Borderlands 2 (PC, Mac, Linux, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, Xbox 360, Playstation 4, and XBox One)

They say that the more things change the more they stay the same and it’s certainly true for the planet of Pandora. There are new bandits, a new vault, new vault hunters, and a new corporation trying to strip and fuck the planet — Atlas was so last decade, everything’s about Hyperion now. The CEO of Hyperion, known only as Handsome Jack, is aggressively settling the planet. He promises the locals that if they move to his new cities they’ll find peace and prosperity only to massacre them wholesale. You are a Vault Hunter who’s been hired by Handsome Jack to find the new vault — PSYCHE, he’s just trying to kill y’all so you can’t challenge his power. You escape but are you gonna take that attempt on your life lying down? No sir. Also, I promise there are no krakens in this game and a 99.9% reduction in Claptraps.

Handsome Jack in the flesh, so named for his unearthly charisma and face shaped mask — which is to say that it’s a mask of his own face… stapled to his regular face.

History

Borderlands 2 was developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K games. It runs on a more refined version of the old engine, a heavily modified Unreal Engine 3. They brought Anthony Burch from Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’ fame to write for the game and it paid off with genuinely hilarious moments and moments of weight.

The game’s development is characterized by two controversies. The first being John Hemingway’s blunder referring to the downloadable extra character Gaige and her Best Friends Forever skill tree as being “the girlfriend skill tree,” described as being for someone who, “suck(s) at first person shooters,” therefore implying that girlfriends are not good at first person shooters.

Pictured is Gaige and her mechanical monstrosity D347-TP or Deathtrap for short.

Speaking of downloadable content, the game offers a Season Pass which sounds like it offers all of the DLC for the game when it is, in fact, just a fancy named DLC package. The Season Pass includes the four additional game campaigns and a level cap increase but it does not include the extra characters, Gaige and Krieg, as well as not including the Headhunter mini-campaigns. A lot of customers bought the game and then bought the Season Pass, thinking they would get every DLC that came out but that wasn’t the case.

Fun Fact: Handsome Jack’s name was just a placeholder for what his actual name would be but Gearbox liked it so much they decided not to change it.

Borderlands 2 was released on September 18th, 2012. It’s competition was World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (PC), FTL: Faster than Light (PC, Mac, and Linux), and Castle Crashers PC release.

Experiences

The last Borderlands game was a fun romp, tongue-in-cheek, running around and blowing up bandits. It never really challenged my morals or myself in any deep way. I was either killing monsters or people so morally bankrupt they were akin to monsters. Borderlands 2 however presented a moral conundrum that almost stopped me from continuing with the game. I would have to do something that I found so despicable, killing someone who was very young, in order to have a chance to save the world. This isn’t sacrificing a 14 year old to save cancer, it’s doing it just to have the opportunity. In the end I kept going forward because I couldn’t stop now. And that attitude frightened me a bit. I thought about Jack and how he himself might be doing what he was doing because well he can’t stop now… but I was doing it for a good cause, right?

Gameplay

These are the new Vault Hunters. From left to right we have Axton the soldier, Maya the siren, Salvador the gunzerker, Zer0 the assassin, Gaige the mechromancer, and my favorite Krieg the psycho.

Borderlands 2 is a loot based shooter. A vicious cycle — for your enemies in any event– of using your guns to kill dudes, to get better guns, to kill stronger dudes so on and so forth with a story in there so it doesn’t grow too monotanous. Each character also has an action skill like Krieg’s Buzz Axe Rampage which allows him to go mad chop people up or Zer0’s Decepti0n which renders him invisible and projecting a decoy that draws enemy fire. They lean toward different playstyles with their different skill trees so experiment until you find something that works for you or your equipment.

Splitting trees generally isn’t worth it but there’s usually something early on in another tree that’s just plain useful. AND LOOK! Your skills properly point out when your class mod gives them a bonus.

The enemies consist of the well-known bandits and Pandoran wild-life like the wolf-like skags, plentiful spider-ants, and the brand new betentacled Threshers. New among the hazards are Hyperion’s legion of assorted murder-robots so keep a corrosive weapon handy and watch out for the self-destructing ones that’ll chase you down.

You can play alone or with friends online. The console versions also have local multiplayer as well so long as you don’t mind split screens and screen squish. The game is definitely designed to be played with friends and is much easier with an ally. Between the addition of their action skills, team buffing abilities, and the simple power to pick you up if you get downed so long as their competent they’ll counteract the difficulty increase.

