I also have a very fond memory of getting a Commodore 64 in the christmas of 1985. The games were Donald Ducks playground, H.E.R.O. and Bruce Lee. My brother and I played them to bits, even though we never figured out that there was no real purpose in Donald Ducks playground. Of course we completed Bruce Lee easily, as I have done on many occasions afterwards to boost my confidence when modern games seem impossible for me to complete.

But me absolute favorite christmas gaming memory is of 83 or 84 when my brother and I got a Philips Videopac G7000 from our parents. We LOVED that machine to bits. The simplicity and that it was possible to play against each other gave us many ours of fun that christmas - and afterwards too. We played Ski and the one were you play as two tanks that has to eliminated each other. These and a couple of other games gave the whole family hours of intertainment. These games even brought my mother forward as a capable gamesplayer - she beat me in most games, but that didn't ruin it for me. It was just cool to have your mother sitting next to you cheering whenever she made a 'kill'.

Merry Christmas.

I'm still sore at Dominik Diamond about his comments in the run up to Christmas 1994. I had been dropping subtle hints (about as subtle as a sledgehammer mind) to my parents about getting me Donkey Kong Country. Then, upon watching a pre-Christmas roundup on Gamesmaster, he declared it overrated and more than a bit pants (he probably used that term as well knowing him, it was a favourite IIRC). This was quite a shock to the system, was the only thing I was asking for for Christmas rubbish? Luckily I persevered anyway, actually got the game and it was brilliant, as sublime a platformer as you're likely to get outside of the Mushroom Kingdom. And that's my standout Christmas memory, 1994, CGI rendered graphics and Rare's magnum opus.

My favourite memory was getting a game boy and Zelda. Wikipedia tells me it must have been 1994, so I would have been 12. We went up to my grandparents' in the highlands and I remember spending most of the holiday by the fire, tucked up away from the Scottish weather, experiencing my first taste of this series.

Antisocial little brat.

Though I can't remember specific games or years, Christmas was always spent on the Amiga (500 followed a few years later by the 1200), with either myself or my brother playing whichever games we received as pressies. Happy days!

Me and my brother used to start picking games to play on the megadrive from the August summer holiday. The Christmas we got streetfighter 2 was probably the most exciting. A whole day of Vs battles. Then the next day. And the next day. Bomberman with the 4 player tap thing and a few neighbours made for an entertaining chrimbo too.

My most depressing christmas was when i'd asked for Fifa and due to some game shop mix up they'd given me John Madden Football instead. There were tears! To make things worse, the game had sold out and there didn't seem to be any more in stock for ages afterwards. I think I ended up getting sensible soccer instead...

The N64/Goldeneye Christmas was a good (more recent) one too!

I remember getting a Megadrive the christmas it came out. I'd asked for one, but didn't in my wildest dreams expect to actually get one as they were something like £200 or something ridiculous. But then - Christmas morning - there was a large, Megadrive shaped present waiting for me. The sheer anticipation of what to come was overwhelming.

Spent all of Christmas day playing Altered Beast, Golden Axe and Super Monaco GP. Fantastic. I also put together the various bits of Christmas cash I'd had and went out and bought the first ever John Madden's Football - cost me 49.99.

Christmas 1983, a spectrum 48k, sheer joy. best christmas ever.
I still have it in the loft.

Christmas memories

Must say its getting my C64 in 83 or 84. We werent well off and I really wasnt expecting it, my cousins next door got a Vic 20 the same year and were gutted. 5K vs the mighty 64K and SID chip. They did however get Scramble which was quite good at the time I seem to barely remember.

I had Caesar the Cat from Mirrorsoft as my first game. I remember my dad trying to get it to load using a none commodore cassette deck and datel interface.

Ah happy days,(sucks on pipe and strokes beard)

Subscription to Micronet and a modem with a baud rate I am struggling to come to grasp with 1200/75 .. would that be right. Oh the phone bills ! That would be about a year after I got me C64.

