That was the question I found myself asking for the past few months ever since I started seeing news about it. Is it a game? Is it a stat tracker? Is it just an easy way for Microsoft to try to sell me crap? And, most importantly, does it deserve to be on my “Nav”? Well, since it was a free download, I put it in my queue and gave it a whirl last week, and this is what I found.
Ever sit down and think what your ideal engagement range for first person/third person shooter games is? I was musing over this thought myself recently after playing several of these games with some friends and thinking about why I’m excited for Modern Warfare 2 tomorrow. I noticed that most of my friends play differently, and for a shooter, there seems to be an ideal range that people prefer to engage enemies at. This “epiphany” may actually lead me to understand the primary reason why I am not a huge fan of hugely popular online shooters like Halo and Gears of War – my ideal range doesn’t seem to be handled the way I like.
I just reacquired Call of Duty: World at War. Yeah, it seems silly with Modern Warfare 2 right around the corner, along with the fact that I did not enjoy the multiplayer for Call of Duty: World at War much at all, but the zombie mode had me wanting the game again.
This past weekend is the first time I’ve ever actually paid money for map packs to a game on the 360. With all the map packs on sale for $5 each, I sprang for all three. Ironically, I wasn’t even buying the map packs for the 9 multiplayer maps that all three map packs gave me access to. I was buying the three map packs because each of them had a new zombie map with new features and gameplay. The zombie mode in Call of Duty: World at War is serious business!
Playing as a Siren is a lot of fun since her phasewalk ability is a great super!
I’ve never played an MMO. I don’t know what it means to “Ding!” a level. I’ve never been too into getting “loot”. So when espion4ge starting peer pressuring me to get Borderlands, I wasn’t really buying. But with all the positive press out there, and my friends all going nuts about the game, I decided to give it a shot, and figured I’d might as well write about it. So – was it worth it?
Well, to keep this short: the jury’s out. Borderlands is a great game, but it definitely hasn’t gripped me like it has the rest of my friends list. I keep thinking about Modern Warfare 2, and even played a game of Halo Wars the other day. I definitely see how the game is addicting: it’s fun to turn in quests, to level up and to trick out my character (I’m playing as a Siren) in a way that suits my playstyle. It is very satisfying to phasewalk and burn a bunch of bandits up in the process.
At the same time, I find Borderlands a lot less fun to play by myself. I spend most of my solo time just getting to a point where I can play with others. The game isn’t really fun to me unless everyone is at around the same level, so I’ve spent time on my own to level up to a point where I can play with my friends. That being said, going on missions with friends is a lot of fun, and the enemies definitely drop more interesting loot. I really dig playing this game with friends, and if some of your friends are playing it you should definitely consider picking it up. I’m just not sure I’ll still be playing it when (Ding!) Modern Warfare 2 comes out, but I guess I’ll find out next week!
The Left 4 Dead 2 demo hit the marketplace yesterday for Live Gold members, and I was able to give it a spin. As someone that really enjoyed the first Left 4 Dead, I felt it would be good for me to share my mixed thoughts on the demo. But first, what is the demo all about? The Left 4 Dead 2 Demo features the first 2 (of presumably 4) parts of The Parish campaign, one of the five new campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2. You are able to only play those two levels – either offline with AI (as well as split screen with a buddy) or online with others. The demo menu also shows various other modes that are not available in the demo: Versus, Survival, Scavenge, and Realism. Scavenge and Realism are new to Left 4 Dead 2.
Half Life 2’s HUD is pretty simple, but gets the job done
The month of November, 2004 was quite a month if you were a fan of first person shooters. Two highly anticipated sequels, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, released within a week of one another and gamers rejoiced. Since I wasn’t into PC gaming anymore (I haven’t really played a FPS on PC since Doom II if you can believe it), Halo 2 owned my time back then, and actually warranted me getting my first Xbox. Five years later, I have finally gotten around to playing Half-Life 2. It was highly praised 5 years ago, but does it still hold up now?
