Thursday, November 1, 2012

Borderlands 2 Review

Theodore Roosevelt (The most B.A.M.F ever) once said , speak softly and carry a big stick. Borderlands 2 totally agrees with Teddy, well at least on the big stick part. Borderlands 2 carries such a big stick that it is a valid substitute to Viagra due to the sheer testosterone filled madness you will encounter in this game.

The game takes place 5 years after the events of the first one. You are welcomed back to Pandora, home to criminals and bandits alike, as well as an abnormally high population of midgets, only to learn that it has been taken over by Handsome Jack, CEO of the hyperion corporation. Handsome Jack and his horse made of diamonds, Butt Stallion, are on a quest to find a new vault hidden somewhere on Pandora and only you, the new vault hunter, can stop him.


Now, the story is not necessarily the most intricate story line ever made, and it isn't necessarily deep, but for what it lacks in depth it makes up for by being God Damn Fuckin' Hilarious. Handsome Jack is the funniest antagonist ever, whether he's asking you to off yourself, eating pretzels, and or quoting Brad Pitt from the movie Se7en, Jack is never found to be speechless.
WHAT'S IN THE BOOOOOX?!?!?


 Add other characters like Tiny Tina and, in the DLC, Shade to the mix and you have one of the funniest games of all time. Hell, even the loading screens are funny.


The best part about this game is that it never takes itself seriously. Each boss or important character you meet has their own cutscene when you first meet them, and each one is hilarious in their own way, and then there are easter eggs, so many freakin easter eggs, there are so many pop culture references in this game from the past 30 years that you cant go 5 minutes in the game without finding one.

Yes, the story is funny and there are easter eggs galore, but I think it's time to talk about what Borderlands is famous for. GUNS
There are so many guns you'll be like. YE GODS!!!! LOOK AT ALL THOSE GUNS!

Yes, there are literally over a billion different guns you can get in the game, but the reality of Borderlands is that 99% of those guns are complete shit. The other 1% however, is what you play for. The guns in Borderlands are not any normal guns, some guns fire rounds that light enemies on fire, some guns are tossed like grenades and explode when they get reloaded. Hell, some grenades blow up into more grenades, which then blow up into even more grenades. Hell, some of the weapons in this game are so damn powerful, they can cause your game to lag or crash due to frame-rate issues. So yeah, Guns, Awesome.
Dual Wield these babys and you're just asking for your game to lag.

The missions are about as straight forward as you can get. Get to area, kill all enemies in area, loot area, pick up mission item in area, kill more enemies, kill boss, repeat. Really, at no point will you do anything that doesnt involve either murder or looting. But it doesn't matter, because you will never get tired of murdering and looting. Nothing gives you a bigger rush than killing a badass and seeing a orange weapon drop from his bullet riddled body. This is where Co-op can become a nuisance. If you are playing with a greedy little bastard, chances are that when something rare drops it going to be a race to see who picks it up first and that greedy bastard will always make sure he is the closest to any possible sources of loot.
The second that orange beam lights up, all bet are off.
 But wait, isn''t this game a  RPGFPS? WHERE ARE THE RPG ELEMENTS!!!!! Okay guys, you level up, the enemies level up with you, and you get to choose certain perks between 3 skill sets which effect how your character levels up, but that can be changed up at any time with just a little spare cash. Yes it adds to the game and its great and all, but its not why you are playing the game. You play this game to shoot and loot. If you like shooting and you like looting look no further than borderlands 2.

Score:
Story: 8 (Handsome Jack, ClapTrap, Tiny Tina and Shade are the most hilarious characters out there)
Gameplay: 9.5 (Looting is always fun and the RPG elements allow for many different ways to play the game. Oh who am I kidding...GUUUUUNS!!!)
Multiplayer: 7 (Fun to play with friends, but loot hoarders can cause tension.)
Graphics: 9 (Don't be fooled by the cartoony faces and weapons, Pandora is a colorful world that is more fleshed out than most other games.)
Replayability: 10 (You can play this game forever and you will still find something new each time you turn on the game.)

Overall: 9 (Awesome)
You either like this game or you absolutely love it. If you are a loot lover like me than this is the best game on the market right now and with 3 more DLC's in store there is plenty to look forward too.

Dishonored Review

Have you ever wanted to go on a killing spree as a master assassin, blasting onto the scene without a care in the world and fighting 6 men at once with relative ease before bringing down your target? Well good news! Assassins Creed III just came out. However, if you wanted to be imbued with mystical powers and creative weaponry and tech that lets you "take care" of your target in extremely creative fashion, Dishonored is the game for you.
Fuck you Pendleton

In Dishonored, you take the role of Corvo, former bodyguard of the empress who is on a quest for vengeance.  After being framed for the empresses murder and the kidnapping of her daughter by an evil spymaster turned lord regent. You must turn to the life of an assassin and slowly cripple the lord regents corrupt political reign by assassinating his colleagues with the help of powers given to you by  a god-like Samaritan who is conveniently helping both sides so that he may be "entertained".

