Here is the demo footage that was shown at E3 earlier this week for Gears of War 3. I never really cared for the multiplayer aspect of Gears of War (as far as team deathmatch, deathmatch etc), but I am looking forward to playing the campaign co-op with up to 4 people.
On 10.26.09, In Video Games, By AC Slater
When this game first came out last Tuesday I had no idea what it was about or why all my friends said it was going to be a great game. The only games I've been hearing about lately are the hyped Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2, so when everyone started talking about Borderlands out of the blue I didn't know what to expect and honestly had no intentions of purchasing. So fast forward to last Friday, I realized that I had made a mistake in purchasing NBA 2K10 as I never buy sports games and despite wanting to play a basketball game, I was quite disappointed and could never see myself playing the game all the time, so off to eBay it went. I figured I could sell it now and cut my losses to a minimum and that would justify me purchasing Borderlands.
Borderlands is an open world RPS (role playing shooter) which is basically an RPG but with gun. You level your character up as you complete quests throughout the world of Pandora, collecting guns and items along the way. It reminded me a lot of Diablo when I first started playing it and then after playing with my friends in co-op mode, they said it reminded them if World of Warcraft, which I have never played so I don't know. The co-op is where this game really shines. You can play with up to 3 friends (4 people total) as you complete quests and make your way around the world. It's a lot more fun if you have other people running around with you, sometimes the game gets a little tedious and frustrating if you don't have help, especially if you die at a big boss battle. But the gameplay is fun and the graphics are incredible. Instead of the typical 3D renderings that we're used to in games today, this game is cell shaded, meaning it looks a little more cartoonish but it's not. It's hard to explain, you'll just have to see it to know what I mean.
The other big draw to the game is the amount of guns. The developer claims there are over 1 million different guns in the game. How is this possible you ask, simple, each different gun is made up of different components and modifiers. So essentially it's a set number of actual gun models, but the randomizer attaches random modifiers to each one, thus making them different.
So despite being a little hesitant at first, I'm definitely glad that I picked this one up last week. If you're a fan of games like Diablo and WoW, you will definitely enjoy Borderlands. It's a nice change of pace from the typical first person shooter as well as the typical RPG. I'm not even done with this one and I hope they are working on a sequel.
On 09.23.09, In Video Games, By AC Slater
This will be an ongoing post regarding Halo 3: ODST and my thoughts on the game. Obviously I have only had a few hours to sit down and play the game and have yet to complete it so I can't comment on the total story or length of the campaign, but I'll get there eventually.
I wanted to start off with my first impressions of the game itself after having a night to play around with the campaign and the co-op campaign. So let's get into that for now and I'll update when I complete the game.
I was very hesitant to pick up this game in the first place, everything I had heard made it out to sound like it was a glorified Halo 3 expansion that was only going to take me a couple hours to complete yet Bungie was justifying the $60 price tag by throwing in another disc of Halo 3's multiplayer content. I didn't want to spend $60 on half of a game, I already have Halo 3 and don't play the multiplayer aspect of it (I'm a Call of Duty guy), so why would I want to re-buy all that aspect of the game... The decision would have been a lot easier had they released 2 different versions, one that was just the new single player campaign and another that was packaged with the Halo 3 multiplayer and all the map pack stuff, and then priced that at like $29.99. What about all those people out there that own Halo 3 and have already purchased all of the map packs? If they want ODST they are basically re-buying all of those packs plus 3 or so new maps... seems like a rip-off. My other idea was to just wait and buy it on eBay, maybe someone on there would be selling just the campaign disc for cheap and I could pick it up, but in the end I decided to just buy the damn game. I have a little while until Left 4 Dead 2 comes out and I was getting bored so this should kill some time before then, plus when I'm done with it in a week I'll just throw it up on eBay and recoup 80% of my cost.
On 11.10.08, In Video Games, By AC Slater
Update: Finished the campaign yesterday, a few more notes at the bottom.
This weekend I had a chance to play through a good majority of the single player campaign on Gears of War 2 along with about an hour or so of "Horde mode". I have not had a chance to sit down with the other multiplayer modes or co-op campaign yet, so these are just my impressions of what I've experienced so far in the game.
I'll start with the single player campaign. If you've played the original Gears of War you'll be used to the gameplay and the level design, not a whole lot has changed there. I find that the actual story itself is a little better than the first one. I seem more into the game now than I was before. I also like that there is a little more variety with the levels, meaning there are more vehicle levels or levels where you're standing on a moving platform while shooting locusts. It's a nice change from the typical running, ducking behind something, and shooting, which is basically all you're doing. As far as the length of the game, everyone keeps saying that it's longer than the first Gears, which, if true, means the original Gears was really short. I'm almost done with this one and I feel like I've only played for about 4-5 hours and I remember the original was supposed to take 6 or so. I am only playing on Normal mode at the moment, so that could have something to do with it, but I will go back and beat it on the harder difficulties later. Overall I'm enjoying the game a lot. I really liked the first one and while this one doesn't bring anything terribly new to the table, it's still a great game that advances the Gears story.
I haven't gotten around to playing any of the new online game modes outside of the new Horde mode, which is a lot of fun. Horde mode is a variation of co-op, in which 5 people work together to fend off different waves of enemies. There are 50 waves total and each one gets harder. We played this yesterday for the first time with 3 people and we had a blast. We only managed to make it to wave 19 before we were all killed off, but it's definitely a lot of fun. I'm sure we'll be playing this mode quite a bit seeing as how 50 waves of enemies is going to be pretty hard to complete.
So basically if you liked the original Gears of War and are looking for more of the same, but with new levels and few new modes and a few new guns, definitely check this one out. If you're not a fan of Gears of War, then you won't be a fan of part 2 since it's basically the same.
Update: Since I finished the single player campaign yesterday I figured I would chime in on the end of the game. I think it was my fault for playing through the game on the "Normal" setting, but I was disappointed in how long it took me and the end levels/boss battle. The last level was definitely cool, but on normal mode it was too easy. I beat the last one on hardcore the first time around and then started it again on insane (don't think I ever finished), so I probably should have done that, but the game just seemed short and too easy. I don't think it took me more than 6 hours like it was supposed to. I remember I played for about an hour on Friday when I got the game, then maybe 4 hours on Saturday, an hour or 2 on Sunday, and then 30 minutes last night. Ok, so maybe it was a little over 6-7 hours, but I had read that it was supposed to take you 9? Oh well, it is still a great game and I will go back and play it on Insane now and hopefully the last level is a little harder, but I am disappointed in the final boss battle, which isn't really a battle. I don't want to give it away, but you'll see what I'm saying when you get there. I can remember having to go back a bunch of times in the original Gears to beat the last guy in the game, but not this time.
I know I posted about this last week but here is a better look at the Nazi Zombie mode that becomes playable after you beat the single player campaign in Call of Duty: World at War.
