I never owned an Xbox. I never really cared about the Splinter Cell Franchise. I’ve played about one hour of the first three games, in total and about 5 hours of Splinter Cell: Double Agent. I’m not a big stealth game fan in general. After the E3 Splinter Cell: Conviction Demo, however, I’ve been really excited for this game. It seems like they’re taking the game in a new direction that blends more action into the stealthy parts. It’s a nice change of pace from my experience with stealth games, that devolve into memorizing AI patterns and waiting. Waiting sucks.
Recently, games have, thankfully, blended action and stealth into a more free form, less trial and error way. Games like Uncharted 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed 2 and others use stealth as a great way to get the drop on your foes, without punishing you if you foul up. In my opinion, it is a much more fluid and fun experience and it’s a lesson applied in Splinter Cell: Conviction.
The Demo for Splinter Cell: Conviction is out on XBL today. The demo is short, but there is quite a bit to do. You basically infiltrate a warehouse, shoot some dudes and that’s about it. It’s HOW you murder dudes in SC: Conviction that keeps you coming back for more. Some of the new game mechanics, such as cover to cover movement, and marking and executing targets are pretty well done. Cover to cover movement is done the same as in a game like Rainbow Six Vegas. Use the left trigger to take cover, and then while looking around a corner, an icon will appear where you’re aiming, indicating that with the press of the A button, you can auto move to that cover. It works well and keeps you all stealthy, which is good.
The other big new thing is the marking and executing of enemies. You can only do this after performing one close quarters takedown, which “refills” the meter to be able to do the marking and executing of enemies. Hit the right bumper over the enemies you wish to smite, up to 4, and hit the Y button. Bang, zoom, dead enemies. It’s an “Easy” button for MURDER.
You can also do a lot of what makes the Splinter Cell games great. Shoot out lights, use gadgets, etc, but I wasn’t able to do the splits and take a dude out, so, that sucks. For the Splinter Cell newbies like me, this demo felt a lot like the predator parts of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which is a good thing. I’m enjoying this demo and I think there’s enough new stuff to satiate the “shooter” in me to want to play a stealth game. Heck, I might even finish it. Splinter Cell: Conviction drops in April.
It really seems to be quite popular to hate on Activision and Infinity Ward nowadays. Honestly, I have no idea why. I mean, it’s not like the CEO acts like a complete jackass to his customers’ faces or that they decide to jack up the price because millions of lemmings would gladly give their bank information if asked.
Now, it really is nothing when gamers make fun of developers and publishers. We tend to do that a lot when anything doesn’t go our way.
When otherdevelopers and publishers join in on the fun? Well, that’s pretty awesome.
However, when those aforementioned developers and publishers are in direct competition with your target of scorn? Now that, my friends, is pure win.
I believe I’ve wasted enough of your time. Here’s a classy PSA put together by our friends over at Dice and EA.
Sometimes, Big Daddy protective duties extend to comforting Little Sisters when they buy rip-off DLC.
Hello there. Did you buy Bioshock 2? I bet you did, because it’s a great game. I’ve not played very much of it myself, but what I played was very good.
Did you buy the Sinclair Solutions DLC pack when it was released on your online marketplace of choice? You did? Did you not think that download was suspiciously tiny when you bought it? That’s because, as 2K themselves confirmed, the Sinclair Solutions pack is already on your Bioshock 2 disc, fresh from the shelves of your local retailer of choice.
Congratulations, you’ve just paid money for things you technically already paid for when you walked out the shop.
BUT IT’S OKAY. 2K have totally justified it. Have a read of this:
“The way our engine and game structure works is that people need to have the exact same content for people to play together. One of the challenges with post-launch content for MP is that it can split the player base, and we want to avoid that whenever possible. For this content, creating the DLC package the way we did allowed for us to not split the player base — so whether you purchase the new content or not, you can still play with your friends.
I know some of you have strong beliefs about DLC, and I’m not here to sway your opinion or convince you to buy our stuff – if you like what we’re offering, I hope you get it and enjoy it. If it’s not your speed, enjoy BioShock 2 as we released it.”
“Splitting the player base”? 2K’s reasoning is that because this downloadable content (that’s not really downloadable, but whatever) is on the disc, every player is entitled to it…as long as they buy it. This is how regular, genuinely downloadable downloadable content works too – every player can have it if they buy it. So the player base is split regardless.
