Top Releases:

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Dec. 9th) – PC/Series X|S
• Marvel Rivals (Dec. 6th) – PC/PS5/Series X|S
• Fantasian: Neo Dimension (Dec. 5th) – PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Series X|S
• Infinity Nikki (Dec. 5th) – PC/PS4/PS5
• ANTONBLAST (Dec. 3rd) – PC/Switch
• Symphonia (Dec. 5th) – PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/XBone/Series X|S

What the hell, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle?! Why are you coming out on a Monday? That’s really weird. Kind of makes me look like an asshole here because if I stick by my rules of talking about games coming out between Tuesday and Monday then I have to highlight you, even though you come out, like, six days after this publishes. If I break my rules, then, I’m talking about you a day late but it’s closer to your release date. Why? Why?! Sigh, I can’t stay mad at you, Indy, and your charming little dimples. I’ve already got you pre-ordered and can’t wait to rip off the plastic and throw you into my Xbox Series X.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (PC/Series X|S) – Releases Dec. 9^th

Developed by: MachineGames
Published by: Bethesda Softworks

If Indiana Jones isn’t y our #nerd cup of tea, there’s also the new hero shooter Marvel Rivals which asks the question, “what if Overwatch, but Marvel“. I’m sure we’re all dying to know. For you RPG #nerd’s out there, we’ve got the new game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, Fantasian: Neo Dimension. This is a remastered version of the 2021 Apple Arcade title, so keep that in mind if you’ve already played it there (which I mean, come on, no you haven’t).

Marvel Rivals (PC/PS5/Series X|S) – Releases Dec. 6^th

Developed by: NetEast Games
Published by: NetEast Games

Fantasian: Neo Dimension (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Dec. 5^th

Developed by: Mistwalker
Published by: Square Enix

As for the rest of this week’s games, we’ve got the fifth entry in the Nikki series which we all know and love intimately right? Right? In Infinity Nikki, players move around the coziest open world ever made and play dress up with their little digital Nikki doll. It’s not creepy, shut up.

Rounding things out we’ve got a couple of smaller titles. ANTONBLAST is a Pizza Tower-esque platformer that is loud, wacky, and wild; just in time for Christmas! There’s also Symphonia, a side scrolling adventure game where players must use their trusty bow and…violin (?!) to solve puzzles and traverse a treacherous world. It looks amazing, I can’t wait to check it out.

Infinity Nikki (PC – Epic Games Store Exclusive/PS4/PS5) – Releases Dec. 5^th

Developed by: Infold Games
Published by: Infold Games

ANTONBLAST (PC) – Releases Dec. 3^rd

Developed by: Summitsphere
Published by: Summitsphere

Symphonia (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Dec. 5^th

Developed by: Sunny Peak
Published by: Headup/Beep Japan

Everything else:

My daughter’s excitement over Dog Man: Mission Impawsable would have been through the roof a year ago, but I just showed her the trailer and all I could muster out of her was a simple, “cool”. Kids grow up fast, folks, so cherish those early years while they’re still there because, soon enough, they’ll be talking about Skibidi Toilet and Poppy Playtime. What happened to the little girl I once knew? Where did that sweet angel baby child go and who is this new edgy tween that sits on her bed, making comics about a “tough” Kirby hanging out with Jax from The Amazing Digital Circus? Forgive me, I got lost there for a second. Here’s some more games coming out:

• Diesel Legacy: The Brazen Age (PC/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Dec. 3^rd
• Abyss Seeker — What Do You See Deep in The Abyss (PC) – Releases Dec. 4^th
• Outlaw Standoff (PC) – Releases Dec. 4^th
• Pest Apocalypse (PC) – Releases Dec. 4^th
• Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer (Switch) – Releases Dec. 5^th
• Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop (PC/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Dec. 5^th
• Dog Man: Mission Impawsible (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Dec. 6^th
• Among Ashes (PC/PS5) – Releases Dec. 9^th

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

Games:

Alright, from 2014 we’ve got the Wii U game Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, one of the best games for the doomed console that you can now, thankfully, play on the Nintendo Switch. In this puzzle platformer, players take on the role of the titular Captain Toad (first introduced in Super Mario Galaxy) as he searches for, well, treasure across the, um, Mario-verse, Galaxy, World? What do we call this place? That’s not important.

