Donederlands

I think, for the time being, I've had my fill of delicious Original Style Borderlands. I've not attempted to make any further strides in my noble fight to 100% it on PC, mainly because me and my co-op partner have been wrecking faces and jumping off places in the stunning sequel (although there are some minor caveats to that blanket statement of praise). Whilst I will eventually get back to the hike up completionist mountain, in order to stake my flag into the top of Borderlands peak, I will use this time and space to talk about the dozens of hours that I've enjoyed, so far, in Borderlands 2.

Let’s start with breaking down, in the most simplistic and shittiest terms possible, what I majorly like and majorly dislike about this game. Just, because...well...I feel like it.

I like:

• No more per character weapon levelling
• The slightly thicker, meatier plot
• No fall damage

I dislike:

• No more per character weapon levelling
• Most of the dialogue
• Some of the humour

These above points are in specific reference to changes made from the original game, and in that regard, we are going to have a look at how and why these changes were made; and why I think what I think of them. Let us start with very first issue/improvement...

I like AND dislike: No more per character weapon levelling
Okay, just to make sure we all know what I'm talking about (I have enough trouble with that as it is), this fairly small combat-related system is a thing that was present in the first game, whereby you essentially levelled up your skill with any one of the seven weapon types, in a Daggerfally/Morrowindy stylee. Here are some pictures to jog your manky memory!

Got it? Course you do! It’s easy enough, use a combat rifle more and you get better at using a combat rifle (as you can probably tell, I used the combat rifle a lot). Now, in Borderlands, this always gave me an incentive to stick to one or two main weapon types, essentially ‘maining’ them. This system also linked into the classes and their associated class mods, ideally if you wanted to get really sexy powerful with the submachine gun; you’d want to use a class that would get buffs to their submachine gun effectiveness based on class tree as well as mods, and finally the overall weapon proficiency.

This trinity (cut down to a duology in the sequel) lightly punished you for not sticking to a cohesive weapon and class plan. Going ahead and picking up that dope rocket launcher when you possessed but a mere level 1 proficiency with it, would mean you’d miss more, take longer to reload and do less damage. I feel that Gearbox perfectly balanced these points in the combat system with the benefits that were very easy to gain from just sticking with a weapon throughout the game. This, in turn, made picking a class and weapon combination really matter so much more than in Borderlands 2. Which opted for a slightly broader system, where anyone can use any weapon, and tied the ongoing weapon-based levelling into the mighty Badass Rank.

Which, don’t get me wrong, isn't a bad thing, I'm not saying that the move to this different levelling system is worse in some way. I just dislike that the old system isn't in there as well (or modified and incorporated in some clever way). I JUST LIKE THINGS THAT LEVEL UP THE MORE YOU USE THEM!

Anyway, that was a stupid thing. On to the next thing!

I like: The slightly thicker, meatier plot
More twists, more turns, we get to see cooler places, and experience better characterisation throughout the overall storyline. All good. Except for a couple of little things...

I dislike: Most of the dialogue
I cringed throughout nearly every single line of Tiny Tina’s (I love Ashly Burch in every single way possible, by the way). Handsome Jack ceased to be threatening in any way after a few hours of idle threats and perfunctorily poor puns. I did like the majority of the Claptrap stuff, but it did grate on my nerves in a few places, the idling or ‘hanging around not doing anything’ stuff was pretty great all round. To be honest, the less words that I have to listen to, between me and my shooting of people in the head, the better. To my mind, and from what I can remember, there was just less of that stuff in the original. And I kind of appreciated the slightly scant amount of words that I was subject to.

I like: No fall damage
Yes! My god yes!

I dislike: Some of the humour
The frequent use of overt Internet-based humour just did not jibe with me, I felt that the way the first game handled stuff like film parody and self-referential stuff was just funnier. Again, this is just me (I love Anthony Burch in every single way possible, by the way). I would have been fine with nods to stupid dubstep and silly memes (both of those things are big parts of my life) if it was kept out of the ‘front of house’. References to that stuff inside of menus, achievements, item descriptions, rather than the more in-your-face approach taken this time around.