If you have been a reader of Leveling Down since back to the early part of this year, you’ll probably remember when cmfl3x and I listed the five titles we were each anticipating most for this year. Sadly, Dragon Age: Origins remains one of the only two from my original list of five that are actually going to make it out this year.
Before I was an Xbox gamer, I was a PC gamer. That meant Doom, Quake, Tribes, Unreal, Command & Conquer, Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft, etc. I was also a huge fan of PC RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, etc. To this day, Baldur’s Gate 2 may be my favorite PC RPG ever. Then Bioware moved on to Neverwinter Nights, which I tried but disliked due to the fact that it was heavily online-based and there wasn’t a strong single-player game. Bioware further moved down on my list when they decided to start making console RPG games like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire on the Xbox. I tried out Star Wars KotOR and was shocked at how simplified it was compared to Baldur’s Gate, and just couldn’t get into it. Bioware was practically dead to me in the early to mid 2000’s.
A couple years ago, Bioware released Mass Effect on the Xbox 360, and for the most part, I enjoyed it. Granted, it nicely appealed to my shooter and RPG loves, so I was able to set aside its simplistic RPG gameplay design (such as the equipment system). Once Bioware announced Dragon Age: Origins as a “spiritual successor” to Baldur’s Gate, I couldn’t help but weep with glee. I’m sure there are many of us out there that are applauding this return to form for Bioware as well.
The problem is, now that Bioware is firmly entrenched in developing for both the PC and Xbox 360, they’ve decided to release Dragon Age: Origins for both systems (as well as the PS3). That puts me into somewhat of a conundrum over which system to buy it over: buy it on the PC to respect my love for playing Baldur’s Gate on the PC, or buy it on the 360 where I enjoy most of my gaming today. Sadly, it’s not so simple – there are specific features inherent to both versions of the game that make it difficult to judge.
First off, Dragon Age: Origins is not like Mass Effect where you’re controlling just the protagonist – you’re controlling a party and need to strategize over what each member is doing. How can you do that on the 360? This especially makes me wonder because the PC allows you to zoom out so you get the classic Baldur’s Gate view on all your characters, instead of the over-the-shoulder style view that console gamers are forced to play. And of course, the use of a keyboard and mouse may make the PC version more enjoyable to play as it’s kind of a hardcore party-based RPG. Some may argue about all the fan-made downloadable content on the PC, but I never cared for that stuff (also why I never got into the Neverwinter Nights franchise).
The 360 version has one of the “strongest” reasons to buy a 360 version of any multiplatform game’s release today: Live. This means not only Achievements, but the fact that your friends can see you playing the game (so I can advertise that I am playing a game I love) or communicate with you as you’re playing. And of course, you can play the game from the comfort of your couch. It’s a tough decision, but the Live support has me leaning slightly more towards the 360 side – even if the controls and the graphics won’t be as good. If only Dragon Age: Origins was released on the PC with Live support – then I would have easily picked up the PC version. Ah well…it looks like I may wait for some initial reviews first to see how the 360 version of the game controls just to be safe. Expect me to write up on one (or even both!) versions at some point in the future…
Before my mind gets completely sucked into the gaming onslaught of the 2009 holiday season and I forget about my recent experience the Oblivion Expansions, I wanted to share my impressions since I completed them this past weekend. I decided to go through The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition last week since it’s been sitting on my shelf and I told myself I wouldn’t play the Fallout 3 GotY edition until I got some enjoyment out of the Oblivion GotY edition, which contains the original Oblivion game with the two DLC packs: Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles.
Knights of the Nine was the first of the two major expansions released for Oblivion, and because it was released perhaps too early in the 360’s life cycle, Bethesda Softworks didn’t put any extra Achievements into this particular DLC. This expansion retails for 800 MS points ($10) online, and provides about 10 hours of extra gameplay through a major quest line that has you journeying around Oblivion’s world and assisting the knights with their quests. It’s not a bad expansion, but it pales in comparison to Shivering Isles due to the fact that it’s not only somewhat short, but it still takes place in the regular edition’s world.
