had wanted an Omnibot 2000 as well. My friend ended up with one, and although very cool, ate about $50 worth of batteries in 2 weeks and ended up in his closet, while my c64 occupied my desk for years afterward.

      (btw, I liked the Adam too, but I'm still biased from my early years /grin)

  • Christmas 1999 (Score:3, Funny)

    by MORTAR_COMBAT! ( 589963 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @11:51AM (#7647965)
    I had bought a PlayStation earlier in the year, but had to return it when I really needed some money. Then for Christmas, I unwrapped a PlayStation game from my fiancee's mom and thought, oh geez, what am I going to do with this, while thanking her a lot and saying I could play it on somebody else's system. I didn't get it -- my fiancee's gift which I opened next was a PlayStation. Pretty cool gaming Christmas, especially since my fiancee bought herself Tomb Raider for us to play also :)
  • Most people realized the sheer idiocy in being attracted to a 2000 polygon.
  • I had a bloody christmas 1998 when I received a used virtual boy... The snow is now only tinted red, or a melting chicken soup yellow from fearing that mask of death...

  • Secret of Mana (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kninja ( 121603 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @01:34PM (#7648708)
    SNES centric comments:

    1993. Secret of Mana, and the multitap. Makes your friends forget about their families and come over to play it.
    Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening came out about this time too for gameboy.

    1994. Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, FFIII, and Breath of Bire, Megaman X. I was broke as soon as I had saved up my 69.99 each time. Damn that was expensive.
    • Secret of Mana is still fun to play to this day! That game has a serious charm to it. Square games were great back then, but they have lost their magic in my eyes... with their latest crop of games.

  • 1979 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @02:07PM (#7648948) Homepage Journal
    I think it was 1979. Why so great? First 2600. You have no idea how long Combat and Space Invaders could keep you occupied when you're 6 years old.

    All the other things you have mentioned were mere set dressing. Evolution, not revolution.

  • 1993 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FreeForm Response ( 218015 ) <comptona@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Saturday December 06, 2003 @02:18PM (#7649026) Journal
    I was 11, and the only game system I had was a NES that I'd purchased with my own money. My parents thought that video games were a waste of time and money, and so everything I had I'd bought myself.

    I'd recently discovered this incredible game in the arcades, Street Fighter II, and I fell in love with fighting games. Of course, there were no fighting games for the NES, so I just went to the arcade and burned quarters there.

    When I heard that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters was going to be released for the NES, I was ecstatic. Since it was due out right around Christmastime, I begged and nagged my parents to buy it for me. On Christmas morning, as I tore through my presents, I came across a suspiciously video-game-shaped one. I opened it up, and found TMNT: TF all right... but for the Genesis.

    I was heartbroken. I turned to my folks with what must have been a pitiful look on my face, and told them "Thanks guys, but you guys got the wrong one..." My dad just grinned, and without saying a word reached behind the couch and pulled out a brand new Genesis.

    Of course, TMNT:TF wound up being pretty bad, but that was still the greatest gaming Christmas ever. =)
    • I have to say that's a pretty good story. My parent's did something similar to that when they gave me my Nintendo. Course, I must commend you on buying your own games and what not. KUDOS!
    • That's touching. What's really funny is that not only did they give you an amazing Christmas gift, they gave you an amazing Christmas memory and that memory has (clearly) outlasted the gift. Come to think of it, the look on your face is probably something your parents will never forget either.

      Thanks for making my day.

  • I remember growing up and not having a Nintendo or anything. So when my mom married my step-dad, I was thrilled to find out that they had a NES. Waking up Xmas Day and finding a SNES under the tree was just like sheer bliss.
  • Christmas of '97 was one of my best/worst seasons. The combination of getting a Playstation and Final Fantasy VII for that Christmas and the release of Quake II did terrible things to my freshman year of college.
  • In 1988, I got a Sega Master System for Christmas, along with 4 games, including the original Phantasy Star. I was 10. My parents and I spent my entire Christmas vacation parked in front of the living room TV, taking turns with the controller and making detailed maps of the caves in a notebook. We eventually beat the game, and then took turns replaying the final battle. I was the first to beat Lassic with all of my people still alive, which was probably the first time I ever did anything better than my

  • heh, gotta love GameSpy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Psykechan ( 255694 ) on Saturday December 06, 2003 @07:11PM (#7650757)
    I love how GameSpy continually puts out these best gaming etcetera opinion pieces to simply spark the fanboy debates. The last page even has some useful essential links [gamespy.com] (scroll to the bottom) that must not be missed. :)

    I am not immune, however. So...

