Seven Kingdoms II (PC)

Have you ever heard hard-core history nerds start debating which civilizations could have kicked which civilization’s butt? It starts with military technology and tactics but inevitably spills into what someone saw on Deadliest Warrior that one time. This game is the end all be all of which civilizations could have kicked with civilizations’ butt. Complete with war machines certain civs never discovered and playable monstrous races. I’m certain this game will put all those arguments to rest!

History

Seven Kingdoms II was developed by Enlight Software, designed by Trevor Chan, and published by Ubisoft. Trevor Chan was a programming consultant for an airline sales system when he started his game development career with Capitalism and Seven Kingdoms. Chan and Enlight are still making games today, with a new Seven Kingdoms being planned and a new Capitalism game in development right now.

Seven Kingdoms II: The Fryhtan Wars was released on July 31st, 1999. It’s competition was Dungeon Keeper 2 (PC), System Shock 2 (PC), and Croc 2 (PS1).

Experiences

It’s difficult to imagine a world before commercialized sequels. Where sequels were meant to represent the success of a good product instead of an inevitability of the industry. I adored the first Seven Kingdoms when it came out and the idea that there would be another game that was bigger and better blew my mind. The only sequel series I had experienced was through Super Mario All-Stars pack, I didn’t even know that Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros looked that different. In short, I was completely unprepared and surprised by the graphical update between Seven Kingdoms games and the idea that games could be refined and improved for generations to come… yaaaay…

What is this sequel wizardry!?

Gameplay

Seven Kingdoms II is a real time strategy game in the vein of Ages and Empires. Your goal is to vanquish your enemies via conquest, diplomacy, and/or cloak and dagger spying. To this end you manage resources such as food, gold, people, and reputation — and hoo boy, is reputation important. If you run out of any of those then you’re gonna have your bad time. Human civilizations can also discover new technologies to improve soldier stats, create war machines that take less time to train than soldiers, espionage abilities, and industrial capabilities. Your goal is to be the last kingdom standing, in most circumstances.

The big innovation for this game over the previous installment is that the monstrous Fryhtans are no longer simply marauding creatures, they’re now playable kingdoms or Kwyzans. If all that diplomacy and spying junk didn’t interest you then you can Conan this shit and crush everyone. In ways including but not limited to, sapping natural resources, killing civilians, and enslaving towns — I did mention they were literal monsters right.

With giant spooky lairs, and bizarre structures the Fryhtans offer a completely different way to play.

Shockingly, the latest editions being offered by Steam and Good Old Games still have functioning multiplayer so it’s totally possible to comp stomp with your friends or go toe to toe with them.

The Gush

The learning curve in this game is pretty steep — it’s not Dwarf Fortress or anything — but the tutorials, hints, and scenario editor give the player enough room to experiment and learn. It takes some time but you’ll get the hang of it.

You can actually deploy your spies now! In the original Seven Kingdoms if you tried to infiltrate an enemy kingdom with spies they’d typically get apprehended and executed before they even took their first step… somehow. Now they’ll get as far as the gates of the enemy fort before there’s even a chance of them being discovered. So have fun bribing and backstabbing your way to victory.

The bizarre Fryhtan tech might seem unwieldy at first but once you learn how it works you can unleash your inner monster. Fryhtans don’t engage in diplomacy they only extort and destroy. Playing them is a total rush.

The Kvetch

The campaign for this game is overall unenjoyable. Every campaign is randomly generated with randomly generated scenarios. You have to face down a bunch of Fryhtan Kwyzans and a rival human empire. The effect of randomness can change things immensely and it makes the campaign feel arbitrary. I just wish my actions could snowball my empire and give me mounting power. It certainly doesn’t help that it’s super freaking hard.

Some Fryhtan missions can begin and end with getting completely overpowered and crushed.

I don’t know what’s wrong with the Fryhtan pathing but it’s a huge problem. Your monstrous armies will generally meet defeat because half of them were back at the lair picking their nose or just bumping harmlessly into each other.

These pathing problems are alleviated by ranged attacks but not all Fryhtan species can attack from a distance.

A minor quibble but why do my counterspies dying count against my reputation? It makes sense to be disreputable for infiltrating an enemy kingdom but having some secret police-men keeping an eye out for enemy spies dying in an earthquake should not mar my good name — I mean, I do have 11 assassins ready to kill the enemy’s king but no one needs to know that.

The Verdict

It’s an older game but it was state of the art for 1999 and it’s cheap now. You can get it on Steam or from Good old Games for $10 — GOG even offers a bundle for both Seven Kingdoms games. I started playing this game around 2004 and I’m still playing it today so I would say that it’s worth a look-see if you’re into this sort of thing.

Next Week: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth/Afterbirth.

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Word Realms (PC, Mac, and Linux)

In a world where words can hurt — like not just emotionally but on an extremely physical level– you wake up with an awful hangover — which is to say that you’re a native to this world, you haven’t used the power of booze to astrally teleport or something. The people of the valley you’re now in are being plagued by the evil Lord Nightmare who is, unsurprisingly, making it really difficult for people to sleep. Will you take up the cause of the local villagers, vanquishing monsters until you rush up to Nightmare’s Keep to deck him in the schnoz? Or will you just do all this junk because it means you can leave the valley and move on. You decide! Spell, use items, craft things, and solve puzzles in an adventure for all time!

History

Word Realms was the second game made by Asymmetric Publications and designed by Zack “Jick” Johnson and Kevin Simmons. It’s creation was funded through Kickstarter exceeding it’s asking price, $100,000, by a narrow margin. Johnson and Simmons had been discussing the idea of the game for months on the Kingdom of Loathing Podcast and working on it on and off before the campaign started. The Kickstarter ended on June 21st, 2012 and the game was released on May 21st, 2013. It’s competition was Fez (PC), Monaco: What’s yours is Mine (XBox Live Indie Arcade), and Resident Evil: Revelations (PC, PS3, XBox 360, and WiiU).

