As Graham pointed out earlier this year, A Difficult Game About Climbing is a difficult game about climbing. A Bennett Foddy’s Getting Over It-inspired limb-flailer, where hoisting yourself up a mountain as a bald man is painfully moreish. Well, let me introduce you to A Difficult Game About Driving, a difficult game about driving. Again, you play as a bald man (called Jeff) who sits in a 4×4 bathtub and must ascend a series of difficult roads. There’s a demo out now and let me tell you, it’s awfully good.
Ahead of The Game Awards next week, the ‘players’ voice’ nominees have now been revealed. This is a “100% fan voted award” that takes place across three rounds.
Round one requires players to vote for their 10 favourite games from a list of 30, and ends on 4th December 2024 (aka tomorrow). On the Nintendo front, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom has made this top 30 list. Apart from this, some other featured games available on Switch include Sonic X Shadow Generations, No Man’s Sky, Fortnite and the indie hit Balatro.
The return of college football to the gaming space is a cause for celebration for many. From the ability to represent their alma mater or just engage with the incredible energy present in collegiate sports, there is a lot to like. College Football 25 arrived July 16 earlier this year as the highly anticipated return of the beloved sports series. It became a smash hit, pulling in as many as 700,000 players in its first day of early access and a staggering 2.2 million by the end.
If you haven’t played EA Sports College Football 25 yet, you are in luck. Right now you can grab the game for just $29.99. Will this deal last past Dec 2 (Cyber Monday)? We’re honestly not sure. Amazon may surprise us all, while Best Buy has a countdown clock to bring on the urgency.
Get EA College Football 25 for $29.99
College Football 25 had big updates in August 2024, including several improvements to overall gameplay and the Dynasty and Ultimate Team modes. There are new formations to teams’ playbooks, switch stick delay settings, and fixes for bugs such as defenders slipping through double teams without the right animation.
Brian Barnett writes reviews, guides, features, & more for IGN, GameSpot, & Kotaku. You can get more than your fair share of him onBluesky &Backloggd, & enjoy his absurd video game talk show, The Platformers, onSpotify & Apple Podcasts.
There is one game that all my friends are pestering me to play above all others, and it is Yakuza / Like A Dragon. There is a reason for that, so they say: “It’s only one of the best video game franchises ever!” Well, now you and I can grab a copy of Infinite Wealth, for just $24.99 on Amazon and find out for ourselves. Maybe if I finally play it, they’ll stop bugging me about it. (You hear that, Kris?!)
Brian Barnett writes reviews, guides, features, & more for IGN, GameSpot, & Kotaku. You can get more than your fair share of him on Bluesky & Backloggd, & enjoy his absurd video game talk show, The Platformers, on Spotify &Apple Podcasts.
Nintendo’s Switch Online ‘Missions and Rewards’ program has today added a new wave of icons based on the Game Boy title Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.
As you can see below, there are icons featuring Mario and even Wario, and they’ll set you back 10 Platinum Points each. These icons will be available between now and 6th January 2024, so get them while you can (thanks, NSO Icons Alerts):
If you enjoy fantasy or RPGs, there is a good chance a Final Fantasy game is on your ‘best’ list. Whether you like the newest remake or like delving into the originals, there is a lot to like, and the Final Fantasy Anniversary Collection is on sale right now, helping you save $20 on six of the most influential FF games ever made.
Final Fantasy I – VI Collection Anniversary Edition for $54.99
My favorites from this list are IV and VI. I’m not sure what that means about me, that if you put a V and an I in the title of a Final Fantasy game, I’m inclined to like it (particularly because I also enjoy VII, VIII, and XVI). If you want more game deals, check out our hub of the best PS5 Game Deals.
Brian Barnett writes reviews, guides, features, & more for IGN, GameSpot, & Kotaku. You can get more than your fair share of him onBluesky &Backloggd, & enjoy his absurd video game talk show, The Platformers, onSpotify & Apple Podcasts.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is one of the most impressive games ever made, so you’d be forgiven if you missed a lot of content as you traveled through Hyrule. Luckily, the people at Piggyback have lovingly crafted the Official Guide to help you find every secret in the expansive game, and the Official Guide Collector’s Edition is half off for Cyber Monday. If you’d like a collector’s item that doubles as an old-school physical guide, this would make a great addition to any Zelda players who already use the online ToTK guides, but want a keepsake, too. (It’s 496 pages of written-form wiki).
Zelda: ToTK Official Guide – Collector’s Edition for $22.50
Via Piggyback: “Working closely with Nintendo®, we have created the authoritative, all-encompassing guide to The Legend of Zelda™: Tears of the Kingdom. We cover all features and facets of the game with a single mission: to help you enjoy each and every moment of your adventure.”