The gameplay in Captain Toad is similar to the indie title Fez, with players rotating their environment to solve puzzles and discover pathways to the level’s goal marker. Along with solving puzzle in levels, players must contend with boss monsters that also feature some kind of puzzle in order to defeat them. The game is a wonderful brain teaser that, like another similar game, Monument Valley, makes you feel smarter each time you figure out how to get from point A to point B.

Critics were mostly happy with the game, with Captain Toad earning mostly favorable reviews. The scope of the stages and worlds was much grander than they were in the similarly designed mini games in Super Mario 3D World, which excited critics, though they felt the overall story and plot were lacking (it’s basically a “save the princess” game). Still, despite the lackluster story, the game play was well worth the price of admission. I highly recommend this game, it’s easy enough to play if you have a Switch.

Our notable title from 2004 is the Xbox title Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (phew, say that three times fast). While the first game was developed by BioWare, the second entry was farmed out to Obsidian, as BioWare were busy with an original title, Jade Empire. The team at Obsidian were up for the challenge, with lead designer, Chris Avellone, immersing himself in Star Wars lore, reading books. graphic novels, technical guides, and other odds & ends to get acquainted with the expanded universe.

From the start, publisher LucasArts put a lot of pressure on Obsidian to deliver the KOTOR sequel as soon as possible and, of course, make it bigger and better. As you can imagine, high expectations, under a somewhat unreasonable deadline led to some issues. In a 2013 interview with Avellone, he mentioned that LucasArts had only given the team about 16 months to complete KOTOR II, which he said led to the finished product being incomplete. However, he said Obsidian shouldered some of the blame as well, stating that they had just put too much into the game and didn’t cut features and content early enough.

To make timing matters worse, LucasArts pushed the release date up, from early 2005 to December of 2004, wanting to cash-in on the upcoming holiday season. This led to some significant cuts to KOTOR II, including the removal of a full planet, M4-78, which was fully populated by droids. The quick release also contributed to many bugs in the game, nearly 500 that were found by players, and put a bit of a black mark on an otherwise spectacular game.

Knights of the Old Republic II was one of the most anticipated titles of the year and, as you can imagine, had a huge debut when it was released, selling almost half a million copies in December of 2004 and 1.5 million copies by early 2006 (which included PC sales from a 2005 Feb. release).

The initial reception to KOTOR II was mostly positive, with critics giving high praise to the game’s story which they found to be darker in tone and that it’s player choices felt more intense and important to the overall story than they did in its predecessor. Critics were, however, not fond of the game’s graphics which they felt were dated and, in some cases, downright ugly. It was also becoming apparent to critics, and players, that the game was riddled with bugs and glitches and felt incomplete because, well, it was.

KOTOR II ends rather abruptly, not quite wrapping up its story. Plot threads kind of fizzle out, leaving them without resolution. In the years following its release, fans would poke around the game’s files and find portions of this unfinished content, re-inserting them into the base game to help fill in some of these incomplete gaps. While it isn’t a perfect restoration, it gives players a chance to experience some of what could have been if Obsidian had been allowed to finish the game on their own terms.

At the end of the year awards shows, KOTOR II would be nominated for Best RPG at the Spike VGA’s (where it was in contention for the 2005 awards show), losing to World of Warcraft (also nominated, that BioWare game Jade Empire). As for the DICE Awards, the game was completely snubbed there. This would be the end of the franchise, with no further entries released in the last 20 years. The game was also mostly unavailable until 2022 when a port for the Switch was released, though it still remained unfinished.

From 1994 we’ve got another space adventure, and it even features an actor from Star Wars, Mark Hamill. I’m talking about the “interactive movie”, Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger. While the previous entries in the series had integrated some minor visual novel-esque talking portions, Heart of the Tiger leaned heavily into the game’s story, filmed with live actors in virtual backgrounds, making the game more of a two hour movie that occasionally allowed you to fly around space and shoot things.

Developer Origin Systems really pulled out all the stops for the game’s FMV sequences, with the game’s budget reportedly running in the $4 to $5 million dollar range (about $8 to $10 million adjusted to 2024 values). Aside from Hamill, the cast was stacked with some well known actors, including John Rhys-Davies, Malcolm McDowell, and Tom Wilson (AKA “Biff” from Back to the Future).

At the time, Heart of the Tiger was one of the most advanced PC games on the market, requiring a very high end machine to play it, with the best performance coming from the brand new, very powerful, Pentium processors from Intel. The game was also shipped exclusively on CD-ROM, completely ditching the floppy disk format, due to its high end graphics and speedy loading times.