Bounding around Borderlands

Since last month’s update on my shoot ‘n’ stroll around the original Borderlands, I went and stuck a few more hours up inside it, attempting to pound every last quivering rivulet of content out of it. Which, of course, in this day and age, means getting 100% of all possible Steamchievements...right...right!? Well, I ain't got the hundo quite yet, but I'm still happy with where I am right now. Especially since Borderlands 2 is now out and downloaded and playing on my computermatograph, which means the sad tired original is getting tossed aside for the short to medium term. More on that new hotness later in the programme!

Sticking with my congealed thoughts on the original game for the time being, let us discuss more of what I think makes this a wholly great CFPSWRPGE (Cooperative First Person Shooter With Role Playing Game Elements). I have already talked about how the weapons (the combat rifle, in particular) and classes (the soldier, in my case) provide an extremely solid set of gameplay mechanics from which to base the team-oriented combat puzzles on, the strengths of certain elemental types against particular enemies, the balance of extreme-range snipers backing up the close range Action Powers of those getting up into the enemy's fray. A quick thought here, those special class abilities you use are called Action Powers. Action. Powers.

Bravo, Gearbox, bravo.

Since I talked about that shit that I just talked about before, before. We’ll move swiftly on towards the next little thing that I want to fill your squishy eyes with words about. Plot. Firstly, just to make sure that we are all on the same page as each other, I am talking about plot in the old skool sense, as defined by Aristotle way back in the day and around the corner. This, in essence, takes the word ‘plot’ to mean “the arrangement of the incidents”. Not the story itself but the way that the events inside of the narrative arc are presented to the audience. Good that? Good.

A quick synopsis of the story arc of Borderlands could look a little something like this:

Beginning

The player character (herein and henceforth called the Vault Hunter) arrives on the planet of Pandora, in search of mega treasures located inside of a mystical place known as the Vault.

Middle

You shoot lots and lots and lots of people and mutants and wild animals and crazed lunatics. Gaining information or keys that progresses your progress towards the...

End

Whereupon you find and open the Vault, gaining fame and renown the world o’er.

At least that’s what it looks like to me, cause I ain't knee deep in the corpses of my felled enemies because of well wrought characterisation, or deeply compelling tension sprinkled around the game in order to drag my ass through to the end. I'm here to shoot things. Lots and lots of things. Again and again and again. In this way I would liken it somewhat to Halo, yes there is a story wrapped up in there, but it’s the combat that you partake in that writes the interesting scenarios you and your colleagues find yourself in. That time when you were both so low on ammo that you had to beat down every mother fucker in the place with your bare hands, that time when you ran your vehicle into a group of soon-to-be-road kill only to have the physics engine throw a shit fit and send you spinning out into orbit.

This near-constant action-packed “arrangement of the incidents” is what I consider to be the real plot of this game. Those moments, good and bad, funny and sad, crazy and mad, are all the reasons I need to play games like Borderlands 1 and 2. Which is why I'm not bothered by the lack of a strong story in the first game, and the addition of lashings of more story sauce in the second.

My and my combat rifle are writing our own stories. IN BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

Before we bounce on this segment, here are some more numbers from then and from now:

Smelly Old Numbers.
First played: 21 July, 2012
Last played: 4 August, 2012
36.7 total hours on record
51 of 80 (64%) achievements earned
First achievement earned: And They'll Tell Two Friends (21 July, 2012)
Last achievement earned: It's so realistic! (4 August, 2012)
Level 44
Level 30 combat rifle proficiency
34 items purchased
72863 total shots fired
573 kills from critical hits
2411 combat rifle kills / 437 sniper rifle kills / 149 pistol kills / 10 rocket launcher kills / 9 SMG kills / 0 shotgun kills

Hot New Numbers.
Last played: 12 August, 2012
51.3 total hours on record
64 of 80 (80%) achievements earned
Last achievement earned: Speedy McSpeederton (12 August, 2012)
Level 69
Level 50 combat rifle proficiency
57 items purchased
100,000 total shots fired (at least)
938 kills from critical hits
2500 combat rifle kills (at least) / 670 sniper rifle kills / 260 pistol kills / 10 rocket launcher kills / 9 SMG kills / 34 shotgun kills

