"And when those blue snowflakes start falling
That's when those blue memories start calling
You'll be doing all right
With your Dreamcast of white
But I'll have a blue, blue, blue, Blue Stinger"
- Elvis Presley
Every year, I must indulge in a series of holiday rituals before I can even think about getting into the Christmas spirit. First, I string up multicolor lights around my living room. Then I help bring cheer to the folks of Twin Seeds City in Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams. Inevitably, I’ll watch Clark Griswold be an irredeemable asswart to his neighbor Julia Louise-Dreyfus in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. It’s a process.
With those nostalgic boxes checked, I’ll then turn to more subtle, personal ways of rediscovering the Yuletide magic. That can include taking a simple reprieve from the stressful work season with my puppy. Or I’ll stuff my gullet with my mom and aunt’s dueling Christmas cookie platters. My girlfriend and I also tried hate-watching Lifetime holiday movies until we realized we’re really just regular-watching them. BTW, shout outs to the one about the family's struggling fruitcake company and the one with Reba McEntire. By this point, I’m really starting to feel the Christmas magic.
Then – just when the time is right – I’ll pop the star atop the proverbial tree: Climax Graphics’ Christmas-adjacentDreamcast classic, Blue Stinger.
Whether the Dreamcast fan community regards it as a brilliant cult classic or a janky survival horror(ible) mess, Blue Stinger doesn’t much give a fuck what we think of it. What it is, though, is an absurd holiday-ish action game that always makes my cup runneth over with Yuletide cheer.
Admittedly, Blue Stinger’s island setting must be a miserable place to spend Christmas. Off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, Dinosaur Island is portrayed as a kitschy company town under the thumb of a shady biogenetic research corporation, a monopolistic energy drink empire, and gun-stuffed vending machines all over (you’ll shoot your eye out, kid!). Even without some kind of cosmic catastrophe, Dinosaur Island is a quaint slice of hell. But there’s also a cosmic catastrophe. One foggy Christmas Eve, an interstellar object impacts the island and mysteriously transforms many of its residents into monsters, who then slaughter just about everyone else. If anything, Blue Stinger’s dour premise helps me appreciate that – no matter how stressful my own holiday season may be – it's not nearly as bad as the Christmas that laid slain almost the entire population of Dinosaur Island.
That’s uplifting, right? Maybe?
I won’t waste a ton of time recapping too much more of Blue Stinger’s batshit premise but I should at least mention its co-protagonists so it’s less random when I refer to them later. The first guy, Eliot G. Ballade, is on vacation from his coast guard rescue job and he’s enjoying some holiday R&R aboard a fishing boat…that is, until the ensuing chaos brings his vacation plans to an explosive halt. He soon washes ashore on nearby Dino Island, where he meets Dogs Bower, a grizzled supply ship captain, heavy firearms expert, and part-time mall Santa. He's a regular jack-of-all-trades, that dude. Anyway, Eliot and Dogs are fun. They're voiced by the same voice actors as Sonic (Ryan Drummond) and Eggman (Deem Bristow, R.I.P) in Sonic Adventure. They also make monsters go die with big guns and kung fu.
And that’s where our adventure begins.
Worst fishing trip ever, eh Eliot?
(Blue Stinger’s intro sequence is basically whatever the opposite of Sega Bass Fishing is)
For the game’s first hour or so, the holiday references are minimal as Eliot and Dogs wind their way through dull docks, corridors, and shuttle bays, bludgeoning the odd humanoid monster or mutant tentacle along the way. Things take a vibrant turn as the duo arrive at Hello Market, the first of Dino Island’s more dense and labyrinthian locales. Approaching the entrance, its holiday vibes hit swiftly and violently. Its audacious light display drenches us in a wall of neon snowmen, Christmas trees, and product sale banners. It leaves no doubt that ‘tis the season and there is no escape.
And as we’re bombarded by its visual spectacle, this song reverberates through our eardrums...
Forever.
Hello Market is equal parts dingy department store and Yuletide fever dream. Its Muzak is exuberant and infectious, it’s repetitive, and it’s been stuck in my head for over two decades. Inside Hello Market’s sanctum of consumption, its halls are decked with refrigeration units stocked with pet food, spoiled veggies, and discount mystery meats, plus the occasional spilled wine barrel and blood splatter for aesthetic flair. Anchoring the space are various departments to satiate every appetite: video rentals; toys; firearms; porn. All the food groups, basically.
