It seems bizarre that over the 12 years of Naughty and Nice that we’ve not once devoted a seasonal column to Snow. We’ve even repeated a few topics first. That nonsense ends here today, where one of the most unmistakable icons of winter gets its long overdue… due.
Perhaps we’ll do a column on pine needles for next year.
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This, from what I read, is a Naughty and Nice entry about snow. What kind of snow? Well, I don’t know. Drew told me that he simply wanted to talk about snow, understandable considering the lack of it we’ve had lately. A good portion of the United States didn’t have a real winter last year, and current trends suggest that this year will follow. I didn’t know how to approach this post at first, but I came up with a boring and rudimentary idea: I’m talking about my favorite snow and ice in games. And my least-favorite, according to my undoubtedly pristine memories. I’m not selling the premise here, but I promise that it will be fun to read.
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1. Super Mario Bros.
I’m not going to say that the snow and ice levels in Super Mario Bros. looked bad for an NES game. Heck, I’d still say they look good even now for the technology. But Mario’s (and Luigi’s) incredible slipperiness on the platforms tormented poor, young, and innocent Geoff. I couldn’t count the number of times Mario slipped off a platform and into a pit as I was controlling him, especially after a difficult jump. If this doesn’t qualify as a “Naughty” regarding snow and ice in video games, I don’t know what does.
2. Donkey Kong Country
The first Donkey Kong Country title is another one where I simply must acknowledge how the snow and ice-based levels looked beautiful for the time. They looked pristine and, well, cool in 1994. But they also tormented me for how slippery they made poor Donkey and Diddy Kong, which thus led to many deaths. It was a lot of fun replaying the levels to make sure that I found all the secrets. But I did get a little frustrated when I kept seeing the Kong duo dying thanks to — you guessed it — platform slipperiness. My greatest video game nemesis, truly.
3. Mega Man
Man, the “Naughty” column here turned out to consist of games with snow and ice-based levels that gave poor young Geoff a heap of problems. The culprit here was the entirety of Ice Man’s stage in Mega Man, merely one level in what was easily one of the more difficult Mega Man games around. This was capped off by a tough Robot Master; well, “tough” until I figured out that its bosses had obvious weaknesses. Little me didn’t know any better, okay? This didn’t give me as many problems as Mario and Donkey Kong above, but I still feel scarred and deformed by the experience. Internally, of course.
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1. Chrono Trigger
This is a bizarre example for me to use. I didn’t play Chrono Trigger until the summer of 2021, when it released on PSOne as part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles collection. This was well into the age of polygons, a time after the PlayStation 2 launched worldwide. But this was one of the key games that gave me a perpetual fondness for sprites. This remains one of the best-looking 2D RPGs around, and it, therefore, had some of the nicest snow I’d seen in a game at the time thanks to the exploration in the Death Peak area. Not even the strange slowdown it caused in the PSOne version could ruin the memory it provided me. Subsequent ports thankfully eliminated that, and other porting issues.
2. Death Stranding
Look, there’s no shortage of 3D games with snow. But there isn’t another game that presents it like Death Stranding. The entire game is built around the use of its excellent walking and trekking mechanics, which extends to the snowy environments. Protagonist Sam needs special equipment to trek through piles of snow, and has a tough time venturing through it otherwise. The snow isn’t merely used for aesthetics here, compared to other titles. It sounds tedious when describing it, but the combination of the beautiful environments and the most intricate walking mechanics around makes merely walking and sliding around in the snow uniquely memorable. I’ll spare you from reading the lengthier stories about my literal in-game stumbles through it, though.
3. Super Mario 64
I could not forget the first snowy and icy explorable 3D environment I ever experienced in a video game. Super Mario 64’s Cool, Cool Mountain demonstrated Nintendo’s excellent technology when it came to rendering snow and ice back in 1996, and I’ll always remember sliding down its mountains and dodging the snowball-throwing snowmen. But I won’t fool anyone here: The memory I most associate with this is dropping that poor baby penguin off the side of the mountain. That’s part of the memorable experience too, you know.
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1. Snow angels
Snow angels are a great idea on paper. But they’re a terrible idea in snow. The experience quickly becomes unpleasant after you lie down and start getting snow down your jacket, where it will become a nice wet puddle on your back the rest of the day. I know the song tells us I want to wash my hands, face and hair in snow, but poetry always faceplants into reality like a brick wall. And then, of course, even when the angel is made, the appearance is still damaged by your footprints.
2. Sno cones
The sno cone knows it’s a fraud and tries to hide it by altering its spelling. But it can’t trick me! I know it’s nothing more than minced ice with some flavored syrup on top. And that is just not good enough.
3. Snow making
Like sno cones, but without the syrup. It’s a real snow job, that’s for sure.
4. Snowshoeing
You’d expect me to be disappointed that snowshoes were shoes that were not, in fact, made of snow, but I know at least that much. All my experiences snowshoeing as a child were always miserable, and perhaps it was because I wasn’t using anything fancy. I had a pair of old, well-loved snowshoes that had more straps on them than a vanilla person would know what to do with. They never stayed on and would often come off at the most inconvenient of times.
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1. Snow balls
Easy to make, fairly impactful and ultimately harmless, snow balls are nature’s perfect weapon for a good-natured competition. Just make sure nobody continues down their tech tree to unlock slush balls and ice balls.
2. Snow forts
A good blanket of moist-enough snow can turn a yard into a giant LEGO set. A snow fort would be a spectacular setting for a snowball fight, but in my experience it rarely followed. Mostly because everyone would spend all day just making the fort so there’s no time left to fend off the snow barbarians at the snow gates. But that was okay; as it so happened, the real fun was in building the fort. It’s like starting to build a snowman, but you never get past the first ball because you decided instead to see just how large you could roll it.
3. Snow days
Do I even need to explain this? From the anticipation of watching the TV, waiting for your district to be called, to not going into school, to the schadenfreude of your parents still having to trudge to work, to doing all sorts of things or nothing at all all day… it will forever feel like a gift.
4. Snowy
Forget anything else you’ve heard. My cat’s the true reason for the season.
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