Black Friday sales are now approaching everywhere, and just like last year, I feel whiny old man about how milked out the concept has become with few actual bargains spread over far too long (return to one day's sale).

However, the game sales can thankfully be quite good. Even they go on too long (and too often), but there are often some bargains to be made. Now I'm not going to recommend any particular sale, but I do recommend five games you should look out for. They're all pretty big titles and fairly new too, but some service should have pulled the price tag down by a hunk or even two.

They are all five really nice multi-format games that for many may have flown a little under the radar, but now it's time to make a move. Two of them also offer first-class local multiplayer, and one a lovely online co-op, while the latter two are those games you don't want to put down before you're done.

• Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake - Wonderful gameplay in Square Enix's lovely HD-2D school. Retro with refreshed so it feels exactly the way we remember the games were when we a little ignorantly say that it was better in the past. Once you've done this, you'll immediately want to play the sequel Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake (yes, that'll come after despite the messy numbering), promise.

• Lego Party - In many ways, more fun than Mario's board game escapades in Mario Part, and that says a lot. Same premise, really nice presentation and more "playful" and challenging. A must-have for those who like local multiplayer with friends.

• Little Nightmares III - Co-op became the big gaming news when Supermassive Games took over from Swedish Tarsier. However, they delivered great deeds in a cozy adventure that is fun on its own but even a little better if you have someone to play with online. This is what you really need if you enjoyed It Takes Two and Split Fiction.

• Shinobi: Art of Vengeance - Few things are as satisfying as metroidvania games. How lucky then that Joe Musashi's return is just such a game. Everywhere there are secrets to be found as you slowly but surely gain the skills you need to reach them. Besides... ninjas and big bosses. This is the joy of playing in cubic meters.

• Sonic Racing: Crossworlds - It seems nice enough that people's kart craving for Mario Kart World spilled over into this game. Crossworlds is faster, sleeker and actually has a better driving feel and is just as fun single-player as online and in local multiplayer. Christmas can't be spent better than this, whether you're alone or with thick relatives.

Five nice suggestions that should be possible to find at lower prices.

Sharks and horror movies are two things that go hand in hand, and it's not hard to come up with several really good movies based on this scare duo. Often, however, I can think that the premise can be a little too silly for it to be scary, and the starting point is always that human flesh would be some kind of wagyu equivalent for cartilaginous fish, when nothing indicates this.

But... When me and my partner (who has been pretty diligent in emptying the streaming services of horror) found Dangerous Animals on Saturday night, we stopped. Decent ratings from both reviewers and users convinced us to still give a shark movie a chance... And that was lucky. 

It's hardly the scariest or most well-written I've seen, but at least it offers a fresh approach and Hassie Harrison in the role of the surfer Zephyr works just fine (now I want to see her in more horror movies) and Jai Courtney's Tucker is also a highlight.

I don't want to say more - other than that it's on Netflix. Go take a look.

Well, this was (un)pleasant in a good way.

Just finished an article with my thoughts on the new Steam Machine. Something I don't go into very much depth about there, however, is its replaceable shell. Maybe it's that I'm old enough to remember when the phones had this, or for that matter the Xbox 360 - but I really like it.

Such an anonymous design can really get a fresh lift from a simple panel and what I look forward to almost the most is when creative users start creating their own stuff. If they become really popular, you can also imagine that there will be licensed panels.

Will they get people to get a Steam Machine? Doubtful. Is it a fun idea? Well, absolutely.

• A blockbuster movie with aliens on Earth - It would work with something like ET or Close Encounters of the Third Degree, but what I would most like is a popcorn roll in the style of Super 8, the TV series V or Independence Day. Fancy effects, good action, a bit of conspiracy and a lot of mystery. When things like this turn out well, it can be really fun and that's something I'm really hungry for.

• Excite Bike or Trials - RedLynx had something brilliant with Trials, but Ubisoft wanted to make a live service out of the concept, which towards the end could hardly be played locally (big limitations and very cumbersome). And Nintendo has completely forgotten about Excite Bike, so today there is nothing like it, despite the fact that the market is obviously crying out for local multiplayer. Just fix, please.

• A new Like a Dragon starring Ichiban Kasuga - The Yakuza series has always been phenomenal, but it was with Ichiban Kasuga that everything really fell into place for me. I love his well-written stories, the exploration, all the challenges, and of course the mini-games and turn-based battles. It's been two years since Infinite Wealth premiered, please announce something I can look forward to now.

An alien or two wouldn't have been wrong. What are you missing right now in terms of film and games?

I know that there are a lot of you who hate the phenomenon of Game Key Cards that started to be released with the Switch 2. That is, cassettes that do not contain the game, but are just keys that allow you to download it.

The consolation was that Nintendo's own games would at least be on real cartridges. And it was true... until yesterday. Because Pokémon Pokopia will be delivered on Game Key Card. With the promise broken once, we can expect it to happen several times. After all, it provides the opportunity for higher profits through insanely cheap cartridges for standard price. 

I don't care much about physical games anymore because they are so often substandard without patches, and for a long time it has been common that the game you bought on disc does not work without a connection - and is thus essentially a Game Key Card.Again you download the game.

The biggest advantage of physical games is probably that you can resell them, and the second-hand market is still good. It's perfectly possible to buy a full-price title, play through it and get around half the money back by selling both. Of course, this also becomes more difficult as disc readers disappear, and here I still think it's appropriate to give Nintendo cred.

Game Key Cards are an abomination, I still agree with that - but I still prefer them and think Nintendo acts nicer than Microsoft and Sony. Switch 2 players get an honest declaration that the game they're buying is a Game Key Card - and indirectly when they're not. Thus, it is possible to choose to buy ones that are actually on the cassettes.

This opportunity is rarely given to those who play Playstation and Xbox. Their physical game is all too often a kind of Game Key Cards, but this is not noticeable. So they buy the game and really have no idea if they paid for a fully functional game for the future, or a fancy shiny thing that can at most be used to scare crows on the day the servers are closed.

A pretty crappy alternative. But not as bad as the competitors' writings.