Bordering on the Bored

Since none of you duders came to my aid, I just went ahead and ploughed through this lovable little scamp of a video game by myself. And good golly, isn’t that just a jolly little FPS to romp around in? Coming back to it after a couple of years away from the Xbox 360 version of the game, and getting down to the juicy PC version (it ain’t that terrible, despite what many people say about the UI, as it happens, you should be using a Xbox 360 controller anyway) was a great experience. The amalgamation of blasting through half remembered parts of that game along with experiencing the new sights and sounds proffered by the DLC that I had missed out on the first time around (namely, Claptrap's New Robot Revolution) was really quite a good bit of fun.

The instantly familiar heft and weight of the weaponry was somehow soothing to my ailing digits, the tried and true left trigger/right trigger combination of firing a scoped combat rifle into the squishy heads of distant enemies was like a warm comforting blanket around my shoulders. In fact, this familiarity was fed by more than just these feeble human feelings, but also due to the fact that I was still using the same wired Xbox 360 controller that I had bought in October 2008, and which I had originally played Borderlands with back in 2009. There is a small story to this particular controller (and in particular, the particular parts that make up this particular controller) that maybe, someday, I’ll be able to share with you all. If you’re good, and don’t leave any of this homemade content on your plate.

What a crock of shit all that was, maybe I should write about why I thought this was an awesome game in 2009, and why I think it’s still pretty not bad today, or whatever day I post this edition on (yeah...that’s right, these posts are called ‘editions’...bringing back that magazine terminology for twenty does). Here we go.

I started a completely new game on a completely new platform, but I still choose to roll with the only class that I had ever poured any serious amount of time into, the soldier. It’s not as if I’d not tried out the other patrons of punishment during my first go-around with the game, but the time I spent with the other four characters probably totalled something in the region of a dozen hours or so. The primary reasons for picking the same guy once again are that I really like having a deployable turret with homing missiles, team ammo regen, grenade regen, huge magazine sizes on scoped combat rifles, along with grenades and bullets that heal my whole team. All of these little features packed into the soldier really suit my style of gameplay, at least in this game, which is to usually stay out of way of enemies and put about 500 corrosive rounds into their skulls from outside of their effective range. Now, Mordecai and his affinity for sniper rifles could of course reach out and touch those distant enemies with great ease, but those rifles tend to be semi automatic and have small magazines. I like to be able to go from burst fire to fully automatic as and when the situation demands.

I’ve not forgotten that all of the classes can indeed make use of all of the weapon types, but the way I tend to play is to stick with the favoured weapon of that particular class, I find I can make the most of class mods and proficiency levels that way. Speaking of class mods, and their interaction with your skill points (oh yeah, this game includes some RPG elements...hmm...), did you know that even though you can only have five points assigned to any one skill in your skill tree, any bonuses applied by class mods invisibly stack above and beyond that ‘maximum’ number, all the way up to nine points in total, made up from five points from the tree and four points from a mod. Huh, that’s not a thing that’s ever mentioned or explained at any point in the game, ever. Which is a shame, at least for the ghost of past me, because I never knew that the first time around. I rectified this by making damn sure that I exploited this functionality throughout my recent playthrough.

My faithful soldier is called Walter White, and I can role play him. Wait, no, that’s not really what I mean, let me try and explain what I’m getting at. As we all know, Borderlands has a light sprinkling of RPG Parmigiano-Reggiano all over its meaty FPS lasagne base. Now it clearly isn’t a RPG in the same way as Fallout or The Witcher or Baldur’s Gate is, but it does have those flavourful crunchy nuggets of RPG elements mixed up in there. I, however, am not talking about functionality or mechanics, loot tables or the levelling up that is bestowed unto the player by these associated RPG elements. What I mean by role playing in this case is that, more than any other single player/co-op FPS game that I can care to remember, you are being constantly encouraged and rewarded by the effect you are having upon both your enemies and your teammates. The role that you are playing. Not through dialogue choices or a colour-coded morality wheel, but through the weapons and abilities that you bring to bear on your opponents, and the well-defined niche that you are filling inside of the team dynamic. More words coming at you in the next paragraph...

