Every week some buddies drive over to my house and we play multi-player games for an evening.
We started with the Wii, which is great for 4 player games. Wii U was also great, and Dreamcast and original Xbox. Switch is great and with SNES Mini we’re doing a lot of 2-player or turn-based multi-player games.
Anyway, the week before Christmas we add in a special rule: the games have to involve snow.
That could be something as obvious as Snow Bros, or ice levels in a game, or Winter in the title. Which brings us to the mainstay of most of these one-off events: Winter Sports games.
So many laughs at the commentary in Winter Sports The Ultimate Challenge (we played it on Wii).
But I digress, tonight we discovered a real gem that none of us had played before: Winter Gold on SNES. We booted it up and all mocked the look of the logo screen (what is that?) but suddenly the intro kicked in and we were gobsmacked. It’s more Amiga Demo than SNES game intro.
But that’s not all, the game looks and plays brilliantly. The one downside is that there are only 6 events. Still, we had a lot of fun and we’re all going to practice over Christmas and have a real competition in the New Year.
Yes! If you’ve never played SSX3, I really recommend it. Open structure, levelling and lots of routes down each mountain to choose. So cozy when it gets dark and you stop at a lodge and go to buy new gear, then head out again to the slopes. It even changes the time of day to night, although scripted, as you traverse down the mountain.
SSX was the perfect storm. Being a PS2 launch title, and one of two games I owned at launch, I played the absolutely crap out of it (Sorry “Summoner”!). I had that game absolutely memorized, it was a super good time back in the day.
For me, I received Super Empire Strikes Back one Christmas from my brother… That was an amazing gift, and starting with levels on the snow planet Hoth fit the season perfectly. I still think of that game when I think of “Winter” games.
Christmas Nights of course, but Metroid Prime and Phendrana Drifts will always hit that feeling for me. Just happened to get it as an early christmas present back in the day. Made it there on one of the colder evenings that year…everything just fit perfectly.
Slightly off-topic but I remember going to my local video rental store to rent 1080 Snowboarding on the N64 and somehow ending up with Nagano Winter Olympics 98 instead. I didn’t discover it until I got back home and was sorely disappointed lol.
There were a few songs in Ouendan, its sequel, and the westernised version Elite Beat Agents that really called to mind the winter season and festive period.
bit of a controversial one after what all went down, but last gen, i really loved Night in the Woods - just a great indie game with fantastic writing at parts, and the genre shift it goes through later was neat too. wish that one saw a physical release already