Experiences

I’ll just say this, my grandmother is better than me at this game. I bought it for her as a Christmas present because I knew she liked Scrabble so I figured she’d have fun with this. Little did I know that she would blow me out of the water. She breezed through the game and even thought it was a little on the easy side. I’ve been playing games for decades and I felt so upset but… why? What kind of petty jerk feels bad because his grandma is better at a game than him? — the pettiest of jerks, that’s who. So, I recognize my grammie as the resident Scrabble queen, long be her reign.

Gameplay

Word Realms is a lot like Scrabble, except your words score is the damage that your attack will do and that your rounds have a strict time limit. Monsters fight in a similar fashion and have their own abilities to amp up the difficulty, like copying your word, skipping your turn, or reducing the round time. You’ve also got abilities of your own including the power to wear clothes that boost your stats, use potions and scrolls, and use skills of your own. Your skills are based on your class, either wizard or warrior. Warriors play pretty simply but effectively, they’ll brute force their way through the game. Wizards on the other hand are more difficult but have more potential and can do bizzarre things — like wizards do.

Fight a ghost, get some loot, spell some words, feel good about your vocabulary.

The Gush

There’s so much to do beside the main quest. After you defeat Lord Nightmare you unlock Endless mode and get to face new and unique monsters. There’s also a secret underground fighting ring hidden somewhere in the game and it’s filled with a series of optional fights that confer powerful equipment and skills. Happy hunting.

If you’re really hardcore there are a few secret endings that are really difficult to unlock. No spoilers but reaching them will test yours skills.

Every word has a taunt based on its word type and it’s meaning. Fiery words, for example, get special dialogue and some words get totally unique taunts . So you might find a little joke if you experiment with your word choice.

With such classics as…

The Kvetch

There is a song for the main map and a few songs for combat. Ope, wait, there’s a song for the intro menu too. And the main menu music is the only music I can really tolerate. It’s all fine but it gets on my nerves real quickly.

I had to brute force some of the puzzles, attempting them again and again until there was a favorable set of starting circumstances. What really kills me is that only a few of these are mandatory and that those were the ones I got stuck on the most.

Not to say that the puzzles aren’t interesting, just that they were unfun levels of hard for me.

The crafting system seemed really interesting. I was stoked to discover all of these recipes and make some incredibly awesome stuff but I found it overall confusing. It took me a while to realize that one things could get crafted into another, as in, you don’t have to craft two things together. You can instead put one thing in the menu alter it to another craftable. The things I DID create weren’t stellar or even very useful for my strategies.

Look at all this stuff! Which of it goes together? I dunno, man.

The Verdict

If you like Scrabble or other word games then I think an $11 price tag is more than fair. If you’re not a big fan of word games then you’re probably not gonna like this one. It’s well made, humorous, and beautifully priced so if you want some puzzles in your Boggle then pick up a copy.

If you were totally sold on this game then pick up a copy here. http://www.wordrealms.com/

Next Week: Seven Kingdoms II: The Fryhtan Wars.

Kingdom of Loathing (PC and portable devices.)

The Kingdom of Loathing is not your typical fantasy RPG setting. It does not have mere clerics, wizards, and fighting men — I shit you not, 1st edition DnD had the Fighting Man class. It’s instead populated by Turtle Tamers, Pastamancers, and Accordion Thieves. These disparate adventurers have united because King Ralph XI — in the long line of Ralph — has been kidnapped by the Naughty Sorceress. For what purpose, no one can say but it cannot be a noble one because she’s seriously naughty, like so naughty. The Council of Loathing — in a clear bid to rescue their king — must first give you 11 quests before the Council runs out of ideas… I MEAN you are ready to face her naughtiness. Solve puzzles, fight monsters, and become an adventurer in the Kingdom of Loathing.

Behold the Kingdom in all of it’s glory.

History

Kingdom of Loathing begins with one man, Zack “Jick” Johnson and begins with high silliness. Working as a programmer, Johnson made a few games that he never released, thinking that they were too serious. He decided that he’d work on something for a week and then release whatever he had completed. The art was drawn by hand, and all of the initial content was stream of consciousness ideas where nothing but the worst ideas were discarded — I mean, meat became the currency of the realm so just imagine what the bad ideas were.  A year later KOL had 300,000 player accounts. Johnson invited his child-hood friend Josh “Mr. Skullhead” Nite to help him write and design the game.

It grew and evolved as Johnson and Nite added more content on an, albeit, irregular schedule. The game started by running off of donations and eventually Johnson began rewarding donations with in game items releasing and retiring an item every month. In 2005 he and Nite quit their day jobs and started working on the game full time. In 2007 Johnson hired two members of the player-base to help him work on the game, offering their experience as players to design new content. In November of 2014 Nite was laid off from the development team.

Kingdom of Loathing was released in it’s earliest form in 2003 and content has been steadily added and trimmed to this day. It’s current form is known as NS13 which released on June 15th 2007. It’s competition in 2003 was Dark Cloud 2 (PS2), Galactic Civilizations (PC), and Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis (Xbox).

Experiences

I’ve been playing this game for seven years and I still have more to do. There are still enemies I haven’t fought yet, still items I don’t have, and quests I haven’t completed. I run about 300 turns a day in under an hour thanks to the miracles of scripting and assistance tools like KOL mafia. I’m the leader of a clan and still ascend when the latest challenge path rolls out. I make enough meat to purchase the item of the month. And I love this game. The content is always fresh, funny, and has something for a player of every variety.

KOL Mafia: For when you’ve played the game so much that you have the game play itself

Gameplay

KOL is a single player MMO with turn based combat. Single Player MMO might sound like an oxy-moron but in this case it’s just a bizarre descriptor. The community is large and very present in the player economy, a silly PVP, and the ever present chat but when it comes to your character and your adventures you’ll mostly be flying solo. That being said, you can buff other players and throw bricks at them — you know, your choice.

The major mechanic of the game is the turn limit. The player is limited to how many turns per day they can adventure. The player is provided with 40 turns per day and when the player is out of turns well, there’s always the chat to play around with. You can get more turns by eating foodstuff and drinking boozestuff but not all food and booze is created equal. The better the food and drink, the more adventures and experience points it confers. Don’t drink too much though, or you’ll be too falling down drunk to do anything.

Break barrels, hang out in chat, it’s all in a day’s play.

