The Journey of Discovery: Unwrapping the Layers of Our World

25th December

Hello! Welcome back to our special feature where we share a brief excerpt about one of the noteworthy games we have been enjoying lately. This week, we concentrate on Christmas presents and the gaming memories we associate with the holiday—what we have unwrapped, gifted, or otherwise engaged with during this festive period over the years.

You can catch up on the previous editions of this column in our What We’ve Been Playing archive.

A pop sensation and Need For Speed: Underground 2, PS2

I don’t believe I have any remarkable Christmas memories tied to the video games I received. Most of my gaming gifts as a child were on my birthday, just a couple of months earlier, but I do have some fond memories of gifting video games.

My son, destined to be just as enthusiastic about video games as I am, was surprised with a Switch and a selection of games five years ago. In classic gaming tradition, we executed the whole “And one more thing” routine, and he was clearly ecstatic. Lucky kid.

Of more interest to you, dear reader, is probably the occasion I gifted a copy of Need for Speed: Underground 2 for PS2 to a cousin who would go on to become a chart-topping pop star in the UK in the early 2010s. I say cousin… the familial connection is somewhat more intricate, but I’ll stick with that.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Let me know if you’ve ever gifted a game to someone famous.

-Tom O

Can you surpass the thrill of Zelda at Christmas?

I haven’t requested any games this year – the downside of being a video game journalist is that there are usually very few gaps in your library by year’s end – but I will be enjoying plenty of levels of NYT Sudoku this holiday, as well as finally tackling Star Wars Outlaws. For reasons I’m not quite sure of, that is the massive blockbuster from this year that is calling to me the most right now. Not Dragon Age. Not Silent Hill 2. It’s Star Wars, of all things. However, with a lot of travelling between families this week, I will likely fill up my Steam Deck with a variety of excellent indie games I’ve missed this year as well. At the top of my list? UFO 50.

I haven’t even gifted many games this year – just Unicorn Overlord for my younger brother, since he’s already stocked up on most of this year’s major RPG releases, which is his go-to genre for now. If a new Zelda or Xenoblade had been available, those might have made great gifts for my two older brothers – and yes, Echoes of Wisdom was in the running at one point. But then I found out my younger brother already has it, so there’s a real chance they may have just borrowed his copy instead due to our longstanding family rule of never buying doubles (which I deliberately ignore all the time, mostly to stay a good distance away from them).

I do enjoy getting a great Nintendo game for Christmas, though, and Zelda games at Christmas have always been a bit of a personal treat for me—aside from the time I received Twilight Princess for the Wii but didn’t actually have a Wii to play it on because I didn’t ask my parents to pre-order one in time, resulting in a three-month wait before I finally had a Wii to call my own and play it. The less said about that, the better, of course. Still, I can’t forget the immense joy and excitement I felt unwrapping Majora’s Mask in Christmas 2000. It wasn’t just that it had a shiny gold cartridge. It was because it was mine—something just for me, and not something I had to share with my brothers. Until that point, most of our console games had been shared amongst us, but Majora’s Mask was finally something I could call my own—something they’d have to borrow from me if they wanted to play it (which they ultimately didn’t, as my older brothers were off to college by that time). But oh, I truly loved that little gold cartridge. Steam credit just doesn’t have the same appeal, does it?

-Katharine

A Christmas Dream (cast)

The first time I witnessed Sonic in full 3D on a Dreamcast, I was astounded. Although I grew up on the original Sonic Mega Drive games, I transitioned to Nintendo for the N64 and fell in love with Zelda instead. However, once the Dreamcast was announced, my heart fluttered as my beloved blue blur was chased by an orca whale, zipping around vibrant, rollercoaster-like levels in genuinely realistic graphics, rather than just being a side-scrolling pixel.

I never actually owned a Dreamcast, though. I had friends who did, and I distinctly recall enjoying Soul Calibur matches after school, taking turns in Crazy Taxi, and pulling an all-nighter at a house party playing Sonic Adventure from start to finish. But once the GameCube launched—and subsequently snagged a bunch of formerly Dreamcast-exclusive titles (notably Sonic Adventure 2 and Skies of Arcadia)—that dream was set aside.

This is why my partner and I have decided to treat ourselves to a Dreamcast this year—it’s the one console neither of us have owned. Then we will scour thrift shops for all those iconic titles. I can finally experience gems like Shenmue and Jet Set Radio. I can outperform him in Power Stone. I will have an excuse to revisit Skies of Arcadia again. And, without a doubt, I will play Sonic Adventure once more and remember how it’s a bit flawed but I still absolutely love it. Christmas is all about nostalgia, after all. Which games should I track down?

-Ed

A fiery Christmas (Spyro 2: Season of Flame – Game Boy Advance)

Unwrapping the Spyro 2: Season of Flame cartridge for my vibrant pink Game Boy Advance SP is a vivid memory I hold from a Christmas in the early 2000s. My sibling and I sat on the floor beneath the tree unwrapping presents to Christmas tunes while our very tired mom (woken up at the crack of dawn) sat on the couch, eagerly watching our reactions to each gift we were lucky enough to receive. Then, it