Borderlands! (and a tiny bit on Assasin's creed)

[Lord Orwell]

I had the opportunity to play this game, and surprise surprise it isn't just a standard 1st person shooter. If anything, it's similar to mass effect. It is a tongue-in-cheek fun to play Role playing strategy game.

Examples: I head-shot someone: My character laughs to herself and says "i'm really good at this" or i level up and she gives an evil "Is there NO Limit To My POWER?!?"

And of course plenty of achievements to unlock, which all grant xp, diminishing xp returns for killing bad-guys, a vehicle control (and personal shield) setup obviously ripped directly from HALO, and this game is a real winner. I've spent hours playing it. And your character is fully customizable with four character classes and a skill tree for each. What fun.
I give it a 9 out of 10.

pro:
runs on a relatively weak system by today's standards (4.0 vista experience index, recommends a 5.0)
unlimited levels
equipment upgrades
powerups
tongue-in-cheek humor, including little robots that remind you of wall-e
an original plot
original monsters
fun gameplay in general
a skill progression with unique abilities for each character class.

cons:
creatures can respawn with you literally right on top of them. I saw a bandit blink into existence fully armed about 5 foot in front of me.
The game has "respawn points" for when you die. This makes it easy to cheat in some cases because while hitpoints on creatures reset to full when you die, dead ones stay dead. Therefore if you wade into a herd of monsters you can pick off one at a time before you die, then run back and kill another one.

It's a keeper. I have it now.

p.s. thanks to a Best-Buy black-friday sale, i also am now the proud owner of Bioshock ($5), Far-cry 2 ($5), and Assassin's Creed ($5).

As for assassin's creed, i would have to say this game has the highest recommended vista index i've seen to date with 5.5, and absolutely REQUIRES a 5.0. And trust me, it needs it. my 2gb core2duo system with ddr3 system ram? The game was completely unplayable on it. I had to install it on my main system (4gb ddr2, 8600 gt nvidia, phenom x4 9600) to enjoy it.

[mendhak]

Nobody loves me in that other thread so I'll ask you - can this be played alone? I don't like other people, therefore I don't like playing with other people.

I never got past an hour or two of Assassin's Creed, it got boring very quickly, plus the whole "You are carrying memories of an ancestor" rather than "You are an assasin" story really sucked.

[wossname]

Interesting that you compare Borderlands to Mass Effect, given that the latter is probably the 4th worst game ever made.

How does it compare to Fallout 3 - that's what I'd like to know.

[Lord Orwell]

it's more enjoyable than fallout 3. It really isn't even the same kind of game. And im sure i could come up with dozens of games worse than mass effect. I really hated a lot of stuff about mass effect though. My comparison was "it's a rpg disguised as a shooter" and that really was it. You can't have a party unless you are playing multiplayer, the view is 1st person, etc. I would have compared it to halo except you don't advance in it. Game play in general is REALLY similar. It may be the engine used though. It uses "unreal" technology. So yeah... weapons/armor dropped, cases of weapons, etc.

mendhak, it is single-player friendly, and the achievements are shown in-game instead of on a site such as steam or live.

and i am having a hard time "getting into" assassin's creed as well. The box doesn't mention the odd "memories" crap either and frankly it doesn't make sense. Memories aren't interactive.

[BackWoodsCoder]

You can sum up assassins creed in one sentence.

Go to your main castle, get quest, go to other city, find assassins bureau, get and find targets to gain information, go back to bureau and get the ok to kill main target, kill main target and repeat.

I borrowed creed from a friend, played through a few missions, boxed it up and handed it back. Quite possibly one of the most boring action games i've played in a long time. It looked really pretty, but man it has zero depth.

[EntityX]

I don't like other people, therefore I don't like playing with other people.

I was tempted to make a joke here. You don't like playing with other people so I guess that means that you like to .... . You can figure it out.

[Lord Orwell]

I was tempted to make a joke here. You don't like playing with other people so I guess that means that you like to .... . You can figure it out.

it's a chit-chat thread. NO ONE is stopping you!