    Nintendo rules the artificial demand department with the "chip shortage" of 1988 which affected Zelda II more than any other title. Hmmm.... They also seemed to have a low supply of N64 consoles in 1996. One of my fondest Christmas-ish moments was walking into a toy store on Black Friday [about.com] and asking if they had any N64s. The clerk told me that he had just got off the phone with someone who had to cancel their layaway and asked if I wanted it. I simply said "no thanks."

    Sony had the hype/demand machine chugging in 2000 when they launched the PS2 at more than twice the price of the Dreamcast that had a bigger library of quality games. Those lucky enough to get a PS2 that year were treated with marginal titles, a way to play their PS1 games and DVDs and not much else. Majora's Mask came out in 2000. This is one of the most misunderstood games of all time. Most players hated it due to it's manipulation of time, but it is a very fine game.

    My personal favorite holiday gaming season would have to be 2002. Some of the finest games of all time came out during this season. GTA: Vice City and Metroid Prime are must have games for any (mature) gamer. Platform lovers who usually stuck with Nintendo systems would be shocked as Super Mario Sunshine proved to be a slightly above average game. The PS2 meanwhile had the incredibly superb Ratchet and Clank. Even the Xbox had a slight edge as Jet Set Radio Future was being shipped with the system, unfortunately, the only other platform game for the Xbox was the terrible Blinx so it didn't have that big of an edge. :)

  • Duh. (Score:2)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    When I got my NES (1987?)... Super Mario Bros., Zelda I... how could you possibly beat that? :)
  • It's probably somewhere in the early 90's for me when I first got Dune 2.

    But, really, isn't this year a shocker? There are no good games out right now. HL2 is delayed, Doom 3 is no existent. XIII looks interesting but gets iffy reviews. Project Gotham Racing 2 is hardly the epitome of gaming. GTA:VC (PC) is now too old to quality for this season, as is UT2003 or Simcity 4.

    What's up with 2003?
    • But, really, isn't this year a shocker? There are no good games out right now.

      Say WHAT? The article is pointing out how GOOD this year is. Prince of Persia, Jak II, Ratchet and Clank II, and Sphinx... just counting adventure games for the PS2. You want racing? How about Mario Kart: Double Dash for GameCube, or Project Gotham 2 for the Xbox, or Midnight Club II for the PS2? Almost every genre has a good game this year. Don't take my work for it, read about it on this article from Yahoo [yahoo.com].
      • That article spent time pointing out how great 2001 and 2002 were.

        Sucks for PC games this year, truly. DoubleDash and Project Gotham 2 are probably the only major 'good' games out there for Xmas.. and they aren't for PC!

        I'm sticking with PC in this argument because a) I don't want/don't have the consoles, and b) because PC rules more :-D

        Deus-Ex is about it.. with XIII tailing on for a really piss-poor collection of RPGs and MMORPGS. Or if you really want yet another The Sims rip-off add-on or an update t
        • All your references are to racing or FPS games... so that narrows it down a bit. However, don't forget about Call of Duty for the PC... that's a good game. Or Beyond Good and Evil (if it ever comes out) is a good game for the consoles... I can assume it's going to be good for the PC.

          You should try the consoles. They might just surprise you at how good they can be.
  • I dont renember what year but it was the christmas of warcraft. I renember christmas morning opening the gifts and having to download some graphics library for windows to play it. I love the sea battles...
  • The Atari 400 was shipped in late 79, but by fall of 1980 I had mowed enough yards to buy one (slightly used).

    hip hop hooray for Asteroids, Missile Command, Star Commander, and later on Canyon Climber and Shamus.

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