holchasaur

Thanks for all the wonderful comments! I'm going to miss this community very, very much, that I can promise you. If you guys want to keep in touch, you can find me on Twitter @DaveLetcavage.

Perfect. I never got around to playing Skyrim back in 2011, so I'll definitely be making time for this.

I'm definitely eager to learn more about this one.

@crippyd Good man. Have fun!!

@Captain_Chao5 @stylon To be fair, the Call of Dutys all blur together after a while.

Some great stuff here! I'm tempted by the 360 Tomb Raider games, but I don't want to buy them until they get added to back compat or until I buy a new 360 (mine runs like hell). Hopefully one of the two will happen soon.

This is the first installment of Brand New where I'm not interested in any of the games. Bummer.

@shonenjump86 That's how most people feel about DKC3. I'm well aware that I'm in the minority. I don't even mind. Wish I could play it right now on my N3DS, honestly! Hopefully Nintendo releases it soon.

@VioletTusk No reason you have to stop visiting the site. At the very least, you can still show up for WGAYPTW since it's not Xbox-specific!

@shonenjump86 People call me crazy for admitting this, but DKC3 is my favorite game in the SNES trilogy. The game isn't quite as smooth as DKC2 in terms of character agility, but I always felt it made up for that with its variety and atmosphere. Plus, Bleak the Snowman is one of the coolest bosses in the entire series.

@Grawlog Thanks for the kind words! We appreciate that you hang out around here and enjoy the site despite not owning an Xbox console. That's pretty rad.

@Bryanrph Sunset Overdrive is excellent! I just think most of our regulars have played it already, which is why no one's really talking about it right now. Man, I hope Insomniac makes a sequel!

@shonenjump86 I haven't spent much time with Comix Zone, honestly. On paper, it's a game I should love. But for whatever reason, I've never stuck with it beyond a few levels.

If you dig arcade-style beat-'em-ups, I highly recommend checking out Double Dragon Neon. It's a super fun couch co-op game (there's no online co-op, sadly).

@Gamer83 I hate that I have to say this about a Star Fox game, but I don't like it. I played through the campaign last night and was agitated with the controls about 90% of the time. The traditional on-rails levels play fine, and there are a few gameplay scenarios with other vehicles that are decent, but by and large it's a mess of poor decision making on Nintendo's part. Even if I were able to sit around and master the controls to the point where they felt largely manageable, I still don't think this was the right move for the series. The game would've been infinitely better with a conventional control scheme or the Sin & Punishment: Star Successor controls that utilized the Wiimote for pointing and aiming. I'm honestly shocked that there are people out absolutely in love with it.

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi Get your butt into the forums and tell us what boss it was! People might be mad if we talk Dark Souls "spoilers" here.

@JaxonH Rings can be a huge help. While I do switch things up depending on the situation, I typically equip a ring that speeds up stamina regen (probably the same as you), one that increases my equip load, and another that adds a few more frames of invincibility when rolling. I find that combination very helpful for my playstyle. In the interest of collecting as many rings as possible, be sure to talk to every NPC until they start repeating dialog. I know a couple NPCs in Firelink handed over rings after I bought X amount of goods and initiated a convo.

And, yeah, the series is deep. I love sifting through wikis just to read up on lore and fan theories. I beat Bloodborne months ago and I'm STILL reading about it. Just be cautious you don't spoil too much when browsing for tips. Discovering things for yourself, whether bad or good, is half the fun.

@JaxonH Hmm. I think I usually increase Strength, Vigor, and Endurance pretty much evenly at first. Actually, maybe I favor Strength just a bit more. Once I get those three to 20, I start putting a few points into other stats (Dexterity and Intelligence mostly). After that, I rush to get S, V, and E up to 30, and then a few points into other stats. I pretty much repeat that process until I have more than enough stamina and damage output to have an edge on the bosses in the final third of the game.

@JaxonH Early on, I mainly focused on Strength, Vigor, and Endurance, with a few points going to Dexterity here and there. Unless you're bulking up so much that you can block most attacks with your shield without suffering any damage, I recommend you don't neglect Endurance. Considering it factors into dodging, attacking, and blocking, it's very important in this game, especially since this is the swiftest Dark Souls yet.