I think 2K should invest in teaching their spokesfolks (new term, coined right there) the benefits of internal monologue; if they said to themselves that putting the DLC on the disc doesn’t split the player base, I have a feeling they’d have gone away to think of some better excuses before opening their traps.
We’ve already reviewed Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s single player offerings and found them to be good, but not great. That’s okay, because, since when have you ever bought a Battlefield game for its single player offerings? If you said anything other than “never” then you and I can’t be friends. Sorry, it has to be that way, because when you say the word “Battlefield” to a gamer, they know what’s up and it isn’t a focused, single player experience.
So, how does the sequel to Bad Company stack up? The game simply runs smoother than it’s predecessor. The gunfighting is better, the in-vehicle fighting is better. The lag is non-existent, for the most part. Frankly, DICE has simply outdone itself and has produced one of the best multiplayer shooters, not only in their esteemed history, but in all of gaming. Period.
There are a couple of changes from the previous Bad Company game that have really kicked this game up a notch. First off is the marking of enemy players by hitting the Back (360) or Select (PS3) button. What this does is let everyone else in your squad see an enemy that you see by either placing an arrow over their head or display a graphic over the enemy vehicle. This is a fantastic addition for two reasons, first it highlights enemy snipers, making it hell on snipers who like to camp certain spots on a map. Second, if a teammate kills the guy you’ve highlighted, you get 2o xp. This xp bonus is huge and rewards players for playing like a team.
The second big addition is the way they’ve changed the leveling system. In the original, when you leveled up, you obtained a point that you could use to unlock whatever you wanted. In BFBC2, you have two tiers of leveling, first is your overall rank which nets you general weapons and specialization unlocks, and the class specific unlocks that require you to play as that class to net points toward class specific unlocks. While you’re not as able to pick and choose your own path, the two tier system gives you more to do, which encourages players to try all of the classes, thus encouraging a wider diversity of players in a game.
As you may know, BFBC2 did have a MP demo that was released about a month before the game shipped. There was a lot of criticism leveled at the demo regarding overpowered snipers. Let me just reassure you that this is simply not the case in the retail version online. There doesn’t seem to be much that has changed between the demo and the retail release regarding the sniper class, but the ability to “highlight” distant enemies with the Back/Select button and most player’s understanding of the importance of counter-sniping has really helped keep snipers in check. It is rare to find a sniper racking up big points in any match online. That is a good thing, because snipers suck.
In Battlefield: Bad Company 2 you get three main modes, Squad Deathmatch, the titular Conquest mode and the renamed “Rush” mode. All three play superbly although I found Squad Deathmatch and Rush to be far more compelling than the chaotic Conquest mode.
Squad Deathmatch is pretty straight forward. You and three buddies face off against three other squads in small, focused maps. One tank will also spawn for the groups to fight over and against. The first team to 50 kills wins. This mode requires a lot of teamwork to win and if you’re looking for a pure shooting experience in BFBC2, this is where you’ll find it. No objectives, no helicopters, heavy tanks, gun emplacements or any of that, just you and your buddies against the world.
Conquest is the staple game mode made famous in games like Battlefield 1942, 1943, Vietnam, 2142, Battlefield 2, etc.. There are key points on the battlefield and you simply have to get close to one long enough to capture it. I just don’t find this mode compelling on the home console version of BFBC2. Things get extremely chaotic over these larger maps and for the most part, lack the structured teamwork of the other two game modes. This mode is great for lone wolf players, as you don’t need much teamwork to succeed in Conquest, but it does help to have friends watching your back. Of note, there’s far more vehicles in the Conquest maps than in Rush, so vehicle junkies will love Conquest.
Rush. Ah Rush. Previously known as Gold Rush in the original BFBC, this is the perfect online game type. Two objectives, one team defends the objectives while the other attacks. It doesn’t get any easier. This mode is just a blast. My one complaint is that on most maps, there aren’t enough vehicles, meaning that you’ll often do a lot of running toward your objectives. The mode has one really big difference from the first game and that is Destruction 2.0. The Destruction 2.0 is the ability to completely destroy certain buildings in BFBC2. This has fundamentally changed how this mode is played, and it is for the better.
With the new “Destruction 2.0″ it’s not always necessary to infiltrate an objective, set the charge and then defend the position until it explodes. Now, you can just shoot the crap out of the building with explosives until the walls come crumbling down, destroying the objective without having to get anywhere near it. This new dynamic changes how you have to play defense and leads to a more dynamic give and take in the game.