The market corridors usher us around, sprinkling our journey with collectibles and obligatory fetch quests for the few surviving employees we encounter. There’s even a mandatory stamp collecting quest featuring the bizarre penguin characters from Pen Pen TriIcelon (a similarly underappreciated Dreamcast launch gem). In all the marketing case studies we covered in college, I can recall neither a more glorious nor ill-conceived cross-branding effort as this. Those NASCAR romance novels might be up there, though. I dunno.
For our purposes, Hello Market’s myriad vending machines headline its attractions. They dispense all the essentials: Hassy energy drinks, steak platters, napalm bombs…lightsabers. Their wares can turn Dogs into an OP motherfucker with boss-shredding Gatling guns and t-shirts which grant him a flurry of kung fu abilities. One of my favorites is Eliot’s stun rod, which isn’t the most powerful weapon but it emits dazzling electric bursts as it decapitates monsters, making spirits all the brighter. In the true spirit of Christmas, there is no end to Hello Market’s litany of destructive, consumer indulgences.
The holidays may be a time for giving but Blue Stinger understands that to satisfy our gluttony for chaos, we must feed its economic engine. And as the game’s primary currency, violence is both the ends and means. Dogs and Eliot begin by sleighing the hordes of monsters with whatever fists or fire axes they have on hand. As they do, those monsters pop like piñatas, gushing out coins which can be hoarded. Kill enough of the former – and accrue enough of the latter – and we can buy shiny new toys for more bombastic, gore-filled fun.
This cycle of consumerism-fueled violence both complements and clashes with the game's campy cinema influences and unsubtle holiday charm. It is a potent cocktail that highlights everything Blue Stinger is about, both as a game and as a critique of corporate hubris and our commodification of Christmas and everything else. As a game, I think more people have come around to the interpretation that Blue Stinger as more of an eccentric, holly jolly beat ‘em up than anything resembling the Resident Evil or Silent Hill games it was lazily judged against in 1999. Scarcity is a crucial pillar of any survival horror game, and Blue Stinger’s deliberate lack of it guarantees its experience is anything but. Granted, there are plenty obvious reasons why we pegged it so, and despite its tepid critical reception, those comparisons ultimately worked to its benefit. Blue Stinger apparently sold a half million copies, making it a relative commercial success for the time.
This time of year, I have a blast on my holiday excursions to Dinosaur Island. Moseying around Hello Market and the island's other festive locales, Blue Stinger surrounds us with all the holiday’s most superficial joys and excesses. Then it invites us to set them on fire. It is true we can’t consume our way out of problems that overconsumption creates in the first place, but Blue Stinger lets us imagine we can brute force our way to holiday cheer. At the very least, there's a magical catharsis in punching, kicking, shooting, piercing, grinding, bashing, burning, and blasting through the Christmas blues.
Speaking of burning, I just realized Blue Stinger now goes for up to 50 bucks on eBay as I write this. Jeezus. I mean, please do play it if you haven’t already, but like…maybe steal it, you know?
And definitely play the Japanese version. They're all great but that one is the best.
Merry Christmas, holy shit – where’s the Tylenol?
If you also love Blue Stinger like I do, I also recommend checking out these excellent Blue Stinger-related interviews and articles:
Blue Stinger – 1998 Developer Interview | Shmuplations (Archived)
Up Close and Personal with Shinya Nishigaki | Official Dreamcast Magazine (US) Issue #0:
My apologies for the image quality on those ODCM pics. I just took them hastily with my phone right before posting this article. Maybe I’ll scan them properly at some point when I’m not running late for holiday festivities.
Rest in peace, Nishigaki-san!
And if, for some reason, you’ve gotten this far into to the post and you don’t care for Blue Stinger but you also need a boost to help get into the Christmas spirit, here are some of those absurdly festive Sonic pics from Sega’s old calendars and such (also featured in Sonic Jam and the Sonic screen saver gallery):
Cheers!
- Brian | @VirtuaSchlub
I love Blue Stinger so here are some pics of Eliot scratching his head while looking at sciency things. #Dreamcast@TheDCJunkyardpic.twitter.com/OSPx5auplH
— 🎵 Here Comes Santa Dogs 🎵 (@VirtuaSchlub) September 24, 2019