The three main stats of the game are muscle, moxie, and mysticality. Muscle gives you more health, a greater chance to hit, and more damage with melee weapons. Moxie makes you take less damage, harder to hit, and a better chance to hit with ranged weapons. Mysticality gives increased MP (Muscle, Mojo, or Mana points respectively) and greater spell damage. Each class has a primary stat, a secondary stat, and a tertiary stat. Muscle classes hit really hard, soak all the damage, and can dish out more damage with sweet skills. Moxie classes don’t hit very hard, don’t take much damage, and can do weird things with their sweet skills. Mysticality classes might get beaten up in one hit but can generally defeat enemies with a single spell — they also have other sweet skills to facilitate their spellslinging. It’s not all about how thoroughly you can pummel monsters though. This game will also require the player to solve fiendish puzzles — the less mandatory they are the more fiendish they will be.

After the player defeats the Naughty Sorceress the game only opens up further. Between clan dungeons, The Sea, collecting bounties, and ascending there’s still more game to play. Ascension is the real big mechanic of the game. As a player you’re not tied down to your class. After you defeat the Sorceress you can begin the game anew with a new class and one of your old skills. In addition to the standard game there are challenge paths that alter the way the game is played allowing you to play a specific character — like the Avatar of Sneaky Pete, the most moxious man in the lands — or just altering the rules of the game — like in Bees hate you where you cannot use items with the letter B in them.

The Gush

I mentioned Clan dungeons before and I’ve got to bring them up again because they’re just about my favorite thing in the game. A Clan is like a guild in other MMOs and there are certain dungeons that you can pay to open for the opportunity to fight unique monsters and acquire immense and powerful loot. Team up with your Clan-mates and delve into the mysterious stronghold of Hobopolis, for example, and fight all manner of migrant laborer as you work your way towards Hodgman, the Hoboverlord. To what lengths will you go to acquire Roger, his Imaginary Hamster? Will you acquire it for the power it confers or the prestige it offers.

It’s town square holds 3000 hobos between you and your goal, not to mention the offshoot neighborhoods.

If the humor in this game doesn’t keep you playing then the systems just might. The game seems simple — the seal clubber was designed to play through the game doing nothing but attacking monsters — but the systems can get really complex. You can banish unwanted monsters from certain areas or use an item that allows you to run away from combat without spending a turn. It might be hard to believe but people have figured out how to finish their runs in under 800 turns.

My personal favorite part of the game is probably the player economy. Most of my time spent these days is on the mall pricing screen and in the trade chat channel. I buy, sell, trade, and sell my services to the highest bidder. In game currency also retains its value because you can spend in game currency on out of game currency. A Mr. Accessory runs about 23 million meat and I can make that in a month meaning that as long as someone is willing to sell, I am able to buy. Premium content can also be purchased from the mall for a modest — and sometimes exorbitant fee — so if you save your sirloin you can acquire these limited items.

Speaking of Premium Content, the microtransactions of this game are actually really player friendly. Because it’s single player you don’t need them to compete, some of the strongest items can be acquired without paying a cent. For the low price of 10 dollars per thing, it’s pretty cheap. And, as I said before, you can spend in game meat on these premium items.

Some of the premium content aren’t even items, some of them are new areas to explore.

The Kvetch

The game’s depth can be confusing and even intimidating at times. I often need to have strategies of high level play and intense speed runs explained to me in chat and I’ve been playing for a good long while. Jick and co keep adding simple ways to complete quests, but speed runners retain their strategies. It used to be back in the day that a new and casual player would NEED to use the wiki to make headway in the quest line. That’s not so much these days but it can still seem daunting at first glance.

The game may have deep systems but they’re all based on the simple concept of numbers getting bigger. If it doesn’t excite you for numbers to get bigger then it might be really difficult to get into the game. Numbers get bigger, you kill skeletons, you get some sweet swords.

The Verdict

There’s so much more to this game that I didn’t have time to mention. World events will sweep across the Kingdom and change everything for a few days, the game also celebrates out of game holidays. I really like this game and the best part is that it’s completely free. It’s silly and goofy and yet has incredibly deep systems at its core. If you’ve got the time and feel like some goofiness then give it a whirl.

Play it for Free at www.kingdomofloathing.com

Next Week: Word Realms

Tales from the Borderlands (Android, iOS, PC, Mac, PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XBox 1, and your toaster.)

It’s come to my attention that this game is pretty graphic and pretty violent. If you don’t dig graphic violence or buckets of gore you might wanna skip this one.

So far in the Borderlands series we’ve opened one vault per game, the vaults of the Destroyer, the Warrior, and the Watcher. Each of which contained a giant alien monster that earned its title. In each game we’ve played the badasses who’ve shot and blasted their way to open them up. This time around things are a little different. Done are the days of gun toting, level-upping, loot-based vault hunters. Now is the era of speaking, decision making, and high silliness — I mean, you’re playing a con-woman and a pencil-pusher, what did you want from them? You play as both Pandoran native Fiona and Hyperion corporation lap-dog Rhys– con-woman and pencil-pusher respectively– when a struggle to survive turns into a plot to open a vault — you know, because loot. Make choices in this point and click adventure on everyone’s favorite toilet of a planet, Pandora.

History

Talk of a Telltale Borderlands game began after Gearbox and Telltale worked together on Claptrap’s inclusion in Poker Night at the Inventory 2 (Here’s my post for Poker Night 1 if you’re curious). Discussions began as Gearbox designers admitted that the FPS roots of Borderlands prevented them from including elements that wouldn’t mesh with mechanics. These were things that Telltale could capitalize on as well as all of the Borderlands characters who don’t get a spotlight in an FPS game.

Not to say that this game doesn’t have its share of bloodshed.

Tales From the Borderlands was plagued by release delays. The first episode was released on November 24th 2014, the second episode was released on March 17th of 2015, and the final episode wasn’t released until October 20th 2015 (For reference The Wolf Among Us’ first episode was released on October 11th 2013 and it’s final episode was released on November 4th of 2014). It’s competition on its initial release Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS3 and Xbox 360), Assassin’s Creed: Unity (PC, XBox One, PS4), and Thomas Was Alone (PS4, WiiU, and Xbox One).

