I bought Castlevania and Enslaved yesterday.  Originally, I thought Enslaved would hands down beat Castlevania. 

But after playing both I must admit that Castlevania is the better and deeper game so far.  Both are great.  But, if you like God of War games this is the best clone I have seen to date.  Its settings are beautiful, the combat is impressive, and the game itself is epic (The only issue is in some of the platforming, but just be aware and careful of it, and the game is perfect).

Castlevania > Dante's Inferno > Darksiders

Enslaved is also a really good game.  They solved the age old platforming issue of accidentally jumping off a cliff and resetting you to a check point you don't think you should be at...  I can't remember how many times I played a game like Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Darksiders, Dante's Inferno, Prince of Persia, etc. and thought, "Great game, too bad that when I move my stick slightly wrong on a cliff side, I end up plumetting to my death and reset at a 3 minute ago checkpoint just to do it all over again for the next 15-20 minutes until I figure out the exact right move to save me!"

Thanks for your opinions but for someone who dislikes fixed-camera and qte-heavy games Dante and Castlevania don't sound so great.  I am told Darksiders was derivative but I hadn't played anything quite like it and had a blast. 

Enslaved's demo turned me off with the overly-stylized presentation and combat that was becoming repetitive by the 20 min. mark.  Maybe I didn't like the feel of playing as the almost sub-human Monkey but having just killed 12k mechs in Too Human didn't help.  It is getting high praise for art and voicework, graphics and storytelling.  I'll give it a spin someday and probably enjoy it but the idea of no penalty for a misstep is not a selling point for me. 

To each his own but I have to prioritize and the next 3 Tuesdays will be hard on the pocketbook for wrpg fans.  Again, I'll choose the B grade wrpg Gothic 4, despite the demo, over games like Enslaved and DR2 that will meta much higher.  I can barely wait for Vegas and the positive vibe for Fable 3 coming from Seece and The Man is infectious.  No offense intended Neo.  Drive safe.

I just got to my final destination.  I will be getting some sleep and doing the update in the morning...  Expect it in the next 8-14 hours.

The update will be in the next few hours.

Ronnie I'm coming for ya in Dead Rising 2! I'm not slowing down either, unless I get distracted by Castlevania, which I did like a lot from what I've played.

Comic Jumper is top notch, Twisted Pixel has grown tremendously in just a few games.

The league is up-to-date for this week.

I chose not to do the TrueAchievements weekly points because they were highly skewed from the TA outage.

@Recon, I plan on getting Gothic 4 and it will be my frist gothic game.  Sure the demo wasn't amazing but I found enough to like.  We are very similar in that regard that both of us will find much more pleasure in a B grade western RPG than other gamers would find.  But I have to focus on getting Fallout next week so Gothic will have to wait, maybe till the price drops a little.

Alright everybody, we have a two way tie in Dead Rising 2.  Me and Ronster both with 760 points.  I can't speak for Ron but that was a heck of a lot of work for me.  4 play throughs, at least 50 to 60 hours and plenty more to do.  I really thought eNamrah was going to crush us both but he seems to be disregarding DR2 for Castlevania.  Not that I blame him, but I have my eyes on the prize still.

JPL:  I'm with you on Gothic 4.  DreamCatcher moved it back to the same day as Vegas so I cancelled and transferred the cred.  I now own incoming copies of Vegas and Fable 3.  I've been pretty patient with the E.U. devs but if that's the way they're going to treat N.A. I'll wait and get it cheap.  Southpeak the distributor for TW2 need to go.  The move to Jan was more about settling lawsuits over here than the PR BS.   Two weeks with that and then Vegas would have been perfect.  Stuff happens.  May even get them both used.  That'd teach them.  

Obsidian's effort was always my most anticipated for this fall.  If it's just a little more in-depth and traditional than F3, with improved VATS that would be ideal.  Fable may lack the depth of many wrpgs but there are reasons it'll outsell G4 10:1.  Overall quality for one.  The voicework and humour should be second to none and the visuals look good.  Sounds like Lionhead took the hint on crafting weapons as well.  Hope spell delivery and interaction are a bit better.  There's only so much you can convey with a fart. 

@Recon, my copy of Fallout is paid for as well.  Fable I think will be saved for my christmas list.  My problem with Fable 2 was that by the end of the game you maxed your character out.  So its not like you could make a mage, or fighter, or archer or etc..  you just ruled it all.  No reason what-so-ever to go back through, no real character variation, clothing aside.  I'm hoping the ruling the land feaure in Fable 3 will give me a reason to love the series again.

About Fallout I have some trust issues with the developer though, Alpha Protocol could have been really good but instead was just okay.  Honestly, if it wasn't a case (I hope) of Bethesda just handing over the Fallout 3 game engine and saying... improve it.  We'll see what happens.  If it is as good as Fallout 3, only different, that will be fine for me.

Edit: There is no longer a tie in Dead Rising 2 :)

I just hope that Gothic 4's demo wasn't its final build, as it was starting to give me a headache as I went along.