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It is the year 2020 and it is snowing in Wisconsin. This isn’t just any snowstorm, though. This seems to be eternal winter and you are stuck at home because your car won’t even start thanks to how cold it is outdoors. The weather reported in the news says that it won’t stop snowing and that it will keep on getting colder. So, what do you do? You decide it is time to shovel the snow before your entire house is buried in it! Of course, things would have been easier had you paid attention to your wife and you had bought a snow blower but no, you not only chose to ignore her recommendation but you also only got one shovel! Now, as your wife makes gallons of hot chocolate and coffee to help you stay warm, you’ll be outside shovelling and shovelling snow. You may have layers and layers of clothes to keep you warm but if you don’t get some of that hot chocolate or coffee you’ll be dead from hypothermia before you know it. Never mind if you get touched by the falling ice! Though Endless Snow is not strictly speaking a Christmas game, it certainly is a game of the winter season. The game has simple graphics and sound but they do the trick. Things start slow but they do pick up quickly and avoiding those falling icicles becomes tricky. You really have to keep an eye on the freeze bar and grab the hot chocolate if you want to last in this game. A fine game overall.

Qb is back and this time he is ready for Christmas! Qb is, of course, a classic homebrew release for the 2600 and this version takes that exact same gameplay but gives it that special Christmas touch. In Holiday Qb you control Santa Qb as he moves cubes to achieve a specified pattern while avoiding enemies and picking up bonus items. At the start of each level, Santa appears at the bottom right corner of the playing field. You can move him and the cube he is on by pushing the joystick in the direction you want to go. If there is a another cube on the way, Santa automatically jumps to the next cube. As you arrange the cubes in the position given by the target grid (which appears on the right side of the screen), the cubes stop flashing. You only have a certain amount of time to arrange the blocks, however, if you want to score points. If you go beyond that time you will not get any points even if you correctly arrange the blocks. As you move around you may see bonus items on the blocks (among them, gingerbread men and candy canes). Jump on the cube with the item to grab it and earn points. Pick up the items in the right order and you earn an extra life. Enemies that appear on the cubes can move them out of place or kill you on contact. If you’ve gotten some points from collecting bonus items, however, you can simply push them out of the way by pressing the fire button as you jump towards them. Holiday Qb is another fun puzzle game for the 2600 and another winner.

Were you naughty this year? Well, guess what? Santa has decided he is not leaving you any coal under the tree. Instead, he is going to rob you! Yes, that’s Mean Santa, a game inspired by the story of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” The goal of the game is for the player to control Santa as he goes from house to house to steal the items in each house (be sure to avoid hitting the chimneys as you land on the roof). There are three levels of difficulty to choose from and these determine how many houses must be robbed to complete the level (5, 15, and 25 respectively for easy, medium, and hard). Once you’ve gone into all the houses, the final screen takes you to Christmas dinner where you must steal the turkey dinner while avoiding the dog that protects it. Steal the turkey and the game is over. Your “score” then becomes the time it took you to complete the game. Though the premise is simple, things are not so simple if you play in the medium and hard levels of the game. On these levels Santa must avoid erratic snowflakes in the sky and a nasty cloud that shoots lightning at Santa. These don’t kill Santa but stun him making him lose time. In the houses there are watch dogs that must be avoided while collecting the various items that appear in them (candy canes, wreaths, dolls, trucks and even AT-ATs). Mean Santa has colourful graphics but is lacking in the sound department. Only a few tunes of “Joy to the World” are heard when it starts and that’s it for Christmas music. Not a stellar title but still a fun game.

It’s Christmas Eve. All is ready for Santa to start delivering presents but, is it? The reindeer are nowhere to be found and the sleigh is gone (stolen by evil birds)! Santa must find all the reindeer and the sleigh if he is there is to be a Christmas! He starts at the North Pole and must traverse the frozen tundra, ice caves, suburbia, and even a big city to find his reindeer. During his search, Santa must keep an eye out for both helpful and not-so-helpful items along the way given that his energy level tends to drop. Drink some milk, have some cookies and replenish Santa’s energy. Find a Santa hat and earn an extra life. Bump into a snow flurry, however, and find Santa thrown around unpredictably. Never mind the evil birds and the abominable snow man! There are four levels that Santa must complete but he can only advance to the next level if he is able to find two reindeer. Reindeer Rescue is a side-scrolling platformer that definitely shows the Christmas spirit. There’s plenty of Christmas music playing (all classics) during the entire game and on the title and end screens. Santa’s energy “bar” is actually a string of Christmas lights and there are plenty of nice surprises in the background as you advance through the screens (i.e., snowmen, trains, AT-ATs, etc.). Though the forward elements of the graphics are simple, there’s plenty of colour and all the objects are easy to recognize. Santa is even rendered in multiple colours. The side scrolling action accelerates as the game advances, making it necessary to quickly decide which way to go or risk getting trapped by the advancing left side of the screen. This is a Christmas classic for the 2600!

Sometimes there are helpers and then there are overachievers. Well, count Nerkle, Santa’s new assistant elf among the latter. He is just a machine! You see, a few years ago Christmas was almost ruined thanks to a meanie called Oswald. Thankfully, a group of Atarians was able to help save Christmas back then and things are pretty much back to normal in the North Pole. This year, though, things are pretty busy and Santa had to get some additional help. Here is where Nerkle comes in. Oh, he is a hard worker but he is so excited that he has been assigned sled loading duty that he is just going about it way too fast! He is just flinging toys like a nutcase and there’s no stopping him! The Atarians are needed once more! That means you, player! Can you help save Christmas yet again? Santa’s Helper is a Christmas version of Activision’s Kaboom! and it retains that game’s basic gameplay. There were two separate releases of the Santa’s Helper (2005 and 2007) with the second version having some additions. Nerkle flings a total of eight different items for the player to pick up (Christmas gifts, Christmas trees, candy canes, Rudolph dolls, piggy banks, rubber duckies, snowman plush toys, and Santa dolls). All of these items are well rendered and easily identified as the player tries to collect them. The graphics are otherwise simple but colourful and Nerkle, of course, sports a green suit and elf’s hat. If you enjoy Kaboom! you are certain to enjoy Santa’s Helper!