Experiences

As another Telltale adventure game you’re sure to feel a pit of indecision grow in your stomach. Playing to character might lead to dire consequences and even the most innocuous of decisions will leave you in tears. The emotional tension reaches a fever pitch with the introduction of Loader Bot — one of the mooks from Borderlands 2 but this one’s got a personality. I’ve never cared about robots more in any game ever. Never have I felt so connected with a being of synthetic thoughts, wires, and circuitry. Made all the more impactful considering the terrible things you can do to him.

Treat your loader bot well, he’s sworn to protect.

Gameplay

Tales from the Borderlands is like your average Telltale adventure game. You’ll enter into conversations with people, choose your responses — and remember that silence is always an option (unless someone demands information under penalty of death, you should probably answer that person)– walk around areas, and poke things with proverbial sticks. Tales from the Borderlands is unique insofar that you play as…

…and…

That’s right, you’re playing as two different characters. Certain chapters and sections are played as certain characters so there’s no switching at will. This can make things complicated because sometimes they don’t have each others’ best interests in mind. They’re both in it for the money, they both want all the rewards, and they’re not exactly on good terms — this game takes place after Borderlands 2, you know, when Hyperion tried to conquer the planet and kill the local populace. You can split them apart, and take sides, as they squabble for what they want or you can unite them and they’ll work together more smoothly.

And remember, the other characters will remember and react to what you say and do.

The Gush

Fiona and Rhys’ unique mechanics are just plain fun and characters having mechanics is yet to be in a Telltale game. Rhys’ cyber eye allows him to look things up in the Hyperion database for fun jokes and additional information whereas Fiona has the ability to collect and spend money. Although, I will say, Fiona’s cash was a more useful even though I’m not sure how it impacted things — but that’s the nature of Telltale games, you’ll never know what matters.

Although, I will admit, the scanning function is very entertaining.

The characters in this game are fantastic, as is befitting a Telltale game. One of the NPCs was so deceptive that they legitimately fooled me. Hell, I got fooled a couple of times. Even when the evidence was piling up against people I defended them until they sprung their traps.

Even though it’s an adventure game it feels undeniably like a Borderlands game. Pandora oozes through the content and becomes a character unto itself. Even if you’re not familiar with the setting the game does a great job at getting you familiar with things thanks to Rhys’ fish out-of-water character.

Expect to see new characters and old favorites.

This game will give you an attack of the feels. Some tragedies and events are unavoidable, others will be all your fault — not that you’ll ever know. So just be ready for a few cheers and more than a few tears.

The Music in this game is on point. Between recycling old tracks, licensing music, and creating their own it invigorates Tales to have its own unique style. It’s definitely Pandora, but it’s no longer the Borderlands you knew.

The Kvetch

This game has a lot of graphical glitches. I can’t tell you how many time characters clip through objects and bizarre, immersion-breaking, events take place. It’s really easy for me to ignore because at no point does it compromise understanding of events but it was a little annoying.

I’m not sure why the characters had such a large inventory. I went through the game without using, and without the opportunity, to use most of my items. I was constantly paranoid about a series of grenades I had picked up 3 episodes ago and they never came into play.

The Verdict

Tales from the Borderlands is available for $25 on its various platforms and I’ve got an interesting relationship with this pricing. When I think of it as the full game for $25 I think, “Well, it’s just a choose your own adventure. I’d say it’s really worth 20 .” But when I think about it as $5 per chapter I think, “I would totally spend $5 per chapter on this silly and fun game,” so… that’s odd. In any event, however you have to justify the value of the purchase I’d say go for it. It’s a super fun game that I had a great time. It’s got replay value out the wazoo if you’re the type to investigate how each decision effects play.

Next Week: Kingdom of Loathing

Shogun: Total War (PC)

The year is 1467 and the place is Japan. The Emperor has lost his political power and serves as a largely ceremonial religious figurehead. He rules through a great lord known as the Shogun who issues orders through the regional leaders, his Daimyo. However the Daimyo from the far provinces will not obey his commands because he is not the Emperor and there is conquest to be had — what a lark, “we won’t listen to the Emperor because he’s not really in charge and we won’t listen to you because you’re not the Emperor. I didn’t just steal all this land. Pics or it didn’t happen.” You play one of these Daimyo in his bid for domination of all Japan. Battle, negotiate, and backstab your way to the top of the pile.

History

When they were done making sports games Creative Assembly created Shogun: Total War. At the time Command and Conquer was really popular so they thought it’d be keen to make a similar game. They settled on Sengoku Japan as the setting simply because it was cool and because there were many warring factions that could have potentially been victorious. Utilizing the new 3dfx technology that was becoming available they would make a 3D game. It started off as just a series of battles but Creative Assembly thought the battles were too short to create a substantive game so they created the campaign map which then lead to all the accoutrements that go with it. Shogun: Total War was released on June 13th, 2000. It’s competition was The Misadventures of Tronne Bonne (PS1), Diablo II (PC), and Daikatana (N64).

Experiences

My cousin and I would play this game a lot when we were young, stupid, and fascinated by samurai. We also, naturally, thought ninja were the coolest thing evar and therefore employed far more than was useful. It soon became a lesson in frustration as we struggled with the UI, were disappointed in how much our ninja were dying, and utterly unable to find victory in battle or commerce. We kept playing it though because we knew that samurai and ninja were cool and therefore this game had to be cool. We still had fun but we never really got anywhere.

Gameplay

If you read my article about Medieval II: Total War then you basically know everything you need to know about this game. Shogun has even fewer tactical options, diplomatic options, or other things to worry about. It’s still split between civil administration and battles but there’s not much more to do than that.

The stars represent the skill of commanders and the red bar indicate the size of the army (not the strength).

Your armies don’t actually march across the field they just sort of teleport between friendly provinces with ports or any adjacent provinces. This is how all units travel as represented by pieces on the campaign map.

The battle system is very similar to medieval’s except the models look like they were made in 2000 and everything seems less responsive.

The Gush

The music in this game is pretty solid. It’s sweeping with decent throat singing and fine but simple instrumentation. It’s accentuates but it doesn’t distract. It makes me feel pumped and ready to try to think strategically or think, “If my center could just hold. If it holds then the day is won,” as I start sweating buckets.