The Gush

Overall the game feels smoother in every way than its predecessor. You can crawl during Fight for you Life, the animations are better, everything seems to take less time. Enemy movement is also much more fluid. Psychos will roll, dodge, and react to getting hit instead of charging in a straight line.

The new characters do a great job of pushing their abilities to new extremes. Gunzerking takes Brick’s berserk to its logical conclusion and Maya’s Phaselock is useful and has marvelous utility. The turret has also been salvaged as it now has the ability to aim and look in all directions, no longer will skags and rakks get behind its field of fire.

Phaselocking doesn’t just hold people still it can also be upgraded to explode and revive allies.

The dialogue and overall story of the game is much improved from the original. With a story that elicited actual pathos and dialogue that elicited a lot of laughs it was something that intertwined with the gameplay and world into a greater experience. This game goes way over the top and at no point does it seem silly because it meshes very well with the art style.

Handsome Jack is an incredible villain. I love to hate him but sometimes he’s just left of decent. How he’s so close to doing the right thing but has been blinded by power, greed, and his smug sense of superiority. He grabs your attention, constantly jeers you, and makes you want to take him down.

The DLC in this game is a wonderful addition, Season Pass not-withstanding. The extra campaigns, characters, and mini-campaigns are all incredibly fun and filled with new characters, enemies, and loot. It’s reasonably priced and worth the cost.

It’s got a Dungeons and Dragonsesque campaign that’s just as fun and silly as it sounds. The ending of which made me weep like a small child.

The Kvetch

The quests are usually enjoyable and introduce interesting mechanics but some of them come in at bizarre times insofar that you’ll be grossly over-leveled for their enemies and loot related to when they’re given to you. They might be fun to play but won’t be worth your time in terms of mechanical benefit.

The Verdict

My 198 hours with this game are testament to how it fulfilled my desire for a better Borderlands. If you remotely enjoyed the first game but passed on the sequel then find some friends and go at it. If you haven’t played the first game and want to scratch the Diablo II itch then this game is a fine place to start, Borderlands 1 is not a requisite– you’ll be saving yourself a disappointment of Kraken proportions. The Game of the Year edition is still $40 but it’s often on sale on Steam so I’d recommend picking it up for 50% off.

Next Week: Medieval II: Total War

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC, PS3, XBox 360, and OS X)

After World War II in his genius and his hubris Albert Einstein built a time machine and used it to go back in time to kill Hitler before his rise to power. Unfortunately without Hitler there was nothing to stop the meteoric rise of Stalin. Feeling personally responsible, Einstein used his genius to make the Allies new and incredible weapons that could crush the Soviet war machine. This left the Soviets desperate, but their network of spies was still good. They used these covert agents to steal the designs for the very time machine Einstein used to kill Hitler and a lowly aide uses it to go back in time to kill Einstein himself. Ignoring the grandfather paradox taking place here, if Einstein doesn’t exist, he doesn’t make nuclear weapons. If there are no nuclear weapons then the war with Japan did not end in their surrender. That’s right! Now it’s a three way free-for-all between the Tesla powered Soviets, the propaganda fueled Allies, and the crafty Empire of the Rising Sun. You play as an enterprising commander in the nation of your choice to take back the glory of your home and crush your enemies!

Behold, the leaders of the not so free world. Yes, that is George Takei as the Emperor of Japan and Tim Curry as the Premier of Russia.

History

Red Alert 3 was developed by Electronic Arts. It was unofficially announced in 2004 by Mark Skaggs after the release of The Battle for Middle Earth but Mark left EA soon after. Red Alert 3 wasn’t spoken of again until 2008 when PC Gamer had the game as their cover story. The most note-worthy aspect of the development of Red Alert 3 is that it used the controversial SecuROM system. So, check this, the SecuROM system makes it so each CD key could only be used five times. If you uninstall the game and reinstall it or change video drivers it might use up one of your 5 installs. Eventually backlash from the players caused EA to abolish the system’s use in this game over time.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 was released on October 28th, 2008. It’s competition was Fallout 3 (PS3, Xbox 360, and PC), World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC and Mac), and LittleBigPlanet (PS3).

Experiences

The live action segments are the best part of this game. It’s satire at its best and they got great actors to play all the characters. I stand by that the live action cast was only given their scripts moments before filming. It’s the only explanation that I can find for this scene.

Just… everything about it is comedy gold. The way Curry is trying to keep a straight face, the little false start he’s got before he delivers the final line, and the way he bellows “SPACE” like he didn’t know that was the line until it came out of his mouth.

