Wow I'm totally blown away by Borderlands. Here's a game I've been watching for a while now and wasn't sure what to expect. Yeah I knew that Id bee getting a cell shaded wasteland featuring coop play , but the game had some stiff competition it that category with Halo ODST being released a few weeks prior to it.

As far as I'm concerned this game blows Halo ODST away in the coop department. Not that ODST was a bad game it just wasn't meant to be a coop game in my opinion, Borderlands was built from the ground up for coop and it shows. It also lends its self at being a great single player game to.

The game is all about picking up loot. From weapons (tons of them) and shields, to boat loads of cash and rare items. This game does for me what I wish Too Human could have done and that's get me addicted to it. Borderlands also succeeds at being a great FPS and RPG all at the same time, a formula that doesn't always turn out to well. I guess there's something about the wasteland setting that makes these two genres work great together…think Fallout 3.

So why should you buy a copy of Borderlands

1. Its a First person Shooter
2. Its also an RPG
3. 4 player online coop !
4. Addictive as hell
5. And a Gagillion Weapons !

-TX

In the Summer of 2007 (2008 for PS3 owners) gamers were treated to an incredible gaming experience, one which won the heart of gamers and critics alike, 2K Boston's Bioshock . Many of you I am sure were left with an indelible impression of wonder and excitement as a result of your exploration of the city of Rapture, its inhabitants, and the adventure of which you just partaken of. The game's environment set the mood and the story took you on a wild ride through the underwater city and, in the end, left one wanting more of Rapture. At least that is how I felt, and so with that I waited for word on an impending sequel.

When a sequel was finally announced I was excited indeed and I followed the news for the upcoming game very closely, but a funny thing has happened to me on my path to the Sea of Dreams. I have noticed that recently my desired return to Rapture was not what it used to be, that it has waned significantly, almost to the point of myself giving a big shrug to the games recently (and finally) announced release date of February 9, 2010. How could this have happened? How could my interest for the sequel for one of my favourite games of all time fall away so? I took some time recently to analyse this situation, and I have came up with a few points that may be responsible for this phenomenon:

The Man They Call Levine: Ken Levine was widely considered the mastermind behind BioShock, and for good reason, he was the mastermind behind BioShock and its trippy and wonderful storyline. When the sequel was announced we were also made aware that the development would fall to the dev team at 2K Marin, well stocked with original BioShock development veterans. No offence to the hard working team at 2K Marin, but when you lose a lead like Ken Levine from your project, it is not going to do your game any favours. Early in development it was announced the Ken Levine would have some input on the new BioShock, but I speculate with Ken hard at work on his own super-secret project and no word on his involvement since, that BioShock 2 will be for good or ill a Levine-less project.

Delays: Though we now have a firm release date as I stated above, BioShock 2's pushed back date has put it out of sight and out of mind behind a sea of tripe-A games. It will be about two-and-a-half years between games, while not a huge amount of time between sequels, it does give one time to forget possibly why they were excited in the first place.

Competition: Remember that sea of triple-A games I just mentioned? Sure fire hits like Halo 3: ODST, Forza Motorsport 3, Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and Assassin's Creed 2 as well as games like Borderlands, Tekken 6, and Lost Planet 2 will be arriving before BioShock 2. Each of these games are not only highly anticipated, but also have serious legs. Will we be ready for BioShock by February? Will we care if we are knee-deep in our Modern Warfare 2 or Halo 3: ODST multi players?

Increased Financial Expectations: BioShock 2 is already earmarked as one of Take 2's flagship franchises and with all the expectations that go along with it. Like the Grand Theft Auto franchise, much of Take 2's fortunes ride on BioShock and its sequel. With sales expectations of more than 5 million for this game (much more than the games original sales) the company has a lot riding on it's success, and I fear that these expectations will not be met. What would that mean for BioShock going forward?

Too Many Cooks: With all these expectations heaped upon BioShock 2, 2K Games is sparing no expense in order to ensure this game's release schedule slips no further. No less than four separate development teams are involved at this point in order to bring the game to market. With lead developer 2K Marin creating the core of the game, 2K Australia has taken over the testing with Digital Extremes creating the games multi player component and Arcane Studios lending a hand with the art design. BioShock 2's Sea of Dreams appears to be spread all over the globe. Will they be able to pull all these desperate pieces together into one cohesive collection of a game?