Gripes?
Well, EA has had a TON of problems with their servers which means spotty connectivity and anger management issues for the consumers trying to play the game. On more than one occasion, I have been booted from the game and unable to reconnect. On other times the party we’re in will just drop people out of the party and the game, the screen will go black and you’ll get booted to the main menu.
Another gripe is the spotty matchmaking. In a lot of the games I’ve played, we’ve had 7 or 8 players facing off against 4 or less players. This is simply inexcusable, especially after EA claimed that their spotty server issues were a result of a overage of players playing the game at the same time. If so many players are playing, why can’t I find a full match to play in?
The last gripe is that if you do have to back out of a game, you lose your squad. This means that if you get into a game and you’re playing 7 v 1, you either have to play until you win, which sucks because you won’t get much out of playing against so few players, or you have to back out and find a new match, meaning that you’ll have to reform your squad. It’s not a big deal, but it’s made even more prominent by some of the balancing issues I’ve seen.
Honestly, these gripes are small and by no means dissuades me from highly recommending this game as a buy to anyone that reads this. The multiplayer is great. Period. I can recommend this game for the multiplayer alone and be satisfied. It’s better than MAG for PS3 gamers and it offers a fresh experience for the Modern Warfare 2 die hards.
Check out Battlefield: Bad Company 2 it is worth it.
*Author’s note: EA sent a copy of BFBC2 to this writer for review purposes. I’ve played the crap out of multiplayer, fully levelling up my medic class and I’m one unlock away from finishing out the Engineer and Assault class… I’m still working on the Recon class.
When I think of Indie PC games, I think of choppy bland graphics, boring derivative stories, and half assed production. Flotilla, from Blendo Games is the exact opposite of that. I’ve spent a ton of time with this quirky space/strategy/adventure hybrid and have had a blast with this $10 game. It’s a cross between Homeworld 2 and a text based adventure game. If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what would!
So, what is Flotilla? The game’s title refers to your fleet. You’ll start off with a flotilla of two missile destroyers. As you progress from planet to planet, you’ll encounter enemies or little story snippets. In most cases, you’ll be given a choice and depending on how you choose, you may engage in a battle, get some loot to add on to your existing ships, new ships to add to your fleet, or nothing at all.
Kidding aside, this game has a ton of charm. While some gamers may be put off by its quasi turn based strategy, the game actually has a lot of humor mixed in as you travel from planet to planet, searching out your next big adventure. In your star sailing, you’ll encounter such exotic aliens as… Pigs, Owl’s, Panda bears and other silly “aliens.” They’ll either want to fight you or give you stuff and it’s different every time you play a career.
When you do get into a fight, the game shifts to a 3D space battle. Here, time is paused and you’ll give each of your ships commands. When you’ve given all of your ships commands that break down to move, shoot or move and shoot, the game will then play out the moves in real-time. The goal is to maneuver your ships so you’re firing toward the bottom or rear of the enemy, where their armor is the weakest. Rinse and repeat until the enemy is dead.
While the preceding paragraph may have bored you to tears, Blendo Games does a lot with this simple formula. There’s a fairly deep tactical strategy to these engagements that is different ever time you play the game. Because your career is frustratingly short, there’s a ton of replayability, like Sid Meier’s Pirates!, and I found myself restarting a new campaign immediately after completing a career. The game is meant to be played in short bursts and you can complete a career in less than 20 minutes. When you start over, the galaxies are randomized in each playthrough and while you may do some of the same missions over, there’s enough new stuff and loot for your ships to keep you coming back for more.
The aesthetic of the game is very similar to Team Fortress 2, with all of the kitschy bells and whistles that gives TF2 its charm is also found here. I really enjoy this little space strategy gem. I did have a few issues with the game though. First off, the ship types you encounter and what types of weapons they used were not explained anywhere. On more than one occasion, I would use tactics I used in a previous battle, only to find out all too late that the ships I was facing had beam weapons instead of missile weapons. While it adds a bit of surprise to the engagements, a wiki would be preferable. Second, during battles, enemy ships would rotate to keep the top of their hull facing my ships, but I still do not know how to do that for my own fleet. So, while the tutorial is simple and straight forward, the finer points of the tactical strategy could also use a wiki. The game is just way more in depth that it’s creators give it credit for and I would love to take the plunge if they’ll give me the info.