Gameplay

Unlike Mob Rule, Red Alert 3 is your quintessential RTS. You build buildings, those buildings produce units, you manage your resources, and build an army that will counter your opponent’s. You’ve also got a bar that builds and accrues points which you can spend on your factions special abilities like an orbital launch or flash reinforcements from a splintered timeline– the bar builds faster the more combat you’re in so get to fighting.

First one to blow up your opponent’s base wins.

You can play against the AI or other players in skirmish maps online. The game has also got a story campaign with 10 unique missions per faction. Normally each map gives you an AI companion but you can replace that digital dummy with a real player if you want– an RTS first by my reckoning.

The Gush

I already mentioned how much I loved the live action cutscenes. They’ve got more camp than a hundred tents put together– a secret button is hidden in a bust of Lenin for goodness sake. The only thing better is watching all the behind the scenes outtakes and silliness.

Holy co-op Comrade, you can play the main campaign with a friend. I recommend doing this because the AI isn’t exactly reliable. But if you’re not feeling the love then the AI will be a competent ally.

Normally naval combat is a poorly designed tacked on thing — I’m looking at you Warcraft 2 — but Red Alert 3 throws in a bunch of interesting and useful amphibious units. As a matter of fact every factions unique Commando unit is amphibious as well. Why did it take us this long to think of naval artillery?

The Kvetch

This game is uncomfortably sexist sometimes. From the scantily clad and sexualized Commandos to Tim Curry checking out his secretary’s ass and grinning at the player it’s all just a little cringe-worthy. The allied campaign even ends with the commander being rewarded with a night with the Allied commando or the Allied communications officer– just… blugh.

Pictured is the Allied Commando and all the combat gear she isn’t wearing and her in game model is similar.

The Soviet campaign at least has got some insane difficulty spikes. It took me three tries to beat the fourth mission and then I breezed through the rest. Last I checked difficulty is supposed to be curve with the game getting more difficult as it goes on.

Spoilers, but the Soviet campaign culminates in the destruction of the Statue of Liberty. I was so excited and totally pumped to kick J.K. Simmons out of the White House but I dunno man, the whole thing just felt toothless. The mission is pretty easy and the ending is just such a let-down. There’s a toast and you’re suddenly the new Premier, nothing makes sense. I haven’t played the other campaigns but I hope their endings are more satisfying than the Soviet one.

The Verdict

I’d say that Red Alert 3 is worth it for the cut-scenes alone. If you’ve got any interest in real-time strategy games then I’d say go for it. But if they’re not your thing then you could just look up all the cut-scenes online. It’s $20 on Steam and it’s got a $20 expansion pack and I would suggest waiting for it to go on sale. They’re also available on PS3 and Xbos 360 and I can’t speak to the quality of the console ports but Starcraft 64 has always made me wary of console strategy games.

Next Week: Borderlands 2

Mob Rule (PC)

You are an up and coming capo in another man’s mafia given the dubious privilege of commanding the Don’s forces. If you succeed, he takes the credit, if you fail, you take the fall. The big man’s got plans for you though, plans that will take you far. You’ve got to build businesses and organize your subordinates in order to destroy rival families and keep your ledger in the black. And whatever you do, never disobey the Don.

History

Made by Studio 3, the internal development branch of System 3, Mob Rule was meant to be a more combat oriented version of their previous game, Constructor. Mob Rule recycled the engine and a lot of the mechanics. It received worse reviews than Constructor at the time in large part to its UI change and mission goal restrictions.

It’s been picked up and distributed by Good Old Games these days and their port is competent and flexible but missing a vital aspect from the original, multiplayer. For whatever reason they removed the option to get a multiplayer game going. The multiplay format is no longer supported by modern Operating Systems but savvy coders have found ways to get it to run with a few downloadable programs. So I’ve got to ask GOG, where’s my mafia based multiplayer?

I mean, that’s the UI on the bottom panel. It’s not exactly intuitive.

Mob Rule was released on September 30th, 1999. It’s competition was Rollercoaster Tycoon (PC and apparently this game had an XBox port.), Dungeon Keeper 2 (PC), and Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (PC).

Experiences

This is one of the first RTS games that I ever played and the first time I did it was on a demo disk. You remember, demos, those things that don’t exist any more where you play a little bit of the game to see if you like it — yeah, those. This demo was unlike any other I had played because it incorporated its ending into the mechanics of the demo. Lemme unpack that. So, most demos ended because they just told you that you’d played enough and would have to cough up the cash if you wanted to keep going. Mob Rule’s demo unleashed a giant enemy force on you that was too strong, who The Don ordered you not to harm, that wreck your businesses and kill your dudes. Then, when you get wiped out, the game says that if you want revenge that you could get it by buying the full game. Cheap, efficient, brilliant, and dastardly.