In a 4 player co-op campaign game of Halo 3 (which is great fun, by the way), you have a ‘role’ as part of the team in relation to the weapons that you are carrying, which in turn probably comes from your skill and ability with those said weapons. There are certain people who are expert snipers, and will never pick up a hammer or a sword, then there will be those people that prefer to stick with plasma weapons in order to effectively rip through enemy shields and so and so forth. Due to the weapon balancing that Bungie does in its Halo games you are actively encouraged to change weapons as the situation demands it, you cannot physically reach out to an opponent who is 300 feet away with a shotgun, so you must switch up or scavenge up something else to deal with the threat. Ideally, your teammates will be aware that you are holding the sole shotgun among your group, and therefore target the enemies that you can not...ideally...

Now, these roles as defined by balance of player ability and weapon limitation in Halo 3 are morphed into something quite refreshing when we look at how Borderlands handles things, at least in my gorgeous watery blue eyes. You have quick access to any one of four weapons (not quite from the beginning of the game, but still early in the grand scheme of things), with no restrictions as to what kind of weapon you are able to use at any particular time. Unlike what we find in the Halo games, where every weapon behaves in the same way every time, you are able to supplement and upgrade the effectiveness of your armaments in Borderlands. This, of course ties into those scrummy RPG elements mentioned earlier, upgrading and levelling up and whatnot. But what I feel that Borderlands is giving me here is a continual feedback loop where I become more and more invested in using a weapon, along with the feeling that I'm playing into the role that the combat rifle is best suited to.

I’ve just spent all that time just rambling about how I think the combat rifles in Borderlands feel rewarding to use.

I THINK WE’LL END THIS TRAINWRECK THERE FOR NOW THANKS!?

I'll sit quietly and think about what I done, and try to form actual real boy thoughts about this game and talk about other goods things that are on the inside of it, suffice it to say that it's still a great game overall and it remains as enjoyable as ever. And except for the slight inconvenience caused by the lack of warp points inside of the DLC levels, I have learnt to love it all over again. The warp points are just a minor issue that I’m sure Randy has personally fixed for Borderlands 2, which will drop into my gaping British computer machine in 45 days time.

Some of the numbers related to me playing this game:

First played: 21 July, 2012

Last played: 4 August, 2012

36.7 total hours on record

51 of 80 (64%) achievements earned

First achievement earned: And They'll Tell Two Friends (21 July, 2012)

Last achievement earned: It's so realistic! (4 August, 2012)

Level 44

Level 30 combat rifle proficiency

34 items purchased

72863 total shots fired

573 kills from critical hits

2411 combat rifle kills

437 sniper rifle kills

149 pistol kills

10 rocket launcher kills

9 SMG kills

0 shotgun kills

City of Guilds

The first pre-purchase beta weekend is nearly here! I'm in the planning stages of getting together a group of funky guys to talk about this game. Come on down and play with us, and let me know if you wanna be in a video or podcast or something.

Harbinger

Not that anyone is going to be reading this shit, I am still going to post within the bounds of the UK Video Game Spoilers Act 2003. As such, please be aware:

Here be spoilers for all three of the Mass Effect games. What do you mean you ain't finished them all? Get to it! It's okay, I'll wait...

There we go. Right, let's get on with the show!

Yeah, so, Mass Effect 3 was kind of a roller-coaster for most people wasn't it? A mostly great ride with a bit of a slow start, a gradual build up to a fast-paced, interesting and fun several hours (these are the bits where you are doing loop-the-loops and corkscrews and shit), followed by a frantic and climactic finale, which then resolves with you suffering a horrific ride malfunction and results in everyone dying and generally not having a fun time. Oh...wait...