@Chrimble Games...
Receiving a double whammy (circa '93?) of Mickey and Donald's World of Illusion on Xmas Day, then a surprise Sonic 2 on Boxing Day - great gaming memories and the perfect titles for Christmas. I only ever used to receive Megadrive games for Christmas and Birthdays - so the Sega machine will always be a favourite for me.

Other highlights included Syndicate on the Amiga 1200, and this year brings Uncharted for the ps3 - the first game I have stopped myself buying for some years and requested for the big day. Cannot wait.

Oh, and Toe-Jam and Earl a year or so later!

I'll always remember playing "Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past" over Xmas/New Year 1993 while living in Japan. I still often use the character name I chose then when naming characters today.

The mother getting stoned while my brother and I played Ocarina of Time for the first time. We were all stunned by that game. The mother has always been a fan of Zelda since.
Last year the Wii was a massive hit, but the dog went loopy at the controllers so I don't think I can take it round to the parents' this year.

Christmas, 1991. I am 12 years old, and, having sold all my old mint-condition boxed Star Wars toys for a couple of hundred quid (yes, I know...) i've put in half the money for my Christmas present - an Amiga A500 with memory expansion and a ton of games. My parents, foolishly, have left the computer in their room, unguarded and unwrapped - after all, there's no plug on it.

Having quickly learned to wire and unwire a plug, my days in the run-up to Christmas are spent unpacking the Amiga, sticking a plug on it, playing Alien Breed and Xenon 2, whipping the plug back off and packing it back up again before the folks get home. It'd be a good end to the story if that little boy went on to become an electrical engineer, but wiring a plug remains pretty much the limit of my abilities as a spark.

Oh and seriously, come on, cut Speedball 2 some slack. Yes, it might take a bit of time to get back into, but it's still a cracking game. I'm being selfish here - if everyone keeps moaning about it, no-one will buy it and i'll never get ports of Chaos Engine and Xenon 2...

Ah, the Shoot 'em up Construction Kit on C64. 1987, I think it was

monkey tennis?

getting a snes with mario world, then spending all the money relatives had sent instead of gifts on an extra controller and mario kart - best christmas ever, i think it might even have snowed that year too

as for sensi, after getting burned with speedball, i'm defintely trying the demo first - nostalgia, it just isn't what it used to be

Unwrapping a ps1 and then loading up Wipeout and hearing "we have explosives" by FSOL pumping out of the speakers. Instant chuff on. And watching my mum playing it while swearing and moving her whole body instead of just the controller. Maybe I should get her a wii this year. But I love her so I wont. haha.
Also the amiga and new zealand story made for a great crimbo even earlier.

The Spectrum, Dragon 32, Amstrad CPC, Amiga 500 & 1200, PS2, Wii, 360, etc. owned and loved them all over the years, but the best Xmas ever would be (1995?) the 3DO and Fifa, scoring the goal that gave England the world cup from deep inside my own half with a curling lob from the right wing, not to mention one of the finest games ever to grace a console 'Return Fire'. Will someone please, please, remake this for Xbox live.

If it wasn't for my addiction to gaming I'd have paid off the mortgage by now...

Xmas 1990 or 1991, bit hazy on the details, but it was when I got my NES with zapper and duckhunt/mario bros combo game.... first and only time I've ever got up at 7am just to play a game! Fine, I already had an Atari ST (while most of my friends had Amigas and Master Systems) but there was just something about the NES....

must've been 1990, which would've made me a fickle 12 year old... 1991 I got a Mega Drive and in '92 I sold the NES to get a SNES!

My best was waking up on Christmas morning in the early 90's (damned if I can remember the year) to a brand new Amiga 500. The package of games includedso many classics: Barbarian (chop off the head and have a little goblin kick it off-scree), Buggy Boy, Wizball, F-17 Flight Simulator, Thundercats (oh the chaos when Mumm-ra appeeared at the top of the screen).

