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A History of Holiday Games (1980-2007)

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A History of Holiday Games (1980-2007)

Relive 30 years of Christmas past with our collection of retro TV commercials and childhood wish lists

Words: Charlie Barratt, GamesRadar US

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Are you ready for Christmas to be over? Now that all the gifts are unwrapped and all the excitement has passed, don’t you kind of wish you could restart the holiday and relive that once-a-year magic again?

Better yet, what if you could go back to the Decembers of your youth, when Santa was real and when the anticipation of a new videogame under the tree could literally cause you to lose sleep at night? How great would that be?

Well, now you can. On the following pages, we’ve done our best to bring Christmas back for you. Not just one Christmas, but every Christmas – from the forgotten kids’ commercials of the 1980s all the way through to the best-selling holiday games of the 2000s.

Welcome to nostalgia nirvana.

The games you wanted for Christmas:

The commercial you saw over and over:

48 Comments

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bernie10 - 10 months 30 days ago

usually i hate ppl that say first and i wont be the person to say first.

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bernie10 - 10 months 30 days ago

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bernie10 - 10 months 30 days ago

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bernie10 - 10 months 30 days ago

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Gahmah - 10 months 30 days ago

whoa, you can sorta see the tipping point of games from weird nerdy hobby to good golly mainstream, hard to believe the PS9 ad for the PS2 seems dated now.

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Dr.Salvador - 10 months 30 days ago

i wasnt even alive yet! :D

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garnsr - 10 months 30 days ago

The Mario 64 and Galaxy commercials are terrible! Watching people move around while trying to play games is completely disgusting, how do they sell so many Wiis?

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Yellowhat17 - 10 months 29 days ago

That made me realize what a short time gaming's been around. Plus, I remember that horrible Animal Crossing commercial... but I don't remember that Halo commercial. I don't remember any Halo commercials :-l

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Romination - 10 months 29 days ago

What? Why wasn't the first Pokemon here? Sure, I may have gotten it AFTER Christmas, but it was on Christmas that I first even PLAYED the game...
so that's probably just me. And odds are the release date was too early for Christmas... But I saw that commercial A LOT
The Sonic 2 one was hilarious though

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halloweenghost - 10 months 29 days ago

*Sighs* I remember when I used to live, eat, breath, sleep mario...

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Cwf2008 - 10 months 29 days ago

To hell with the Gaylo series after playing the 3rd one i wouldnt wish that piece of shit on even the president

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TrIp13G - 10 months 29 days ago

Ha, you said gaylo. Like that hasn't been uttered millions of times by moronic fanboys.

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Avsareone - 10 months 29 days ago

Only Reason people don't like Halo3 as apposed to the other two is because they were like Story? Halo? GARG BRAIN EXPLODESSES GAAAAAARRRR NO MULTI MASTER CHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEIIIIIF, SHIP MASTER WTF story Make less Kill, GARGAL GEERG.

Halo was known for not having a memorable Story, then 3 came along and up its standard, so everyone was confused cause they didn't pay enough attention and can't read(Thus the Novels go unread even though John is three times more Badass IE him ripping of an elite's two bottom lip things and melting his face with plasma)

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Craza - 10 months 29 days ago

I remember everything from '99 and up....Maybe 'cuz I wasn't running around in diapers. I definitely remember the Halo and Animal Crossing commercials. It was the Halo 2 commercial that made me go nuts though, watching the Scarab walk across the town, the first time I saw that, my jaw was on the floor. And then the Water Balloon Fight, I wanted something like that to happen in my town soooooo bad! My fave out of these was the Sonic one, I thought it was pretty funny and not as cheesy as the rest.

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EiGrOn - 10 months 29 days ago

Mario..Mario Mario Mario Mario Too Much Mario X.x

O.o ...-Trows sega out the window-OMG its thinking O.o

>.> PLaystation 2 Commercial is like wow O.o wtf yo ps people get something better then a guy runnig around..and talking to a duckman or something >.>

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FlyinHawaiian13 - 10 months 29 days ago

sonic 2 fits easily into any tackle box lol

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phantom4112 - 10 months 29 days ago

So, two thuings. One, how is halo 3 not the commercial seen over and over? I saw some commercial for that game every damn time I turned on the tv, even if it was in the middle of a show. Also, Why is ever single console debut commercial so fucking disturbing? God, I wanted to cry after that PS2 one...

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super0sonic - 10 months 29 days ago

Best Article EVER!!!! Made me so happy!!

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bioshocker - 10 months 29 days ago

the sonic 2 commercial was the best by far and I remember the PS3 commercial with the creepy baby doll more than the Rubiks cube one.

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oryandymackie - 10 months 29 days ago

Yeah, we got ourselves a Halo fanboy, Avsareone. You think we're too dumb to understand? No. It's 'cos the Halo story is broken, it's just the same "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HALO!!!

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