I am not even going to get into the good and the bad and the ugly of the final sequences of the last game in one of this generation's greatest ever franchises (other than to say that I think BioWare could have done better, as they have demonstrated many times before). What I am going to do is gaze into the very window of a person's soul and talk about some cool/scary things. That person? The Illusive Man. And the window? His Paragon-blue eyes.

As demonstrated by the two above images, both the The Illusive Man (hereafter I'll refer to him simply as TIM) and Shepard sport (albeit optionally in games 2 and 3) these fairly obvious glowing eye thingies, which no one at any point in any of the games ever acknowledges or asks about, which is rather interesting. I mean, there are dozens of crazy looking doodads and flibberty gibbets stuck onto the various races throughout the game, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of individuals who you come across in your journey for galactic peace, and not a single one has ever been shown to have these sick looking glowing eye-rims.

As far as I'm aware you can only get the Renegade version of these eyes, as well as the accompanying 'scarring' in ME3, as stated in the game you are not yet fully healed from your re-constructive surgery and without acting nice to people (choosing the top-most options in dialogue wheels and the blue colour-coded Paragon options where available), you are basically letting the Dark Side flow through you and ravage your body in a outwardly physical manner. If you roll deep enough into the Renegade options you end up looking like you've got red hot magma boiling away just under your skin, combined with your Terminator eyes you look like the baddest badass that has ever existed IN THE ENTIRE GALAXY.

That brings me to my first major point, you can only ever become the evil-looking Shepard Commander in ME3, if you recall back to the second game there was the option for both sides of the moral scale to be represented through the medium of your face. You are in essence forced down the ruthless Renegade path if you want those sweet scars (there still exists the option to get your face completely scrubbed clean in the medbay). Now with the only other person in the galaxy boasting the Paragon version of this flair, it got me to a-thinkin...which side of the conflict is TIM really on, and which side does HE think he is on? And if the answer is that TIM is kinda a good guy, is it actually the case that the player-controlled character is actually travelling down the road of being a total dick.

The parallels that can be drawn between TIM and Saren are clear on a surface level, they have both fallen under the spell of Indoctrination (a single Reaper, Sovereign, in the case of Saren and an unspecified Reaper or Reapers with TIM). However, the major difference between the two is that Saren knows he is being Indoctrinated, and willingly submits to it, safe in the knowledge that Sovereign won't fully corrupt his mind due to the deterioration of his abilities and overall usefulness to the goal of opening up the Citadel for the impending invasion. TIM on the other hand, has trodden heavily down the path to the dark side in a really screwed up way, he uses salvaged Reaper/Collector technology to explore how he can essentially counter-Indoctrinate the Reapers (the little boy AI at the end of the game does indeed say that TIM could have technically done this, he happens to fail in this instance as his mind was already under the control of the Reapers). His experiments result in him killing thousands upon thousands of refugees as well as many members of his own personal army. Through TIM's eyes he is trying to get the upper hand on the Reapers, but in his eyes the Mass Effect moral scale still deems him as being a super-great guy!

The shenanigans that occur at the end of the game, with Shepard and Anderson and TIM in the control room of the Citadel, do show TIM finally snapping under the realisation that he being controlled (or so I hear, as a Renegade I just shot him as he was threatening to execute Anderson), yet his eyes have always stayed the same colour throughout two whole games. I doubt a case could be made for saying that TIM was Indoctrinated even in ME2, as he goes to great effort to keep Shepard's body out of the Collector's grubby hands. Maybe over the course of that game we are seeing TIM becoming a sleeper agent for the Reapers? Hmmm...

To explore this point more I'll be making a second post, maybe like a video review thing or maybe just words, I don't know yet. I just wanted to get something down that reminded me to talk about this rather odd little thing I noticed, even back in ME2 I thought it was cool/strange, there was this obviously dodgy dude with the same Paragon eyes as me, laying out the orders to do some rather kinky things. Anyhow, until next time, keelah se'lai.

Bombed and Wasted, and it's all just Diabolically Fine

Jesus Christ, I must stop writing headlines like Alex Navarro, oh wait, that reminds me of some news that happened to him and some other video gamey people you might have heard of.