@jongred Yeah, what @JaxonH said. I'm having a blast with it as well.

Oops. I forgot to contribute to this again. Been very distracted lately! My apologies.

Anyway, I'm playing Ratchet & Clank and more Dark Souls III this weekend. Pretty good week for video games, huh?

@VanillaLake @A_BabyRed_Yoshi @crippyd @sorethumbed @JaxonH Thank you all for the wonderful compliments! Really made my morning!

@JaxonH Welcome to Dark Souls! Be sure to make your way into the forums where we have a topic dedicated to Dark Souls III. I'd love to hear about your experiences with the game as you work your way through. I'll be sure to dig up a few links to helpful articles/videos at some point this weekend and tag you in the post.

@Utena-mobile That's pretty rad. I know very little about King's Field 2, but now I'm determined to do a bit of investigating on YouTube. It released well before Miyazaki joined From, right?

@flameboy84 The kick can be used to knock an enemy's shield out of the way so you can get in a clean attack. It's also handy when you want to kick an unsuspecting enemy off the edge of a cliff. If you have a shield equipped, make sure to learn when it's best to block and best to roll. If you're rocking a melee build, getting up close and relying only on rolling can be extremely risky, especially with the limited amount of stamina that's available early in the game. I've gotten quite good at it now, but it's taken a ton of practice to find the rhythm.

I can't believe there's not a second season yet. It feels like ages since I watched the first. It's been long enough that I've forgotten most of the characters' names.

Super excited about this one.

@SuperKMx That sounds immensely entertaining to me. I'm sure many others will agree!

Are you going to stream Dark Souls III next week, @SuperKMx?

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi Holy crap! You've been tearing that game the hell up. You sure you want to start a third playthrough with DSIII so close to release?

@shonenjump86 I'll have to check with Ken to be sure, but I don't think we're reviewing Shantae. We were supposed to receive a code in NA but never did. Not sure what happened there. I can tell you that I played the entire game on 3DS and LOVED most of it. There was something I didn't like about backtracking, though. I can't remember specifically what it was.

@Buggedboy79 Has The Division received a bad review yet? I didn't notice any when I was browsing GameRankings yesterday. Also, in regards to your comment about 40 hours of gameplay automatically earning an 8+ score, you have to understand that review scores aren't merely reflective of value. There are many, many factors to take into account before deciding on a score.

@Gamer83 We can try. It all depends on how busy we are and whether or not Ubi sends us review code. I believe the paid expansions start in June, so we'll see what's what around that time.

@crippyd Always a good feeling when enemies that used to give you a problem can be put down with a couple of swings! Can't wait until I'm strong enough to return to Iron Keep and annihilate those knights without breaking a sweat. They're driving me nuts right now.

@crippyd You really are squeezing every last drop of goodness out of DSII, aren't you?

@jongred Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed reading. And you're probably right – if you aren't fond of survival, this isn't the game for you. It's very demanding in that regard.

@SuperKMx @Dewbers @ShihTzuOnYou

To be fair to Ken, the dev refers to it as soccer on the official website, so he did the right thing in this case.

Or you could just ignore my comment since I'm American and have been calling it soccer my entire life.

Rad! I never did get around to buying this for PS4, so this news works out really well for me.

Not gonna lie, I'm seriously tempted by that statue...

@Ryno I haven't played the Wii version either, even though it's been sitting on my shelf for years. Major fail on my part.

I'm surprised achievements are already in the wild. I was expecting this to launch a few weeks before the upcoming TMNT film. Who knows – maybe the game's just been finished but Activision is holding off the release for the movie. Hopefully we'll know more soon. Fingers crossed this is the TMNT game fans have wanted since the 16-bit days.

Sure, I'll play this again just to grab some achievements. It's a stellar game.

@Dpishere Whoa... You're gonna be set for quite some time. Those are all great games!!

This would be the best thing ever, but I don't think it'll happen. Not unless Microsoft finds a way to make the games available to purchase digitally on the Xbox One Marketplace. If that happened, the program would probably bring in enough $ to justify the work - especially if the games are priced reasonably.

I'd buy Bulletstorm, Skate 3, and Hot Pursuit if they were back compat. Guess I'll just stick with Mirror's Edge for now. I'm sure we're going to get a bunch of killer sales leading up to Christmas anyway, so it can't hurt to save a little cash.

