Games

New Game Releases 11/10/26 – 11/16/26

Top Releases:

  • Shrek 2 Remastered (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 10th
  • Barbie Rewind (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 12th
  • Pikmin 4 + Dandori Academy (Switch 2) – Releases Nov. 12th
  • Warhammer Survivors (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 10th
  • Prinny Party: Going Overboard! (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2) – Releases Nov. 11th
  • Sonic Pico Park (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 12th

It’s the grudge match of the century as Shrek takes on Barbie! Whoever wins, we lose.

See you next week when Grand Theft Auto VI comes out.

Shrek 2 Remastered (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 10th

Developed by: Aspyr Media
Published by: Aspyr Media

Barbie Rewind (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 12th

Developed by: Digital Eclipse
Published by: Atari/Digital Eclipse

Pikmin 4 + Dandori Academy (Switch 2) – Releases Nov. 12th

Developed by: Nintendo EPD/Eighting
Published by: Nintendo

Warhammer Survivors (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 10th

Developed by: Auroch Digital
Published by: Auroch Digital

Prinny Party: Going Overboard! (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2) – Releases Nov. 11th

Developed by: Nippon Ichi Software, Inc.
Published by: NIS America, Inc.

Sonic Pico Park (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 12th

Developed by: TECOPARK
Published by: PICO PARK Inc.

Ports and Expansions:

  • Marvel Cosmic Invasion -The Siege of Castle Doom (PC/PS4/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 10th
  • Monster Train 2: The Punished (PC/PS5/Switch/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 10th
  • BALL x PIT: Risen Ballbylon (PC/PS5/Switch/Switch 2/Xbox One/Series X|S) – Releases Nov. 12th
  • Metaphor Re Fantazio (Switch 2) – Releases Nov. 12th

Everything else:

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

Games

In notable releases, Arkane Studios put out Dishonored 2 in 2016 and is, arguably, the last time they made a commercially successful video game. While 2021’s Deathloop would do well, it was a bit of a victim to the Xbox’s Game Pass, meaning it sold far less copies than it probably would have if it wasn’t give “for free” to players. However, Arkane’s next title, Redfall, would be a spectacular failure, putting the entire company’s future in jeopardy. Critical acclaim is nice but it doesn’t pay the bills, sales do. We can have a long discussion about executives vs. artists and talk in circles for eternity if we want to, but I don’t really have the energy for it. Sometimes things do not work out, and it sucks, and we move on with life.

Speaking of things that didn’t really work out, 2006 gave us the PlayStation 3! I’m not going to go into major depth on the console’s lead up and launch, I think that will be better suited for the Notable Events article in December but, suffice to say, things did not go well for the console in North America. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 had a one year head start on the PS3 and already took a sizeable amount of the “young male” market share and got them hooked on Xbox Live with games like Call of Duty 2 and Gears of War. Nintendo, meanwhile, was waiting in the wings with their new console, the Wii, which would take the entire world by storm and become one of the best selling systems of all-time.

What we will discuss, though, are the launch titles, and the PS3 had a whopping 14 to choose from. In alphabetical order, we first start with Blast Factor, the lone PlayStation Network exclusive available at launch, is a forgettable top-down shooter in the vein of Geometry Wars. The most notable thing about Blast Factor is that it’s the debut title from developer Bluepoint Games (which Sony just shut down this year).

Onto the big guns, we’ve got Call of Duty 3, a game that received mixed reviews from critics but would be a commercial hit with players. The series was still far from the powerhouse it would become just one year later. Next we have Genji: Days of Blade, a third person action/adventure title that was supposed to be a big franchise for Sony, but stalled after only their second entry. Genji was infamous before it even launched when, at Sony’s E3 press conference, a producer touted its “historically accurate” battles, only to later describe how players would fight giant enemy crabs.

There were sports titles, of course, so let’s just list those out: Madden NFL 07, NBA 2K7, NBA 07, NHL 2K7, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07. Back to our next game in the alphabet, we have Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, an isometric dungeon crawling brawler that has released a few weeks earlier on every other console. One game I don’t remember at all is Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire, and it’s likely because the game was universally panned, with most critics agreeing that it was easily the worst launch title for the PS3.

Going a little out of order here, there were two racing title for the PS3 at launch, Need for Speed: Carbon, another game that had released just a few week earlier on other consoles and, of course, RIIIIDDGEEE RAAACCERRRR 7 (Kazuo Hirai said this about the PSP version, but it was the same 2006 conference that introduced that PS3; let me make the reference).

Next we have what many critics consider the best launch title for the PS3, Insomniac’s first person shooter Resistance: Fall of Man. This title was the studio’s first kind of “serious” game, after a decade of working on the Spyro and Ratchet & Clank franchises. While the single player campaign was well received by critics, it was the game’s multiplayer that really blew people away with its then unheard of seamless 40 player matches, a feat that hadn’t really been done on consoles before. Resistance became a hit franchise for Sony and Insomniac, earning two mainline sequels and two spin-off’s over the next six years.

