New Game Releases 11/19/24 – 11/25/24

Top Releases:

Hello everybody, it’s Tuesday and that means its time for another edition of New Game Releases! Well, the holiday season is fast approaching, which means that the new release season is coming to an end. 2024 has had its share of great games but I think we’re still stuck in a kind of dead zone for new releases due to the 2020 pandemic and, if you can believe it or not, we’re nearing the end of the current gen console cycle.

The final weeks of 2024 are also not helped by Ubisoft’s decision to delay Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, a title that I’m sure many thought would be the biggest game of the holiday, to next February (Valentine’s Day, baby). The only major title left this year is Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game, but even that won’t be out for another couple of weeks. To fill the current void we’ve got a string of B-tier games to look forward to this week. What are they, you might ask? Well, just look below.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl (PC/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 20^th

Developed by: GSC Game World
Published by: GSC Game World

Kicking things off, we have the kings of B-tier, Xbox, with two console exclusives. First up is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, the long delayed fourth entry in the series that was supposed to come out all the way back in 2012. Like its predecessors, Heart of Chornobyl is a first person, survival horror game, with a heavy emphasis on survival. Players will need to make sure they just as much food as they do bullets if they expect to live.

If surviving in a bleak, terrifying world isn’t your thing, then check out Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and just, like, fly stuff. While you can, of course, free roam around the planet in over 100 different kinds of flying machines, there is also a career mode in the game which let you live your fantasies of putting out forest fires, conducting harrowing search & rescue missions, crop dusting (with a plane, not the farting thing), shipping cargo, skydiving, and more.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (PC/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 19^th

Developed by: Asobo Studio
Published by: Xbox Game Studio

Folks, that’s pretty much it for the big, new stuff. Are you excited? In smaller games, if you were a kid during the Wii era then you might be excited to see that two of the MySims games have been remastered for the Switch in the Cozy Bundle. It contains the original MySims and its 2008 sequel, MySims Kingdom. Similar to the main Sims franchise, players will rebuild a run down town, attracting residents and doing tasks for them. The original Wii releases were not very well received by critics, but if you were ten years old when these came out then I’m sure the rose colored glasses make this an attractive release.

Rounding things out, we’ve got the Japanese game Divine Dynamo Flamefrit. This is a top down, Zelda-esque adventure game that also doubles as a first person, giant robot fighting game. It looks very cool, BUT, does it control well? Finally, we’ve got the side scrolling hack & slash game Spirit Mancer where you must capture spirits and then summon them to help you fight off evil demons (as opposed to those good demons…). It looks cool, might be a little hidden gem, definitely one to keep an eye on.

MySims: Cozy Bundle (Switch) – Releases Nov. 19^th

Developed by: Visceral Games
Published by: Electronic Arts

Divine Dynamo Flamefrit (PC/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 20^th

Developed by: INTI Creates
Published by: INTI Creates

Spirit Mancer (PC/PS5/Switch) – Releases Nov. 22^nd

Developed by: Sunny Syrup Studio
Published by: Dear Villagers/OKJOY

Everything else:

This week feels a lot like an end of Spring, start of Summer week. Not a whole lot to get excited about, but there are a TON of smaller titles to sink your teeth into. There’s the cool lookin tactical game Toads of the Bayou, the open world gardening adventure game Towers of Aghasba, and two huge ports, with Stray coming to the Switch and Genshin Impact hitting Xbox Series X|S.

• Stray (Switch) – Releases Nov. 19^th
• Toads of the Bayou (PC) – Releases Nov. 19^th
• Towers of Aghasba (PC/PS5) – Releases Nov. 19^th
• Genshin Impact (Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 20^th
• AMEDAMA (PC/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 21^st
• G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra (PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 21^st
• Cardaire (PC) – Releases Nov. 22^nd

Notable Releases from 10, 20, and 30 years ago:

In notable releases, 2014 gave us the fourth entry in the Smash Bros. franchise, the matter-of-factly named Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Why the strange addition of “…for Wii U“? Well, that’s because Nintendo also release a version of the game for the 3DS called, you guessed it, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS (which released a month and a half earlier).

