Sadly, for some people the holiday season is a time of frustration, anxiety and resentment. And apparently, this is especially true for Flash game developers, who probably all grew up as misunderstood misanthropes who never got what they wanted at Christmas because their parents didn’t understand their genius. Well, they’re silently eeking out their revenge; we went looking for fun and happy holiday-themed games to keep you amused this week, but were surprised by how many were based instead on violence and vengeance. We could understand Rudolphs Kick n’ Fly, in which Rudolph kicks elves into the air (much like Kitty Cannon), because no one really gets hurt, and Rudolph has every right to be upset after the abuse he received as a child. But Rudolph’s Revenge is downright ruthless, with a scrappy, gun-toting Rudolph that looks like he’s been working at the North Pole meth lab for too long. And why does Santa need a gun? The truth is, both Serious Santa and Santa’s Vegneance tease your inner psycho with sinister Santas who look like they’re out for blood in intense first person shooters, and then the games actually serve up silly little pixelated Santas that only move in two dimensions. Jingle Ballistics is doubly misleading; there are no bullets, and not much jingle, just a choice of a snowman, an elf, or a sullen Santa for one-on-one boxing matches. In the continued mind-numbing search (I say mind-numbing because I for one really am not a gamer) for something a little chippier to keep you amused, we thought maybe we’d find a clever or cute snowball game like Snowcraft, and ran across a little journey into psychosis misleadingly called Snowball Holiday Flash Game. It took a minute to realize that the the weird things hanging in the viewframe weren’t curtains, but an anime girl’s hair, and the little penises that kept popping up were little arrows telling you where to go. Not having much interest in dressing up to pretend to be a little Japanese girl, we didn’t get far enough to see if there actually WAS a snowball game somewhere in there. Weird. If you try it, let us know. Game designers also seem to have a certain fascination with Santa or the elves falling off roofs, so we have games like Elfquilibrium or Sober Santa (again, a misnomer, he’s DRUNK!), and there are also a lot of games where you shoot people, elves, or other things as you collect presents, as in Christmas Attack Game or Wrap Attack. The latter, like the Santa games mentioned, teases with heavy metal and sinister images, and disappoints with crappy country rock guitar and sissy graphics. Inevitably there are also games this time of year developed by tech or media companies (that’s where Snowcraft came from back in 1999) and this year we have Santarider, brought to you by PPC management software company Acquisio. I have a feeling someone over on the development team derives a perverse pleasure from knowing how hard it is to not kill their fellow employees as you try to keep Santa’s sleigh aloft. So anyone know of any nice holiday games we can play? Feel free to share. I’m feeling a bit scrooged.

No, those aren’t window dressings, it’s a girl’s bangs, and that’s an arrow, not a penis. Snowball Holiday Flash Game is more like surreal anime girl version of Being John Malkovich:

No wonder Rudolph wants revenge. I think he’s been spending too much time at the meth lab.
And what is it with gamers and spelling, anyway?

Games like Serious Santa and Santa’s Vegneance promise this…..

…but give you this:

Likewise with Wrap Attack, which promises a bad-ass elf….

…but gives you tinkerbell:

And see how many Acquisio employees you can take out with Santarider:

We quietly discontinued our Monday Demotivators a while back, partly because we figured that with the national unemployment rate hovering around 20%, there was no-one at work to actually avoid it. However, last week we got an e-mail from a regular visitor complaining that now that he’s the only one left in his cubicle farm, he needs time-wasters more than ever. So here are some quick holiday and winter themed time killers for you. Yeah, you could always Elf Yourself, but then you’re just advertising for Office Max without getting paid. Like we just did. Doh! For some reason, I’ve personally always loved Santa Toss. I think maybe it’s the yodeling, but there’s also a strange gratification in throwing Santa around, especially after all the times he’s let me down. And especially after the staff cuts he’s made. Yeah, it seems he fired all the Reindeer and replaced them with a chopper. As revenge, they cut a hole in the floor of it, and now the gifts are all over the arctic. Help him retrieve them with Present Hunter. I didn’t have much luck, but it was kind of fun crashing the helicopter 4 or 5 times. So, moving on…since there’s nobody around the office as a result of that year-end “force reduction”, you probably don’t get as much excitement out of scanning your butt on the copier as you used to. I mean, all the fun is in the excitement of doing it without getting caught, right? Well, bring back the thrills with Butt Scan. Unfortunately all that game does is let you scan your butt ’til you get fired, so it wears thin pretty fast. These holiday Flash games always have something violent or sexist to offer, so if you’re feeling a little cranky about the holidays, don your hockey mask and butcher knife and slaughter some helpless elves with Friday The 24th. And for the inevitable misogeny, touch a woman inappropriately to win imaginary money with Santa Girl. Tip: if you actually want to collect the money, touch her APPROPRIATELY. And if you found that last one especially offensive, don’t piss yourself over it. Pee in the snow instead. Because who doesn’t love peeing in the snow, and now you can even send a Pee-Mail! Here’s our little pee-mail message. We may be back next week with more holiday themed demotivators, so if you have any suggestions, pass them along. I’ll just be playing SnowCraft ’til then.

Send us a pee-mail!

As always, there’s a sexist twist. Tip: touch her appropriately if you want to (ahem) score:

Wanna fight? Just make sure you have the balls:

Not if we have anything to say about it. Here are some Christmas Eve morning distractions to help delay that last trip to the mall. You don’t have any money anyway, which is why the AIG Executive Catcher (Thanks, Scott) is so gratifying, in spite of the fact that all you do is grab AIG executives with a big claw. In the same vein, if you’ve been working your butt off and are still broke this holiday season, you’ll quickly understand Karoshi Suicide Salaryman (Karoshi is Japanese for “death from overwork”, if I’m not mistaken). On a more cheerful note, bet you can’t name all of Santa’s reindeer in under two minutes. No points for the one pictured here. Totally unrelated to the holidays, we have this annoying game, in which the only object is to not touch the edges. Harder than it looks. Or for those of you who actually like using your brain, why not try being an air traffic controller. The learning curve on that was longer than five minutes, so I just let a couple planes collide and moved on. And lastly: Think about clicking on some ads or on that “Donate” button in the upper right of every page. Or if you’re still hell-bent on shopping, just sit still for another minute and buy me something from the ever-annoying Amazon Wish List. We’ll be back later today with some actual content, gotta get to the mall!

It’s December, and you know what that means. Time to do stupid holiday-themed things on the Internet! Things like advertising for OfficeMax while sending your friends annoying cartoons of your head dancing on an elf’s body. Or spread holiday cheer by wasting twenty minutes of your life uploading headshot photos of you and your friends to Pear Tree Greetings. Apparently even YouTube is getting in on the holiday card action this year . Not feeling like spreading the cheer? You can always turn to other time-honored (and much more fun) holiday time-wasters like Santa Toss,  Elf Attack, or my personal fave (I think because of the sound) Snowcraft. And for the weepier, gentler sort, we have Winterbells, where lilting pizzicato strings play in the background while you make a cute snow bunny dance on bells into the sky…