Brian Barnett writes reviews, guides, features, & more forIGN,GameSpot, & Kotaku. You can get more than your fair share of him onBluesky & Backloggd, & enjoy his absurd video game talk show, The Platformers, on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.
Only a few hours remain before the Best Buy Cyber Monday Sale is kaput. The vast majority of deals are expected to end promptly at midnight. Some are already sold out, like the LEGO Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas set, but there’s still a huge selection remaining. If you’re still actively looking for something to buy, buy it soon.
The best high-end TV deal just landed for Cyber Monday. Best Buy has dropped the price of the 77″ LG Evo C3 4K OLED TV down to $1,499.99. That is an incredible deal for the later 77″ screen size. On a normal day, you would be paying that much for the 65″ model. This TV and others in LG’s C-series lineup have won top spots in several of our buying guides, including best 4K TV, best TV for gaming, and best TV for the PlayStation 5. This is an especially good choice if you picked up the new PS5 Pro, since the updated hardware will be able to run more games at a consistent 4K @ 120fps.
For Cyber Monday, Best Buy has the best price on the new Xbox Series X All-Digital Edition, which normally retails for $449.99. Whereas everyone else has it for $399.99, Best Buy has it for $374.99 ( a savings of $75 instead of $50). That’s a great price for a fully powered Xbox Series X. If you’ve been waiting for an actual deal on an Xbox Series X console, this might be the best one yet. Check out our Xbox Cyber Monday hub for more deals.
More Xbox Cyber Monday Deals
Right now you can get an HP Victus RTX 4070 gaming laptop for only $929.99. That’s the least expensive RTX 4070 laptop deal we’ve seen so far for Cyber Monday. The Victus is HP’s lineup of budget-oriented gaming laptops. This model features a 15″ 1080p display, a low-voltage AMD Ryzen 8 8845HS CPU, GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. The RTX 4070 has a maximum TGP rating of 120W, which is actually quite impressive for such an affordable gaming laptop. That means it will perform pretty well relative to other RTX 4070 gaming laptops.
More Cyber Monday Gaming Laptop Deals
Sony released their entire set of Black Friday PlayStation deals last week and most major retailers have followed suit. The best deal is definitely on the consoles themselves: the PS5 Slim Disc Edition has dropped to $424.99 (originally $500) and the PS5 Slim Digital Edition has dropped to $374.99 (originally $450). I would choose the Disc Edition because it’s only $50 more and then I have the option to buy (and later sell or trade) physical disc media. But if you want to save some money and go the Digital Edition route, I would suggest getting the NBA 2K25 bundle, which also includes a game. Although the Fortnite Cobalt Star bundle has a fancy looking box, no actual game is included.
More Playstation Cyber Monday Deals
Metaphor: ReFantazio was released on October 11, so it’s nice to see a nice 29% off discount so soon after launch. This is an outstanding RPG that gets pretty much everything right: intensely enjoyable combat, a gripping epic storyline, and hyper-stylized graphics. I’ve beaten the game, and I think it’s just as good as Persona 5 (which I also loved). In his 9/10 IGN review, Michael Higham wrote that “Refining the Atlus RPG formula of weaving tough turn-based combat into compelling social sim mechanics, Metaphor: ReFantazio doesn’t just send a powerful message across its political drama, it becomes a beautiful expression of the real impact storytelling can have on all of us.”
More Cyber Monday Video Game Deals for PS5/Xbox
HP’s new sensibly designed Omen 35L gaming PC is least expensive at Best Buy. This attractive gaming desktop features an AMD Ryzen 7 8700G, RTX 4060 Ti GPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. The RTX 4060 Ti video card is a very good option for 1080p gaming at high frame rates. It’s also the minimum NVIDIA GPU we’d recommend for 1440p gaming.
More Cyber Monday Gaming PC Deals
Best Buy has already several excellent gaming PC deals as part of its Best Buy Black Friday Sale. If you’re on a budget, the iBuyPower Scale RTX 4060 gaming PC for $699.99 is a solid deal and a great candidate for 1080p gaming. For something more powerful, consider the MSI Aegis Z2 with an AMD Ryzen 7 7700 CPU and RTX 4070 Super GPU.
For more deals on gaming PCs and laptops, check out the Alienware Cyber Monday Sale, the HP Cyber Monday Sale, and the Lenovo Cyber Monday Sale. These computers are made-to-order and usually take longer to ship out (although there are quick-ship models available), but the consistency in build quality makes them worth it.
Here’s your chance to get one of the best OLED TVs on the market at a great price. Right now, Best Buy is offering the current 2024 model 65″ Samsung S90D 4K OLED Smart TV for only $1,399.99 after a massive 48% off price drop. This is an excellent TV to pair up with your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. In fact, this TV could even be a better gaming TV than the LG C4. Although we haven’t personally tested it, RTINGS says that the S90D is brighter, has a wider color gamut, better color volume, wider viewing angle, and better HDR gradient handling. Of course, it’s also $100 cheaper than the C4.