Wing Commander III was a smash success with critics and players, earning near perfect scores from just about every outlet that reviewed the game, and sold over 500k copies on PC (with an additional 200k from two different game consoles), earning Origin almost $16 million in revenue, quadrupling or tripling its budget, depending on the final number. PC Gamer would nominate the title for “Best Action Game”, though it would lose to the Star Wars game TIE Fighter.

WCIII: HotT would receive ports on the 3DO and PlayStation, where it is often cited as one of, if not the, best game ever released on the 3DO. Playing the game today is easy enough, as it is available digitally through GOG. In all these years, I’ve still yet to play it myself, despite loving the first two (and owning the PSX version), so I say we all give it a try.

From 1984, we’ve got the arcade hit Kung-Fu Master (called Spartan X in Japan), another title in the long line of martial arts based video games to find mainstream popularity after the release of the 1984 film The Karate Kid. Kung-Fu Master is notable in a few different ways, first off it was one of the highest grossing arcade titles in 1985 (due to it being released at the end of 1984), is often cited as one of the earliest examples of the Beat ’em Up genre, and is partially responsible for the creation of Super Mario Bros.

After the success of the arcade game (where it was an even bigger hit in Japan), Nintendo purchased a license to develop the Kung-Fu Master for their newly created Famicom system, leading to the game being a lunch title for the US release of the NES in 1985. Leading development on the Famicom port was Donkey Kong creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who used the game (known simply as Kung-Fu now) to develop the side scrolling technology that would be expanded on and improved in Super Mario Bros.

Critics and players were impressed with Kung-Fu Master, where it received some of the highest accolades of the year and was a major financial success through 1985 in the US, Japan, and Europe. Critics felt that Kung-Fun Master was a major step above a previous martial arts release, Karate Champ, and felt Kung-Fun Master was the new leader in the genre.

The impact of Kung-Fu Master was felt almost immediately in the video game industry, with multiple publishers putting out titles that had a similar tone and gameplay style, i.e., move to the left (or right) and beat up a bunch of people. Early imitators included the the Sega titles My Hero and Black Belt, while the format was improved upon by Technos Japan with their release Renegade. The boss battles in Kung-Fu Master, which turned the game into a 1v1 fighting arena were a direct influence on Capcom’s 1987 title Street Fighter, developed by the man who created Kung-Fu Master, Takashi Nishiyama.

Perhaps the most bizarre influence the game had was on film, with the 1988 French movie Kung-Fu Master. It is not, as you might think, an adaptation. Instead, the film is a drama involving a divorced, middle-aged woman falling in love with a fourteen-year-old boy who is a video game master.

Despite its pedigree and influence on the video game industry, Kung-Fu Master does not appear to be available anywhere today, at least not in any legal sense. You could search high & low for an original arcade cabinet, or try to find a physical copy of the NES cartridge but, chances are, your best best to play this game is through emulation. That’s what The Lonely Island did back in 2003 when they made the above classic video.

Movies:

Heading into the world of notable films, we’ve got two from Clint Eastwood to start us off. First up, from 2014, we’ve got the film American Sniper, based on the autobiography from Chris Kyle. The film was a smash success, earning $350 million at the box office and making it the highest grossing film of the year. It would go on to be nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning one, Best Sound Editing.

From 2004 we’ve got Million Dollar Baby, which starred Eastwood as a boxing coach who reluctantly takes on a female fighter (played by Hillary Swank). This tear jerker was also a massive hit for Eastwood, earning $216 million worldwide and had a surprisingly long theatrical run at six and a half months. The film received seven Academy Award nominations, winning four, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman), Best Director and the big one, Best Picture.

Personally, while I enjoyed Million Dollar Baby, I feel like this was a consolation prize for Eastwood losing out on all of the big prices a year earlier for his film, Mystic River. It is the far superior film in my opinion, but got steam rolled by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King which, and I am probably not alone in thinking this, only won because of the cinematic achievement of Jackson’s entire LotR trilogy. Regardless of my opinion, Million Dollar Baby is considered one of the greatest movies of all time and also helped launch the film career of screenwriter Paul Haggis who would go on to have 2005’s Best Picture, Crash.