And frankly i was even put off by the interaction interface of assassin's creed. The combat's clunky. Unlike Borderlands (a cha cha cha!

[mendhak]

I was tempted to make a joke here. You don't like playing with other people so I guess that means that you like to .... . You can figure it out.

I don't like me either.

[wossname]

Lost Odyssey had "memories" sequences too now I come to think about it. Sadly that was one of the more interesting parts of the game. I never got past disc 2 (of 4) because I kept collapsing into the foetal position because the rest of the game was so Geneva-Convention-contraveningly dreadful. Japan should suffer trade embargos because of JRPGs.

[Lord Orwell]

all square enix rpgs are great

[BackWoodsCoder]

Not true, FF8 sucked a big fat one.

[kregg]

I tried playing on FFVII after my friends was encouraging me to at least give it a try, and I can see at the time it may have been a good game, but the game has not aged well at all. Just too damn frustrating to play. Also, the storyline looks like it has been written from a 14 year old girl at times.

[Lord Orwell]

ff8 did NOT suck balls. The problem is that 7 and 9 were so awesome it got a bad rap. Personally, i liked it. You want to play a sad one? play ff3 4 or 5. they weren't even released in the US. 6 got a US rename of 3, and then suddenly we have 7. People everywhere were like "where are the other ones?"

7 was notable for the completely impossible secrets you would never figure out on your own without help of tip books. Fortunately they knew this and included one with the game. Example would be the incredibly lengthy and complicated series of events necessary to get the "Knights of the round" materia. It involved a gold chocobo which you got by breeding two other rare chocobos which were gotten by breeding four other leveled-up and rare chocobos you had maxed out racing in the casino and using hard-to-get bait. And i'm sure i left some steps out.

but that materia, coupled with your party having the cloning materia, ensured that nothing in the game would withstand you. Knights of the round did something like 99 thousand points damage, now multiply that x 4 at a minimum. Not a single creature in the game had that much power.

[The_Grudge]

You can sum up assassins creed in one sentence.

Go to your main castle, get quest, go to other city, find assassins bureau, get and find targets to gain information, go back to bureau and get the ok to kill main target, kill main target and repeat.

I borrowed creed from a friend, played through a few missions, boxed it up and handed it back. Quite possibly one of the most boring action games i've played in a long time. It looked really pretty, but man it has zero depth.

[Lord Orwell]

yeah, i paid $5 for assassin's creed, and i'm starting to wornder two things:
1. why did i waste my money
2. how did this deserve a sequel?

[mendhak]

yeah, i paid $5 for assassin's creed, and i'm starting to wornder two things:
1. why did i waste my money
2. how did this deserve a sequel?

You did it as a public service to warn others. For it, I thank you. I'm going to buy Borderlands from Steam

[chris128]

You can sum up assassins creed in one sentence.

Go to your main castle, get quest, go to other city, find assassins bureau, get and find targets to gain information, go back to bureau and get the ok to kill main target, kill main target and repeat.

I borrowed creed from a friend, played through a few missions, boxed it up and handed it back. Quite possibly one of the most boring action games i've played in a long time. It looked really pretty, but man it has zero depth.

True but I actually quite liked the story and it did get little bit more interesting towards the end. Assasins Creed 2 though is soooo much more varied and interesting. Would recommend it to anyone even if they hated the first one.

[BadgerBadger]

AC2 is next on my list when I get some spare money.

Aslo, anyone heard about "Brink"? It's coming out in 2010 and it seems to be a mix between Killzone 2, Borderlands and Mirror's Edge (to a degree). The coop sounds like a great time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSTTzUKKDY

[chris128]

Looks decent - its no Ice Age though is it

[BadgerBadger]

Nothing ever will be.

[EntityX]

Ice Age is the greatest movie of all time. I never saw it but I thought I would say that to make BadgerBadger happy.

[chris128]

Well I suppose somebody has got to like it

[BadgerBadger]

Entity is officially awesome. You don't need to watch it to acknowledge the awesomeness.