What’s New – October 2015

I’m so happy it’s finally fall! This is my favorite time of year. And since a bunch of great new games are coming out in November, I’m spending this month catching up on a couple others — mainly Until Dawn and Batman Arkham Knight. If I can finish both of those, plus the episodic series I’m playing, I’ll be happy. I’m also working my way through The Witcher 3, which is a big game I already played through most of for work, but am taking my time replaying. I need to know what happens in Skellige!

Also, last month I got really obsessed with Gears of War after playing the Xbox One remaster of the original game. I cranked through it in four days. At one point, I woke up at 6 AM on a Friday morning, after having a dream about it, and got up then to play a couple hours before getting ready for work. The co-op is just so much fun, it’s addicting.

After finishing it, my partner and I jumped into Gears of War 2 on Xbox 360. I’m still liking it, but the second game takes place mostly underground, so the scenery isn’t quite as varied or interesting as it was in the first game. Also, while the co-op is still fantastic, I’m finding that aiming and shooting with the 360 controller is just a pain in the ass. It’s so sticky and hard to control, it actually makes me feel dizzy sometimes. I suck. It’s a totally different experience than the smooth targeting in the original game remastered on Xbox One, let me tell you.

I also got really into Telltale’s Game of Thrones last month. I’m finally caught up and have so much pent-up ranting and raving, I’ll probably be posting about it soon (or after the last episode comes out)!

The new game I’m excited about at the end of the month is Halo 5. It looks so good, especially after spending the past year playing through all the other Halo games. (Well, I’m still working my way through Halo Reach on co-op.) It looks like it has all the traditional flavor that makes Halo so good — the familiar alien enemies, plasma weapons, melee attacks, etc. — with some new additions like the ground pound move. (Polygon calls it a “shoulder tackle.”) I don’t know yet if I’ll tackle the game solo or not; I’ve never finished a Halo game on my own. Probably I’ll let my partner play it on his own before joining him to experience it in co-op mode… but we’ll see.

For TV, I’ve been watching the second season of Orphan Black. It’s a weird name for the show, which is funny and action-packed and full of really arresting characters — many of them played by the same lead actress, Tatiana Maslany. (It’s a show about clones. That’s all I’ll give away!)

And I’ve been reading The Martian by Andy Weir in record time to wrap it up before the film comes out. I’m seeing it today and still have 200 pages to get through this afternoon. Fortunately it’s a very quick read, about a man stranded on Mars who uses lots and lots of science to keep himself alive. There are also passages showing how both NASA and the rest of his crew handle the situation when they find out he’s still there.