The core gameplay of the series didn’t change much in this iteration, though it did introduce a few new features that would carry over to its Switch follow-up, including eight player battles, Amiibo support, using custom Mii’s as fighters, and DLC which added new characters, stages, and costumes for the Mii fighters.

Smash for Wii U had, at the time, the largest roster of any of the titles in the franchise, a whopping 51 (later 58 with DLC). 17 new fighters were added to the game, including Wii Fit Trainer, Villager from Animal Crossing, Little Mac from Punch-Out!!, and the dog and duck from Duck Hunt, as well as new third party characters, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Bayonetta, Ryu from Street Fighter, and Cloud Strife. Characters from previous games that were not included were Ice Climbers, Pokémon Trainer (though Charizard was available), Pichu, Snake from Metal Gear, and Wolf from Star Fox.

Reception to Smash for Wii U was overwhelmingly positive, with critics calling it an improvement over the 3DS version and was praised as the best Smash game since Melee on the GameCube. The game was, however, knocked for its online play, which critics found to be sluggish and unresponsive, with constant stuttering and frame rate drops. Despite the praise from critics for the Wii U version, Smash for 3DS outsold Smash for Wii U by almost double (9.64 million to 5.3 million).

While Smash for Wii U and 3DS didn’t get nominated for a ton of awards, it did win all of the major awards it was nominated for, Best Fighting Game and the very first Game Awards, Fighting Game of the Year at the DICE Awards, Best Video Game at the People’s Choice Awards (shared with the 3DS version), and Game of the Year from USA Today (the 3DS version also won Handheld Game of the Year from the DICE Awards).

While the title is locked to the Wii U and 3DS forever, 2018’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate contains every fighter and stage from across the entire series, making this version pretty much obsolete. While there are still some people who like the way Melee or Brawl play, Ultimate is the top dog (IMO), and has fully replaced every previous entry. If you haven’t played Smash Bros. before, well, that’s kind of weird, but you should totally check it out. You can make Mario punch Sonic in the face! Only 90’s kids will get this reference.

From 2004, we’ve got a game that is regarded as one of the greatest of all time, Half-Life 2 from developer Valve. Named “Game of the Year” by 39 different outlets and awards shows, it is by far the most decorated game of 2004. Picking up some 20 years after the events of Half-Life, protagonist Gordon Freeman is released from a stasis pod by the enigmatic G-Man and must reach a scientist named Dr. Isaac Kleiner. Along the way, Gordon is captured by the Combine, an alien race that has taken over Earth, but is soon rescued by a young woman named Alyx Vance, who joins Gordon on his mission.

Like its predecessor, Half-Life 2 is a first person shooter with strong narrative elements told in the game engine through scripted sequences. Speaking of engines, Half-Life 2 was Valve’s first major release to use their brand new Source engine (though it had been used on two multiplayer games earlier) and showcased everything it could do, including incredible physics via the all new gravity gun. This weapon would allow players to pick up just about any object in the game and propel it forward as a projectile, and featured heavily in many of the game’s environmental puzzles.

I could keep going on and on about the history of Half-Life 2, but the production company Noclip recently made a fantastic documentary about the game, so I recommend checking that out, it’s posted above. Half-Life 2 would eventually see a console release in 2005 on the original Xbox, followed by ports to the Xbox 360 and PS3 as part of The Orange Box bundle. Half-Life 2 is, without a doubt, one of the greatest video games ever created. While Valve has stepped away from game development in favor of running their digital store, Steam, there has to be a little part of them in there, somewhere, that wants to see a Half-Life 3 come out. The problem, though, is how do you live up to the greatness of Half-Life 2?

Moving to 1994, we’ve got another title that is considered one of the greatest of all time, Rare’s Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo. Feeling pressure from Sega in the platforming genre particularly from, oddly enough, their 1993 title Aladdin, Nintendo wanted to get back on top with something big and bold.

