Ahh! Another lovely, warm summer day!
[off-screen] I'll just put on my shorts!
and my sandals and go outside.
[door slams]
It must be December.
Well, I...
better go review some Christmas games.
[door slams]
[electronic rock Christmas medley]
[fizz, sip]
Aahhh!
[typing]
When it comes to Christmas games, it seems like most publishers at some point
have released some kind of game with a holiday tie-in.
But there is only one that I know of that can be called "official,"
and that is The Official Father Christmas,
released in 1989 by Alternative Software
and developed by Enigma Variations, Ltd.
"Official Father Christmas"...
And just who, pray tell, has the power to sanctify *this* one as "official"?
The North Pole?
St. Nicholas himself?
Satan?
Could be any of those. I won't pretend to know,
but what I do know is that this game exists.
And it exists for three classic microcomputers:
the Commodore 64,
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
and Amstrad CPC.
And wouldn't you know it, each version of this game
officially has some unique aspects,
so I'm going to officially take a look at each of them.
The first version we have here is the Spectrum port.
If I had to guess,
I would.
And I would say that this is the original version of the game,
but I could be wrong.
But what I'm not wrong about is the fact
that this game was sold in support of the Save the Children Fund,
an international organization that supports children's rights
and provides relief for youngsters in developing countries.
So the game was sold for charity, which is a good cause and all that,
but I'm officially not letting that stop me from ragging on this game if I have to.
The Spectrum version starts off with an uptight medley
of "Jingle Bells," "Deck the Halls" and "We Wish You A Merry Christmas,"
which is actually recognizable even on the pathetic little 48K Spectrum's internal speaker.
You're provided with a menu
that gives an example of the INcorrect way to spell "graphics,"
as well as joystick selection options.
I'd recommend the joysticks normally,
but the controls are so simple in this game that the keyboard works just fine.
Next you clunkily choose your name from a... name... maker,
and then are told to find the missing pieces of your sleigh.
Missing pieces?
Isn't Santa's sleigh, like, sacred?
You start the game off in Santa's official bedroom
in his official house,
while his official elves roam the hallways... officially.
It's your job to find the chopped-up sleigh sprites scattered around
and return them to his sleigh.
You can only get one at a time,
so there's a lot of backtracking here.
It will "automagically" be placed on his sleigh once you reach that screen
and then it's off to get the rest.
What makes this annoying as balls
is your elves are complete dicks.
If one of them happens to touch Santa– quite inappropriately, I might add–
the little punk will steal the sleigh piece
and place it somewhere else randomly around the house.
Ha! What the heck, man?
Are working conditions so bad in Santa's workshop
that the elves feel the need to sabotage Santa's ride
and destroy Christmas for children everywhere?
Apparently so,
because the sole reason the elves are here
is to give you a hard time.
So you're stuck, going back and forth to avoid them,
going on and off the screen so their positions reset
and learning their patterns
so you can get back to your sleigh safely with the piece in-hand.
After you've done this like 6 or 8 times or something,
you move on to the next part of the game.
And I'm going to go ahead and switch over to the Amstrad CPC version here,
since I want to show it and it's practically the exact same thing,
just with slightly different graphics and sound.
You're then told you can pick out the presents
you would like to have for Christmas this year
How odd! It's not like you're actually going to get these in real life
and this has no effect on the delivering aspect of gameplay.
So it's just there to remind some sad kid
that they are poor
and are probably only getting a Mad Libs book and a candy bar for Christmas this year.
Once you've gotten some poor kid's hopes up
and relentlessly dashed his dreams,
you'll then have to catch the gifts as they fall from the sky.
Good grief, those elves are major league punks.
First they destroy Santa's sleigh.
Now they're tossing all the children's gifts from the rooftops in continued protest.
Ugh! The freaking 99%!
Despite the setback, proud one-percenter Santa
then takes to the air and it's time to deliver those presents to...
America.
Heh.
You know, somehow I thought this game would have Santa delivering gifts
to the poor children in developing countries
that the Save the Children Fund was for.
But I guess not!
Maybe this is Detroit. That's pretty much a third-world country on its own.
Wherever this is, Santa just moves along on his own accord
and you control his direction as well as when to crap out presents.
