The one inevitable thing about Christmas is the shopping for presents. It’s tedious and annoying, with the constant advertising all over the place and having to deal with the crowds depending on how late you left it. So instead of going out to buy your presents, why not just buy everything online. But it’s not the same experience as seeing all of the shitty ads on every store front and obnoxious crowds rushing over and injuring each other to get the best deals, so that’s where Christmas Shopper Simulator has you covered. You can witness the virtual crowds from the safety of your own home.
Christmas Shopper Simulator was developed by an obscure company called Freak Storm Games, who seemed to rename itself Solid Storm Games shortly before being dissolved with the Christmas Shopper Simulator games being the only games under their belt. The game was actually published by the aptly titled video game store GAME, as a way to advertise their stores for, obviously, Christmas, being released December 16, 2014, literally 9 days away from Christmas, just in time for any shoppers leaving it this late.
The game consists of the player character, either a male or female avatar with absolutely no option for customization, which doesn’t really matter because of how short this game is, as they go buy, or steal if the player wants to complete this as quickly as possible, presents for their loved ones.
To know which presents to get, you have to accept missions from a payphone Hotline Miami style, and then wander around a smallish shopping mall finding each present from whatever store has it, such as kicking open crates for a panda mask, avoiding security in a store that hasn’t opened yet for a video game, and jumping over maintenance platforms to obtain a doll.
The whole game feels a little like Goat Simulator, which came out seven months before, as you can use and abuse the game’s physics engine to destroy the games environment. Doing so won’t really get you anything, but to make up for it, the game comes with a bunch of wacky achievements, such as finding bag ladies, trying use the physics to do the splits, and for some reason, fart a bunch.
It’s nowhere near as “polished” as Goat Simulator, it’s clearly not trying to be, as it’s an incredibly simple and really short game simply meant to be a quick advertisement for a game store for the Christmas Season. But it is mildly amusing for what it is for the 5 minutes you’ll play of it before promptly forgetting about it.
Christmas Shopper Simulator seemed to be a success though, as it got a sequel on November 20 of the following year, called Christmas Shopper Simulator 2: Black Christmas. I would say that because they had several months to improve their idea since they’ve got the foundation set with the first game, but it seemed to end up as a mixed bag more than anything.
Instead of just getting a mission from a payphone and then completing said mission by buying a present for someone, you now have to earn money by doing random tasks to buy your Christmas gifts. These can range from abusing the games physics to launch yourself as far as you possibly can, find a taser and use it on people, and take random selfies. And if you want easy money, find a fire extinguisher and knock a lot of people over in a row to get hundreds of dollars.
There are even a few new characters to choose from besides the Female and Male shoppers, including two unlockables. A guy in an Ice Cream Sandwich costume is the third option, and the two unlockables are a Fly and an Ant. Both are unlockable just by typing Ant and Fly into the code menu.
While Christmas Shopper Simulator 2 is an improvement in a lot of ways, the game just seems like it’s way more buggy. Right off the get go, for me personally, the framerate was pretty bad. It’s not entirely unplayable, but it’s definitely impacting the whole game. Between the framerate and the clunky movement, I’ve been struggling to even get around certain parts of the mall. I’ve even had a crash or two on Windows 7, and the game won’t even work on Windows 10. I feel like it’s because the physics objects piling up and nobody bothered to optimize for it because it needed to be out for Black Friday. I doubt any of these bugs will be fixed since the company behind this game got shut down.
These two games were advertising pretty well, with it’s fake stores such as “Snake’s Solid Boxes”, “Gnocchi on Heaven’s Door”, and “TV & Curry”, as well poking fun at the way video game companies shove out expensive DLC with effort and try to make every game a franchise by trying to sell you figures and real world collectables with the Shopper Simulator website.
While these two games are only worth about 10 minutes of entertainment each (or both together depending on your view), and they’re were easy fodder for high profile Youtubers to make a quick buck, they’re still mildly entertaining time wasters for a lunch break or if you’re waiting for something and are free, so there’s nothing to lose other than your time.
Cult Classic Corner - Video Games 