The hapless townsfolk have all hidden inside their homes, and the scared shopkeepers all flips their signs from open to close as the three gunmen approaches each other in front of the clock tower at high noon. That’s right. November is upon us once again. This week, we’re getting Call of Duty’s 2011 edition of Call of Duty. We’re also getting the sequel to Oblivion, and Nintendo releases a fairly unorthodox take on their mascot. In other words, we’re getting nothing but sequels this week. Unless you’re willing to look beyond the triple-A releases.

Remember. Release dates are quite literally made at the whims of the publisher.  The following are subject to change without any warning.

Releases To Watch For This Week

Oh I’m sorry. This is a MW2 screesho… or is it?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS)

Tuesday November 8, 2011
Somewhere down the line, some poet or famous literary figure will have to coin a new phrase somewhere along the lines of “Death and taxes and Call of Duty.” Modern Warfare 3 marks the sixth Call of Duty in six years for the Xbox 360. Thankfully much has changed since Call of Duty 2, but whether or not much has changed since the last one remains to be seen.

Normally, I’d start with the single player content, but who are we kidding. We’re talking about Call of Duty here. Let’s just skip that, and move on to the multiplayer. The biggest shake up to the Call of Duty multiplayer formula happens in the killstreak system. Sort of. First of all, they changed the name to Pointstreak because fulfilling objectives and assisting in kills also count towards a players Pointstreak. Second, MW3 gives you three types of Pointstreaks, or Strike Packages as it is called. Assault works exactly like before. Build up your Pointstreak, and you get some kickass very offensive oriented rewards like the Predator Missile, the Sentry Gun, and Attack Helicopter among others. Support works the same way, but their rewards tend to be of the support nature like the Counter UAV, a SAM Turret, and the Ballistic Vests, which can be distributed to your teammates giving them additional damage resistance. The Support Strike Package has the unique ability of retaining Poinstreaks after death bucking everything we know about how these streaks work. Specialists does away with these rewards altogether. Instead, every two points gives them an additional perk, selected before the match, on top of the standard three they already have. Get up to eight kills though, and you unlock all 15 perks. Can you imagine a guy with who can reload faster, scavenge weapons, take less explosive damage, become undectable by UAV, have an increased hip-fire accuracy, make no sound when walking or running, and then some? Good luck dealing with that guy.

On the new game mode front, two of them seems to be the most talked about. Kill Confirmed takes a page out of the Headhunter multiplayer variant from Halo: Reach. Namely, killing enemies doesn’t count until you pick up the dog tags that they leave behind. Unless of course a teammate of theirs picks it up before you do. Because every multiplayer mode must have Horde Mode now, Survival mode lets you and a your buddies hole up against waves of enemies, which include, and probably not limited to, regular soldiers with guns, attack choppers, and the dreaded Juggernaut. Thankfully, killing enemies gives you money, which gives you better guns, your own squad of AI controlled soldiers, and even air support.

Seriously. Nobody plays Call of Duty for the single player. If you must know if this brings an end to the Modern Warfare overarching storyline, then yes, it does. I’d tell you how, if I can even remember, or even care, how the storyline goes.

LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, 3DS, DS, PSP)

Friday November 11, 2011
Ever feel like the Harry Potter universe got kind of... depressing near the end? Nothing a little LEGO-ification can’t fix. Continuing LEGO’s marriage unto every popular franchise in existence, we’re still waiting for LEGO Pokemon by the way, LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 retells the harrowing tale of Harry Potter versus puberty. Oh, and some evil wizards are involved somewhere in there as well. For the first time in the LEGO game series, LEGO Harry Potter’s Hogswart uses the open world structure instead of the linear levels of past LEGO games. Beyond that though, little has changed, which unfortunately might be reason enough for many to skip out on this title given the behemoth nature of the other releases coming out this week, but someone has to think of the children.

Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)

Sunday November 13, 2011
You young whippersnappers have probably never heard of Super Mario Land, and in this case you don’t need to. Despite the “Land” moniker, Super Mario 3D Land doesn’t hearken back to the Super Mario Land series that came out for Game Boy over 20 years ago (insert “I’m old” jokes here).