Having a good relationship with the studio Rare, who had just purchased a the tech company Silicon Graphics, Nintendo asked the British studio to revive the dormant Donkey Kong franchise and bring it into the modern age. Donkey Kong Country was a wholly developed idea from the Rare studio, who wanted to make a game that was very similar in design to Super Mario Bros. 3, easily accessible to all player levels, but with challenges and secrets in mind to appease hard core gamers.

The team would come up with ideas for levels and draw them on Post-It Notes, allowing them to easily move set pieces around before locking them down for programming. Rare had almost total control over Donkey Kong Country, aside from a few notes left by Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto (including DK’s red tie). To pay homage to DK’s roots, barrels became a large focal point in the game, with players able to throw them, smash them, and be launched out of them.

While I’m not going to get into a long, drawn out debate over who Donkey Kong is in this game, the idea is that DK is the son of Donkey Kong Jr., making the original Donkey Kong his grandfather, who appears in Donkey Kong Country as Cranky Kong. To flesh out DK’s world, Rare was able to come up with multiple new characters, the aforementioned Cranky Kong, Candy Kong (DK’s girlfriend, I think?), Funky Kong, DK’s bodacious friend, and a second playable character, Diddy Kong who was almost named “Dinky”.

Rare had intended Diddy Kong to be DK jr., but due to an insistence by Nintendo for the second playable character to be lighter and more agile, his resemblance to the original Donkey Kong Jr. was lost. Nintendo asked that the character either be renamed or made to look and play more similarly to the original DK Jr.; Rare opted to rename him.

While 3D video games were not new in 1994, their use on consoles was still very limited. In order to maintain the 3D look of its character models, Rare was able to use a technique called pre-rendering, in which objects and backgrounds are not rendered in real time, instead the game engine pulls those pre-rendered items into the game as assets, requiring far less computing power to do so.

This helped Donkey Kong Country to achieve its unique 3D look, allowing it to appear far more advanced than other video games on the market. The use of pre-rendering in video games only increased after this, where you would find it in titles like Resident Evil and Vectorman. I could go on and on about how great and influential Donkey Kong Country is, and I haven’t even scratched the surface on the music and the animal companions, and the mine cart stages, man.

It was truly amazing what Rare could do on the SNES with Donkey Kong Country, and players awarded their achievement by making DKC the third best selling game on the SNES. Two sequels would arrive on the Super Nintendo, followed by a 3D title on the N64. The Series went dormant for several years, finally re-emerging on the Wii in 2010. You can easily play Donkey Kong Country today on the Switch through their online service, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Jumping away from games and into the world of movies, 2014 saw the release of the penultimate film in The Hunger Games franchise, Mockingjay – Part 1. Following in the footsteps of the Harry Potter franchise, producers took the final book in The Hunger Games series and broke it up into two parts, necessary or not. While the film was a major financial success, the decision to split the final film into two parts didn’t sit well with critics, feeling that the movie was poorly paced and padded with filler in order to justify the split. Audiences were also displeased with the split, failing to return to theatres a year later for Part 2, making it the lowest grossing film in the franchise.

2004’s notable film is the action/adventure flick National Treasure starring the always entertaining Nicholas Cage. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by John Turteltaub, National Treasure tells the story of an infamous American historian and treasure hunter named Ben Gates (played by Cage) as he and his companion (played by The Hangover’s Justin Bartha) try to steal the Declaration of Independence before rival treasure hunters can (with the lead baddie played by Sean Bean).

The film was a major financial success for distributor Disney, beating out The Spongbob Squarepants Movie for the top spot at the box office. Critics were mixed in their reviews, praising the action and its lighthearted, family adventure vibe, but criticizing the weak plot and outlandish premise. Roger Ebert was incredibly dismissive of the film, saying that if you gave the script to the Monty Python comedy troupe they could remake the film, line for line, and put out one of the best comedies of all time. So…it’s good? I mean, I liked it. There was a sequel in 2007 and a recent limited series on Disney+; check them out.

