New Game Releases Nov. 26th – Dec. 2nd

Top Releases:

It’s Thanksgiving this week in the U.S., a time when families get together, stuff their faces, watch football, then use the tackling skills they saw on TV to make sure they get the Black Friday laptop before everyone else.

Seeing as how most of us will be busy this week, our slate of new releases isn’t what you would probably consider the biggest titles of the year. Does that mean they’re bad games? No, of course not, any and all of these could be incredible, it’s up to us to find out.

Neon Blood (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 26^th

Developed by: ChaoticBrain Studios
Published by: Meridiem Games/Astrolabe Games

Starting things off, we’ve got the action RPG Neon Blood from developer ChaoticBrain Studios who hail from Spain. This 2D/3D cyberpunk game has dazzling graphics and has gotten some pre-release buzz. Hopefully the gameplay matches the incredible visuals, we could have a real contender here for November’s Hidden Gem.

If you’re looking for something a little cozier, developer Sumo Digital’s Critter Café is here to scratch your wholesome itch. Build and design your very own café where you’ll serve customers and take care of adorable critters. With a huge island to explore, players should expect over 12 hours of delightful content.

Critter Café (PC/Switch) – Releases Nov. 26^th

Developed by: Sumo Digital
Published by: Secret Mode

Thinking of picking up a VR headset on Black Friday? If so, you might want to check out Trombone Champ: Unflattened, a VR version of the ridiculous rhythm game Trombone Champ. With 20 horns to unlock, 50 trading cards to collect, and 50 songs to play, this should certainly keep you occupied on Thanksgiving when Uncle Ted starts talking about how the DEI Mafia are infiltrating PepsiCo in an attempt to make our children transgender with chemicals they put into La Croix.

Another way to shut Uncle Ted up might be with the radical sounds of motorbikes when you pop in MXGP 24: The Official Game. Everyone knows that your most hardcore, rightwing family member can’t get enough of motocross, that’s why they wear that Fox branded baseball cap. No, not Fox the news organization, Fox the motorcycle apparel/gear brand. What, you haven’t heard of it? Pfft, maybe stop drinking that cage free, soy milk latte served in a compostable cup and pay attention to REAL AMERICA for once.

Trombone Champ: Unflattened (PC/PSVR 2) – Releases Nov. 26^th

Developed by: Flat2VR Studios/Holy Wow Studios
Published by: Flat2VR Studios

MXGP 24: The Official Game (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 28^th

Developed by: KT Racing
Published by: Nacon

Everything else:

In any other week, all of the games coming out would probably be here in the “Everything Else” section. Again, that doesn’t mean any of these are bad, they’re just not, you know…exciting.

In any case, be sure to check these games out, there could be some good stuff here. A few of these are actually PC games being ported to consoles; Nine Sols (which I think is getting good reviews), Beyond Hanwell (a spooky game), and Ravenswatch (a rogue-like action game from the creators of Curse of the Dead Gods).

• Nine Sols (PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 26^th
• Steam Prison -Beyond the Steam- (PC/Switch) – Releases Nov. 27^th
• Beyond Hanwell (PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 28^th
• Glitch Hero (PC/Switch/Xbox One) – Releases Nov. 28^th
• Ravenswatch (PS4/PS5/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 21^st
• Snow Bros. Wonderland (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch) – Releases Nov. 28^th

Notable Releases from 10, 20, and 30 (and sometimes 40) years ago:

We’ve got four titles to talk about this week so let’s not waste time, shall we?

2014’s notable title is the Ubisoft open world racing game The Crew which, as of this writing, is no longer playable in any form. The Crew was an always-online game, meaning that it not only required a connection to the internet to play, you could only play it as long as Ubisoft decided to keep its servers up and running, which turned out to be a little less than ten years.