Stay Frosty was an original title released in the Stella’s Stocking multicart. The game was such a success that it has now been followed by a sequel title in Stay Frostier. That fabled frosty firefighter is back once more to deal with the pesky fireballs that have captured Santa himself and some of his helpers. It is up to you to take care of the fireballs so you can rescue your friends. Can you stay frozen long enough to defeat the army of fiendish flames? The gameplay of Stay Frostier is just like in the original but it introduces new elements to keep things fresh. You control the snowman across platforms to extinguish all the fireballs at any given screen by either running over them or throwing snowballs at them (both methods slowly melt the snowman) . To stay frozen, you must run over ice blocks spread through the platforms. Everything that is frozen on screen also melts as time passes but things melt faster at different times of the day. Should your snowman melt past his neck, a life is lost. Stay Frostier has 32 levels of play, which repeat at increased difficulty for a total of 128 levels. To help you in the game, there are various magical objects that can be used such as brooms (for double jumps), carrots (lets you throw snowballs), and snowflakes (to restore all ice blocks in a level). The game can be played using the standard Atari joystick as well as an Amiga CD32 or Sega Genesis joypad (the extra buttons have different functions). Stay Frostier has excellent graphics, great sound, and Christmas music as well for your joy. Really an excellent Christmas game for the 2600!

Looking for a Christmas game for the 2600? How about five games in one cartridge? Stella’s Stocking is a Christmas game collection for the 2600 containing five very different titles to enjoy: Cold War, Tossing Cookies, Stay Frosty, Elf Dash, and Grandma’s Revenge. You select the game to play from a very nicely rendered menus screen that opens up with a beautifully rendered fireplace as Christmas music plays. Cold War is a snowball fight game where two players control two snowmen each as they throw snowballs for various rounds. The control scheme gets some getting used to but a fun game. Tossing Cookies requires the player to control Santa as he collects cookies that will be used to catch reindeer on a second screen. There are only 90 seconds to collect up to nine cookies before the screen changes to the reindeer capturing part of the game. There are 12 levels to complete. Stay Frosty is, perhaps, the title I enjoy the most. Here you control a snowman who has to put out fires on ledges using his body while also collecting ice cubes to keep his body solid. Let him melt completely and the game is over. Elf Dash is another fun title where an elf is tasked with collecting 40 items that Mrs. Claus requires while avoiding the touch of several “guard toys” walking the platforms in each room. This game is fast paced and lots of fun. Lastly, Grandma’s Revenge involves driving a car (well, grandma is the driver) in order to run over the reindeer on the road. Things get tricky as the dead reindeer clutter the roads. Power ups can make the car faster or larger or help repair damage. With its variety, Stella’s Stocking is another very good Christmas title for the 2600!

The Byte before Christmas is a compilation of four different Christmas-themed games for the Atari 2600. These games include Santa’s Scabs, Christmas Adventure, Bell Hopper, and Naughty List. In Santa’s Scabs you must save the day by using your Ninjitsu skills. You head to the North Pole to handle picket lines and help Santa. In Christmas Adventure, you must save the town of Whoville from the devastation caused by the Grinch, his dog Max, and his band of evil toys. Can you save Christmas? In Bell Hopper a magical rabbit must save humanity from an evil slumber by playing the bells that reach into the sky. In Naughty List you play as Santa and you must destroy the buildings of the evil Elf Union by dropping bombs on them. Be careful not to kill any innocent bystanders and watch out as your reindeer are already getting tired. Upon turning on your 2600 with Byte inserted, you’ll be welcome to a menu screen that plays Christmas music and let’s you select from the four games included. Both the joystick and paddle controllers can be used (the latter for Bell Hopper). Each game is different and each is quite enjoyable. They may be clones or hacks of existing games but having the Christmas theme gives them a unique flavour. The games all have nice graphics and there are plenty of Christmas tunes to enjoy. I really like how well the toys are rendered in Christmas Adventure, even with multicoloured characters (just have a look at that toy solider!). Bell Hopper also has nice animation of the bunny. Overall, this is a very enjoyable cartridge that I can recommend without hesitation.

You are an elf who finds himself having to fix the mess created by three other elves who are now having fun in the Bahamas having “completed” their toy painting chores. So, if they painted the toys, what is it that you are fixing? Well, turns out your buddies just dumped all the toys in gray paint and you now have to get them painted properly! Toys appear on conveyor belts that, at either side, have paint buckets of different colours for you to choose from. You must get all the toys properly painted which, at times, may mean not one but two colours need to be applied to each toy to get them right. Of course, you don’t have all year to get this done and it is a race against the clock if you are going to have all the toys painted in time for Christmas! Each day you have a quota of toys that must be painted in a certain amount of time if you are to be successful. Whenever you complete a days quota, a new screen appears that tells you what the next toy is going to be along with how it will have to be painted. Toyshop Trouble is a fantastic and fast-paced game that must be had by anyone with an Atari 2600. The game has nice music, a train whistle sound announcing the start of each day, and graphics that are just beautiful. The elf you control is rendered in several colours and the toys are just amazing: candy canes, fire trucks, trumpets, trains, Tonka trucks, AT-ATs, Godzilla figures, and sailboats. If you are looking for great Christmas cheer, look no further!