This is Not the Prequel I was Looking For: Yes I am judging this very early, but I think it is because I had certain expectations from what I wanted to see from this game, particularly from the prequel/multiplayer portion. Early on when rumours were swirling about the next BioShock game, the idea that it was to be a prequel really caught my interest. I really wanted to experience Rapture before the fall and interact or see the story unfold for Ryan, Fontaine, Doctors Tenenbaum and Steinman, Sander Cohen and all the great Rapture personalities which were alluded to in the first game. I imagined a Rapture before the fall being a bright, vibrant, world that Andrew Ryan envisioned when creating his undersea utopia. BioShock 2 will visit Rapture before the fall, but only as a component of its multiplayer, therefore bypassing all that potential and esthetic. The multiplayer takes place in the thick of the Rapture civil war, ignoring all the great stories that could have been told. Perhaps we will get the prequel I wish for someday.

Big Daddy, Big Problem: Everybody loves the Big Daddy, right? I think we can all agree on that. But to play the entire game as one? I am not so sure about that one. Yes we will be able to explore Rapture's undersea back yard, but we will miss that feeling of being a helpless every-man trapped in this strange world. Will the first Big Daddy versus the Big Sister sustain through the game? <SPOILER> I think I may miss being the prodigal son returning.

It appears that I have some major concerns with the potential for this game, and I do. It has definitely slipped off my radar a lot, but it is still there, and I do intend on purchasing the game. I hope to play it and be proved wrong, hoping that 2K Game's army of developers can recreate the magic of BioShock and climb out from under Ken Levine's shadow. As I stated before, I loved the original and want to once again be immersed in this world. While I am not sure if BioShock ever needed a multiplayer component, it appears we are getting one anyway. So February 10, 2009 will be the test, lets hope that we have room on our calendars and in our hearts for this sequel with the uphill (up swim) climb.

-SG

Last  night when I got home I received a pleasant surprise when my Facebook page had informed me that Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II went 50% off at Steam.  When I was planning on buying my new laptop, one of the things I had in mind for it was to do some PC gaming.  Dawn of War II caught my eye early on as an interesting starting point to delve into PC gaming, after all what is more PC than a Real Time Strategy game (RTS).

Granted I did not know much about it other than it was developed by Relic who created the critically acclaimed Company of Heroes (which is on sale as well) and that it was not as intensive as other PC RTS games tend to be.  Last but not least I was also intrigued by the fact that I could earn LIVE achievements to pad my Xbox LIVE Gamerscore.

I did download and enjoy the demo, now I just need a little time to get immersed into the game.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous to be using the mouse and keyboard for controls, but I am happy that it is not a ‘twitch’ game, so I think I should be able to handle it.  Interesting times ahead!

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War® II

-SG

An interesting bit of news surfaced this past week that caught my attention.  IGN reported that Smith and Tinker and Piranha Games are rebooting the storied PC Mech franchise with an all new game on the PC and Xbox 360 entitled MechWarrior.  Now you can read the article in its entirety and watch a teaser trailer for the upcoming title here, but what I want to write about today is what this announcement means to me by looking back on my Mech battling past.

To start of I am going to go way back.  All the way back to 1988.  I was in my mid teens and a Commodore 64 owner looking for a fresh and exciting RPG to sink my teeth into.  I was recently wowed by my first experiences with the Robotech animated series and was looking to find a game that was comparable in story and scope.  Via the magazines of the time I was introduced to the Battletech series, seeing ads for the game Battletech: The Crescent Hawk Inception. Even though the C64 version was mildly ‘nerfed’ compared to its PC counterparts it was a solid RPG and was an unusual genre for the franchise as future games would focus on the direct piloting of the Mechs.  I quickly completed this game, but little did I know that it would be the better part of two decades before I would get to revisit the Battletech/MechWarrior  series.  This time it would sport a new, hipper title, MechAssault.

In the first days of Xbox LIVE is was really about two games, Ghost Recon and MechAssault.  For me I was not as interested in the complex military action of Ghost Recon so I quickly latched onto MechAssault.  I appreciated its variety of Mechs, online teamwork, and accessibility of play.  A spent  many an evening playing the multiplayer component if favour of the single player campaign.  I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that this game was a moderate success on the platform.  It also brought twitch gameplay to the franchise that had been firmly rooted on the PC since A couple of years later a sequel was released entitled MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf.