Set in the United States, The Crew allowed players to drive from one coast to the other, taking on missions and tasks from multiple cities along the way. There is a story mode that players can follow, taking on the role of Alex Taylor, a low level crook who is framed for murder and sent to jail. While serving time, Alex is approached by the FBI to help them take down the man responsible for the murder of Alex’s brother, the same guy who framed him. It’s all very cool and hip and swag.

It’s a shame that such a gripping and well written story (/sarcasm) is no longer available to play because, like I said, The Crew has been completely shut down after less than ten years on the market. I mean, I know that I never play games over ten years old, they’re just that, OLD. Who wants to deal with that? You can, however, play the game’s two sequels, The Crew 2 and The Crew: Motorfest, and don’t worry, these always-online games will never shut down, honest! They promise!

Moving on to 2004, we’ve got a game that you can still actually play, Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The third entry in the MGS series, and the fifth overall, Snake Eater takes players back in time to the year 1964 where they take on the role of Naked Snake, the man who will eventually become Big Boss. Tasked with rescuing Soviet scientist named Sokolov, Snake must infiltrate a Russian military base in the south eastern USSR and learn all he can about a new weapon the scientist is building, Metal Gear the Shagohod.

While previous Metal Gear games had players hiding behind crates, corners, lockers, inside boxes, etc., Snake Eater’s out door locations made sneaking around much harder. Players would have to rely on various camouflage patterns to try and blend into their surroundings in the hopes that enemy soldiers would not catch them. Unlike previous Metal Gear games, players would also have to contend with wild animals, killing them and, on occasion, eating them.

For Snake Eater, Kojima had initially wanted the game to be developed for the PS3 but Sony was taking longer than expected to release their new system, forcing the team to create the game on PS2 hardware. Kojima experimented a lot with boss fights in the game, wanting to give them each a unique feeling and to do things that no one had ever done before. This is most noticeable when players fight the boss The End, a sniper that can hide over large portions of the game’s map. With The End being very difficult to find, the battle can take several hours to finish. There are two way to avoid this fight, though, with players able to kill The End earlier in the game or, bizarrely, by waiting one week (or setting the PS2 internal clock ahead one week) causing The End to die of old age.

The critical reception to Snake Eater was overwhelmingly positive, with many calling it one of the best games of the year. During the awards season it would be in the running for Game of the Year at the Spike VGA’s, and Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year at the DICE Awards, it would lose both of those to GTA: San Andreas. Commercially, the game was a hit with over 4 million copies sold, but it fell short of the 7 million that MGS 2: Sons of Liberty sold.

An updated version of the MGS 3, called Subsistence, would arrive in 2006 which allowed for greater control of the game’s camera and included ports of the original Metal Gear games released on the MSX, with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake receiving its first Western release. A remake of Snake Eater, called Delta, is currently in development and was supposed to come out in 2024 but has been pushed to 2025. Snake Eater is one of the all-time greats, folks, a true masterpiece that is well worth your time.

From 1994, we’ve got King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride from famed developer Roberta Williams and the team at Sierra On-Line. While KQVII continued the point & click gameplay of its predecessors, the clicking of objects was streamlined with the game automatically taking the most obvious action, i.e., “Talk” when clicking on a person, “Use” if clicking on a door, “Take” if clicking on an object, etc.

With the gameplay streamlined, KQVII also differed from its predecessors in a few other ways, such as having two protagonists, Queen Valanice and Princess Rosella, trading pixel graphics for fully animated characters and backgrounds, giving the game a “Disney” look, separating the game into chapters (six in total), and having two different endings that were dependent on various choices you make throughout the game.

The Disney inspiration was heavily present on the development of KQVII, particularly from their recent mega hit Aladdin, whose vibrant colors inspired the Sierra animators to make their game just as bright. The game’s backgrounds were hand-drawn and digitized, as were the game’s character sprites. It was a painstaking process and, due to the high number of characters and backgrounds, large chunks of the game’s final script had to be removed in order to fit it all onto one CD-ROM.