THE GIANT BOMB DOT COM STAFF ARE MOVING BACK INTO THEIR OLD GAMESPOT OFFICES!?

The very same offices that Jeff and Ryan and Brad and Alex and Vinny all left upon the removal of Mr Gerstmann from his position as Editorial Director in 2007.

Oh, and Double fine are making a brand new point 'n' click adventure game for Windows, Mac and Linux

Oh, and inXile are making a brand new top-down RPG (a sequel to 1988's Wasteland), for WIndows, Mac and Linux.

Oh, and Diablo III now has a release date, and is available for pre-purchase right now! FUCK.

Oh, and the pre-purchase date for Guild Wars 2 was also announced. That says to me that we are really moving towards the end game in the development cycle for this monster of a MMORPG.

Oh, and Mass Effect 3, the sequel to one of the best video games of this generation came out just recently. That seems like something I should play...and it is!

Did I wake up in crazy town where all this wild stuff just happens upon the regular? Because it seems to me that shit just went all wild and awesome and weird in the space of about a week.

Back to the Front

Coming right back atcha! Rolling in hot off the heels...of...well me not having done an update for a good while, sorry! Even though I had planned to post at least a little something everyday, it turns out I have failed in that grand endeavour, however, it is through the flames of adversity that our revolve tempers like steel. Or something.

The long and short of this is that I will try my very best to improve my writing habits and my vidz. Some news that has spurned me back into action is the recent leaking of some details on everyone's favourite 16 player, competitive deathmatch FPS game (with experience based levelling system)...

SIM CITY 5

I can still vividly recall my many hours spent with the various versions of this fine gaming series, that funky jazz music, the crazy depth of intermingling all that technology, TAXATION. 2013 can't come soon enough!

Double fine and dandy

So, there's this video game company called Double Fine, and they have raised over $1,500,000 as development funds for a brand new point 'n' click adventure game. Funds, given freely unto them by fans, no venture capitalists, no loans, just normal people who believe in/trust/love Tim Schafer (as well as his band of merry men and women).

Now we have Mr Chris Avellone, of Obsidian Entertainment, making noises about possibly wanting to try to attempt some kind of similar thing at some point in the future.

Those guys down at Double Fine have created something very special with just their attempt at this endeavour, something that goes beyond just the software they are going to put out at the end of development, but they have gone and put ideas in people's heads. Very cool ideas. Inside cool people's heads.

I fuckin' love the video games.

Anno 2070 and on and on and on

So, I've been mucking around with producing some video content, namely a Long Look of the fantastic real time strategy game Anno 2070. I plan to get through the entire single player campaign of this thing whilst on tape, learning and tweaking things as I go, figuring out how to balance audio levels, syncing up video and audio tracks, selecting the best way to capture and encode console and PC footage and how to talk whilst playing a damn video game! I'm basically treating this as my 'learning on the job' training, I hope at some point in the future I'll be able to get all these things nailed down and be able to blast out hot polished content into your eagerly waiting faces.

Since I am on the subject of Anno 2070, we may as well jive for a minute on what I think about it, after putting around seven hours of playtime on the clock these will only be fledgling opinions and may well change over the course of the next 20 or 30 hours.

As far as RTS games go, this one differs a little from the norm (by that I mean the Command and Conquers and StarCrafts of this world). Here the focus is on a cycle of harvesting raw materials, processing them, turning them into useful products for construction or trade and then setting up supply lines with the AI characters on the map to boost your income/barter for the items that you need. This is placed over a familiar framework of city planning, taxation, management of power and food supplies, research and development as well as your inhabitant's happiness and safety.

With the emphasis on cultivation and trading rather than fast paced out-and-out warfare (although combat is a part of the game, in all my hours so far I have destroyed naught but one little pirate ship), you are guided down a slightly more gentle path in terms of pace and just how many actions you are expected to perform and respond to. This suits me just fine, as a big fan of those types of RTS games I am still more than willing to try something a little different from my usual experience, that being: Dawn of War, Homeworld, StarCraft, Command & Conquer, Dune II, Company of Heroes, Total Annihilation and Warcraft (other video games are available, or so I'm told).