Gameplay

This game is not your average RTS, there’s no real base building, there isn’t really a diverse arrangement of units, and everyone is using the same tools. Since there’s no multiplayer anymore it’s all about the main campaign. The campaign is split into missions where The Don will give you various tasks, some of which put the hurt on your enemies whereas others are just there to create a challenge to forward progress. To achieve these ends you’ll have to employ workers, the low health/low damage guys who build buildings and perform menial tasks — but have strength in numbers. Fixers, who literally repair buildings, can hold their own in combat, and can take over enemy business. And Gangsters, who are the fast moving, hard hitting, well dressed, gun-toting, enforcers.

You build businesses on your available land that can either produce units or money, but not both at once. Each building can be upgraded twice, and lead into higher tiered businesses that produce more money and better units — ie. you can convert workers into fixers or gangsters but higher level businesses produce gangsters instead of workers. You upgrade buildings by installing gadgets from your gadget factory. There are also gadgets with more practical uses like the dog house that will provide a given property with a faithful — if glitchy– hound who will try to defend it.

Low class businesses are things like Soup Kitchens whereas high class business are Night Clubs.

If you’re still having some trouble crushing your enemies then you can hire the Undesirables to apply the hurt-lock by destroying their businesses or stealing their resources. And if your enemies are throwing these low-lives at you then you can bribe the police to aggressively patrol and arrest them. The game is like a giant Rock Paper Scissors game where everyone is trying to buy bigger tools. Just make sure you’ve got enough cash to keep the train going.

 The Gush

I love making a well oiled and self perpetuating machine in games and Mob Rule provides. There comes a moment when your security is tight, your businesses are in order, and you can just crank up the speed on the game. All pretense of micro-management thrown out the window — until that one prick builds a haunted prison and starts haunting your buildings.

Very rarely does the game put a time limit on you. You’re free to fart around as long as you please as long as you’ve got the cash to keep it going. You can build up your businesses and forces as long as you think you have to. With timed sections thrown in to increase the dramatic tension.

The game does a great job at teaching the player neat tricks to get an edge over their enemy especially through the missions. From focusing your gangsters and police at the choke points of your empire, putting buildings near your opponents businesses and letting them burn down and explode, or dumping bodies on your opponents property to inspire the police to raid the business. The game’s missions actually inspire the player to think laterally.

This game is silly as fuck. The 3-D sections and intermission cutscenes are pretty funny. I mean, I always wanted to command a giant, sentient, bipedal, walking cockroach and this game has given me that opportunity.

The animation and design is just totally goofy.

The Kvetch

The mission goals are sometimes poorly defined. About once per campaign I was given a mission where I didn’t know exactly what I needed to do or worse yet, thought I was doing the right thing and either the game wasn’t counting it or I wasn’t doing it correctly. It’s a real pace killer when it happens.

This game cheats. It’s form of difficulty is measured in how much the AI is allowed to cheat. They don’t have to worry about producing people, running out of money, or running out of undesirables. I know this is there to compensate for their AI, they’re not as good as a player, but there’s something unsatisfying about how they and I are not even playing by the same rules.

Sometimes the AI will just crap itself and you suffer because of it. There are plenty of mission scenarios where there’s someone you’re not allowed to attack or a building you’re not allowed to destroy. Sometimes though the AI will just start neglecting this building or character, they get destroyed, and then you lose.  And it happens once every time I play through the campaign so always keep an extra save file around.

A small quibble but sometimes the game doesn’t keep its terms straight is. The Don says that electric lights improve trade but they do nothing but allow you to upgrade your buildings. Sometimes its confusing when a gadget has a different name in the factory and in text that informs which gadgets are required to upgrade buildings.

The Verdict

This game is quite flawed. If the game didn’t catch your attention as soon as you heard about it then it probably won’t. The game is twenty years old and predates common RTS user interface. I’m pretty nostalgic for it so I keep going back but I think the real quality is finding ways to abuse the game and make a perfect machine. It’s 8 dollars on Good Old Games so I recommend it only if you think it sounds cool.

Next Week: Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3

Tetris Attack (Super Nintendo and Gameboy)

Yoshi is just hanging out on Yoshi’s Island, as he does, with all of the — presumably reformed villains– when Bowser — with his incredibly ill defined magical powers — enchants them to become Yoshi’s enemies once again. The spell also creates a torrential downpour that will flood the world — you see what I mean by poorly defined. Yoshi must now defeat his friends in a puzzle game to break the spell. You know what? Just… don’t overthink this, don’t think about it at all actually, it’s a tetris-esque puzzle game. Just play it.