Reception to King’s Quest VII was mostly positive, but the game’s graphics divided critics into two camps. There was one set of critics who found the animation style to be marvelous and revolutionary, welcoming the “Disney style” to the King’s Quest series. The other group of critics found the new graphics to be completely out of the ordinary for the King’s Quest series and lamented the “Disney-ification” of the long running franchise. One thing that most critics agreed on, however, was the game was far easier then previous entries, with puzzles being much easier to solve than before.

King’s Quest VII wasn’t a huge game, overall, in 1994, though it was one of the more popular PC games of the year, selling almost half a million copies. It would be nominated for “Adventure Game of the Year” by Computer Gaming World but would lose to an EA published game called Relentless: Twinsen’s Adventure (known as Little Big Adventure in Europe). KQVII has never been ported and is only available on PC. You can, thankfully, still get a copy of the game through Steam and GOG.

Going back to 1984, we’ve got another Sierra On-Line adventure game, Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood. This family friendly adventure title was designed by a brand new Sierra developer named Al Lowe who would, ironically, go on to create the not so family friendly adventure game Leisure Suit Larry.

The game play in Winnie the Pooh is relatively simple, as you might expect from a children’s game. Players must travel around the Hundred Acre Wood looking for ten objects and returning them to their rightful owner. The location of the objects is different every time you start the game, and items can be shuffled around if players encounter Tigger or a blustery wind.

After Pooh, Al Lowe would work on two other Disney titles for Sierra based on Donald Duck and the film The Black Cauldron, before hitting it big with the raunchy Leisure Suit Larry in 1987 (at the age of 41, so, you know, don’t give up on your dreams). While it’s probably not a “must play”, Winnie the Pooh is available for download from Lowe’s personal website (along with a few other classic Sierra titles) so give it a try.

In notable films, 2014 saw the release of the horror film The Babadook, a terrifying film about a single mother and her son being menaced by a strange figure known as The Babadook. While I enjoyed this movie quite a lot, it does have one of my least favorite film tropes, the “crazy woman who keeps asking for help but no one believes them because they’re crazy and they assume all of the bad things happening to them are because they’re crazy” trope. Oh, and the kid screams way too much in this movie, like, can The Babadook just eat this little fucker already?

From 2004 we’ve got one of my favorite Christmas movies, Christmas with the Kranks. Based on the John Grisham novel Skipping Christmas, this delightful film feels straight out of the 80’s with its cast of bizarre characters and quasi-conservative themes. This movie is complete “comfort food” for me, I can watch it again and again, enjoying every stupid fucking minute of it. I love Christmas with the Kranks so much that I even own it on UMD.

1994 gave us another wacky Christmas movie, Trapped in Paradise, where Nicholas Cage, Jon Lovitz, and Dana Carvey play a trio of bumbling crooks who are also brothers. After robbing a bank, the three brothers get stuck in a snow storm as they try to make their getaway, trapped and looking for shelter in the town they just robbed. From there, holiday magic arrives and the brothers find their hearts growing three sizes, yadda, yadda, yadda. This was one of the most hated movies of 1994, with many critics putting it on their “Worst of” lists. According to Wikipedia, it has gained a cult following over the years. I remember watching this on VHS back in the 90’s and felt it was “fine”. I should give it another look this holiday season.

1984’s notable film is the Eddie Murphy classic Beverly Hills Cop. After strong turns in 48 Hours and Trading Places, in which Murphy shared billing with another actor, Beverly Hills Cop allowed the comedian to lead his own film, with other actors supporting his role. The film introduced the world to the wisecracking Axel Foley, a Detroit cop who heads to Beverly Hills to help catch the person that murdered his best friend.

The film was a smash success, taking in $234 million by the end of its theatrical run, making Beverly Hill Cop the highest grossing R-rated film of all time (adjusted for inflation). The film was mostly a hit with critics, though it did have its detractors who felt the film was far too loud & flashy, due in part to Murphy’s obnoxious character and the film’s driving soundtrack.