Despite being a full on 3D Mario platformer, Super Mario 3D Land feels more like your old school 2D platformer but expanded into 3D. First off, the design of each level tends to be very linear, which even Nintendo guru, Shigeru Miyamoto has pointed was by design to evoke classic 2D Mario in a video interview. Some Levels even has you traversing it from left to right all the way to flagpole which marks the end of the level a la the original Super Mario Bros. Second, the amount of throwbacks to Super Mario Bros. 3 almost makes me wonder why they didn’t just call this Super Mario Bros 3-2 Final Fantasy style (Maybe that would’ve been confusing or something.) From the leaf that puts Mario in a Tanooki (Although to be fair, the leaf in SMB3 gives Mario the raccoon suit.) all the way to the various airship levels that seems to have been sprinkled throughout the world all points to the developers desperately trying to make you pine for the good ol’ days of SMB3.

If all this feels like Super Mario 3D Land could also have been titled Mario: Nostalgia Edition, I’m pretty sure that was on purpose. For many young’uns out there, these nods will unfortunately be lost on them, but for them, Super Mario 3D Land should be ample proof to them that Mario is still the king of platformers in general if my playtime at PAX is any indication.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Xbox 360, PS3)

Friday November 11, 2011
The open world RPG genre do have other players other than The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but from the sound of it, Oblivion just ended up being all anybody cares about in this genre. That should explain the fervor behind its sequel The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Back in the lands of Tamriel, two hundred years have passed since Captain Picard got ganked in some dingy basement. Meaning, the events of Oblivion has become a distant memory. Besides, most people on Tamriel are more worried about the dragons popping up all over the place not to mention the prophecy of a dragon god destined to destroy the world unless some strapping hero who just happens to have been born with the ability to wield some of the powers of the dragon would come forth and stand against it. That would be your cue.

In Oblivion/Fallout 3 fashion, Skyrim plays in first person, and you’ll be able to wield weapons, magic, or both at the same time. Unlike Oblivion though, Skyrim takes place in the mountainous region of Skyrim. Instead of the green rolling hills before, the prevailing colors of Skyrim looks to be that of the white snow with the occasional brown earth. As for the skill system, every skill in the game can be improved by using said system. If you wish to be a dual wielding badass, just keep dual wielding, and that skill will level up. The same goes with the various magic types. Just use them often enough, and you’ll get better at them. Eventually, you get to unlock perks for that skill as well. For example, one such perk for bow and arrow lets you zoom-in and slow time while using the bow. Cool huh?

This being an open world RPG, Bethesda has gone to great pains and made even the cities tinker-able. A specific town’s food supply can be screwed over if you were to say burn a bunch of farms nearby. That goes double for the town’s supply of arrows or ingredients. Destroying nearby structures can actually affect a town significantly, so behave yourself while in town. Oddly enough, you don’t have to worry too much about killing random people though. A little thing called the Radiant Story system ensures that the side quests you come across isn’t tied to any specific person or place. Instead the game procedurally works with the current game state and somehow dish out the side quests to you somehow. It even tracks the stuff that you’re not doing in the game and offers up quests that pushes you towards that. I wonder how it works if you killed everybody in the world though?

As my little synopsis above points out, dragons will play a big role in Skyrim. Your character inherently can speak with dragons so long as they don’t try to kill you first that is. You can even shout something in the dragon’s tongue, which is basically dragon magic that has different effects like freezing targets. Eventually, you get access to a shout that can summon a dragon to aid you. You may want to keep that one handy when dealing with the various dragons that roams the world and can randomly engage you in a classic mano-a-dragon...o battle. Hope you got fireproof skin.

All in all, this week will truly divide people between those who want to be the best virtual marksman and those who want to beat up dragons. Both require hours upon hours of dedication, if my gameplay clock of 120 hours in Oblivion is any indication, and neither looks to come up short of its promise. Try not to burst a vein in thinking this out.