I’m fed up of pretending The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge isn’t a Christmas game, and a hauntingly good one at that

Growing up in a house with a goth sibling means I am legally obligated to enjoy The Nightmare Before Christmas and anything that Tim Burton touches with his spooky hands. Every Christmas we sit down as a family to watch it, and every year we debate on if it’s a Christmas movie or Halloween movie. It takes place on Christmas, has Christmas in the title and one of the main characters is ‘Sandy Claws’. It is a Christmas movie, and I will die on that hill.The other thing about having a goth sibling is we owned a lot of The Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise. Clothes, toys, books, you name it we had it. One of the things we owned was the 2004 PlayStation 2 game The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge. This game is one I look back on fondly, and I would argue it is one of the weirdest, but best games to play on Christmas Day. Move over Die Hard Trilogy, Oogie’s Revenge is here to kick your butt with some sweet, sweet dance moves.Soul Robber! Soul Robber! Soul Robber! Oogie’s Revenge takes place one year after the events of The Nightmare Before Christmas and follows our “bone daddy”, Jack Skellington, once again being very bored with his spooky little life. In classic Jack fashion he decides to leave Halloween Town to find “more new discoveries” to make next year’s Halloween even better. Upon his leaving Shock, Lock and Barrel resurrect Oogie Boogie… somehow. It’s not really explained. Oogie Boogie takes over Halloween Town on December 23rd and now Jack has to stop him. See, I told you it was a Christmas game!Jack saves the town by doing missions for Halloween Town residents across 24 chapters. These missions usually just involve hitting bad guys with his Soul Robber, a green slimy whip-thing with a hand on the end. It reminds me a lot of those sticky slap hand toys you used to get in the early 2000’s.You know certain noises or pieces of dialogue from video games somehow worm their way into your brain and live there rent free for eternity? This game permanently etched Chris Sarandon screaming “Soul Robber!” followed by a whip noise into my head, as Jack says that line every single time you make a heavy attack. Having this dialogue is akin to Arthur Morgan screaming “Cattleman Revolver!” as he shoots some O’Driscoll Boys at point blank. It’s charming at first but quickly becomes repetitive. There’s only so much “Soul Robber! Soul Robber! Soul Robber! Soul Robber!” one can take.PS2 era Feeling nostalgic? Check out our pick of the best PS2 games.You can upgrade your Soul Robber throughout the game by killing basic enemies for coins and then visiting the Witches’ Shop. At different points in the game you can also unlock two new outfits for Jack – the Pumpkin King, and Santa Jack. These outfits give you new abilities and fighting styles. I always loved dressing Jack up as the Pumpkin King, purely because it looked the coolest and it allowed me to breathe fire on bad guys.The core combat is very similar to the hack and slash action of Devil May Cry, and the main thing you’ll want to do is string together combos for a better score at the end of the level. The combo streaks have great names, and the way the narrator announces them is really satisfying – the ranking Free Bonussystem goes from Spine Tingling for a combo of 10, all the way to Shriekified for 60.Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter

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