The Best Video Games to Get You Feeling Festive

Picture 1 of The Best Video Games to Get You Feeling Festive

Whether you're a certified Scrooge or Santa's biggest fan, sometimes you need a little kickstart to get you into the spirit of Christmas. Some people enjoy going out caroling, others make do with a mince pie, but one of the easiest and most often overlooked ways is to spend a while on a festive video game.

We're spoilt for choice when it comes to gaming these days, so it makes sense that there are plenty of festive titles to choose from. We've picked out some of the best ones that will appeal to a wide range of gamers, so that you can make sure you're feeling totally pumped for the holidays.

Christmas Big Bass Bonanza

Christmas Big Bass Bonanza is a hilarious slot game that's available to play online. Although it was only released in February it already has a dedicated following thanks to its quirky gameplay. The slot has a fishing theme, where hooking the bigger fish (all matching of course) lands you bigger prizes.

The difference to other fishing themed slots is, all of the fish are dressed up in antlers, Christmas lights or Santa hats. You can find this title on a selection of casino sites, including at PokerStars Casino where there are also a number of other Christmas-themed slot games. If you're into slots then you'll be truly spoilt for choice this Christmas.

Although we picked this fishing game for the sheer hilarity of it, you can find lots of games that are more conventional as well. Big Christmas Present, A Christmas Carol and Christmas Tree are all well-loved slot machine games that you can play online and that take Christmas a little more seriously than Big Bass Bonanza does.

The Sims, Christmas Collection

Picture 2 of The Best Video Games to Get You Feeling Festive

Decorate your dream Christmas home in The Sims

The Sims has been delighting us for multiple decades now, we understand if you need a moment to let that sink in! Well, whether you play the original Sims, or any iteration up until the most current version number 4, you can enjoy a little Christmas spirit. Maxis has released content for all of their editions of the game, which feature a range of Christmassy options for you to enjoy. All packs include Christmas trees, some beautiful gifts, festive outfits for your sims and even their pets to wear.

Decorating your dream sim home with strings of lights and candles should be more than enough to get anyone ready to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year and you can do it all for free with a direct download from their website. Of course, if that's not quite festive enough for you then you can visit the section of the website dedicated to content creation from fans, where you can download lots of beautiful content that's made by players just like you. There are some Christmas crackers on there!

Saints Row IV

Perhaps you like your festivities a little... darker? If so then Saints Row has answered your prayers with their special Christmas missions on the fourth instalment of the series. If you want to play then load up your game and head to the second mission pack, How the Saints Save Christmas. Once there, you'll be able to enjoy three distinctly Christmas-themed missions. All of the missions revolve around trying to get the character Playa into the Christmas mood. The first takes place at The Ship and is called Miracle on 3rd Street. You'll be doing a great deal of decorating in the beginning, but from that point onwards it all gets a little strange.

The following two missions echo the style of the well-known story 'A Christmas Carol', gradually making Playa see that Christmas is a time to celebrate, just like in the Charles Dickens tale as Scrooge is visited by Christmas Past, Present and Future. Although all of the scenarios take place in the present moment in Saints Row, the development team are known for their attention to detail and reference to literary figures of the past. You only need to take a moment to listen to the start of the mission to see that it's being presented to you by Jane Austen to realise that literature is high on the agenda with these games.

Jessica Tanner

Update 16 October 2021