The Kensei is a mostly mythic but nevertheless awesome unit. It’s not a squad of men, it’s just one swordsman who has the strength of a squad. It’s incredibly difficult to build up the infrastructure to support one and they’re generally not practical but they’re the best when it comes to holding choke points or other vital areas. Personally, I usually end up giving them silly pet names and keep count of the heads they collect.

Put some Kensei on a bridge like this and they’ll mow down the enemy. But beware of enemy gunfire.

The Kvetch

It’s incredibly frustrating that you can only engage the enemy Daimyo in diplomacy. If you don’t know where he’s gone then your diplomats will have to scatter to the four winds to find the bastard. If his lands are vast that will make it that much more difficult — and vital — that you find him and if he’s on the move then sometimes it’s just not possible. I guess that’s realistic but it’s super frustrating that his giant army is able to outrun your single traveling diplomat.

Let’s Play FIND THE DAIMYO!

Ninja are borderline useless. It’s either they assassinate their target or they die. There’s no middle ground, no failure followed by escape. Because they die so often they’ll never gain the skill they need to assassinate higher skilled targets and then they will never be able to gain it because all the available targets’ skills are too high. What really irks me is that the reward for building the top ninja training facility reward the player with the Legendary Geisha who is a ninja that cannot be killed for failing. They can only be killed via assassination — but I wouldn’t try, I trained 20 ninja to kill one and they all came at her in the same season and they all failed. It’s just frustrating that the investment takes so long to pay off. I just want my ninja to be cool, man.

Sieges don’t work the way you might expect. When your province is attacked your men can defend the field or flee to the castle. But castles can only house so many soldiers. So the AI will choose what soldiers make it to the safety of the walls and the rest die without a fight. How about this? I can fight in the field and my survivors can run to the castle after they get their ass kicked and try to hold out or I can keep 120 guys back their for safekeeping and have the remainder try to win the field.

Also the castle design is awfully… um… sparse. I know that’s just a small castle but… it’s just some walls.

I have no idea how retraining or restocking units works. I’ve got this badass five swordsmen who have been forged in the blood of their enemies and their friends but how can I keep the legacy of their unit going? What’s even worse is when my army is composed of 20 units which all contain fewer than 20 men because they’re all so thrashed.

If a general reaches a certain level of skill he may unlock the ability to employ Katana Samurai but that’s two ‘ifs’ right there. IF he reaches that skill it MIGHT unlock. I don’t know what the exact unlocking mechanism is but there are some games where I’ve gone in-game years without it triggering.

The Verdict

 Shogun: Total War is finally available on Steam for $10 and I’m not sure it’s worth it. Shogun 2 is available for $30 and to me it’s just the better deal. There’s more to do in Shogun 2 and it’s just more fun and interesting. I would definetly say that it’s interesting to look at as a piece of history. It’s only really playable before you play Shogun 2. There’s no going back, Shogun 2 just has so many more quality of life improvements.

Next Week: Tales From the Borderlands

Undertale (PC)

A long time ago monsters and humans lived in harmony. As you would expect, the harmony didn’t last. There was a giant war, lotsa people died, shit got fucked. Some of the monsters were able to survive by fleeing to a series of underground caves. A great barrier was erected between the surface and these caverns. But there is a secret entrance from a chasm in Mount Ebbot. Naturally, you –as an ungendered child– climb the mountain and fall into the underground while you were picking flowers. Now you’ve got to get out or remain trapped inside forever. Fight, act, dodge enemy attacks, make moral decisions, maybe show a little mercy, and have a grand time in this turn based RPG with bullet hell elements.

And when I say ungendered, I mean it. The character could be a girl or a shaggy-haired boy.

History

Undertale was made by Toby Fox, with help on art and story from Temmie Chang, and a little more help from some other people as well. The earliest game I’ve seen Fox make was for a Starmen.net halloween rom-hack called simply Radiation’s Halloween Hack. In which he turned Earthbound into a more horror based game. A demo for Undertale was ready in May of 2013 and a Kickstarter campaign started in June of the same year. The Kickstarter asked for $5,000 for additional art –and raised that within the first day– but raised $50,000 by the end of the campaign. Undertale was released on September 15th 2015. It’s competition was Armikrog (PC, Mac, Linux), Grow Home (PS4), and Bloodbowl (PS4, PC, XBox Online).

Experiences

This game will make you feel things. These things might be called emotions and they might be described as completely overpowering. Unfortunately the game is spoil-tastic so I can’t say anything and I urge anyone who plays it not to look anything up unless they’re absolutely totally stuck. I had to do just that and it really bruised my experience. So just… play the game however you want to play it. There’s no right or wrong way to go through. And if you do get stuck, try listening to the game, it’s rare that the game purposefully deceives the player — and when it does the effect is absolutely deliberate.

Is weeping openly through bouts of laughter considered a bad time?

Gameplay

Undertale is an RPG with turn-based combat, lots of puzzles –both simple and difficult– and bullet hell elements. The player has four options in combat, fight, act, item, and mercy. Fight is exactly what it sounds like. Act allows the player to check enemy stats or interact with the enemy– possibly effecting combat in some way like making the bullets faster or slower. Items are almost always healing items or equipment so remember to stock up before you head out. And Mercy allows the player to spare monsters who no longer wish to fight or flee from battle. Now, here’s the trick, you only get EXP from killing monsters and you get gold from killing them or sparing them. So… how do you level up without killing monsters? You can’t. If you elect not to kill anything you’ll go through the whole game with a mere 20 hit points — but it’s totally possible to do so.

Nothing personal, man. I just need the HP.

Besides that the game is basically spent walking around, examining things, and speaking to people. Not that that’s boring. The game does a great job at making everything entertaining, from examining snow poffs to chatting with pet rocks, not a second will feel wasted.

The Gush

This game presents choice and the illusion of choice on a Chrono Trigger or Telltale game-esque proportion. You’ll never know which choices mattered and which were just for laughs. Big or small, your choices can have huge consequences.

Undertale has got the guts to ask the tough questions.

