Rock around the Christmas tree with Dracula Cha Cha and Christmas Pain In Christmas Town

rockpapershotgun.com:

I'm going to toss out two more of my RPS Christmas traditions together because frankly it's the last workday of the year and I'm in a tizzy. I trust you will pace yourself and enjoy these traditions responsibily, like a Cadbury selection box. Or slam right through them, that's fine too. After playing Skeal got your toe tapping to the beat and your heart pounding with power and pleasure, you're ready to trash Christmas with a catchy tune in Dracula Cha Cha. And after Skeal also prepped you for pain, oh, here we go: it's Christmas Pain In Christmas Town.

First! Dracula Cha Cha is a one-button platformer in the style of Konami's Tomena Sanner series, where Dracula goes for a walk in a winter wonderland. You can download it for free over here, so do so. Collect power-ups! Destroy snowmen with your Dracula karate! Get in a dance-off with the Grinch! All the Christmas stuff. And experience the festive spirit from Jim Lowe's Green Door, a song which is very much not a Christmas song but has, with repeat exposure from this Christmas tradition, absolutely become a Christmas song to me.

I can't help it. While supposed inspirations range from a Missouri restaurant to London's first lesbian club, to me it's a song about Christmas Eve. "Midnight, one more night without sleeping. Watching 'til that morning comes creeping." If you then let the groove take over your body and stop paying attention to the lyrics, absolutely this is a Christmas song. Same as how Bruce Springsteen's Born In The U.S.A. has become a patriotic anthem. As Christmas Eve draws nearer, Green Door is playing on a loop in the back of my head.

Next song! Christmas Pain In Christmas Town is from excellent 90s Internet detective game Hypnospace Outlaw. It's one of