I didn't really like the Thief demo, but I'll definitely give it another go since it's free. Also interested in Operation Flashpoint. I don't know much about it, but I can't say no to a shooter.

What a loss...

Thanks for reading, everyone!

@sorethumbed Nice! I'm creeping up on 75,000 right now. I think I'm about 1,400 shy, but I'm totally planning to hit that number by year's end.

Just finished Rise of the Tomb Raider. Guess this weekend will be all about Black Ops III and Battlefront. I'm tempted to start Fallout 4, but I think I may wait until closer to Thanksgiving so I have more time to focus on it. I hear it's not very welcoming to people that haven't played a prior game in the series (which I haven't), so expect to see me in the forums asking for help and tips.

@Gamer83 I don't disagree with Reach having a well-executed campaign. I remember thinking that it felt like the most refined version of Halo when it released. But even though Reach tightened up the Halo formula, I couldn't shake a "been there, done that" sensation upon completing it. Honestly, I can't even recall any gameplay scenarios outside of the first level (which I've played many times) and the final boss battle. I'm hoping to revisit it when it comes to back compat so I can have a fresher perspective on how it stacks up to the rest of the series.

Surprised to see Reach on top! I honestly expected it to be a close race between Halo 2, 3, and 4.

By the way, I voted for 4. The only thing I don't like about it is the reliance on vehicle-based missions in the game's second half. Everything else I love. Halo 3 would probably be a very close runner-up.

There's a bunch of good stuff here, but surprisingly not one of the games I voted for is on this list. (If I recall correctly, I voted for Red Dead, Trials Evolution, Sonic Racing Transformed, Sonic Generations, and Double Dragon Neon.) I really, really hope Microsoft keeps up with this commitment and adds a large number of games every month. I'd like to retire my Xbox 360 soon since it runs like hell.

@Splatburst Thanks for the compliment! I really appreciate that.

As far as which console you should go with, well... It's hard to say. Personally, I use my Xbox One FAR more than my PS4.

There are four reasons for this:

1.) It's where I do my multiplatform gaming.

2.) I prefer the Xbox Live features much more than PSN. This also factors into why I play multiplatform games on Xbox One despite PS4 versions typically performing better from a visual standpoint.

3.) I think the Xbox One exclusive lineup greatly outshines PS4 right now. Sunset Overdrive, Ori and the Blind Forest, Halo 5, Forza 6, Forza Horizon 2, Gears of War, Master Chief Collection, Rare Replay, and Tomb Raider. Even games like Dead Rising 3, Ryse, ScreamRide, Killer Instinct, and Zoo Tycoon are worth checking out between big releases.

4.) I have a Surface Pro 3, and it's really convenient to stream Xbox One gameplay to it when I'm relaxing in other rooms of my house. It works wonderfully for me, with almost no signs of latency.

In your case, I think it depends how much you plan to play online. If you regularly play online with friends, then you'll probably want to go with a PS4 (unless your friends plan to get Xbox Ones soon). If you don't play online and the Xbox One exclusives interest you more, I'd say go with Xbox. You can always invest in a PS4 later, when the price drops a bit more.

@JaxonH Nope. Not many games do that anymore, unfortunately.

@Gamer83 Thanks for reading! I struggled to settle on a score for a while, but in the end I came to the realization that, even with the campaign missteps, I wouldn't talk a shooter fan out of buying this game.

@Souldin Your brothers probably disliked the final boss battle in Halo 4 because you don't really participate in it. In Halo 5, however, the boss battle is more conventional, but it kind of overstays its welcome (I think you battle him something like three times in a row). That said, I don't think this is the game for your brothers if they want to play together – not unless they have access to two consoles. They'll likely be frustrated that they cannot play together in the same room.

@crippyd Thanks, man! Nice to hear you're enjoying the game!

@A_BabyRed_Yoshi Glad you brought up those missions. Honestly, they kind of feel like a missed opportunity, but I wasn't bothered by them; I think I appreciated the respite from shooting. But I can definitely see how they'd become annoying on repeated playthroughs.

@Lrapsody I'm happy to see that someone's entirely enthusiastic about the campaign! How would you rank it compared to the others?

Good to hear!