The story in this game is a top notch riveting tale that will make you think about what a game is, what a player is, and what your decisions tell about yourself.

Charm. Charm everywhere in this game.

Fox wanted to make a game where, “it’s important to make every monster feel like an individual.” As such the characters are all beautiful and full of flavor. From the fondest of friends to the most vile of enemies. I know exactly who they are and why they do what they do.

Speaking of great characters, they’re all hilarious and over the top. The game is filled with humor overall. I spent the game alternating between laughing and crying. It is an emotional roller-coaster.

Jokes. Jokes everywhere in this game.

Oh yeah. Pain, that too. Everywhere.

There are secrets galore both big and small. Search hard and if it makes sense in your head then Fox probably put something there for you to find.

The Kvetch

As much as there is to do and as much influence as the player has between doing all the little quests, choosing different options, and figuring out the whole story Undertale eventually ends. Yup, my biggest critique is how sad it makes me feel to let this one go. I mean, it’s not even really a critique. This section is the Kvetch because it’s where I do all my complaining. And that’s my complaint…

…Oh yeah, and it’s hard to capture screenshots from the game and post them on your Steam account. I guess that’s something.

The Verdict

Undertale is $10 US, American, cash dollars on Steam and that’s an absolute bargain. It boasts a 6 hour runtime but with new game + and a steady stream of secrets people are still uncovering a month after release — and that’s a while in internet time– this game has got replay value coming out of its pores. Even if it’s got to end someday, I urge everyone with the available disposable income to pick up Undertale.

Next Week: Shogun: Total War 1

Sid Meier’s Civilization V (PC)

There are two basic classifications in the telling and recording of history. The first says people who put their faith in leaders and those leaders become great people. The other says great people rise to power by the strength of their greatness and inspire the faith of their subjects. Civilization V puts you in control of a nation’s greatest person to lead them through 6050 years of rule. Build cities, manage their development, raise armies, wage war, exploit resources, and unite the world — by whatever means necessary– in this civilization simulator.

Development

Civilization V was developed by Firaxis games and distributed by Take-Two Interactive. Using the Gamebryo Engine and building a new graphics engine it took 56 people over three years to make. The design decision to limit each tile to be able to contain only one unit — forcing them to create a new AI no less– and loss of team members during the multiplayer forced the developers to trim down the systems as they were in Civilization IV. The Civilization I was made all the way back to 1991 and Civ V was released on September 14th, 2010 with it’s final expansion, Brave New World, being released on July 9th, 2013 — that’s more than 20 years of history. It’s competition was Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PC, Mac, and Linux), Space Invaders Infinity Gene (PS3 and XBox 360), and Plants VS. Zombies (XBox Live Indie Arcade).

Experiences

This game is one-more-turn syndrome incarnate. These one more turns have turned into hours of additional play. There’s always something going on or some project that needs to be finished, especially after you’ve discovered all the civs. Between politics, wars, wonder projects, and other micro-management I don’t want interrupted I end up carrying through with my designs instead of putting the game down.  There’s also something lovely about roleplaying a leader or anti-roleplaying a leader like Attila the Fun or Ghandi the Great and Terrible… but more on him later.

Gameplay

Here’s what you need to know about playing Civ V: Settlers build cities. Cities use food from nearby tiles to grow and production from nearby tiles to build things. Buildings up the stats on your cities and give you specialist slots which spawn Great people over time who do crazy, powerful, and cool stuff. Military units protect your stuff. Workers improve your land stuff. Science gives you new stuff. Culture improves your stuff in different specified areas. If you build too many cities your people will become unhappy and starting wrecking shit — more cities also increase the science and culture you need before you get the next upgrade. When your citizens aren’t wrecking shit then local barbarians are definitely gonna try.

Or you could just build cities everywhere… fuck planning.

There are five basic ways to win. Use your science to discover space travel and make a functioning space ship that will make it to a habitable planet. Being voted world leader in the World Congress. Have a bunch of art, wonders, and tourism buildings that make your culture dominant over all others — otherwise known as the accidental win. Destroying all of the other civilizations via capturing their capital. Or waiting until 2050 and hoping you have the highest score. Different civilizations have different abilities so play to their strengths or surprise your enemies with unique strategies.

Civ V is capable of internet multiplayer, hotseat multiplayer, and pit boss multiplayer. Pit boss allows players to sign in and take their turns whenever it’s their turn. The system is incredibly useful for long games where the players don’t have time to sync up their schedules to play — like a play by mail chess game.

The Gush

The music in this game is marvelous. Every civilization has a war and a peace track but sometimes during times of particular peace the game will use some neutral music or another civ’s music. It’s all very inspiring and related to the civilization. It’s no Baba Yetu (The award winning theme for Civilization IV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiHDmyhE1A) but it’s trying.

The systems in this game are incredibly interesting, more balanced, and overall much improved from its predecessors. It’s not longer conquering everyone or going to space. There are more ways to win and therefore more things for the average player to worry about.

Then again there’s nothing wrong with Conquest victory unless you don’t like the narrator getting snide..

Whenever you discover a technology and when you create certain great works you get a little quote narrated by William Morgan Shepherd and his voice is sweet sweet ambrosia for my ears. I’ve got 275 hours on this game and it took 200 hours of his narration before it started to grate.

It’s a very minor element but all of the leaders speak their native tongue and I just think that’s a marvelous touch.

The Kvetch

Some Civs are just plain better than others. Russia is incredibly powerful with it’s ability to double strategic resources and get +1 production bonuses to them as well. Some maps also suit certain civs more than others. If the map is Pangea and you play a civ that has superior naval things then you’re gonna have a bad time.

There’s an achievement called, “I can has Nukes,” and… it just seems… insensitive.

The AI cheats. I’ve seen the AI run a 300 gold per turn deficit and it never needs to decommission its units or have to worry about low happiness or most of the things your empire has to worry about. I wish there was some way that the AI could be balanced without it being able to simply ignore the rules or get free resources.