There are these frantic arrows pointing at nondescript locations
and it's your job to drop the loot on top of them.
The problem is that a ton of garbage is in the way,
like jets, birds and clouds.
These will either move the presents out of the way of the target
or steal them completely.
I'm not kidding. The clouds will steal the presents and speed away with them.
What in the name of crap is a cloud going to do with a toy?
It doesn't matter because clouds are just pricks
and only want to screw up your day.
Drop enough presents successfully before this little indicator ambiguously reaches dawn,
and you'll move to another location.
At least, in theory.
For some reason, my game just bugged out and never moved on at all,
eventually just telling me I sucked
and the 99% finally decided to help out and save Christmas.
And that's The Official Father Christmas on the Spectrum and Amstrad CPC.
It's not exactly the most engaging game I've ever played
and it's pretty annoying with those stupid elves
and kleptomaniacal clouds.
But the controls are actually quite solid,
the graphics are nice enough
and the gameplay is very accessible
so young children would probably get *some* fun out of it.
Then we have the Commodore 64 version of The Official Father Christmas,
which, wouldn't you know it, in many ways is an entirely different game.
So which Official Father Christmas is more official than the others?
Who knows?
Not me.
Rhetorical questions are rhetorical for a reason
It starts off with a short SID chip version of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas,"
so no medley for you Commodore users.
You get a different attract screen this time showing high scores
and reminding you that you donated money to charity for this game,
so don't be too harsh on it, okay?
It also shows this snowman on the bottom of the screen
that appears to have a broom boner
and enjoying it thoroughly.
Just... thought I'd throw that out there.
Press Fire on the joystick and you can enter your name using the keyboard,
which is fantastic for those of us who love keyboards and names.
You're then presented with more SID Christmas music that loops endlessly
and Santa, his house and those terrible, terrible elves
that really should just die.
But they can't.
So it's sad.
You'll notice that the gameplay itself is a lot smoother,
with you and the elves walking along with ease
and less blockiness to everything,
which results in more fluidity in movement.
This is both a good and a bad thing,
mainly because I am indecisive.
The elves are even bigger buttholes this time around
since the paths they follow are more varied
so you can't exploit them on ladders like you could on the other ports.
But this is also a good thing because it makes the game a tad more challenging
and since the controls and movements are so fluid,
it's a bit more fun to outmaneuver them.
Find all the parts,
choose your presents that serve no purpose,
then catch them as they fly downward at warp speed.
Ho-ly crap.
Then it's off to deliver the gifts to America once again,
this time with a tweak to the controls.
Santa's speed can now be finessed,
so you have a little more control over the situation.
However, the way the sleigh moves back and forth is a bit jarring for a while,
and takes some getting used to with the bizarre inertia – or anti-inertia – going on.
Reindeer have weird physics. Did you not know?
The clouds and crap flying around also seem to be more ninja-like,
stealing your presents with a newfound sense of malicious purpose.
After America, it's off to places like Europe,
Africa and for some reason, Finland.
Nothing against Finland, I just thought they were already a part of Europe.
But I guess not. What do I know?!
And for some reason, you can also go to the "Antartic."
I'm pretty sure they mean "Antarctic."
But, again, what do I know?
Even assuming it is the AntarCtic,
are there even children living there?
I mean, that's the freaking South Pole.
I guess there are some kids in South Georgia or something. I don't know.
I mean, come on, where's the love for Australia
if you're going south of the equator like that?
Once you've delivered presents to all the strange people in the world before dawn,
you're congratulated, get a final high score
and... that's it.
The Official Father Christmas is officially a pretty stupid game in my opinion.
Sure, it's not bad as far as controls and graphics, I suppose,
but the gameplay itself is just lacking.
Half of it makes little sense,
and the other half is incredibly tedious and downright frustrating.
Those clouds and those stupid elves, man.
After I played through it once, I was done with it.
Then I played through it twice more on the other systems,
and I was *more* than done with it.
It has some charm, I'll admit.
And I've seen far worse Christmas games.
But even for young children, I can't see this appealing for very long at all.
There's just barely anything here,
other than some simplistic arcade gameplay that isn't very fun.
Like I said, you can probably do worse,
but you most certainly can do better.
[internal speaker version of "Jingle Bells" plays to the end]