Borderlands Initial Impressions

Well, I was planning on doing a full-blown review of Borderlands later this week, but 15 minutes into yesterday's play session my Xbox died (E 74 error message). So, while my Xbox flies away to Texas for a new GPU, I decided to write up my thoughts on Borderlands for the time being.

Simply put, Borderlands is fantastic.

Borderlands plays very much like a first person shooter with RPG aspects, and is similar to games like Mass Effect. In its first person shooter aspect, it plays very much like original Halo. Your character can hold between two and four weapons at a time, depending on how far you've advanced in the game, has a shield which automatically recharges after a short period of not taking damage, and a health bar that does not recharge. Key differences include Borderlands' compass, which generally provides the same information as Halo's radar but in a different format. You also have a deployable special ability depending on your character, which can be a turret, a hawk, an invisibility ability, or an all-out melee-only rage. Cover is handled in much the same way as Halo, meaning that instead of "wrapping" to cover with a button press as in Uncharted 2, Mass Effect, or Gears of War, you simply duck behind cover manually, as in Call of Duty or Halo.

As an RPG, Borderlands is like many others in that it allows you to customize your character in a number of ways. Although your gender and appearance is tied precisely to your class, there are plenty of substantial customization options to choose from. Like most other RPGs, Borderlands allows you to also customize your character's specialization as you level. Each of the four character classes has a skill tree, allowing players to specialize in one or two different roles, depending on your level. In addition, each class has an assortment of class mods that give them and sometimes their teammates passive bonuses. Oftentimes, these bonuses are to a few skill levels, but other bonuses include team ammo regeneration, team health capacity and regeneration, team shield capacity and regeneration, damage increases, and even team experience bonuses.

Borderlands' item system is probably the most dramatic way of differentiating playstyle irrespective of character class. In an earlier article, I listed some of my favorite elegant game mechanics, including Diablo's item system. Borderlands uses a similar system to Diablo II's Magic and Rare items. All of the guns in the game have one or more mods (four or five at most) to basic things like clip size, fire rate, zoom, accuracy, reload speed, and raw power. There is also a coloring system to items to differentiate them in power level relative to other guns that can be equipped at the same level. Generally speaking, an item with its name in green that can be equipped at level 10 is going to be better than a white-named item that can be equipped at the same level. This increase in power level is generally a result of having more or better weapon modifications to some sort of base item. Since there are also different gun companies in the game which tend to feature different sorts of bonuses, weapon statting in this game is truly a deep subject. As you play through the game, you will probably identify a few types of modifications that you like best.

Gearbox has also found a way to make some of the weapons feel very different from one another using several particularly unique weapon mods. Some of the more unusual weapon varieties include shotguns that use shotgun shells but actually shoot rockets, weapons that have burst firing (shoot more than one bullet/rocket at a time), and three varieties of elemental procs.

The grenade mods are another highpoint, as Gearbox substantially differentiates those as well. Although I wish that there were more levels of each grenade type available, there are a number of different grenade effects, such as sticky grenades which stick to enemies (duh), longbow grenades which teleport to their target instead of flying through the air, grenades that steal life, "cluster" grenades that spawn additional explosions, and grenades that are more powerful against health, shields, or armor.

The best way to experience Borderlands is clearly co-operative play. While the singleplayer mode is entertaining, working with teammates to take down baddies is ultimately much more satisfying, and potentially much more rewarding. Since there is no loot-sharing mechanism, I recommend playing with players that you know, but I've also played a few games where guns were shared reasonably well by complete strangers. Voice chat over Xbox live is fantastic, as it makes it much easier to coordinate with your teammates, but most of the encounters in this game can be successfully attempted without much strategy. Borderlands does a good job of letting you know when your teammate is down, and where your teammates are at all times.

One of the disappointing aspects of Borderlands is its reward system. While the aforementioned badguys often drop good loot, the best way of acquiring loot in this game seems to be scouring chests. While I haven't beaten the game, the easiest way for me to get loot at various points thusfar has been to find an easily accessible chest or couple of chests, create a game, loot the chests, start a new game, and repeat as desired. Complicating matters, there is one example of a chest in the first third of the game that seems to dole out level 22-25 items although all of the surrounding enemies are only level 15. Additionally, in the second area, there are two weapon chests in town. Starting a new game, looting the chests, and selling the guns back to the vending machines is only a three or four minute process, and is basically an infinite money cheat, if you have the patience to run it over and over.