For PC gamers that love strategy games like Homeworld and Homeworld 2, this bite sized gem is not to be overlooked for any PC gamer, as the requirements to play are very low. I highly recommend this game. It’s also coming out on XBLA soon, so check it out at Blendogames.com.
*Author’s Note: Received a review copy from Blendo Games and played this game’s campaign a ton of times because it’s a ton of fun!
SEE! SEE! This is exactly what I'm talking about. Does this box art make this game seem like it has the same light-hearted fun approach as the first game? The answer is NO.
Sweetwater, Marlowe, Haggard and Sarge are back! Having just crashed through the single player campaign for Battlefield Bad Company 2, I wanted to get my impressions of the single player portion of the game up. Lono will be providing a comprehensive review on the multiplayer portion of the game tomorrow.
I really enjoyed the first game’s single player campaign: I loved the idea of four misfit troopers on their way of being kicked out of Yugoslavia going on a wild goose chase after a cache of stolen gold to line their own pockets. While a bit nuts, the story line felt real; the four nutcases had the perfect personality of a bunch of dudes who were trying to get a little ahead in life. I actually sat through the game like, “Yeah, I could see me doing this!”
In the sequel most of that huggable goodness is replaced by a thinly veiled jab (more like a spinning roundhouse kick) at the Modern Warfare series, complete with ridiculous over-the-top story line. The whole game, the boys are getting flown all over the world as if they are this highly trained special forces fire team, when the last game more or less developed them as an unfortunate gaggle of low-ranking simpletons who want to stare at titties, watch football and get out of the military. I mean, that was the whole premise of “Bad Company” in the first place! “Bad” Company was the Company where all the mouth-breathing goofballs were put into in the first game. These two realities just didn’t work together for me.
Anyway, the boys are sent all over the face of the Earth to chase after a mythical doomsday device, which includes every climate and major environment you can think of. The boys have done a whole bunch of community college while bored in Alaska, because each member of the team has the skillset of a half dozen special forces troopers. Need a satellite knocked out of orbit onto a specific spot on the map? No problem, Sweetwater’s your man; I guess every private in the US Army gets this kind of training, right? Look, just because you put a pair of Poindexter-esque glasses on a guy doesn’t mean he automatically is a multifaceted genius.
The BFBC universe is a parallel universe to our own, where Russia and the United States are more or less at war and using the world as their battlefield. It doesn’t TELL you any of this in the game’s cutscenes; you’re more or less expected to piece together the details on your own. It’s a shame they decided to completely skip over this as it may have lent the narrative a bit more weight, especially in light of the ultimate objective.
Gameplay? It’s your standard single player first person shooter fare, except you’ve got three drones who are either too far behind you or sprinting way ahead. The other three characters are almost a little too good; the game obviously encourages you to make the kills in the game, but they can still put a hurt on the enemy if you give them enough time to do so. BFBC2 also adds the ability to swap weapons and store found weapons to use later in the form of ammo crates that are parachuted into the battlefield. It’s a nice touch that expands what you can do and the toys to use during battles. It’s an enjoyable enough experience, giving the player a whole truck load of variety in the form of guns and vehicles.
Of course, the signature “destroy everything” gameplay mechanic that the first game is famous for is back, where most everything on the map can be blown into tiny bits. It’s a shame that the single player doesn’t really utilize this mechanic that much; one of my best memories of the single player experience was being unable to get a good firing angle on a pesky machine gun nest, so I took out my grenade launcher and blew the floor out from underneath the guy.
Even as someone who really pays attention to storyline and mission objectives, I had a tough time figuring out what in the hell I was doing a lot of the time. I can’t tell you how many times I had to check my objectives just to figure out what I was supposed to do.
“Protect the NSA operative”. Uh…why? What’s he doing? Where are we going? And most importantly, who the hell is shooting at me? It got better and more focused towards the end, but there were levels where I had no idea what part of the globe I had just been dropped off to.
Some of the best moments of the game are the witty banter between the characters while moving from non-descript point A to non-descript point B. I had a sniper rifle queuing up a shot against a guy in a watchtower when Haggard went into this five minute diatribe with the rest of the squad over the location of Chile on the globe, and how he thought they were in Africa because the guy they were chasing doesn’t look “African American”. It got to the point where I would clean out an objective, and as a treat, I would set the controller down and just listen to the crazy conversations that would occur, such as what Sarge’s Ultimate Fighter name would be, what it takes to get into Heaven, and the “great Bong in the sky”. The characters feel real in these breaks from the action, and as an ex-trooper myself, I know that these are the kinds of stupid conversations that soldiers have while things are slow.