1994 saw the release of a movie that didn’t make much of a splash at the Academy Awards, Dumb and Dumber from The Farrelly Brothers. After a string of purchased but unmade scripts in Hollywood, Peter Farrelly, and his brother Bobby were approached by famed writer/director John Hughes to finish a script he had started about two idiots who cause a ruckus at a ski resort. Hughes loved the script and was all set to produce the film, but his deal with Universal Studios had run out and the movie was scrapped.

The Farrelly’s felt like they had a real shot with Dumb and Dumber and asked Hughes if they could buy it, to which he agreed, but stipulated that his name be removed from the script and that he would only produce the film if they promised him $1 million dollars; they declined to offer Hughes the producer credit.

Starring Jim Carrey, who was having a banner year in 1994 with Ace Ventura and The Mask, and Jeff Daniels, playing heavily against type (and much to the chagrin of his agent), as two bumbling idiots who go on a cross country road trip to return a briefcase to a woman that Carrey’s character, Lloyd, falls in love with.

The pre-release talk around the town was that the film was going to be a disaster and ruin the careers of the up and coming Jim Carrey and the respected thespian, Jeff Daniels, as well as snuff out the film careers of the Farrelly’s before it even started; everyone was dead wrong.

Dumb and Dumber was a huge box office success, opening up at number one and going on to gross almost $250 million dollars worldwide (Over $530 million in 2024 dollars). While it would not reach the financial and critical success of Carrey’s earlier 1994 film, The Mask, it would show that the comedian was a major Hollywood player and helped cement his mark on film, leading to a decades long career that is still going.

It would give audiences and studios a new appreciation for Jeff Daniels’ acting, prompting to have a kind of career resurgence after dropping off the Hollywood radar. The Farrelly Brothers, meanwhile, would become the new kings of comedy, releasing a string of highly successful films including Kingpin, There’s Something About Mary, Me, Myself & Irene, and Shallow Hal, with Peter Farrelly even winning the Best Picture Oscar for his drama Green Book in 2018. Dumb and Dumber would get a prequel in 2003 called Dumb and Dumberer which did not feature the involvement of any of the original filmmakers, and a sequel in 2014 called Dumb and Dumber To (which we talked about earlier this year).

Our 1984 film, Dune, could probably have an entire book written about its production, so we won’t go over it all here. I’m sure there are much better researched write-up’s out there on the internet somewhere. The film was directed by well known auteur David Lynch, a master of the surreal who had, up to this point, put out two films; the bizarre art film Eraserhead and the far more crowd pleasing The Elephant Man.

In the aftermath of The Elephant Man, Lynch became a hot commodity in Hollywood with many producers wanting him for their next big budget picture. The most famously known of these was George Lucas’ attempt to have Lynch direct Return of the Jedi, which he declined, saying Lucas should finish the story himself, with his vision (he didn’t). Afterwards, Lynch was contacted by producer Raffella De Laurentiis about adapting the book Dune into a film. Lynch was unaware of the novel and decided to read it. He fell in love with the story and signed on to make the film.

Lynch initially wanted to break the film into two parts in order to get the full scope of the novel and its themes (something someone else would do later to much success). The producers denied the request, even though they had plans to film a trilogy of films based on the other novels in the Dune series. Lynch agreed, one of many consolations he made on the film, and turned in a version that was four hours long.

This was, obviously, far too long for a “popcorn flick” and he trimmed it down to three hours which was still too long. The final cut of the film ran 2 hours and 17 minutes, with Lynch needing to cut & shorten multiple scenes, re-shoot condensed versions of several scenes, and film a bizarre opening narration from the character Princess Irulan who would have had a larger role in the film if it wasn’t so truncated.

The film was a critical and financial disaster when it released, failing to live up to anyone’s expectations. The whole process left Lynch disillusioned with the Hollywood system and prompted him to retreat back to his more artsy roots, putting out the brilliant Blue Velvet in 1986, and found mainstream success in 1990 with his television series Twin Peaks. Lynch has pretty much disowned Dune, refusing to discuss it in interviews (though he’s softened that stance a bit in recent years) and, despite rumors, has never made any other versions of the film. He has rejected offers to release a “Director’s Cut” and has had his name removed from any kind of re-edited version of the film.

I’d like to say that Dune was more appreciated in its later years, but I feel like that’s not the case. While there are some contrarians out there who may believe Lynch’s Dune is some kind of masterpiece, it just isn’t. There are some very interesting ideas and stylistic choices in the film, but it’s a confusing mess of a movie. David Lynch “sold out” for Dune, something that he seems to regret based on his response to the film and its production. It would, thankfully, not destroy his career, instead it help him realize the art that he wanted to make; deeply personal, very weird movies that challenge the audience. We should all be glad he didn’t go down the blockbuster film road, who knows what we would have lost.