Ghandi… just… Ghandi. Ghandi’s AI is a weird one insofar that it is literally passive aggressive. Ghandi is the kind of guy who “forgives” you taking over a few of his cities early game and then launches nuclear weapons at you in the late game. He might seem like he lets things go but he remembers and his retaliation is often without proper scale. Killed some of his guys? He will leave nothing of your Civ but dust. And I mean, you don’t want to wipe him out or be mean to him… he’s fucking Ghandi — it’d just be wrong, and I bet that’s what Meier was banking on.

gif by Qwazwalt

The Verdict

I love this game, I’m totally blind to most of its sins. But one sin I am not blind to is it’s DLC policy and that a 5 year old game is still $49.99 if you want all the DLC. and you do because without it the game doesn’t include a lot of interesting civs like Korea or Denmark, the diplomatic victory, advanced city-state quests, the trade system, and the religion system. It usually goes on sale for as low as 12 dollars and that’s a good deal but I can’t recommend it at it’s normal price.

Next Week: Undertale

Iji (PC)

The Earth has been attacked by a highly advanced alien race known as the Tasen. They’re shielded by nano-molecular fields and armed with special nano-weapons using the smallest of particles to perform actions impossible by current technology.  You were caught up in their initial attack and should have died. Thankfully it was bring your family to work day at the government superweapon science lab or wherever your father works and his colleagues took your broken body and put you back together — If it weren’t for holidays like this the Portal series and this game never would exist. It was a risky procedure turning you, Iji, into a cyborg nano warrior. But when the subject is dying and death is the worst case scenario then the decision is clear, put a pile of science into this young girl and turn her into a nano-machine fueled human weapon. Iji and her nano-gun are the only weapons that can stand against or even adequately damage the Tasen so it’s up to you. Walk, jump, kick, hack, shoot — or maybe not so much with the shooting because, seriously, Iji is 16 and isn’t mentally trained to deal with the rigors of interstellar war and battle.

History

Iji was developed singularly by Daniel Remar and made in Game Maker. It’s only available on PC but is playable through Windows emulating software. There was a plan for fans to port it to all operating systems but, unfortunately, things fell through. He was inspired by the the animation of game’s like Another World and made a game similar in visual design.

Another World vs…

… Iji. The visual similarities are vague but present.

Remar started working on the project in 2004 and finally released it on September 1st 2008. It’s competition was Stalker Clear Sky (PC), Kirby Super Star Ultra (Nintendo DS), and Megaman 9 (Wiiware and PSN).

Experiences

This is the first game I’ve ever played that considered the mental state of a character in a way that’s irreversible and potentially incredibly damaging. Blasting away hordes of anything wouldn’t be good for anyone’s mental health much less someone so young and shaken already. The three ways to play the game are as an Innocent, killing no one, as a merciful, killing very few, or as a warmonger without regard for the lives of your enemies. Iji’s emotional state will change through dialogue and gameplay. Her first few kills are punctuated with apology and her last are filled with furious shouts and taunts, mocking the dead. Her sanity is really in your hands and it’s a fragile thing that needs to be handled carefully.

Gameplay

Iji is a Platformer-sidescroller-shooter with Metroid-vania elements and partitioned levels so there’s no going back if you go to the next sector. Iji begins with a simple shotgun weapon but can find more Tasen and Komato weapons. Certain weapons can only be made by combining others at weapon stations like the spread rocket which is made from a rocket launcher and your shotgun. The platforming in this game may seem simple but Iji doesn’t have a lot of horizontal mobility, she can jump up super high but not so much left or right. As such, you’re gonna have to get really creative with how to get her from A to B when it comes to secret hunting — and this game has a shit-ton of easter eggs and hidden things — like getting blasted by enemy rockets or firing your own explosives to propel you just a little further.

The game’s also got a functional and useful map screen, unlike some other games.

Iji can level up and get points by collecting stray nano which is dropped from defeated enemies and scattered around the map — the enemies don’t have to die at your hands so scrounging is encouraged. Iji’s got seven stats you can level up at certain stations by spending these points. The different stats are Health, which obviously increases her maximum health, Attack, which increases the damage of Iji’s weapons, Assimilate, which allows Iji to carry more ammo, Strength, which allows Iji to kick down stronger doors and larger enemies, Crack, which allows Iji to “crack” — i.e. hack — doors, enemies, and herself, and Tasen and Komato, which allow’s Iji to carry better and more powerful weapons for each of the alien races. Each of these stats also give Iji a special power when she reaches max rank in each stat. Powers such as Cybernetic Endurance which gives Iji extra invulnerability time and less weapon recoil which is unlocked by having 10 Strength.

To the next section.

The Gush

There isn’t as much music in this game as I might like but what it’s got is fantastic and employed perfectly. The musical changes are like a guiding hand for the player’s emotions. They’re also usually super punky or quasi-experimental.

The choices in this game go above and beyond to make them seem as if they offer real choice and not just the illusion of choice. There are lots of things you can do and some of them have legitimate game changing consequences, not just slightly altered dialogue.

Holy secrets, Batman. This game has hidden posters, an alternate costume, special items, lost ribbons, rare weapons, The Scrambler, Sector Z, and a literal game breaking item hidden in nooks everywhere. Keep your eyes open and try thinking outside the box to reach these things.

Must… get… EVERYTHING!

The Scrambler gets its own section because it’s one of the most brilliant things ever put into a videogame. If you can find the mythical Cracker known as Yukabacera and if you can reach him and defeat him in single combat you will get his scrambler. This thing, when enabled, scrambles all the dialogue into an incomprehensible mess becoming more incomprehensible the long the dialogue goes on. If you don’t see the comedic potential in such a thing then you simply do not have a soul.

BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE SCRAMBLER! TURNING HIGH TENSION STAND OFFS INTO SILLINESS IN THREE WORDS!

The bosses in this game are an absolute pleasure to fight. They take what you know and make you learn new tricks to beat them. There’s also a fair share of emotional tension to get me really involved in the fight.

Just look at the size of this guy.

 

The Kvetch

Iji’s walking speed is abysmal. Backtracking is a massive pain in the ass exacerbated by how slow she moves. I understand that it can’t be too fast or she’ll just speed past enemies but there could have been some sort of sprint move that makes her take extra damage or something.