It’s a shame that the rest of the game didn’t take this kind of same light-hearted approach with the story as these conversations. A lot of the time, they’re too busy either spoofing the Modern Warfare series, complete with a general driving around keeping tabs on your progress and Sweetwater railing on “special forces pussies with heartbeat monitors.”
The single player experience is terribly short and can really be blasted through in one solid afternoon of gaming; I’d say I got through it in 6 hours on the hardest difficulty setting. I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy playing the game, but the magic from the first game is gone. It’s apparent they spent more time polishing the multiplayer aspect of the game and that the single player could have use a few more months in the oven to develop a bit.
But then again, if you’re running out to get Battlefield Bad Company 2, you’re probably not getting it for the single player or the storyline anyway. More on that, tomorrow.
The latest cover of … sorry, we just can’t do it: our joke in the title was just too hilarious and we can’t stop laughing! You get it, right? “Portal series is still alive.” It’s from the song at the end of the game? The one where it says “This was a triumph. I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction,” and then it goes “dun, dun dun, duuuun, dun,” and then that bit with the “duuuun, dun, dun, dun, dun, duuun, dun, dun,” and then the bit where it stops for a second and then it goes a bit higher like “duuuun, duun, dun, duuuun, dun” and then it says “Still alive,” and that is why it’s really funny because it said still alive in the song and then I said it again in this article and that makes it really funny you see actually. Okay, okay, we just thought of another one: “If someone said there wouldn’t be another Portal then they might have been telling … a lie! Also, cake.” That last bit makes it funnier. Talking of funny: wow, we’re funny! You can’t just come up with Portal jokes like that any day of the week! We’re comic geniuses; masters of hilarity, if you will. And don’t even get us started on our puns! Look, here are some brilliant ‘portal’ puns just off the top of our head:
Feeling like sending off some packages? You might want to head down to the dock to exportal some goods
These jokes are disproportalionately funny.
These puns present many opportalunities.
Need to catch a flight? Head down to the airport … al.
If you need to attend to something, it could be seen as quite importalant.
I like physically activity. That’s why I play a lot of sport … al.
I quite like buses. They are an example of transportalation.
See? It would take anyone else years to come up with excellent Portal puns like that, but it only took us a few seconds! We don’t like to brag, but, well, we are extremely hilarious.
But we digress. The latest cover of Game Informer has revealed the existence of Portal 2 on the cover of its April 2010 issue. The twelve page feature, uh, features details on “new gameplay mechanics, storyline, and some surprising new twists.” Details such as the inclusion of a separate two player co-op campaign boasting two new characters! The cover, posted below, shows a jungle environment (complete with vines!), which could potentially be the setting for the new title.
The announcement is not too surprising since Valve released an update to the original game earlier this week which added a few seconds of footage to the ending.
I remember with startling clarity the moment I was introduced to Bioshock, by way of the demo. Never before, and never since, have I been so instantly enamored with a game. First Person Shooter is not my favorite genre of gaming, in large part because the story always seems to be an afterthought. From the first moments of that stunningly powerful demo, I knew that Bioshock’s heart WAS its story.
And this wasn’t just any story; it was a story based on philosophy and the writings of Ayn Rand, a certifiable genius. Within minutes I knew this game would blend my three favorite things, philosophy, literature, and killing people with electricity, into a power shake of gaming gusto. As usual, I wasn’t wrong.
The game, as all of our readers who don’t drag their knuckles on the ground when they walk already know, turned out to be fascinatingly intellectual, viscerally thrilling, and physically arousing. Well, maybe not that last one, but the game kicked ass on so many levels that I had to think of new levels that I had previously ignored. The conclusion was intensely satisfying, and one came away with the feeling that they were a better person simply because they had played a video game.
This is why I will never play Bioshock 2.
You see, Bioshock was all that was necessary. Often we hear writers pay lip service to the idea that they “do what the story tells them” or that a character “acts that way because of the story,” but most of us can see that this is only a pretentious way for a writer to avoid explaining how they came up with their ideas.
There’s a good reason for this: why someone comes up with this idea or that idea for a story is usually pretty boring. Basically, they thought it was a cool direction for the story, and they went in that direction. That’s it. Apparently, it’s more interesting when they spout a cliché about “following the story’s spiritual river” instead.