With all that said, Borderlands is still an outstanding game, and is easily recommendable to fans of first person shooters that might be looking for something a little bit new, Fallout 3 players that wish it was actually a first person shooter, or loot whores in general.

And honestly, who isn't a loot whore?

-Jon

World of Goo Name Your Price Update

Well, 2DBoy published their sales data for the first week (they've extended it) of World of Goo's Name Your Price sale. Turns out, this was a pretty profitable sale for them (see a list of #sales at each price point to the right, courtesy of Rock Paper Shotgun). 2DBoy is very happy with the sales that they made using this price point.

By launching this sale a year after release, 2DBoy has minimized losses of likely sales, while driving additional players to play World of Goo and generating a ton of positive sentiment and word of mouth advertising from fans. In addition, this sale increased purchases made on other services (week over week sales at full price on Steam were up 40%!).

I won't say that this is a model everyone should follow, but its always nice to see a developer (even an indie one) take risks with pricing and distribution.

Here is a link to the full data.

-Jon

Uncharted 2 Review

Uncharted 2 - Player of Game Review
Innovation: 8/10
Mastery: 9.5/10
Overall: 9/10

If you've been following the hype and reviews of Uncharted 2 in the news, it should come as no surprise to you that Uncharted 2 is one well-executed game. For those that don't, Uncharted 2 is a behind-the-shoulder shooter/adventure hybrid that succeeds in almost everything that it does. From its well-written and genuinely funny story to its cutting-edge technical graphics and its streamlined, cohesive gameplay, Uncharted 2 ultimately delivers an excellent, well-polished experience.

I first played Uncharted 2 during the tail end of the free multiplayer demo and was blown away by the tight controls, effective utilization of cover, and variety of game types and maps available in the game. To be precise, most of the game modes that you will find in the game are similar to other multiplayer offerings in the shooter genre, but with subtle tweaks that make Uncharted 2 feel fully distinct, especially once its cover and climbing mechanics are accounted for. In several levels, there are portions only accessible by climbing or jumping, and moreso than other shooters, knowing jumping or climbing shortcuts allow you to move around much quicker.

Although I knew I would continue to enjoy the multiplayer aspect of the game, the quality of the singleplayer campaign was a pleasant surprise. Composed of both adventuring and shooter segments, the campaign is paced brilliantly and features an outstanding story based on Marco Polo's legendary expedition to China. The adventuring segments are probably the weakest aspect of Uncharted 2's singleplayer offering, due to their highly linear nature. This, in my opinion, is generally due to the fact that while some paths are obvious, other paths are forced onto the player. Multiple times during the game, I repeatedly attempted a very makeable jump simply to find that Nate would not grab onto the ledge or grip the wall because it was not how I was intended to proceed. Nevertheless, the adventuring segments do break up the action effectively, allowing you to destress yourself between Uncharted 2's intense shooter sections.

The shooting segments of the game, like the adventure segments, are usually on rails. As in Halo (another favorite game of mine, notice a trend?), the linear style of the shooting sequences allow the developers to more tightly script the action sequences, making the second-to-second play much more enjoyable in these segments. With that said, there are often several ways to move through the action sequences. Although you'll rarely notice it, there are oftentimes many different ways to tackle an encounter, and when I died, I often attempted to tackle the encounter another way. For example, in one sequence you approach a city center from one direction, and are trying to work your way around to the other section. You can stay where you are, and try and fight at a distance, move clockwise around the circle and attempt to take out a gun emplacement before the enemies swarm you, attempt to move counter-clockwise around the circle so as to avoid the stationary gun's fire, or charge right into the middle of it all and stay behind cover while shooting the enemies up with your close ranged weaponry. Oftentimes, your tactics will be dictated by the weapons you happen to be holding at a time.

