Boxing Day sales are usually loud, bloated, and full of discounts of the “quotation mark kind” that look better than they feel, so I went in deliberately picky this time. I’ve ignored the filler, skipped the eternal backlog traps, and pulled out the handful of deals that genuinely deserve attention across consoles and PC. These are the games I would recommend to mates with little to no caveat, because the price is right and the experience still absolutely holds up.
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This Day in Gaming 🎂
In retro news, I’m celebrating the 26th anniversary of Turok: Rage Wars, pretty much the only birthday worth talking about today. I’ve got to be perfectly honest by saying that it didn’t personally blow my mind like a shot from Turok 2‘s cerebral bore gun. I guess I just wasn’t interested in a plotless MP-focused entry in the series at the time (and GoldenEye was still the undisputed king of 4P split-screen anyway).
That said, I still played many a round of FFA, CTF, and a goofy Frag Tag where somebody randomly became a monkey. Rage Wars also continued, and indeed expanded upon, the franchise’s stable of creative and chaotic weaponry. Case in points: the “Inflator” that used needles of compressed air to violently explode people and the Aliens-tastic “Chest Burster” rifle. Pretty straightforward, that last one.
Aussie birthdays for notable games.
– Turok: Rage Wars (N64) 1999. eBay
Nice Savings for Nintendo Switch
- Pokemon Violet (-25%) A$60 An open-world shake-up for the series with co-op exploration, uneven performance, and some of the most genuinely interesting new creatures Game Freak has designed in years.
- Skyrim Ann. (-60%) A$36 Bethesda’s forever RPG bundled with Creation Club content, fishing included, and somehow still capable of stealing entire weekends a decade later.
- Prince of Persia: TLC (-60%) A$19.90 A slick, combat-heavy Metroidvania with time powers, smart difficulty options, and a level of polish Ubisoft rarely gets enough credit for.
- No Man’s Sky (-60%) A$32 Once infamous, now quietly miraculous, this space sim has been rebuilt through years of free updates and still feels impossible on Switch hardware.
- BioShock: The Col. (-80%) A$18 Three landmark shooters, unforgettable twists, and one of gaming’s most analysed openings, all in a single absurdly cheap package.
- Kingdom Come Deliverance: Royal Ed. (-90%) A$8 A brutally realistic medieval RPG that refuses to hold your hand and is better for it, jank and all.
- Alan Wake Rem. (-85%) A$6.70 Remedy’s cult thriller remastered, complete with meta storytelling that hits differently once you’ve played Control.
- Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled (-29%) A$49.90 Still one of the hardest kart racers around, with rubber-banding that absolutely does not care about your feelings.
- The Stanley Parable: Ultra Del. (-60%) A$14 A fourth-wall demolition exercise that actively mocks your expectations, including the expectation that this description will behave normally.
- Trine: Ult. Col. (-80%) A$18 A gorgeous physics-based puzzle platformer bundle that shines brightest in couch co-op.
Or gift a Nintendo eShop Card.