That soundtrack, by the way, was a smash hit as well, lighting up the Billboard charts with three Top 10 original hits, “Axel F” (the movie’s main theme), “The Heat is On” by Glenn Frey, “Neutron Dance” by The Pointer Sisters, as well as two already established Patti LaBelle hits “New Attitude” and “Stir It Up”. The soundtrack would win the Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack Album, and the films composer, Harold Faltermeyer, would be nominated for a BAFTA in the Best Score category. The soundtrack also featured a Danny Elfman song that we’ll talk about in a few paragraphs…

On to notable albums, 2014 gave us Talking Is Hard by the band Walk the Moon. I am not a young person now, nor was I much of one in 2014, so this album completely went over my head. It did, however, spawn one of the most annoying songs I’ve ever heard, one that seemed to appear in every fucking TV show, commercial, and movie for the rest of the decade, “Shut up and Dance”. I hate this song with every fiber in my body, ya know, like, it’s no Christmas with the Kranks, okay?

2004’s notable album is Breakaway, the second from American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson who was quickly starting to put that title behind her. The album’s first single was “Breakaway”, a power ballad meant for Avril Lavigne, but was scratched so to not sully her hardcore punk rock image. While the song did well, it was the albums second single “Since U Been Gone” which shot the album into the stratosphere.

Based on the success of that single, Breakaway won two Grammy’s, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (Since U Been Gone) and Best Pop Vocal Album. Clarkson was able to shed her reputation as the “game show singer” after this, leading her to a now twenty plus year career in music, film, and television. Not bad!

From 1994, we’ve got Mary J. Blige’s second album My Life. Produced by the now disgraced Sean “Diddy” Combs, My Life was a major commercial success, peaking at number 7 on the Billboard Top 200. It has been named one of the greatest albums of all time by retrospective critics, finding itself listed at #126 in Rolling Stone’s Top 200 Albums of All Time.

My Life had five singles, with the most notable being “I’m Going Down”, a cover of the 1976 song by Rose Royce, which was featured in the film Car Wash. The song was the most commercially successful, peaking at number 22 on the Billboard Top 100, but none of the singles, or the album, garnered any Grammy nominations.

Finally, from 1984, we’ve got Danny Elfman’s debut album So-Lo which is, for all intents and purposes, the fourth Oingo Boingo album (let’s call it their third and a half). After taking a break from Oingo Boingo, Elfman found himself being courted by MCA records to record a solo album. Not wanting to break up the band, Elfman agreed under the condition that while this album would be attributed to Elfman, any future albums with MCA would be under the Oingo Boingo name.

Seeing this as an opportunity to experiment, Elfman found himself writing slower paced songs, a departure from the fast, punk rock, new wave style of Oingo Boingo’s earlier albums. Enlisting the other member of Oingo Boingo to record on the album (as well as some contributions from a then unknown bass player named Flea), Elfman and his bandmates pumped out nine great tunes.

The biggest of these was the album’s opening track, “Gratitude”, a mid-tempo rock song that featured the signature Oingo Boingo sound, but with a bit more polish and grit, if that makes sense. A shorter version of the song would be featured in our 1984 notable film, Beverly Hills Cop, where it was also part of its Grammy winning soundtrack album.

I can’t find a lot of information on how well sales went for the album, but my guess is that it didn’t do very well. Oingo Boingo were dropped from their previous label, I.R.S., due to poor sales and it’s likely MCA were hoping that Elfman’s name alone could push sales. After the release of So-Lo, Oingo Boingo would be tapped by director John Hughes to write a song for his upcoming film Weird Science and the rest, they say, is history.

The Crew (PC/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One) – Released Dec. 2^nd, 2014: Wiki Link

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2) – Released Nov. 17^th, 2004: Wiki Link

King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride (PC) – Released Nov. 22^nd, 1994: Wiki Link

Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood (PC) – Released Dec. 1984: Wiki Link

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