Red Valkyrie and Green Elf Need Christmas Badly

Live-action parodies of video game tend to go for easy, popular targets like Mario and Grand Theft Auto, even when it comes to Christmas-themed humor. So I applaud Co-Op Life for reaching deeper into the game industry’s nostalgic reserves and pulling out Gauntlet, Atari’s classic four-player arcade dungeon-hacker.

Gauntlet‘s still popular enough that any arcade rat of the 1980s (or even fans of the later, uglier Gauntlet Legends) will recognize everything that transpires in this holiday invasion by labyrinth-dwelling beasties. Of course, an actual arcade Gauntlet session would start with arguments over who would play the fast-but-fragile elf archer. And it would end with shoving matches and profanity as you and three friends crowded up against a four-joystick console that just wasn’t large enough.