From 1994 we have one of the biggest crossovers in all of science fiction, Star Trek Generations. While the film is, ostensibly, the first in the franchise to focus on the crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation, it acts as a bridge to the older films, with crew members from the original Star Trek having roles as well. While the two crews never meet, the big draw of the film was seeing Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Captain James T. Kirk interact with one another and team up to take on the film’s villain.

In order to bring the two captain’s together, a time travelly, sci-fi mumbo jumbo plot was invented in which this…thing floating in space can absorb you and keep you in a kind of suspended animation, allowing you to live out your most desired fantasies. With this energy ribbon thing grabbing Kirk in the past, it re-appears in the time of the TNG crew, allowing Picard to enter the void, meet Kirk, and pull him back into reality…where he almost immediately dies, so, you know. Thanks, I guess? Anyway, I loved this movie when I was a kid and it contains one of my all-time favorite uses of the word “Shit” in a movie, as the android Data realizes that the ship is about to crash land.

In notable albums, 2014 gave us Hood Billionaire from rapper Rick Ross. While not a hit with critics, the public dug the album well enough to get it to debut in 6th place on the Billboard Top 200, though sales were down over 50% from his previous release, Mastermind, which also came out in 2014. 2004 gave us the U2 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb which had us all screaming “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!!!!” along with Bono and the hit single “Vertigo”.

The album was a critical and commercial success, spawning a massive worldwide tour, and earning 8 Grammy wins on 8 nominations, a clean sweep, for Best Rock Song (Vertigo), Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Short Form Music Video (also Vertigo), Song of the Year (Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own), Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Rock Song (City of Blinding Lights), Best Rock Album, Album of the Year, and Producer of the Year (Non Classical). Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!!!!

Finally, from 1994, we have another band that the dad’s across America probably love as much as U2, Pearl Jam, and their experimental album Vitalogy. Considered a turning point for Pearl Jam, Vitalogy saw the band move away from the early 90’s grunge sound and adopt a more “punk” and “hardcore” vibe, while throwing in soft ballads and other various musical styles.

The album was highly anticipated when it released, where it would sell a tremendous amount of copies, eventually going on to be 5x Platinum, becoming the second fastest selling CD in history behind, well, themselves, 1993’s Vs. It also, for two decades, held the record for most vinyl albums sold in a single week, losing to Jack White’s 2014 album Lazaretto.

Vitalogy came at a time when Pearl Jam were becoming far more outspoken politically, and was during a time where the group, and particularly front man Eddie Vedder, were in a feud with Ticketmaster and their shitty sales practices (which we’ve totally fixed, right? RIGHT?). The albums first single, “Spin the Black Circle” was their first song to enter the Billboard Hot 100 (which, what?!), peaking at 18. Subsequent singles didn’t fare as well and the album, despite being such a commercial success, kind of saw some backlash for its persistent negativity and downer vibe.

Vitalogy was nominated for three Grammys, Album of the Year & Best Rock Album, and winning Best Hard Rock Performance (Spin the Black Circle). The album was been a mixed bag with critics over the years with some calling it their best, others saying it was their worst. Rolling Stone magazine featured the album in its Top 500 list in 2004 and 2012, but dropped it in 2020. It is often brought up in discussions when calling out the best albums of 1994, a year filled with just so many memorable albums. I’m curious what 1995 will bring, because how do top the kind of year in music that 1994 gave us?

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (Wii U) – Released Nov. 21^st, 2014

Half-Life 2 (PC) – Released Nov. 16^th, 2004

Donkey Kong Country (SNES) – Released Nov. 21^st, 1994

---

If you like what I’m doing here consider supporting me on Patreon. You can also find me on Blue Sky, because I’m a liberal to moderate Democrat, and the decree has been cast to move over there. I eat a lot of corndogs.