Stealth is another way to tackle some of the game's shooter segments, and at times Naughty Dog forcefully pushes you towards it while at other times you are left to decide what is the best way to proceed. There are many times in the game where enemies will walk by a ledge you are hanging off of, allowing you to throw them down a cliff. Each of these clips comes with a snarky line courtesy of Drake, which definitely reinforces and rewards this behavior. While it is rare that you will be able to complete most of the encounters in the game using stealth, there are definitely several points in the campaign where you can accrue ten or fifteen consecutive stealth kills if you are careful and patient enough.

The plot of Uncharted 2's campaign is also worth applauding, as it is another of Uncharted 2's high points. Without spoiling too much, the plot revolves around Marco Polo's return from his expedition to China, and ties into the legend of the Cintamani stone. While this basic plot serves primarily as a vehicle to move from exotic locale to exotic locale, the finer details of the campaign are very well put together. First and foremost is characterization, which is easily the best in any game I've ever played. Drake is a very funny and lovable character, and his unique personality really makes the game's plot shine, even outside of cutscenes. His co-stars are also done well, each has their own priorities and system of beliefs, and are usually relateable in their own unique ways, although the game's main villain could have been developed a bit more. One of the biggest complements that can be paid towards a game's story is that it would make a great movie, but in this case, I would go one step further and actually see it in theatres (and I never see movies in theatres). It is just that good.

Like Uncharted 2's singleplayer, Uncharted 2's multiplayer is also a complete and satisfying package. There are several game modes including an impressive twist on capture the flag, king of the hill, a king of the hill variant in which only one hill is up for grabs at a time and teams must capture all five in order to win, deathmatch, team deathmatch, elimination, and two different cooperative modes. In the first cooperative mode, players attempt to bring a treasure back to their base as many times as possible, with the caveat that each successful attempt makes the next attempt harder. The second is basically a cooperative version of the best segments in the Uncharted 2 campaign. Each of these modes also contributes to a participation-based levelling progression system similar to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's skill system, along with unlockable multiplayer character models, giving players added incentive to lengthen their play sessions.

These modes are supported by a well-balanced weapon system and Uncharted 2's terrific cover system. The weapons all feel fairly powerful and are all useful for different occasions, although I personally feel that grenades are a little too powerful, and should be made weaker but more plentiful.

Overall, Uncharted 2 is a platform-defining game. Although I only purchased my PS3 in September, Uncharted 2 is the first game I have played that validated my purchase, comparing favorably to Metal Gear Solid 4 and Valkyria Chronicles, two of the PS3's staple games. The singleplayer game is gripping and genuinely funny; the multiplayer is well-paced, refreshing and balanced. Anyone who owns a PS3 needs to play this game. Uncharted 2 is the very definition of a killer app.

-Jon

Happy Birthday World of Goo/Name Your Price

I spent a little bit of time doing some reading today and found a neat promotion going on at the World of Goo website. Apparently, the game has now reached its one year birthday, and to celebrate, its developers at 2D Boy are selling it at...you tell them.

That's right, World of Goo is on sale for the price of whatever the hell you want to pay. Personally, I downloaded it a year ago after playing the demo (which was spectacular) with my brother and didn't regret buying it at that price. Regardless, I heartily recommend that you purchase this game. World of Goo is definitely one of the more "oddball" games that I have played, and there is more than enough content for you to enjoy. World of Goo is compatible with PCs, Macs, as well as Linux, so as long as you aren't stuck on a home-brew OS you should be able to enjoy it.

Oh - you can also gift it to a friend using the above method, as well. Just don't go too crazy.

A quick conversation with one of my friends reminded me that a few musical artists have done this over the years, the names that came to mind being Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. I've never seen the numbers on a promotion like this but sales quantities and average sale price would be awfully interesting numbers to me.

I wonder how many people are going to fork over more than the MSRP $20?

-Jon

Halo 3 ODST Review

Halo 3 ODST - Player of Game Review
Innovation: 7/10
Mastery: 8.5/10
Overall: 7.5/10

Before I begin this review, I should state unequivocally that I am a huge Halo fanboy. Although I try to play every well-reviewed game on the systems I own, the genre that I cover best is the First Person Shooter. The genre has come a long way since Wolfenstein, the first game of its type that I played. We've come from having a wide variety of strictly-better-than guns at hand to limiting ourselves to a handful; we've added vehicles and stationary guns; moved from a static health health system to health which returns over time; greatly improved artificial intelligence; progressed from not reloading to reloading mini-games. Not all of these changes work for every game, and in my opinion, Bungie's Halo franchise has just about perfected the genre.

