Easter Eggs during Christmas?! Madness!

Axen

Now that the horror of Thanksgiving is behind us we faithful look forward to the nightmare of Christmas, where Santa comes down from the North Pole to dispense gifts to those He deems worthy based on His archaic system of Naughty/Nice points.

It's also around Christmas that I start thinking about Easter Eggs. . .

Easter Egg?

No, not that kind of Easter Egg.

This kind of Easter Egg!



The kind of easter eggs in video games that are triggered on or near a specific date/holiday!

So let us share what Christmas or other holiday themed easter eggs that are unlocked on certain days we've discovered! If possible, share pics/videos as well!

Did you know that if you play Darwina on Christmas Day the Darwinians will be wearing Santa hats? It's true, check it out!

Sorenson

Epic used to do it a lot in the old days methinks, Tyrian and Jazz Jackrabbit both had stuff poppin' up. Rise of the Triad, too, though that was 3D Realms

And it wasn't so much a secret since it ALWAYS came up in that one spot, but the second-to-last level of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter had some nice holidays stuff for it.
Not to mention the Serious Santa MP skin, but that's in EVERY game methinks.

Steev

I'll have to play Darwinia this Christmas.

There were these two fun little games on the Macintosh in the 80s called Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle. If you played it around December, you'd see a Christmas tree appear in a few places here and there. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and learned how to change the computer's internal clock so I could show it to my friends in June.

I couldn't find any pictures of this stuff.

I love World of Warcraft's holiday events, but those really aren't Easter Eggs, I guess.

Forar

I seem to recall that Crusader: No Remorse has a holiday based menu and theme if you play on Christmas.

Edit: this appears to be the No Regret version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uejvBkXtGmM

Pemulis

Rise of the Triad had special loading screens for several different holidays.

Edit: Details,

If you start ROTT when your system clock indicates that it's one of five
different holidays, the "group picture" of the five main characters is
changed slightly. In addition, on Christmas, the music for the first
level is changed to a familiar Christmas tune. The holidays and effects
are as follows:

Easter &ltvaries> Lorelei Ni wears Easter Bunny ears.
Cinco de Mayo 05/05 Ian wears a sombrero.
Independence Day 07/04 Doug holds an American flag.
Halloween 10/31 Thi wears a witch's hat.
Christmas 12/24 Taradino wears a Santa Claus hat; new music
12/25 for the first level.

Also, there's a way to get all five "holiday hats" in Rise of the Triad to
show up on the screen at the same time. If you finish the game the right way,
and destroy all the larvae in the last level, watch ALL the credits (takes
several minutes). You'll get to a screen that says "The HUNT is victorious.
The End." Do nothing. Let it sit there for about a minute or two, and
you'll get another "The End" screen where all five "holiday hats" are shown
at once.

from http://www.rinkworks.com/apogee/s/6.3.4.shtml

Zilla360

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Triad#Easter_eggs

Edit: ^OMG, read my mind by three minutes. :P

emnmnme

Sega GT had a holiday themed track on a demo disc. It looked like a Christmas tree vomited all over the sides of the road.

EvilBadman

Zanzibar from Halo 2 and Valhalla from Halo 3 have easter eggs pertaining to the date. Zanzi had a sign at the waters edge that changed on 4 dates, and the Forerunner wall on Valhall has graffiti on holidays.

Shaggy

I remember when my family first got a PS2 on Christmas and played Madden, the announcers said Merry Christmas. That totally blew us all away.

Inca

The original X-Wing had Santa standing around with a sack of presents in the main hub of the Independence if you looked on Christmas day.

Ballman

The mechs in Heavy Gear 2 wear santa hats (at least in the tutorial levels and maybe more) if you play it on Christmas day.

LoveIsUnity

How has no one mentioned Christmas Nights yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4cki8sY7UA

DiscoZombie

The Incredible Machine had various holiday-specific parts show up on their holidays. I used to change my PC's clock to play with them all.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/puzzle/incrediblemachine3/hints.html

anoffday

Forar wrote: »

I seem to recall that Crusader: No Remorse has a holiday based menu and theme if you play on Christmas.

Edit: this appears to be the No Regret version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uejvBkXtGmM

That song is awesome!

Also, someone mentioned jazz jackrabbit. I think those Christmas levels were free, and were standalone from the regular game. I've been trying to find where to download the files. Of course, you'll need dosbox.

Axen

I've always really enjoyed the holiday events in MMOs. Not sure why.

Forar

I like the WoW ones to a degree, but as is oft bitched about in the MMO subforum, the designers have an unhealthy obsession with including some random bullshit that you may or may not be able to get/do in many of the associated achievements, which in some cases were part of an over-arching year long achievement to gain a spiffy new mount.

They've toned down the full achievement's reliance on the bullshit random drop sub-achievements, but it seemed like every holiday there'd be people bitching about doing X task an absurd number of times and not being able to finish the full holiday achievement for said meta-achievement.

Which is a whole bunch of hot air about little, but at the same time, you'd think after 5 years of being live Blizzard would move away from bullshit random stuff for their light, fluffy little in game holiday events. People have always hated it. The only people I know that actively like said random bullshit are masochists or lucky enough to complete it and thus view it as easy, wherein they are juxtaposing their luck for some kind of skill.

Nocren

I liked City of Heroes' winter events. Fight a giant snowman, rescue Baby New Year for Father Time, and go skiing on your own private mountain complete with ski lodge. And if you miss any of the medals from previous years you can use a form of in game currency (Candy Canes that are only available during the event but are really easy to get) to buy them.