I'm still finding my way with this game, but the more I play the more I feel like I'm learning a subtly different set of skills when compared to those aforementioned RTSes. I am, however, up to my ass in this one mission where my economy has just dropped right out from under me, I think I'm about 90 minutes into a mission that should have been completed in around 20. Whether it's just me or I've encountered a nasty bug, I don't know yet, can YOU help? /turns to point and look directly at you.

Fly me to the moon

I should buy a flight stick and a copy of DCS: A-10C Warthog.

I really shouldn't buy a flight stick and a copy of DCS: A-10C Warthog.

Quandary of the century.

Multiple hour-long videos showing my feeble attempts at getting the engines started would be something aright, it wouldn't be good, but it would be something.

Iota

I've been turning my hand to making some videos just recently, some with me blabbering over the top of them, some without. Exploring what feels good for me to do, experimenting, playing the field, spreading my bets(?). I'm sure I'll find something among the hours upon hours I intend to devote to my new worthy goals of talking about video games, that sits well with me as a player and as someone talking over the top of footage of people playing them sexy video games.

Theta

Ahhh, the joys of PC game modifications! Some 14 years after the original release on its home format, a small group of clever guys have finally unleashed version 1.0 of the DREAMCAST version of this seminal game, 'Dreamcast version? What're you talking about, there was that weird PS2 one but I ain't ever seen a Dreamcast copy!'. And you would be well within your rights to say that, because it never made it to market, a lot of the work done for that game found its way into the PS2 version as I understand it. Either way, through the power of personal computing, you can now experiencing this long lost iteration of Half Life!

If you'd rather not do that, you can of course just watch me play it instead. You'll find information in the video description on how to try this out for yourself.

They're waiting for you Gordon...in the test chamber...

Eta

The above is a test of the stripped down YouTube player (which only allows play and pause functionality), which is also the first video in my series of Long Looks! For the next several episodes I'll be playing through Anno 2070.

I'm also very, very glad to hear of the news regarding the release window for Guild Wars 2...

"In February we’ll invite select press to participate in beta testing, and in March and April we’ll aggressively ramp up the size of our beta test events so that many of you will have a chance to participate. And of course, this all leads to the release of Guild Wars 2 later this year."

This might be the first MMO I sink some real time into, ever since Anarchy Online back in 2001.

Zeta

Missed my post for the yesterday, whoops. I've been spending that time mucking around with recording game footage, video upload solutions and learning more about CSS.

Also, my website will be called heightofthegame.com.

To that end, here is my footage from The Darkness II PC demo, it seems like a cool continuation from the original. Although I've yet to fully adjust to the new art style, Digital Extremes are throwing down dark and gory with their vision of the game.

Digamma

All these games and more can be YOURS!

With reports that Battlefield 3 on the PC has gone right down the shitter recently, and the mass outcry from legitimate gamers getting banned by the nefarious hand of the hacker elite, it seems like everything is conspiring against our plucky band of brave PC gamers.

But fear not!

There are other ways to play!

If near-future murder simulators/tea plantation management are your thing, then Anno 2070 is the game for you! To that end, I am pleased to announce that I will be playing through and recording Anno 2070 for all. Also, the name for my website has been chosen, now I just have to learn web design for about a year in order to get something worth posting onto the widest of world wide webs.

Epsilon

To Freely Play Where No One Has Freely Played Before...except...for all those other free to play MMOs.

After putting in around a dozen hours into this game, I feel I can come away saying that I mostly enjoyed myself with this space-based travelling simulator. As I had briefly mentioned before, the space-based combat is really the most enjoyable part of the whole game, the combat mechanics have you managing multi-directional shield strength, buffs and powers from your multiple bridge consoles (these are denoted by the Bridge Officers that you have manning particular subsystems, a science officer in command of a science console will give you access to the Tachyon Beam power, which will help drain enemy shields), your Captain skills to help boost damage or speed, the 3D positioning of your ship in relation to your opponent/s. And all of things are accompanied by above average sights and sounds, the sense of space and scope in these battles is impressive and works well with the naval-style engagements. For example, you are letting loose with your phaser arrays at distances of around 10km or so, before closing in for barrages of photon or quantum torpedoes, all the while engaging small fighter style craft as well as bigger frigate and cruiser style ships.