Halo 3: ODST's campaign is a hastily-put-together, rough-around-the-edges experience that just so happens to contain a few of the most fun moments I've ever had within the genre. While the campaign is short and the out-of-mission point A to point B sections of the game are awful, the in-mission segments of the game are absolutely brilliant. There are two very well put-together vehicle missions, a great stand on the top of a tower in the center of the city, and several other highly-controlled and well-scripted missions that Bungie excels at. Of course, if you are a fan of open-world, sandbox gameplay experiences, you might resent how linear these missions are. But linear missions also allow the developer to create a more cohesive, tightly-knit narrative or experience, and on this occasion, there is definitely a great payoff. They also compare favorable to the more open-world experiences, which I found to be tense but ultimately unfulfilling.

I'll be the first to admit that Halo 3: ODST isn't exactly a value-packed purchase. Even at $50 (which is what most places are charging for it now), there is not all that much content to go around. I spent around 8 hours playing the game on my first play-through, and while I didn't look behind every corner, I wasn't going for a speed run either. The side story doesn't add much at all to the value either; it's basically a series of sound bites that you listen to while you're traveling from point A to point B.

Still, there are some other bright spots to the game. As the owner of a 360 with a paltry 20GB HD, I actually thought that the disc with all of the campaign maps wasn't a terrible inclusion; I was able to clear up a lot of space that had been used for DLC. And for all of you new Xbox 360 owners, ODST is actually a better value in my opinion than Halo 3, since it comes with everything you need to play 100% of Halo 3's multiplayer with no additional fee. Just keep in mind that your health is going to be working differently in multiplayer than it did in the campaign.

Firefight is the last thing I should talk about. For those of you not in the know, Firefight is Halo's take on Horde mode from Gears of War 2. And, like Horde mode before it, it is a ton of fun when you are playing with your friends. However, for some reason Bungie decided that it would be a bad idea to include matchmaking for Firefight. Let me say that again. Firefight has no matchmaking support whatsoever. This means that you will need a few friends if you want to play Firefight, which can be tough to get together, especially if your schedule is not incredibly open (read: not in high school or college). To me, this is a huge deal-breaker, as matchmaking support for Firefight would have added immensely to its value, and is a no-brainer. Oh well.

Overall, Halo 3 ODST is a middling game with some outstanding single-mission experiences and Firefight sans-matchmaking in store for the Xbox 360 and Halo faithful. For players who don't own a copy of Halo 3, ODST is a must-buy, since it includes everything that you'll need to enjoy Halo 3's multiplayer, Firefight, and, in my opinion, a campaign that is superior to Halo 3's.

Aion Impressions

I've been playing a bit of Aion over the past few weeks, participating in both the end of beta and the first few weeks of release. Having recently reached level 20, I thought it would be a good idea to take a step back and evaluate some of what I've seen in this game.

It's very difficult to give an accurate, comprehensive review of a game without leveling to the level cap and participating in all of the end game experiences that are provided for players. Regardless, I thought it would be a good idea to type up some of the things I like and dislike about the game. Since I've spent all of my time playing on the Elonian side of Atreia, some or all of my comments may not apply to the Asmodian playing experience.

Likes:

