Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! The big news this week is that the beta site is now open to everyone including those without a subscription! So long as you signed up for an account prior to Thanksgiving go ahead and see what the fuss is all about and try to break some stuff so the site can get better. If you do manage to break anything on the site idbloc is the guy to talk to for any issues related to the forums. For issues related to the wiki ltsquigs is the man to talk to. squigs and rchen are the people to talk to if you have any issues related to the new beta chat, which might I say is going to be up for the weekends. So have fun and be free, because the honeymoon wont last forever! Finally hold the presses! Someone on YouTube is posting fake videos of GameBomb.ru...someone call the copyright police!

Game Nights and Community Activities

• Dota 2 House League Community Tournament - The Teams Have Been Selected - Watch the Tournament Livestream Saturday 12 EST & 4 EST Here!
• Let's Make a Game 2013 - Join the Let's Make a Game Community Project and Make an Actual Video Game - Get the Details and Sign Up Here!

Wonderful Wikis

Skulls of teh Shogun is finally out! After incorrectly dating it two or three...or maybe even four times the game is finally coming out! Anyways check out the wiki page if you are still interested in learning about all of the mechanics in the game. The wiki pages for Ni No Kuni as well as Proteus have improved in the last week. Finally in anticipation for the release of Fire Emblem: Awakening the Fire Emblem wiki community strikes again with two new and wonderful character pages.

• Skulls of the Shogun
• Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
• Proteus
• Brom
• Groose

Best of Blogs

The true highlight this week comes from EpicSteve who has written a highly personal and emotional blog about the role that video games have played in him dealing with depression and PTSD after leaving the combat zone in Afghanistan. People are still playing everything related to Devil May Cry ranging from Yummylee breaking down exactly why DMC 2 is such a bad game to ArbitraryWater who played DmC as well as Valkyria Chronicles II. Another popular video game was Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. Sparky_Buzzsaw discusses why he was completely enthralled with the game on his blog whereas Sarumarine explains his disappointment with Ni No Kuni, but satisfaction with The Walking Dead. Mento is starting up a new blog series showcasing twelve notable Turbografx-16 games, whereas Wrighteous86 continues to provide reviews and summaries to all of the Halo novels that Halo 4 expected you to read before playing it. GrantHeaslip wrote up another entry in his blog series of him attempting to play through the entirety of Final Fantasy XIII, but he also wrote and incredibly interesting blog about how collectibles hurt atmosphere and worlds in video games. Mikey2D provided an extremely comprehensive breakdown of his thoughts on the Dead Space 3 demo, and Mago applied the same formula to the Pokemon X/Y news and trailer. C0V3RT discusses how he's going to use the impending release of Wind Waker HD to reassess his feeling about the game. Video_Game_King graces the site with another blog of dubious historical accuracy, and aurahack vents about why you it was a giant waste of money for him to purchase a season pass for Call of Duty: Black Ops II. heatDrive88 tackled the idea of how moral ambiguity makes for more compelling video game stories, and jakob187, one to never shy away from controversial issues, points out how even video game fans need to be more open minded in regards to the debate of violence in games. There are plenty of other wonderful and readable blogs, so go forth find them and tell me all about them.

• Using Games to Escape Depression, Isolation, and PTSD (By: EpicSteve)
• Devil May Cry, but Valkyria Don't Care (By: ArbitraryWater)
• Recently Played: The Walking Dead and Ni No Kuni: WotWW (By: Sarumarine)
• The TurboMento-12: Ninja Spirit (By: Mento)
• As Inspired by Jeff—This Year Presents the Best of Blue Jam (By: ZanzibarBreeze)
• Hype: Pokemon X/Y (By: Mago)
• Me, The Wind Waker, and Zelda in General (By: C0V3RT)
• The Trials and Tribulations of Video Game Ownership (By: Atary77)
• Time for a Poorly Researched History Lesson, Kids! (By: Video_Game_King)
• Immersion, Player Agency, and the Many Moral Shades of Grey (By: heatDrive88)
• Final Fantasy XIII Part 8: Mild Monotony & Collectibles Create Dissonance (By: GrantHeaslip)
• Required Reading--Halo: Primordium (By: Wrighteous86)
• Building Out the Level Editor & Isometric Mouse Selection (By: Fobwashed)
• Why I Love Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (By: Phatmac)
• dot dot dot - three: You Should Pass on This Season (By: aurahack)
• Sparky's Update - Ni no Kuni (By: Sparky_Buzzsaw)
• Violence: An Open Discussion (By: jakob187)
• The Bread Basket: Super Bowl MVP Lando Calrissian & Dumb Aztecs (By: Breadfan)
• PC Rising (By: MajorMitch)
• Normand Corbeil and the Soundtrack of Heavy Rain (By: RecSpec)
• So, How About That DMC2, eh? (By: Yummylee)
• Dead Space 3: Demo Impressions (By: Mikey2D)
• Let Me Share With You My Rabbit Hole of Indian Game Development (By: thabigred)
• [insert title] 1-26-13 (By: Alaska_Gamer)

Fantastic Forums

Antichamber has been hanging out of the Top Sellers list on Steam for a while, and if you are one of the many people who bought but have found yourself stuck on a puzzle or have hints for the game then comment on the Official Antichamber Puzzle Hint Thread. The Dota 2 community has been running a House Tournament for the last week and if you have missed any of the matches check out the Dota 2 Community Spotlight. We have other official discussion threads for the 2013 update of Street Fighter X Tekken, games with confusing menu interfaces, the ending of Proteus, and the best Pokemon games that aren't from the Pokemon franchise.