When MechAssault 2 came out it appeared that it would be a sure fire hit as it looked to have improved on the original title in everyway possible on paper.  One of the big bullet points for this title was a persistent online conflict where your conflicts had an overall effect on the balance of power within the games universe.  While the game pushed forward the mythology of the Battletech universe the game was mired in several game breaking problems.  The games poor matchmaking and lack of flexibility to chose your Mech within its persistent online battle often left me and my friends stuck in lobbies waiting for enough people to make a game.  We not so fondly began to refer to the game as ‘Lobby-Assault’.  The poor performance of two fan favourite properties (the other being Shadowrun) led to Microsoft disbanding the development studies and selling the rights to Smith and Tinker.  Now I led with where that went, but I am not ready to return to that story.  Two other great games were yet to be played, Steel Battalion and Chromehounds.

 Steel Battalion and its online sequel, Steel Battalion: Line of Contact, were games in my opinion that were well ahead of their time.  Unfortunately the game’s greatest strength was its greatest weakness, the prohibitively priced, but oh so awesome controller.  Steel Battalion weighed in at a hefty $250 price tag, its price at the time was comparable to the price of the entire console it ran on (the Xbox if you did not know already).  Also due to the pricing the game was available in very limited numbers.  But those who were able to find the game and pay the price discovered a game experience that you could not find anywhere else on home consoles. 

Capcom’s ambition increased ten fold with the release of the online expansion, Line of Contact.  The online game supported 5 vs.. 5 Vertical Tank combat, collectable rare items, chat rooms, an action house, and a persistent online conflict where your battles again would effect the state of the overall conflict.  I had an awesome personal campaign going in LoC, but two things in this game doomed my interest.  When you die in Steel Battalion, you die.  Your career is over and all you have accumulated is gone.  So when my character died I actually was shocked and felt like somebody kicked me in the stomach.  That coupled with the ‘lobby assault’ where it could take up to 30 minutes to get a game together spelled the end for this game for me.  Steel Battalion burned the brightest, but certainly not the longest.  I often wonder what could have been had this game waited one more generation to be released.  Again it would be a couple more years before the torch was picked up again with Sega’s Chromehounds on the Xbox 360.

I was very excited for the arrival of Chromehounds.  I had a lot of confidence that the third time would be the charm and this persistent online world thing would finally take a hold in the Xbox LIVE community.  Once again though it appeared that poor net coding would be the bane of this genre of gaming on the Xbox console space.  While I and my friends had a lot of fun building ‘Hounds and taking part in the battle, in the end we had to settle for playing against the computer as the game could just not handle the scope of the games online play.  At the end of the day I am left to wonder if this genre, this style of play had anywhere to go this generation.  Fortunately it appears that we will get at least one more opportunity with the franchise that started it all for me, MechWarrior.

While we are only introduced to this game with a teaser trailer, from what I observed it appears to strike a balance between Steel Battalion and MechAssault.  The inclusion of 4-player co-op is a huge win as well.  So after years of hits and misses in this genre I am very confident that the retooled MechAssault franchise will strike the correct chord once and for all.  I will be watching closely any developments on this game.  Xbox 360 and PC owners be on the lookout, the new generation of Mech assaulting will soon be at hand.

IGN: MechWarrior Revealed

-SG

 

 

 

Its a beautiful sunny day. The grass is green, the sun is shining and the birds are singing. But then in typical fashion when it comes to video games it all goes wrong. Your lovely day is ruined. What happens when your front lawn becomes overrun by Zombies ? What are you going to do ? Nothing. That's right Nothing !

Your lawn takes so much more pride in its self than your you ever could dream of and is ready to fight back in Plants vs. Zombies. Your front Lawn is hardcore From the Sun Flowers right down to those measly little mushrooms that seem to pop up from time to time.

I know I may be a little late to the party here with this one, but I just downloaded a demo yesterday and loved it. The game is what I would describe as a strategy defense game with mini games. You use your sun flowers to collect sun witch gives the energy you need to grow more plants to defend your lawn.

You have “pea” shooter turrets, walnuts that acts as a blockade defense and cherries that bomb multiple zombies at once (get it cherry bombs). Every level you unlock new weapons or defense seeds to grow in your garden. Once you have a full arsenal you can only choose to have a certain number of weapons to bring to the party so choose wisely . Every few levels or so the game throws some faster paced mini games at you to keeps things fresh. Brilliant I say !

This game is so much fun and so addictive that I'm going to delete the demo I downloaded yesterday and find a new one to download now (timed demo). I suggest checking the Link below and downloading the trail version yourself. Also checkout the video ICandee posted at her blog , its priceless. If this game isn't announced for the the 360 or at least iPhone by the time E3 comes, this my very well be the first ever PC purchase I make.