And now I can't wait for Sensi!! It's been in development for so long I don't see how it could have been messed up. Just hoping it's easy enough to get a game online. THen I'll be taking everyone down with diagonal slide-tackles, long diving headers and after-touch!

Early FIFA on Megadrive, wasting time by running away from the ref who's trying to dish out a booking...

Actaully probably got the Amiga 500 in the late 80's. It's all slightly fuzzy.

@beardofbees

if you swap the highlands for my parents other house in wales, that's highly similar to my favourite gaming christmas! zelda on the gameboy was amazing (and quite sad at the end what with the wind fish waking up and all), first game i ever completed.

also getting a gamecube with mario kart and four controllers a few years ago and then spending pretty much my entire uni christmas holiday (and who am i kidding pretty much the the whole of the next year) creaming my flatmates at it was also ace.

Xmas 97(? bit fuzzy there)
N64 received by younger brother as present. Plus Goldeneye, ISS64, Mario Karts. 3 of the best games ever bar none. I remember nearly having a stroke we played that thing so much over the xmas period. Happy days

What an excellent post and thread, I've enjoyed reading all the memories so far.

My christmas gaming memories are always tied into my cousin. He is two years older than me, and when we were between 10-14 years old, every Christmas he would bring his Amiga down and our days would pass in a whirr of Speedball 2, Kick Off 2, Batman(?!) and others.

Skip forward eight or nine years, and he's back visiting us for Christmas again, except this time we've discovered beer and women, and so games weren't so high on the agenda. Yet Final Fantasy VII proves too much to resist, and so Christmas day passes in a haze of grinding, racing chocobos, drinking beer and not speaking to any other family members until *finally* we get the golden chocobo and the Knights of the Round materia. Result! Happy days indeed. :D

Standout Chrimbo for an old fart like me was back in 1983 (I think) when I got the Ultimate double whammy of Underwurlde and Knight Lore. Really really magic. Why don't games evoke feelings like that anymore?

One joyous Christmas I received a Sega Megadrive pack with the original Sonic plus a "double header" of EA Hockey and Madden. All great games which put my faith into the power of gaming which still holds today.

I must say though, receiving consoles and games for Christmas was so much sweeter when your mum still made your dinner and you could go into your bedroom for hours to play it undisturbed with glasses of juice and bags of sweets knowing that school was weeks away. Nowadays it's all such a rush.

@JoeH
"I must say though, receiving consoles and games for Christmas was so much sweeter when your mum still made your dinner and you could go into your bedroom for hours to play it undisturbed with glasses of juice and bags of sweets knowing that school was weeks away. Nowadays it's all such a rush."

I couldn't agree more. (Sighs with nostalgia)

Yes, I'm loving this thread as well! I think it is finally making me feel like it is Christmas!

I think my favourite gaming Christmas memory is when I got Nintendo Donkey Kong game and watch for Christmas. With the double screen, compared to all the single screen games I already had, I did really believe I had gone to heaven.

I'm sure I still have it somewhere as well...

A.

circa 1988 - EXILE - on the BBC micro (master perhaps) - what a great game I loved that. Ahead of its time by miles..

My favourite Christmas gaming memory would have to be when me and my brother got a SNES with Streetfighter 2. I was about 12 at the time, and we both were sick with the flu, but that didn't hinder our joy at all. I can't even remember if we had any other games with the console. All I remember is being mesmerized by the graphics, the music, and the gameplay of Streetfighter 2.
That was probably the first time that it felt like I was actually playing an arcade game at home. Happy days.

The one I remember well was when I got my Gameboy and spent all Christmas day playing Tetris, Duck Tales and Gremlins 2!

By far the best xmas was 1982, getting my first computer, a zx81 with 16k ram pack, complete with dodgy 2nd hand cassette recorder, and 12" rented B&W; tele.

That first feeling of owning a 'computer' - something so alien and wonderful - pure science fiction to a 9 year old.

Even nowadays the zx81 could teach a PC a thing or two. It was silent and turned on in 1 second. fantastic piece of gear.