History

Tetris Attack is a game being torn in three directions at once. It started off as Panel De Pon, a game about fairies trying to defeat the Devil King, Thanatos, who casts a spell to make the fairies fight among each other. Only Lip is able to resist the spell thanks to her magical stick — hence the Super Smash item Lip’s Stick. Nintendo knew that a puzzle game about fairies wouldn’t sell well in the states so they changed the graphics and made it about Yoshi and the cast of Yoshi’s island, which had been released earlier in the year. They couldn’t call it Panel De Pon and in order to increase the approachability of the game Nintendo asked Tetris and it’s then CEO, Henk Rogers if they could use the name. He agreed, but looking back on it regrets the decision because this game isn’t like Tetris at all, quote from Rogers, “In retrospect, we should never have done that. I don’t think that’s a good idea. It dilutes the brand”.

Tetris Attack was released on November 28, 1996. It’s competition was Diablo (PC), Twisted Metal 2 (PS1), and Donkey Kong Country 3 (SNES).

Even the walls are happier in Panel de Pon!

Experiences

I can say that as a young child renting video games from Taylor Brook Video I was completely drawn in by a game that was Tetris but HAD ATTACKING! I knew I could play Tetris so I figured I’d be able to play this game, I figured wrong. I couldn’t get very far in the main campaign because I couldn’t figure out how to execute combos or how to organize blocks to eliminate more than three at a time. Like many of these games, I came back when I was in my late teens and was able to finish it. But those unlockable characters would always taunt me, I would never beat very hard mode.

Gameplay

Tetris Attack is… well it works like… I mean, it’s sort of like… and you… nevermind, lemme just show you.

There, that’s how the game works.

The game actually presents a large variety of ways to play the game. There’s endless mode, which is most like actual Tetris. The player plays and accumulates points until they lose. In this mode combos freeze the game so you can get a few seconds of breathing room. There’s puzzle mode which presents the player with a game-state and a certain number of moves. The player’s got to use those moves to eliminated all the blocks. Then there’s VS mode! Where you get to play the campaign style game but against another player. With each player getting the opportunity to adjust their own boards difficulty. And then there’s the main campaign in which you face down 12 computer controlled opponents.

Endless mode also gets larger, more flavorful stages.

The Gush

Once you get into this game it can plunge you into a state of pure flow. It’s not about seeing the blocks, it’s just moving them — I love it. Although when things would get rough I would lose it though, me and my friends would call this, “losing the sight.” One of us would just say, “I’ve lost the sight,” and then they’d soon lose.

The game looks really kiddy, and I mean that in a good way. If the game wasn’t so difficult it would be pure joy. It’s all fluffy and and edgeless until Yoshi reaches The Cave of Wickedness. And come on, how much more punch can you pull calling it the Cave of Wickedness.

Cute overload.

The music in this game is also cutesy and I really like it. It’s not as iconic as Tetris’ A-theme but it suits the puzzling aspects of the game well, even growing more excited as the blocks rise higher. I’m personally fond of Blarg’s, Raphael’s, and Bowser’s theme. I will say though that it’s a little lazy that three bosses all use the same music.

The Kvetch

If you want to unlock the bosses as playable characters then you’d best buckle yourself in for a bumpy ride. You’ve got to beat the game on the hardest difficulty. No, not hard mode. I mean the hardest mode. After you beat Hard mode without using a continue Yoshi says that you’re gonna have to hold up and the L button on the difficulty select screen with Hard highlighted to unlock really freakin’ hard mode. Then you’ve got to beat really freakin’ hard mode without using a continue. Then you’ll unlock the bosses as characters. I just want to play as Kamek because he’s a koopa Wizard.

KOOPA WIZARD! Look at that goddam robe!

A game like this needs the tightest of controls and yet sometimes I feel like the cursor goes further than I mean it to. Maybe I’m just REALLY good at hitting the button quickly but making a misplay can be costly and undoing it takes up valuable time.

The Verdict

You can get the game these days on the WiiU virtual console for eight dollars. It’s a decent enough title but it was really a creature of its time. The big reason I spent my days learning how to play it was because it was the only game I had and I was bored as hell. It’s not a game you and your friends can pick up and play because the handicapping in the VS mode leaves things a little lopsided, and there’s only local multiplayer. You can’t just pick it up and mash buttons like you would be able to in a game like Mortal Combat. The games got a really slow burn and no real focus. I don’t think this game can replace the sheer zen of Tetris but I keep getting drawn back to it every once and awhile. I’m nostalgia blind, and I don’t think I can see past that.

Next Week: Mob Rule