More Cyber Monday TV Deals
Best Buy is the only retailer to drop the price on the new Asus ROG Ally X so far for Cyber Monday. Right now you can get it for $699.99 after a $100 instant discount. In our Asus ROG Ally X review, gaming guru Jacqueline Thomas wrote that “the Asus ROG Ally X is simply the best handheld gaming PC on the market right now. With more and faster memory and double the battery as the original Ally, the Ally X will run any modern game without dying in an hour and a half.”
The Asus ROG Ally X improves on the original ROG Ally in several ways, the biggest upgrades being a much bigger 80Whr battery with nearly the runtime, more RAM, a beefier cooling system, double the storage capacity on the base model, and better controls. It’s not inexpensive starting at $799.99 $699.99, but it’s definitely an incredible piece of hardware.
More Cyber Monday Gaming Deals
Compared to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, the Nintendo Switch console has the best discount for Black Friday. The holiday bundles, which were released back in October, included your choice of the Switch or Switch OLED, a digital download voucher for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and a 12-month Switch Online membership. I thought that this was going to be the official Black Friday deal. Alas, Best Buy (but not Amazon, due to their supposedly shaky relationship) has just knocked another $75 off the price tag. That means you can pick up a Switch bundle for as low as $225.
More Cyber Monday Switch Deals
IGN absolutely loves this video game. In our 9/10 Sonic X Shadow Generations review, Jada Griffin wrote that “Sonic X Shadow Generations takes an already excellent game and spring jumps it to new heights with a creative Shadow campaign and an appreciable graphical upgrade.” This game is actually a collection of two games in one: a remaster of the 2011 Sonic Generations and – the highlight – a brand new, original campaign starring Shadow the Hedgehog.
More Cyber Monday Video Game Deals for Switch
Best Buy isn’t the only retailer with games already on sale. For more deals on video games sorted by individual platform, check out our best Cyber Monday deal guides for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X.
Best Buy has dropped the price on the officially licensed WD Black C50 1TB Expansion Card for Xbox Series consoles to $99.99. That’s a 33% price drop from its original $150 MSRP and the best price we’ve ever seen for an officially licensed 1TB Xbox expansion card. The C50 is one of the best SSDs for the Xbox, which isn’t surprising since your options are pretty limited.
More Cyber Monday Xbox Deals
Best Buy has dropped the price of the second-generation Apple AirPods Pro wireless noise-canceling earbuds to $169.99. Unfortunately that’s $10 higher than the best deal I saw during Black Friday. Still, this discount brings the price down to the same level as the Apple AirPods 4 with noise cancellation. Between the two, the AirPods Pro is still Apple’s best earbuds because it offers better sound quality and better noise cancellation performance.
The Arc is Sonos’ flagship product. We rated it the best soundbar of 2024. This is a premium soundbar and it shows. This 45″ soundbar houses 11 precisely engineered internal speakers, including two dedicated height channels. It’s Dolby Atmos ready, and there’s enough power here that you can probably get away without a subwoofer. However, the Sonos Arc can be wirelessly paired up with other Sonos speakers and subs to add even more sound distribution. The Arc also has a built-in microphone for voice control so it is Alexa and Google Assistant compatible.
More Cyber Monday Sonos Deals
Will the Deals Change for Cyber Monday?
In my experience, many of the same deals we saw on Black Friday will return for Cyber Monday 2024, including deals that were sold out or expired. Retailers usually release their hottest selling items in batches so that every sale event has at least some inventory reserved. That said, I also expect plenty of new, never before seen deals. Traditionally, Black Friday was known as the “retail holiday,” where the best deals were found in-store, and Cyber Monday was known as the “online holiday,” where the best deals were online only. Although today the lines have blurred, it is still true that many online only retailers still consider Cyber Monday the sale event of the year instead of Black Friday. Expect some amazing sales to come out of online-only sites like Amazon, Newegg, Dell, HP, Lenovo and several online-only deals from traditional retailers like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart. In fact, Amazon has taken the preemptive and already switched over to Cyber Monday.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
The Game Awards has revealed 30 games nominated by fans as part of the Players’ Voice Award — a fan award that is selected through the official website.
As expected the selections include many of the most popular games released in 2024, including official Game of the Year nominees Astro Bot, Balatro, and Black Myth: Wukong. Dragon Age: The Veilguard also makes the cut, as does the Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree expansion and ongoing games such as Fortnite and Final Fantasy XIV.
The nominees for GAME OF THE YEAR at #TheGameAwards on December 12.
The Game Awards touts the Players’ Voice Award as the “people’s award,” with the winner being 100 percent voted by fans. Last year’s winner was the highly popular Baldur’s Gate 3, with Genshin Impact taking home the prize in 2022.