Every computer/console after that was just an upgrade, and sometimes a very shoddy upgrade.

Shellac.

p.s. Speedball 2 XBLA.. still great.

Happy Days: Mine was persuading my little sister that if we saved £150 between the two of us our parents would pay the rest for a Atari ST, thinking about it, it was probably a bit tight getting her involved in the gaming purchase but the Christmas we spent together playing Super Cars II and IK+ was pure joy and even now for her, has rose tinted memories even though she has not picked up a game since.

Tombraider on the PSX. I remember playing it all xmas whilst listening to The Colour is Blue by the Beautiful south which my mum got.

Whenever i hear any of the songs i immediately want to play the original tombraider

Ny best gaming christmas was when mummy and daddy bought me GTA: San Andreas. It was the first time they'd bought me a game (i told them that i wanted it). However it was great that Xmas opening it up and seeing those glorious visuals on the front cover. When they bought it the man at the shop warned them that it had adult content. Mum told them that her son was 28 (or so). Ahhh the memories.

Cant quite remember the year, but it was getting Commando and Way of the Exploding Fist on the Spectrum.

As per an earlier post, it was what felt like endless days in my room playing them on my dodgy B&W; telly.

The real treat is when the parents let me bring the speccy donwstairs and play it in colour!!

LOL @ Blackout.
Yes, I have an almost identical Spectrum memory re: the joy of playing in colour.

A.

For me has to be Sonic 2. Still my fondest ever memory of a game and completing it in my Granny's armchair against the huge Dr Robotnik robot felt like a huge triumph. Still the tradition with my brother to play a christmas game together, getting stoned when the folks have gone to bed and always having the 'level-life' rule of when to pass the controller. Super Mario Galaxy, with its two player aspect should be good this year. I only hope the Mrs. can find me a copy...

Got a BBC Micro 'B' computer one Christmas, unsure when but probs mid 80's. Disappointed at first cos wanted Commodore 64 but then my spoilt bratness left me to enjoy games like Elite & Football Manager.

Now PS3 & damn these games are getting better, anyone got a time machine so I can relive the youthful days & maybe not drink as much this time!!

Megadrive, so that makes it about 1990. A final update from the Speccy, felt like a massive leap into the future. Ringing up a mate who also got one and playing the 'amazing' speech from Altered Beast down the phone.

Is it just me that's getting all misty eyed reading back through this?

Christmas used to be brilliant, and now its all rubbish, sometimes being a grown up is bobbins.

I want to be 10 again, does anyone know where that scary fairground machine from big is? if it can do big i reckon it can do small.

After getting the Amiga 500 for Christmas years ago I remember coming downstairs to get ready for school and for months afterwards finding my Dad, who'd been up since 5am, working his way through "Taxing" and "Mayhem" settings on Lemmings.

Now I just need them to release Lemmings on the way and I've got my dad's present sorted.

1991. Super Mario Bros 3. Pure joy. Then on Boxing Day my dad made us go to the racing at Cheltenham - I read the instruction manual all the way there and all the way back and moaned the entire time we were there. Stupid bloody horses.

@ Andc

I heard the Big machine "Zoltar" resided for a while in Coney island, New York. Only rumour though...

@bucket
am booking my flight now,
does anyone else want me to wish for something while i am there?

Christmas 1983 - the snow was lying crisp and even.

Santa brought Lunar Jetman for myself, and The Hobbit for my brother, to accompany our 48k Spectrum.

Bulbous eyes anyone?

Andc,
I know what you mean. Another christmas, a few years later, my mate got an N64 and goldeneye, and three of us spent hours sat in his room playing that thing whilst his mum brought us snacks and cans of coke. The pure joy of those days just seems unrivalled by anything adult life has to offer. But it's just nostalgia. I like being grown up really.

That said, I really want at least one day this christmas just sitting around in my dressing gown, playing games all day and living off whatever nutrition can be foraged out of the nearest cadbury's selection box.