In the “sports adjacent” field, we had Tony Hawk’s Project 8, the next evolution in the THPS series that saw the game move into a real open world setting after the kinda/sorta open world seen in Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland. While the game earned rave reviews on the PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360, the PS3 version was noticeably poor, with a plethora of glitches and bugs that were not present on other consoles. As such, most critics and players agree that the PS3 version is the one to steer clear from.

Closing things out, we’ve got another PS3 console exclusive, Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom, yet another game that attempted to be a long running franchise but would instead find death on the PS3. What set this apart from its predecessors, though, was that Dark Kingdom was the first title in the series to be released on a home console, with the previous entries being PSP titles. Still, critics and players were unimpressed with the hack & slash title, not really feeling like it was a true “next gen” title. We would never get another entry.

I’d kind of like to stop talking about notable release now but, well, we can’t, because 1996 gave us the debut of one of the biggest video game franchises of all-time; Tomb Raider. Despite releasing simultaneously on the PlayStation, Saturn, and PC, Tomb Raider really did feel like a Sony exclusive (likely because the next two titles were, in fact, PlayStation console exclusives).

While we can pretend that the action/adventure title was a hit because of its solid gameplay and (at the time) incredible graphics and level design, the major reason the game was so big was because of its lead character, Lara Croft. I tell you, if you were around in 1996, and especially if you were a teenage boy in 1996, Lara Croft was everything. While her in-game character model was quite blocky and “un-sexy”, developer Core Design really went ham on the character model for the promotional material, giving Lara an hour glass body shape that made men drool. Before Lara, I never really thought that a video game character could ever be considered sexy.

Yeah, we had sexy women in fighting games like Cammy and Mai Shiranui, they didn’t come across as sex symbols to me. Lara Croft changed all of that. With the internet blowing up around the world at the same time Lara and Tomb Raider was blowing up, this was the first time I ever became aware of “sexy mods”, with resourceful players coming up with nude patches for the PC game. This was also around the time I learned of “sexy fan art” as well and, uh, it was a very, VERY interesting time to be a 15 year old.

Tomb Raider would go on to become a massive franchise, spawning multiple sequels and two films starring Angelina Jolie. While Tomb Raider would find itself on shaky ground through the 2000’s with a string of poorly received titles, it would bounce back in the 2010’s with a successful reboot. Today, Tomb Raider is easily available to play on any modern console thanks to an excellent port/remaster by developer Aspyr, and we have a full remake heading our way in 2027, Legacy of Atlantis, which is the second remake of the game, following 2007’s Tomb Raider: Anniversary.

Films and Albums

I really don’t have much to say about the notable films and albums, this week. Doctor Strange came out in 2016 and, once again, opened up a section of the Marvel universe that we hadn’t yet seen on film, the one about magic and the multiverse. Will Ferrell had one of this first kind of misfires in 2006 with Stranger Than Fiction, showing that the world might be starting to get a little sick of seeing his face. Back in 1996, Payback didn’t run away.

2016 gave us a new Alicia Keys album called Here; it’s fine. 2006 saw the release of the album When Your Heart Stops Beating from the pop punk group +44. If you’re wonder who and/or what +44 is, this was the band Blink-182 without Tom Delonge, not to be confused by the later version of Blink-182 that would also not have Tom Delonge.

Finally, 1996 gave us the album Losing Streak from the ska/punk band Less Than Jake. I’m bringing this up because Losing Streak is one of my favorite albums ever made and I love to be self indulgent, especially when it comes to music and movies. While it had a minor hit with the song “Dopeman”, Losing Streak wasn’t, like, a mainstream breakthrough for the band, though it did land them a major record deal and got them onto a few movie and video game soundtracks. Now, 30 years later, Less Than Jake are still touring the country and releasing albums, true elder statesmen of the punk rock scene.

Dishonored 2 (PC/PS4/Xbox One) – Released Nov. 11th, 2016

Notable Film Release: Doctor Strange – Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benjamin Bratt, Scott Adkins, Mads Mikkelsen, and Tilda Swinton
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Alicia Keys – Here
Click here to listen to the album

PlayStation 3 w/Blast Factor, Call of Duty 3, Genji: Days of the Blade, Madden NFL 07, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire, NBA 07, NBA 2K7, Need for Speed: Carbon, NHL 2K7, Resistance: Fall of Man, Ridge Racer 7, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, Tony Hawk’s Project 8, and Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom – Released Nov. 17th, 2006

Notable Film Release: Stranger Than Fiction – Starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, and Emma Thompson
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: +44 – When Your Heart Stops Beating
Click here to listen to the album

Tomb Raider (PC/PlayStation/Saturn) – Released Nov. 14th, 1996

Notable Film Release: Ransom – Starring Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise, Delroy Lindo, and Lili Taylor
Click here to watch the trailer
Notable Album Release: Less Than Jake – Losing Streak
Click here to listen to album

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