Game Grumps are an American Let’s Play channel. It was established on July 18th 2012 by co-hosts and co-founders Arin Hanson (also known as Egoraptor) and Jon Jafari (also known as JonTron). In June 2013, Jon left the channel, and was replaced as co-host by Dan Avidan (also known as Danny Sexbang).
Starting from December 22nd 2013, the year that Dan took over as ‘Not So Grump’, the Game Grumps started an annual Christmas-themed spin-off of Game Grumps called Jingle Grumps where they would play games with a Christmas focus, or ones which broadly fit a winter theme. So that brings us to why we are here today, check out my Top 10 list of my favourite Jingle Grumps episodes below.
1. Christmas Adventure: Candy Storm (6 episodes)
Has so many funny moments that I honestly can’t think of a time where I’ve put it on and haven’t laughed. I mean despite the confusing premise of local witches turning your car into candy and endless puzzles and item finding, it easily stands out as one of my favourite playthroughs not just for Jingle Grumps but ever.
2. Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek (6 episodes)
So this made the move from one of the main Game Grumps Top 10’s to one of the holiday themed ones, and it did so because it was and remains one of my all time favourite Game Grumps playthroughs. It features one of the most quoted Game Grumps moments of all time, namely the ‘Fired and Missed’ line, speaking of Game Grumps moments, feel free to check out my Top 10 list on just that by clicking here. I’m super sad that they didn’t end up playing more of this game because honestly not only is it hilarious, but also it has a nice chill vibe that means I’ll often have it on in the background when I’m feeling a bit under the weather. In fact I am such a big fan of this playthrough that when I first finished watching it, I was so eager to find out what happened next that I ended up buying the game for myself, so yeah the Game Grumps are now responsible for my obsession with Nancy Drew.
Is a great playthrough of a wonderful game (and you can check out my review of it here) and Arin is familiar with the mechanics and picks them up really well due to the similarity to Minecraft. I’m just sad they didn’t keep playing because it has a really engaging story that I’m sure they both would have loved, but the episodes we did get are relaxing, and are just nice to watch.
4. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (23 episodes)
Is an amazing game, and clearly, since they kept playing it past Christmas, the Grumps had a great time playing it as well. It’s dark and spooky, so we get plenty of laughs from Dan whose aversion to horror is well known. But also it’s just an interesting game to watch, and Arin and Dan do a surprisingly good job of navigating their way through it, even taking into account they utilised a walkthrough at various points.
5. WrestleMania X8 (2 episodes)
Is absolutely ridiculous, who would have thought a playthrough with so much time devoted to character creation would be so funny, but the Grumps manage to deliver something that never fails to make me laugh. It’s one of those ones that are just so dumb and unrehearsed that you really do just feel like you’re in the room watching friends play a video game.
6. Coldstone Creamery: Scoop It Up
Is one of those playthroughs where the gameplay is relatively simple, and so instead the enjoyment comes from Arin and Dan’s chemistry, and it really works, because this episode is just really fun to watch, but it’s also chill enough (and pardon the pun) to be relaxing background noise.
Is a fantastic episode, and it’s the one that I affectionately call ‘The One with all the Lies’, and basically during the episode Dan and Arin are so bored and underwhelmed by the actual plot and gameplay of the game and it’s pre-rendered cutscenes that they spend almost no time playing the game and instead just begin to make up a series of vaguely interconnected fabricated ‘facts’ and make requests for gratuitous wikipedia graffiti to back up their anecdotes about the life of Leonardo Da Vinci, which include that he is in fact a T-Rex, who invented Facebook, sells hats and played Bass for Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock.
This feels like a Christmas game, the same way Die Hard feels like a Christmas movie, but despite that it was actually really enjoyable to watch, and has Arin and Dan trying to reclaim to the word ‘gay’ to mean something positive, rather than the way it is often colloquially used today. Overall it’s a pretty decent episode.
It’s a visual novel and it’s Christmas themed, it’s fairly interesting and Dan and Arin clearly have fun with it, despite the localisation issues and the fairly limited variations in backgrounds and characters, but this gets on the list because it confirms that Dan is a big ol’ furry.
10. Dead Rising 4
Is a fairly short playthrough, but it revisits Frank from Dead Rising, and as anyone who has read my Top 10 Ghoul Grumps playthroughs can attest to, I loved Game Grumps playing that game. It had a nice nostalgia feel, both for the original game and the original playthrough and it also was just overall enjoyable to watch. That being said, the game itself felt a little lacking, and didn’t really feel like a Dead Rising game, something this video by Crowbcat lays out clearly.
Honourable Mentions go to Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Snow Bros and Hello Kitty Seasons which I also really enjoyed but didn’t quite make the list.
So that was my Top 10 Jingle Grumps Playthroughs and if you want to check them out for yourself and maybe find some favourites of you own then head on over to YouTube and check out the main channel, Game Grumps, you can also check out their new channel, The Grumps and their misfit channel for random things, Grump Out for more content.
Lastly, make sure and follow the Game Grumps on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest updates.
Also if you’re in the mood for Game Grumps but have no idea what to watch then use this neat little site, RandomGrump, which you can use to find a completely random episode or series from the backlog of Grumps content.
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