• Official Antichamber Puzzle Hint Thread! (By: Chavtheworld)
• Dota 2 Community Spotlight (By: Mr_Skeleton)
• SFxT Version. 2013 Discussion (By: FLStyle)
• Worst Offender of Menu Confusion (By: squiDc00kiE)
• Proteus "Ending" Discussion Thread (By: visualninja)
• What Pokemon-like Games are Worth Playing? (By: Akyho)

Lovable Lists

For lists this week we have Super___Sam creating an alphabetical version of the usual "favorite games ever" list. The maestro of lists, Mento, on the other hand has created a highly humorous list of damsels in video games that are young or even children.

• Sugar and Spice in a World That's Not Nice (By: Mento)
• Some of My Favorite Games, in Alphabetical Order (By: Super__Sam)

Useful User Reviews

• TrueEnglishGent's user review of DmC Devil May Cry
• Lazyaza's user review of DmC Devil May Cry
• feetoffthesky's user review of DmC Devil May Cry
• Demoskinos's user review of DmC Devil May Cry
• punkycrisps's user review of The Cave
• Mento's user review of Pandora's Tower
• TheSilentGod's user review of Crusader Kings II

User Created Podcasts

• TL;DL Episode 20: JRPGs are dead (So is THQ)
• The Mighty Electronic Box (Week of 01/28/13)

@ZombiePie said:

You're damn right I'm not! I don't even have the game yet, and I don't want to spoil a damn thing.

Oh man, that bootleg Encyclopedia Bombastica is... something else!

@Video_Game_King: I don't think you'll have to worry about that. The game comes out on Monday and I'm sure you'll have blown right by wherever Dave's QL save file is by the time it's actually posted. :P

@Hailinel:

That's not the only issue. Even saying "this game looks amazing" is a spoiler.

@Video_Game_King said:

@Hailinel:

That's not the only issue. Even saying "this game looks amazing" is a spoiler.

It really isn't.

@Hailinel:

It kind of is, at least in terms of forming an opinion. Things get much worse when the opinions get more specific (and you know they will).

@Video_Game_King said:

@Hailinel:

It kind of is, at least in terms of forming an opinion. Things get much worse when the opinions get more specific (and you know they will).

Nothing's preventing you from forming your own.

@Hailinel:

But being exposed to another's opinion before you form your own certainly makes it more difficult. There's the risk that you could either just steal their opinions outright without knowing, or reacting to it apropos of nothing.

@Video_Game_King said:

@Hailinel:

But being exposed to another's opinion before you form your own certainly makes it more difficult. There's the risk that you could either just steal their opinions outright without knowing, or reacting to it apropos of nothing.

Opinions aren't made in vacuums.

@Hailinel:

I'd rather keep them as atomistic as possible.

@Video_Game_King said:

@Hailinel:

I'd rather keep them as atomistic as possible.

It doesn't work that way. Opinions often evolve based on the arguments and opinions of others.

@Hailinel:

And yet there is still some individual element to an opinion. That much is harder to deny. I simply wish to maximize that individual element wherever I see it, and that much I see.

Love that Rec_Spec blog. I'd managed to forget just how terrific the music was in Heavy Rain.

Seeing, TL;DL always on these lists usually gets me pumped to do another one the next day. #goodtimes!

Congrats everyone! Oh, we're ready for Fire Emblem's newest arrival. Like Video Game King, I avoided wiki binging on the Awakening characters.

My bad, Groose is a Zelda character and one of my favorite ones in the franchise. I couldn't pull off two FE characters that night.

Edit:

Thanks ZombiePie for putting the Awakening Banner up!

Thanks for the feature. Wasn't expecting that.

I'm actually kinda interested in seeing some Fire Emblem. That's 3DS right?

Also, tis but another 2 man cast this week: http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/chavtheworld/podcast-the-mighty-electronic-box-week-of-040213/30-99306/

Something poetic.

Speaking of Fire Emblem, I wrapped up my Top 25 Most Anticipated Games of 2013 blog series. I'm halfway through and the game is somehow living up to expectations thus far.

Twoblogs and one list. 'preciate it.

Here's the latest edition of the Community Spotlight.