For all this talk of understanding story, the people at 2K couldn’t possibly care less about their own story if they decided to make a sequel to Bioshock. That game told a specific story that had a middle, beginning, and definite end. Rapture was a failed experiment, and you had salvaged what you could from a ruined civilization. You saved little girls. (That still doesn’t sound right, does it?) Even if you were “bad” and harvested the little sisters, the ending implied a kind of “Little Sister Zombie Apocalypse” and I’m pretty sure that’s not what happens in Bioshock 2.
Furthermore, the first game did something that I’d never seen before; it addressed the arbitrary and random nature of the tasks we performed in video games BY HAVING US PERFORM ARBITRARY AND RANDOM TASKS. To me, this brilliant bit was as shocking (“Would you kindly suck my balls?”), as the infamous “I am your father” scene from The Empire Strikes Back.
In fact, I would argue that Bioshock’s twist was more groundbreaking since it pointed the finger squarely back at the gamer and said “You only do these stupid things in games because we tell you to.” And we kept doing them. This forced us all to think about gaming while gaming. What are the chances that Bioshock 2 has something as amazing as this to hang its hat on? If you said, “None at all,” then you win a sackboy. Not really. Please don’t e-mail me about that.
So, I will not play Bioshock 2. I will not play it in a box. I will not play it with a fox. Start from scratch, 2K, and get back to me when you come up with a new idea.
I’m just going to get this out of the way: I’m a huge fan of Borderlands. Love the game. Have enjoyed every piece of DLC so far. Would recommend it all to every gamer that I ever meet and tell them to play this game and buy as much DLC as Randy Pitchford is willing to get his minions to conceive.
Now that I’ve said that, let me tell you all about the Secret Armory of General Knoxx. First off, it’s the largest piece of DLC yet released for the game. You also get three new vehicles and the level cap increases to 61. These tidbits alone should be enough to get you to buy the game… If you’re a hard-core Borderlands junkie.
What if you’re a lowly level 35 character that just finished the main game and has no desire to do a second playthrough to get all the way to level 61? I still wholeheartedly recommend this DLC as it is a great expansion of the franchise and a fun-as-hell shooter that will take your mind off of the glitch fest going on in the Modern Warfare 2 servers.
The story centers around the droll and hilarious General Knoxx, Lance General to the Crimson Lance military force that you fought at the end of the campaign in the main game. After entering a new area called T-Bone Junction, you meet a defector from the Crimson Lance who tasks you with helping her defeat General Knoxx. The reward is all of the loot in Knoxx’s Armory and let me say that there is a metric frakton of loot to be had at the end of the game.
A couple of things to note is that first, I played this DLC as part of my first playthrough as a level 37 Soldier. If you already have a level 50 character or higher, this DLC is right up your alley, but for the rest of us mere mortals, there’s still plenty to do and plenty to find in this DLC, as I leveled my character up from 37 to 44 by the end of the DLC.
Second, there is a ton of driving in the game. If that turned you off from Borderlands, you may want to skip this DLC. The maps are HUGE and you will need to be in a vehicle just to travel from one location to the next. On the other hand, the new vehicles are a lot of fun to drive around in and while the four person APC-like vehicle you obtain is a bit slow, its firepower was very much welcomed.
Third, this game is hilarious. This installment may have more laugh out loud moments than any game I’ve played in a while and I’m including any Tim Schafer game ever made as well. From the mission specific audio logs you find to Scooter, to General Knoxx himself, I laughed my ass off. It’s one of the qualities that really sets Borderlands apart from other franchises and it shines brighter than ever in Gearbox’s latest DLC.
Finally, once you complete the main quest in the game, there’s still more to do, including a level 64 boss monster that, I’ve heard, drops the best loot you can find in the game. And you can go back and fight him over and over to get bigger and badder loot. Unfortunately, my lowly 44 was no match for the beast, but I do have a reason to start my second playthrough now…
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is a must buy for any Borderlands fan. If you own Borderlands, buy the DLC over the other two previous DLC releases. It’s fun, challenging, hilarious and big enough to keep you occupied for 10 hours plus, depending on the missions you take on. I highly recommend this DLC.
*A DLC code was sent to me by a PR firm associated with Gearbox. I played through the story missions in the DLC but didn’t finish all missions and ended at level 44.
Heralding the destruction of the better part of my fall and winter gaming line-up for 2010, 2K Games has announced the next Civilization game, Civilization 5.