I can relate to so many of these posts. Esp the dominic diamond post. I was chuffed with that game for xmas

For me I think the best Christmas was when I got my C64 in 1990 I think. I had to go to church before I could use it. I wasn't paying one bit of attention to the priest, all I could think about was getting home. Flimbos quest and terminator on cartridge. I was playing with it none stop all day and wolfed down my xmas dinner so I could get back on it.

No idea what year, but getting a Sega Master System with Alex Kidd already on was magic. And yes, Christmas used to be much better back when I were a lad, with many presents and snow and sledging. Haven't seen good sledgeable snow since A levels...
Hopefully when Master Strangler is a year older we can start deriving gleeful pleasure fronm it all again. This year all he can do is stare at the christmas tree lights and be dressed up in twee Christmas-themed baby gros by his mother.

@beard
me too, i had a day like that planned and now my wife is having that day off too, grumble grumble,
there goes my day of sitting in my dressing gown drinking port for breakfast then.

Getting all misty-eyed here.

Earliest gaming memory is getting a 128k +2 Spectrum - must have been 1986. Spending all of christmas day playing the 6x free cassettes that came with it. Spending boxing day programming the simple game that came in the manual.

It mustnt have been much later I got a Sega Master System and almost immediately wanted a Mege-Drive.
Santa did bring a SNES a few years later though, with the bazooka light-gun thing (did anyone else have this?).
He also brough Race Drivin' which was the earliest and best example of 'SNES slowdown'.

Ah, nostalgia, 2x games on one cartridge, needing a PAL converter cartridge for playing grey imports, games built into systems.
I will be bringing my new Wii into the office tomorrow if anyone wants a go?

PS - what is the deal with not being able to manage an entire can of coke any more? When I was a nipper I would have drunk 2 or 3 in a row.

Ace thread, Guys.
For me, most memorable Christmas has to be 1991. I was ten, and it was the last day of school before the holidays. A small parcel arrived @ 8:30am. The family gathered round and watched in amazement as I produced a GameBoy from the envelope, along with a letter from Colin Curly of Quavers fame.
I'd collected a series of 8 little pictures from the packs in a promotion that summer, sent off the form and forgotten all about it. It was magic.
Still got the letter.

@The ol' Christmas magic.
Having to kip in the lounge as having visitors over for Christmas is proving a god-send. Can cram the gaming in late/early each morn, watch cartoons/movies and stash all the choccy's/booze conveniently in the living room. Rather looking forward to it myself.

Late 80's and I finally got Chase HQ for my C64. But could I get the bast**d cassette to load? Could I buggery. On about the 50th attempt (almost certainly litteraly, I was so desperate to playit) it worked and I was transported to gaming heaven. Weaving in and out of traffic, choosing which route to go (ok, out of about 2 choices, but it still counts) and hunting down the bad guys, awesome.

Sad thing is, that cassette never loaded again, so I only ever got to play it once, but that made that Xmas even more special.

Had to get in a sneaky lunch time post for this topic.

It must have been xmas 1997 when I got final fantasy 7. Still one of the best and most epic games I have ever played (I even beat all the weapons!)

I remember that CGI intro panning over Midgar and following the train. Awsome! I'd buy a PS3 just for this game if they re made it.

This xmas I'm getting Mass Effect which I doubt will live upto FF7, but xmas gaming hasn't been this good for years!

@roogi
"I'd buy a PS3 just for this game if they re made it."

I suspect many people would, which is why I'm still rather surprised at Sony's continued insistance that they aren't going to do anything of the sort.

Have you seen the remastered intro film though? *drool*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnLsYJfkhNc

Now that is what teh POWER of TEH CELL is made for!!

This is a really nice trip down memory lane :) My favorite xmas must have been '83 or '84 the C64 was making its first xmas in the UK and I got one and a very late Atari VCS (wood grain finish original). I think my parents got it discounted as this was around the time the VCS was dying off.

Spent those two weeks off of school programming the C64 on the living room telly, poke 53280,0 poke 53281,0 (turn the screen black) ;P sys 64738 (reset).... hmm those were the days.