The other parts of the game are mostly just average, utilitarian, they serve their purpose just fine, but nothing in the plot is grabbing me to the degree of a finely crafted Bioware RPG, for example. That is, of course, not exactly a fair criticism to level at a large scale server-side focussed game (except Bioware have just come out with this other Dreams into Old Knights Republic MMO thingy). The gear in this game is also great for those wanting to get all up in the differences between Mk II and Mk III twin phaser arrays, the techno-babble side of Star Trek fits in perfectly with the specifics of the loot.

It takes a loooooong time to fly around the environments, but in many cases it's a pleasure to do so!

Delta

I put up a test YouTube video on my video page for Star Trek Online yesterday, I wanted to see how my recording and compression settings worked out on a 720p video. It seems all okay at the other end, I just need to figure out the best way to record my voice over the top of it as well, should I record live audio through a separate program (to allow me to balance levels), use the external source option in FRAPS, or put down an audio track whilst watching the playback of the footage? Hmm...

Guild Wars 2 is looming large in my mind, with confirmation that they are now in the planning stages for the open beta. That seems the perfect game to do a long form video series on, no monthly charges, looks and sounds gorgeous, has utterly masterful changes to the standard class/role structure inherent to the style of gameplay and balance found in the vast majority of MMOs. I really fancy writing up more about the subject, I think I'll save that for a new, meatier post in the future.

The sleeper will awaken...sometime in 2012...I hope!

Gamma

Wow, Rayman Origins really is just a stunning gaming experience from top to bottom, it fills your ear holes with delicious and exciting sounds and your retinas with vivid fun visuals. And just like the first Rayman game it handles very nicely too, a tricky thing to nail in a 2D platformer; and I think Ubisoft have pulled it off here. A rare occurrence if you consider the style of game that they have been attaching to the more recent Rayman games, namely those involving the pesky little Rabbids.

This is what can happen when you let one of your older game designers (a one Michel Ancel in this case) take the reigns back on a somewhat tired and beaten up franchise, one that had been previously taken away from him for quite some time. The whole Raving Rabbids era of games, whilst they never really interested or entertained me personally, obviously sold well enough to allow Ubisoft to keep on making them. I do however think it's plainly clear as to the level of quality that shines through on the 2D platforming iterations of the Rayman franchise. And Origins certainly ranks up there alongside the written-in-stone classics of the genre, a dash of nostalgia mixed in with modern gaming technology and design, creates a games that just feels yummy to play.

Beta

I'm going to start a real, big boy website, I don’t have a name for it quite yet, but it’ll all fall into place soon enough. I think an array of video content (in the form of game-long reviews, similar to a Let’s Play but with in-depth critique along the way, as well as segments of video games to just show off particularly awesome things), brilliant images taken from brilliant games, some kind of audio recording extravaganza, along with just plain ol’ words voicing my opinions of various electronical games.

What has been taking up a fair chunk of time just recently, and no one is more surprised by this than me, is Star Trek Online (which went free to play for the general public on the 17th of January). Even before the move to this price point, the thing to come to this game was the space combat, and that doesn’t seem to have changed in the two years since its initial release. The ship-to-ship combat is what I’m finding most enjoyable about the game thus far, probably enjoyable enough to record some video of me yelling 'Fire! Fire! Fire!'.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Saints Row the Third have been kind to me over the festive period, I hear people like those games too.

Alpha

I am going to start writing about the video games that I love and hate, I don't know why it's never occurred to me to have not started doing this before now, very strange. The internet (at large) and gaming (in general) have both been a huge part of my life, having poured more hours into savouring the sweet and sour sides of these pastimes for so many years I have a swirling nexus of thoughts and feelings on gaming that I just feel like putting down on crisp white black internet paper. So, here we go...join me won't you?

Where are we heading to? Let's try the second star to the right, and straight on till morning.