Of the two expansion packs, I dove into the Shivering Isles expansion first, which may have been a slight mistake since I ultimately found Knights of the Nine to be less satisfying in comparison. Shivering Isles was the second of the two major expansions released for Oblivion, clocking in at 1600 MS Points ($20) online, with 250 extra Achievement points, and about a 20 hour major questline (along with several hours of minor subquests) in a different world as you step through what is basically a warpgate to the Shivering Isles. I enjoyed Shivering Isles a great deal because it was a living breathing world with new towns, characters, dungeons, and all sorts of landmarks. While the main questline was only 20 hours long, for completionists that are dead set on exploring everything the Shivering Isles have to offer, you’ll be clocking dozens more hours.
The two expansions come on a second disc included with the Oblivion GotY edition, so it’s actually possible to simply install the expansions onto your 360 hard drive and never need the disc again. (I believe the Fallout 3 GotY Edition second disc with the 5 expansions functions in a similar manner.) Also of note – you are able to access the expansions pretty much right away in the game. I created a new character for both the Shivering Isles expansion and the Knights of the Nine expansion.
So what can I say about these expansions? Certainly don’t buy them for $30 online today since the full game itself with the expansion retails for $30 in stores. And how can one really judge whether it’s worth spending more money for 20-30 more hours of questline content when the original game can last you dozens, or even hundreds of hours? In a way, I do like that the expansions provide you with a major questline to follow, as playing the regular Oblivion game and only following the major quest lines would have you finishing the game in about 50-60 hours. So the pricing is right. Definitely recommended, especially those of you that never got into Oblivion, but enjoyed Fallout 3. Oblivion holds up amazingly well today, and will continue to hold up as the highest rated RPG on the 360.
Many of you probably have seen this already, but if not it’s totally worth checking out. Purportedly this is the opening cinematic from Left 4 Dead 2, and it looks amazing. The first game’s cinematic actually told a lot about the gameplay in the game, something we only realized in retrospect. What does this cinematic have for us?
First, I think the setting looks great: the survivors are in the deep south near New Orleans (or in?) which is pretty awesome, and the music in this trailer does a nice job of setting the tone. In general, it seems like there is a chance that Valve might be expanding the storyline a little more - this time you could play Left 4 Dead without even knowing that the campaigns were linked, but the scene on the bridge where the government is bombing the zombies makes me hopeful there will be more of a storyline in this one.
Secondly, you get a look at some of the new special infected, such as the Jockey who can jump on the survivors and steer them around, and some freaky witch-like character. It also seems like there are going to be zombies with hazmat suits on, so I’m going to assume that molotovs aren’t going to work on them. You also get a look at some of the new melee weapons, such as the chainsaw, frying pan, and bat (there’s another video with the GameStop exclusive baseball bat out there as well).
There also seems to be the same campy humor that was present in the first game, and the survivors seem like they’re going to be as fun to play as the original cast. All in all, I’m getting pretty pumped for this game: my gaming time is going to be SERIOUSLY crunched in a few weeks. Looks like I know what I’ll be spending my $40 Amazon credit on!
So you picked up Borderlands and want to play with other people but don’t know where to start? Unlike other FPS games on the 360 with co-op, Borderlands requires you to pick a class type and sticking with it through to the end. Therefore, picking the one that best suits your playstyle is vital.
In many ways, Borderlands shares similarities to MMORPGs I’ve played in the past, and I will bring some of those tips here to those of you new to Borderlands with little experience playing MMORPGs. Look here for some tips on how to play nicely with strangers or even friends.
One caveat: I have yet to really get to the endgame for this, so many of my tips here are from my MMORPG experience as well as consolidating all of the relevant Borderlands information I found online. Some of it may apply and some may not, but this is what is going through my head as I prep for Borderlands with buddies.