The missions in Dishonored are absolutely brilliant and extremely well thought out. For each mission, there are an infinite number of ways to complete them, and the way you complete each mission has a significant effect on the outcome of the game. One of the main aspects the game focuses on is that there are always multiple pathways you can use to evade detection and get the job done. You can travel by rooftop and make your way through abandoned buildings, or traverse through underground sewers filled with rats and plague victims that have a bad habit of trying to vomit all over you.
Stop Vomiting on my Face!

 For example, in one mission you have to infiltrate a party and eliminate one of three sisters that is supporting the lord regent. However, you don't know which sister is the one supporting him and they all happen to be wearing the same exact costume with the exception of the costumes color. Getting into the party is easy, finding out which sister to kill is hard. However, once you get to this point of the mission you have alot of choices on what you can do to complete the mission. You can take your time and look around to find out which one you have to kill, or you can just kill all of them and get on your merry way. I learned that the white one was the one I had to eliminate and I saw her heading towards the bathroom so I froze time, entered the bathroom and placed a trap in the toilet. Then I put the toilet lid down, closed the door and left. You can imagine what happened next.
Death by toilet

Depending on how you complete each mission, and the side quests will change how you a greeted when you return from a successful mission. After this mission, I found a mysterious note and gift on my bedside from one of the sisters I didn't kill thanking me for not brutally murdering everyone at the party and sparing her family.
  

 Where the game excels over all others however is when it comes down to the weaponry and magical powers you receive. The weapons and powers you recieve allow for an infinite amount of ways to brutally murder your enemies when combined together. Is an enemy firing a gun at you? Simply stop time, possess the enemy, and then walk him in front of the bullet he shot so that he shoots himself. Want to kill some guards without raising suspicion? Summon a swarm of rats and place a trap on one of their backs, then possess it and skitter over to the guards making the trap go off and killing them, then watch the rest of the rats devour their corpses. The possibilities are endless and the results are gruesome and hilarious.

Going on killing sprees has adverse effects too, the more people you kill, the more rats and plague victims there are. However, you can also go through the game without killing anyone! Wait what? WHY? WHY WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT?!?!? IM HERE TO DO SOME MURDERIN'!!!!

But yes, you can actually go through the game without killing anyone, including your targets, in order to get a "good ending" In fact, the last mission of the game plays out completely differently depending  on whether or not you had "low chaos" or "high chaos" However, if you get into the game and read all the notes and recordings each target has lying around, you will want to go Bruce Lee on their asses when you learn how big of a douche-bag they are. Also, lets face it, the best part of the game is killing everything so why the hell would you go out of your way to NOT kill everything. It's not real folks, its a game, if you want to see the good ending there is always youtube.

The only downfall to this game is that it occasionally has iffy graphics. Sometimes the animation and voices dont match, all the guards look exactly the same and for some reason everyones hands are FREAKING GIGANTIC.
Small ass head, big ass hands
.
Score:

Story: 9 (Nothing new or exciting, the twists are very predictable, but the story is well thought out and the world and characters have alot of depth)
Graphics: 7.5 (The below average graphics and sometimes lacking environment are not up to par, and Granny Rags is fucking ugly as hell.)
Gameplay: 10 (Despite a somewhat steep learning curve, the fighting mechanics are flawless and the powers and equipment allow for one of the best stealth game experiences you can ask for.)
Replayability: 9.5 (As long as the story doesnt get old, you can do each mission again and again and still get something new out of it.)

Overall: 9.5 out of 10 (Freakin' Awesome)

The gameplay is as good as it gets, the characters are deep and the missions are never repetitive but the sub-par graphics and animation keep this game from getting a perfect 10.

Welcome to my MY FIRST (and last) BLOG!

Hello imaginary readers that I probably don't have!!! This is my first ever blog post!! Hurrah!

Welcome to my experimental blog where I see if I have any ability to write coherent reviews about video games and occasionally anime and manga that are informative and/or funny. I may also occasionally try to be funny and write an article that is not a review in a pathetic attempt to boost my fragile over-inflated ego!

I hope you enjoy whatever articles I may post in the future, and if you don't agree with them or find them not to be to your liking. Then please stop reading them and get on with your life instead of writing something along the lines of "Your blog sucks" or "This is review is wrong" If a game you like doesn't get the praise you think it deserves, instead of telling me why I'm wrong just get on with your life as what I write has absolutely no impact on how much you enjoy the game. If you do like a post, please tell me! As it will be a great boost to my fragile ego and will stop me from overdosing on those sleeping pills I bought yesterday.

Enjoy!!