• Beginning area: The starting area of the game plays very smoothly and is fun. NCSoft has wisely decided to design menacing enemies to fight against--you won't be spending your first few levels slaughtering giant ants or garden rabbits.
• Graphics: Aion is gorgeous, and looks much better in-motion than it did in the screenshots I saw before I purchased the game. I have a higher-end system (2.4 ghz Quad core, 9800 GTX, 3GB ram), but I was able to play the game with a great framerate at 1680x1050 resolution with most of the settings maxed.
• Back-to-basics gameplay: This may not be a plus for you, depending on your particular preferences, but the pace of play in this game is definitely a little slower than World of WarCraft's. Although I've only played until level 20, to this point most of my combat involves maximizing cooldown usage. While you'll still obviously be doing all of your own targeting, the game helps you stay on target. If you are a melee character, your character always follows your target around if your target runs or is not right in front of you, provided you've activated auto-attack. This differs from World of WarCraft, where you have to chase down fleeing characters, or opponents can run through you, forcing you to turn around if you want to target them. All in all, Aion plays a little more like World of WarCraft's predecessors in the combat department.
• There is a ton of information about NPCs available to you: When you are questing, you will notice that all quest NPCs relevant to your objectives are displayed on the mini-map and the game map. In addition, many of the mobs and nearly all of the quest NPCs are clickable inside of quest descriptions. By clicking on them, you can read a little bit of background on the NPC, see some information pertaining to what region of the world they inhabit, and where to find them. This is particularly useful for areas that you have not explored yet.
• Personal stores: Have some useful loot to offload? Simply set up a store (hotkey Y) to put your items up for sale. While Aion has an auction house, the auction house costs money to use, and if you are in an area where people will find your wares useful, you can sell your items posting fee and commission free simply by setting up shop anywhere in the world. Once you have placed items from your inventory into your store and set prices (the game even helps you by making price recommendations), you can set a store message and click to immediately set up shop. I've had a number of people buy tradegoods and random armor/weapon drops from me. In addition, the game remembers what you put in your store, and what price is it set at, meaning that once you have stocked your store, anything that didn't sell during your first session is saved for the next time you open your store. This makes setting up shop a breeze, and is basically something I always do if I get up to watch tv, make dinner, or work around the house. It's also a great way to make you visually AFK if you're grouping.
• Item "gemming" system: Most of the weapons and armor in this game have sockets. Players can customize their armor by adding different runes into these slots. Although there don't seem to be any "rune words" or bonuses for gemming an item with a particular brand of rune, the gem system is definitely one of my favorite things to see in a game. From a developer standpoint, it makes designing armor much easier, since players can use one set of armor to do many different things.
  

Dislikes:

• Size of the main cities: Transportation in the game is a huge issue, but nowhere in Elonia is it more frustrating than the capital region, from what I've seen. Getting from one end of the capital to the other can take around five minutes, and if you want to get to an outlying hub for a quest or two, that can add an additional three or four minutes to the trip. The cities are so large, in fact, that there is actually a set of teleporters (2) to make travel easier. The main problem with these, in my opinion, is that they cost money to access, which frustrated me whenever I turned in a quest and ported back to the entrance just to remember that I needed to hand in another quest before porting back. Note to developers: Don't make your game frustrating. There is a big difference between challenging and frustrating. Challenging is when players can become frustrated fighting a monster or boss, but when they ultimately beat the boss, all that negative sentiment they've been building up makes victory all the more sweet. Frustrating is when you have mechanics in games that never provide for this experience. I'm never going to feel good about the hours I've wasted walking around your game because the transportation system is slow and inadequate.
• Charging for everything: This goes a bit off of the point I was making at the end of the last bullet, but in this game, almost nothing is free. Money is very easy to come by, meaning that transportation, resurrection, item fees aren't overbearingly expensive, but I personally get annoyed when multiple costs are imposed on game actions.
  
• Gold-farming spam: This has been widely reported on game websites, but farming spam is much worse in this game than it ever was in World of WarCraft or other MMOs I've played. Generally, I would say I received a gold spam broadcast about every second or two, and would receive a private message advertising a currency website about once every five minutes. I realize that fighting gold spammers can be difficult, but NCSoft has had over a year to fix it. Blizzard has definitely stepped up their game against gold farm spamming. I expected that NCSoft would have done a better job.

Overall, I've enjoyed the time I've spent with Aion. Aion is definitely the most polished MMO that I've played since World of WarCraft, and reminds me a lot of Dark Age of Camelot, which is probably the MMO that I've enjoyed the most. At the same time, Aion has made me re-evaluate how I spend my time playing games. While there was once a time in my life that I didn't mind spending hours upon hours questing or needlessly running around cities that are too big for their content, in the last few years my time has been at a bit more of a premium. While I've enjoyed the time I've spent with Aion, it has also made me realize that the MMO genre in general is just not the best use of my limited time.

-Jon