Albums:

In notable albums, 2014 gave us Black Messiah from R&B singe D’Angelo. His third album, Black Messiah released 14 years after his previous album, Voodoo. Following the success of Voodoo, D’Angelo started to become increasingly uncomfortable with his status as a sex symbol and the pressures of touring. He retreated from the public eye, estranged himself from family & friends, and turned to heavy drinking after a close friend’s suicide.

Around 2005, D’Angelo started to emerge from his self imposed isolation and would appear as a guest on other artists songs, but wouldn’t release any solo material, despite writing songs on his own and recording them privately. Rumors of a new album began to pick up steam around 2011 when musician Questlove indicated that it was nearly complete. A year later, in 2012, D’Angelo began working with live musicians and went on tour, performing new songs.

Over the next two years, D’Angelo would continue to write songs, tour, and record, putting the final touches on the long awaited Black Messiah. When the album finally dropped it shot up to the number five spot on the Billboard Top 200 and was universally acclaimed by critics.

The album was considered one of the greatest of 2014, appearing on multiple “Top 10” lists. At the Grammy’s, Black Messiah would win Best R&B Album and, in subsequent years, it would find itself added to Greatest Albums of All Tim lists, including the prestigious Top 500 Album list from Rolling Stone. We’re here, again, ten years later, and there still hasn’t been a new D’Angelo album since Black Messiah. He’s been active in music though, putting out singles and working with other artists and he swears that a new album is “coming soon”. I guess we’ll see.

From 2004 we have the album Eye to the Telescope by KT Tunstall which had the hit single “Suddenly I See”. This song was everywhere in the United States during mid 2000’s and I wouldn’t be surprised if, in another 10 or 20 years, when we have movies based on the 2000’s you’ll hear it pop up. It took a while for the album to really take off in the U.S., not really gaining traction until the middle of 2005 which helped keep it on the charts through as long as 2007.

While is, in my opinion, a one-hit-wonder, KT Tunstall has continued to release albums on a regular basis since her 2004 breakthrough. In fact, her 2007 album, Drastic Fantastic, was charted higher than Eye to the Telescope (likely due to the success of “Suddenly I See”). In the ensuing years she continues to be a well known in Europe, with a bit of a drop in her U.S. sales recently, but she’s doing it, man, and I’m happy for her.

1994’s notable album is Second Coming from the English band The Stone Roses, their second and final. After a stellar debut album in 1989, the self-titled The Stone Roses, expectations for their follow-up were through the roof. In the aftermath of their debut the so-called “Britpop” sound was beginning to explode in the UK and United States, seeing bands like Blur, Oasis, and The Verve (to name a few) start to gain large followings. The Stone Roses, however, didn’t seem poised to capitalize on this new trend.

With the release of Second Coming, critics kind of trashed the album, saying things like it wasn’t as good as the bands that had come after them, and felt that they were no longer “Britpop” but just some generic rock group. While it charted decently, peaking at No. 47 on the Billboard Top 200, it didn’t do much to persuade the band to stay together and, in 1996, they finally called it quits. A bitter end to one of the most influential bands of the late 1980’s/early 1990’s.

Finally, from 1984, we’ve got the album Slip It In by the punk band Black Flag. Their third album released in 1984 (following My War and Family Man), Slip It In found the group continuing to evolve their sound, fine tuning the styles seen on their previous 1984 efforts. The band was also going through some internal changes at this time, losing bassist Chuck Dukowski and seeing front man Henry Rollins begin to not only write more lyrics, but also start taking the spotlight away from the band’s main songwriter and lyricist, Gregg Ginn.

The reception to Slip It In wasn’t very good, with critics decrying the album as sophomoric and juvenile. The band’s musicianship and songwriting was seen as poor and sloppy which, I guess, meant it was a punk album. Black Flag would put out two more albums in 1985 before calling it quits in 1986. Retrospective reviews of the album haven’t been that great either, with most critics saying that My War was the biggest high of 1984 for Black Flag.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Wii U) – Released Dec. 5^th, 2014

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (Xbox) – Released Dec. 6^th, 2004

Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (PC) – Released Dec. 12^th, 1994

Kung-Fu Master (Arcade) – Released Dec. 1984

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