When I wasn't farfing around in Commodore Basic (derived from MS Basic BTW) I was playing combat with my brothers or asteroids ... dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun

Best xmas ever.

@WittyName

How the hell did we ever live with cassettes?

I vaguely remember the Band Aid box set on the speccy - during loading it played the Do They Know It's Christmas Time? tune in gloriously tinny sound!

I recall loading Ghostbusters for the first time on the C64 and being greeted with a game of Space Invaders while it loaded. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Suddenly the wait wasn't quite so bad.

And then we had disks, the 12-disk swap-a-thon that was Monkey Island 2...

Back then we had no concept of a service like Xbox Live and its downloadable games. In fact I watched Demolition Man last night (I couldn't help it Virgin's broadband was down...) and their idea of the future of entertainment was a slightly bigger version of the miniDisc!

You`ll find the Minidisc also pops up quite a bit in 'Strange Days.'

Ahh yes misty eyed indeed, it is only until now that I realised that games=xmas and vice versa. Just think how rubbish our xmas memories would have been without them (scrabble, monopoly, "socialising"!?). Anyway, the best memory I have is that of getting an import Nintendo 64 from Hong Kong a few days before xmas (the last day of term in fact - double celebration). I can never forget the excitement of switching mario 64 on for the first time and tweaking his little face with the glove pointer thing. The next month was spent in my bedroom "playing" with the little italian fella. What days.

I think this thread proves that part of the reason why we still play games is to hold on to some of the magic and enjoyment that Christmas as a child with video games brought us.

A.

The best thread i've read in ages..what comedy gold.

I remember trying to run around the pitch on fifa trying to dodge the yellow card.

First Computer xmas for me was the Sega Master System, playing that wrestling game (can't remember its name) also Rocky.

I remember getting Robocop on the speccy one xmas and also like a previous blog on Altered Beast phoning my mate and getting him to listen to the speech when Robocop said his three primary objctives...ahahahahaha

Terminator 2 the arcade game on the mega drive (1991 I think) with the menacer light gun. Amazing.

Also getting a mega CD with the 7 games it came with and being totally amazed with the speech, just sitting there listening to it read out the plot of Sol Feace at the start of the game for ages. I don't think I left the house that christmas.

I remember getting the snes one christmas with Street Fighter II pack, my parents had secured it in early November to avoid disapointment, little did they know that every lunchtime I was coming home from schoool, going into the loft unpacking the snes setting it up and having a couple of rounds of practise of Ryu. I had completed the cycle on two difficulty levels this way by the time Christmas rolled round. On Christmas day my parents were a little concerned at my lack of excitement for a present I had been pestering for for weeks previous.

Soooo many memories... it all started the year that I got my SNES and gave my mum a list of about thirty games from which she picked Super Ghouls and Ghosts - I was a little bit disappointed with that. But then I went back to school and got some great swaps in - Street Fighter 2, Mario Kart (I think). The next year I got the Legend of Zelda - Link to the Past, but had to wait until about 10am to play it because I had been helping my brother build all his Hot Wheels - related presents.

Fast forward a few years and I bought my brother a PS2 for Xmas with the new Grand Theft Auto, and my family remind me every year that I spent pretty much all day playing it (hey, I was at University and depressed). I ignored everyone - including girlfriend - all day. But the game was genius - boosting a car and racing off into the computer generated sunset. Never got boring.

Getting a PS1 and FIFA 96(?), discovering it was rubbish and taking it back saying I'd got two of it as presents. Swapped it for Ridge Racer, the plane taking off is ICONIC MAN.

Great thread, thanks all for happy memories!

It wasn't the first gaming xmas by a long way, but getting a Megadrive and Altered Beast sticks in my mind for some reason. Average game, and I'd finished it by about 2pm, but never mind: it was just so exciting at the time. "Wiiiiiiiissseee fwom yoorwwww gwwwwaaaave!!!" Brilliant.