Before video game demos were commonplace enough that you could play them in your own home, SEGA devised a way to get people into the holiday spirit with one of their flagship titles for the Saturn known as Christmas NiGHTS.

Bob Mackey of the 1UP Retro Blog has written about this little gem here, revealing it to be more common than I had imagined. This, despite the fact that I myself had a copy, but never a Saturn to play it on. Such was the result of my subscription to Game Players magazine at the time; I still have the disc around somewhere, but its jingle-belling levels and exclusive Sonic the Hedgehog scenario have never been experienced by me.

In addition to Mackey’s own look into Christmas dreams, Blaze Hedgehog has also recently posted a few YouTube videos of the game being played through:

Makes it seem all the more like a shame that the Saturn never had a Sonic game to call its own, doesn’t it? That is, keeping in mind that this was made for a NiGHTS demo; I’d imagine a real Saturn Sonic game would have gone far beyond this.

And no, not counting Sonic Xtreme in the equation.

In addition, it makes me wish more companies– SEGA included– still did stuff like this. Could you imagine playing a couple of levels of a Sonic, Mario, or Mega Man game with a new coat of holiday paint and tunes to match? Alas, I guess it really is but a Dream.

Happy Holidays, everyone, whatever you do or don’t celebrate.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 24th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Points of Interest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.