The Verdict

This game is phenomenal and for the low-low price of totally free there’s no reason not to pick it up. Go here http://www.remar.se/daniel/iji.php download it and enjoy.

Next Week: Civilization V

Medieval II: Total War (PC)

The year is 1080 AD, the time of knights, crusades, and high chivalry. Across Europe men are dying in droves for their kings and lords. You play one of these kings and control the nation — , no queens though, no girls allowed (Well, unless you have a pope who’s secretly a woman but I’m getting ahead of myself). As a king you’ve got to perform administrative tasks like commissioning buildings, recruiting troops, and assigning agents like merchants, spies, and diplomats. Oh yeah, and you command those troops and DESTROY EVERYTHING THAT LAYS BEFORE YOU! BURN ALL THAT BURNS, STEAL ALL THAT SHINES! Or… maybe you could do that whole chivalry thing if that’s your bag.

History

There’s not much gossip or incident about this game but I can offer some basic information. Medieval II was designed and created by Creative Assembly, who worked on sports games until their breakout title Shogun: Total War, sparking off the Total War series. It was published by Sega, of all companies, who purchased Creative Assembly in a bid to maintain a presence in the North American and European game markets.

Medieval II: Total War was released on November 13th, 2006. It’s competition was Gears of War XBox 360, Final Fantasy XII (PS2), and Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II: Rise of the Witch King (PC).

Experiences

Medieval II’s trait system guarantees that you’ll eventually have the most ridiculous king or lord ever in the history of the game. From Faradoc the Fat who died 8 years into his rule after going hopelessly insane. Or a general of mine in the Britannia campaign who’s name escapes me. A man who faced and killed William Wallace in single combat, who’s health was so immense that he became brutally scarred which further increased his health. The trait system is one of the most fun parts of this game. Priests can secretly be women, and if she reaches the rank of cardinal, and if she’s voted for pope, THEN THE POPE CAN BE SECRETLY A WOMAN! Factions can be held aloft by the extreme Chivalry or Dread of their King and when he dies things might fall to pieces. It’s just awesome.

Gameplay

The game is basically split between the administration section of the game that takes place in the overworld map and the real-time combat. When your governing you can commission building projects, adjust taxes, have agents like spies and assassins perform actions, and move your armies and navies around. Every county has a city in it which is either a town or a castle the difference being towns make oodles of money and castles (generally) produce superior military units.

Behold the starting map position and county names.

Your armies march around and generally stomp your enemies. You can support these troops with family members who will command them, their command stat adding to your troops’ attack, defense, and morale. Your lords aren’t just for fighting though. They can govern your towns increasing their income and decreasing their building and troop costs — unless they have garbage traits. And traits are everything. Your most level-headed general might charge without command if he hates the French and he’s fighting his hated foes.

When your armies clash the world map will give way to randomly generated but terrain influenced combat map so try to fight someplace that works to your advantage. Combat in the field is all about shocking your enemies and breaking their morale at which point they’ll run and, unless they have a truly inspiring or terrifying commander, won’t turn back.

If your playing a Christian faction then you’re gonna have to deal with the Pope because he hates it when everyone’s fighting and being all non-Christ-like. If you work with the pope then you can call crusades on religious cities and get some free passes to attack other nations. If you don’t listen to him then your faction might get excommunicated and that’ll make your people really upset — It can also make you a target for enemy crusades. Muslim nations don’t have to answer to anyone but can only use their Jihads to re-take cities they’ve lost.

If you’ve got cardinals you can control their votes to elect a new pope and if you’re faction controls the pope then you can do just about whatever you want.

There’s also a multiplayer component to the game but you can only fight over the internet. If you want to run a campaign with your friends then you’ll have to do it hot-seat style — and have a gentlemen’s agreement to only autocalculate combat between player controlled factions because the AI isn’t as good as you are.

The Gush

I love a siege. Nothing gets my blood up like defending some walls. None shall pass says I. No matter how grim things get defending troops have a morale bonus and will flee to the center of town instead of abandoning the field. The larger the city is the more defenses it has and it may even have an inner set of walls. The siegers will be hard pressed to get their siege engines that far into the city.

Come and get me.

I love seeing what crazy pile of traits I can have on one character. I already mentioned the pope being secretly a woman but there’s nothing like my Danish king who was accompanied by an old war buddy and an classically trained Berserker.

Nothing like playing Milan. Milan gets their best military units from towns instead of castles so they have both economic power and military strength.

Sometimes things from history will happen in the game. I was playing as Egypt and born to my king was a son with the trait Born to Command and the boy’s name was Saladin. Naturally I threw him into every battle that I could and I couldn’t help but keep his chivalry high.

The Kvetch

There’s no real naval combat in this game. All you can do is auto-calculate naval battles so there’s no real skill involved. I also don’t understand exactly how they work. I don’t know what makes a good navy.

In this image is all of the game’s naval combat. You can auto-calculate or run.

The fog of war in this game is your worst enemy. If you’re marching your army and it runs into another thing be it another army, a merchant, or a princess — doesn’t matter — they’ll get stopped dead in their tracks. They also lose all of their movement until the next turn. It’s just annoying for normal armies but it can kill a Crusade or a Jihad because if the army stops moving then the soldiers will desert as they doubt your devotion to the cause. I generally cheat to disable the fog of war because I can’t deal with inching along to avoid it.

Does anyone know how merchants work? Could you drop a comment? Because I’ve been playing this game for 5 years and I have no fucking clue. I know that if you put them on a resource they’ll earn you extra money and they can try to acquire assets from enemy merchants. But enemy merchants typically have such high skill that mine fail to acquire their assets and are often destroyed in retaliation. It just feels like a waste of 550 florins.

All of the non-English voice acting sounds incredibly awful and maybe even a little racist. I keep it on just to laugh and cringe at.

The Verdict

This game gives me “one more turn syndrome” so badly. I’ll turn it on play 50 turns real quick but why not 51? Oh, wait, I really want to finish this siege. Ope, a Crusade? I’ll just finish that up real quick and then I’m done. It continues like this until my weekend gets destroyed. This game is fantastic. It’s 25 dollar Steam price tag is just a testament to how well it’s aged.

Next Week: Iji

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