Pop Cap Games: Plants vs. Zombies

-TX

 

Well we’d like to thank all of you, yes all 3  of  you that were eligible for entering in our Final Fantasy XI (PC) giveaway. One randomly selected winner has been drawn.

And the winner is ……………… ICandee ! Congratulation to you. I know with all your free time being a mom, wife, career women and gamer that you should have no problem finding time to play an online MMO !

Please contact me Via Xbox Live at gamer tag TormentX or at tormentx@hotmail.com for your shipping information.

Again thanks to all who entered and once again Congratulations to ICandee for becoming our winner !

Here it is folks the first ever Text Adventures give away contest . One lucky reader can take home the PC version of Final Fantasy XI (online MMO only) with 4 expansion packs (monthly fee required). All you need to do is leave a comment under this post for a chance to win.

The contest will run for two weeks, then a randomly selected winner will be drawn. Just make sure to check back to see if you have won. The contest is only open to the residents of the United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii). The winner will be announced on May 11TH. You will have ONE week to claim your prize after that another winner will be drawn. Good Luck to everyone !

FINAL FANTASY XI

-TX

When you can't help yourself, you just can't help yourself.  Today I unexpectedly got the itch to do a little shopping.  This time I found a lot of interesting deals, so without further adieu, 'Guess What I Bought Today'!

Tom Clancy's EndWar - Limited Wireless Headset Edition:  Here is my deal of the day.  Since I purchased H.A.W.X. a few weeks back I had a hankering to complete my next-gen Tom Clancy collection.  As I was only missing EndWar I decided today to keep my eyes open for it.  When visiting WalMart earlier today I spotted the EndWar headset bundle for only $38!  That is a huge deal as the headset itself will run you $60-$70 CDN.  So needless to say I grabbed that straight away.  So big-up myself on that one.  Chalk that up as my deal-of-the-day!

Fallout PC Collection: This is a close second for deal-of-the day.  I was able to complete my Fallout game collection today by taking advantage of a promotion over at Good Old Games (gog.com).  I picked up Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics for under $15!  If you have never been to gog.com before, you should really check it out.  They have some fantastic deals on old school PC games.  Heck, they will even run on my computer!

The Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind: Here is a blast from the past, I brought Morrowind back into the fold after all these years.  I made the mistake though of not buying the Game of the Year edition that contained the expansions. But for $5 who am I to complain.  I put quite a few hours in this game back in the day.  I am glad to have a copy again just in case I want to head back and do some exploring.

Resident Evil - The Essentials:  Now while I owned all three of these games already, I am a stickler for good boxes and manuals.  So I returned my unopened Resident Evil Outbreak and traded in my copy of Resident Evil 4.  Since this collection was recently reduced, I actually came out $3 ahead.  I am about 12 hours along in RE4 so I need to get back to that game soon.

So all in all it was a pretty crazy afternoon.  On a related note I also picked up the latest copy of Game Informer which has the Assassin's Creed 2 cover story and I also snagged a free RE5 Limited Edition Laser Cel from the good kids at my local EB.

-SG

 

So my copy of FF XI came via UPS today and I was excited to open it and start the 3 hour 8 GB install. BUT…….. to my surprise the copy that was sent me wasn't for my beloved Xbox 360 , it was for the PC.

OK so now I have an issue.  Some people may have been like hey I’ll just keep this and play it on my PC. Well not me ! PC’s are for creating games not playing them in my book.

I immediately called the EB Games customer service number and got ready for the usual B.S. you have to put up with. After explaining that I ordered the 360 version the customer service rep was like “ok  we’ll send you a new copy right away”. I was like ok cool but what do I do about sending you back the game I have. The guy says “don't worry about it, it was our mistake you keep it.”

Well now I have the PC version of Final Fantasy XI  (with the first four expansion packs) that I’m never going to open or play. So what do I do with it. I’m thinking the first ever TEXT ADVENTURE GIVE AWAY ! Stay tuned to see how you can win.

-TX

Everyday I walk to work, usually along the same streets. Recently I noticed a sign spray-painted onto the sidewalk. Now to the casual observer it may not be noticed at all or appear to be a rudimentary house-shape. But to someone who is keenly aware of what threat Zombies pose in today's day and age it is clearly an indication of a nearby safe house!

Now I have two projects. One, document the safe house sign. Two, find that safe house so that when the Zombie horde hits my city. Always be prepared, because duck-and-cover won't help you here!

Left 4 Dead

-SG