Borderlands by 2K Games is a unique mashup of and FPS and RPG. The game is rated M for a reason, there is nonstop killing and gore. If you liked Diablo 2, and enjoy FPS games, you’d love Borderlands. They both have three playthroughs with the same missions, but higher difficulty. Also, the loot engine has random loot with 17,750,000 different possibilities. Part of the fun is the unending quest for better loot. Overall, the variety of missions is much more in-depth in Borderlands. You can play single player or multi, but with Borderlands your single player character is compatible with multiplayer games.
Last week I finally finished the first playthrough with a couple of friends that have mastered the game already. They were kind enough to start out with level 1 along with me and work through the story missions. One of my friends has beaten the game five times and still enjoys it. I think that is a testament to the quality of the game. Most of the missions are NOT just kill XX and come back, much like I remembered World of Warcraft to be. There are a few early missions like that, but overall most of them are much more complex. Continue reading »
A couple days ago I was able to visit with some friends I haven’t seen in a few years. After one of them cracked open a bottle of wine, we eventually ended up talking about gaming. One thing led to another and one of my friends asked, “Have any of you heard of Mazes and Monsters?” In mere moments we were watching one of the most horrible acting performances I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t sure if I should be shocked or amazed. In retrospect, the alcohol definitely enhanced the experience. We ended up adding our own commentary, MST3K style. About half way through I regretted that we didn’t start recording our comments to dub in later on. My friend actually had the recording equipment to do it too.
The movie starts out with a scene with a bunch of police cars and fire trucks responding to a missing persons report. A university student got lost in some caverns in a game of Mazes and Monsters that got out of hand. I was battling with trying to figure out if this was supposed to be some type of spoof or just an anti Dungeons and Dragons flick. After watching it all, despite how close it comes to seeming like parody, I think they were actually serious. In the midst of all the no-name actors this guy by the name of Tom Hanks shows up in one of his first roles. I’m sure if you ask him about it today, he’ll try to deny any involvement with this feature.
I’m pretty sure that anyone that has played classic DnD would be amused by this movie. Just watch it with a few friends over a few drinks, and I am sure everyone will have a blast. Here is a clip, it doesn’t contain any real spoilers.
So it looks like all of the crazy costumes are popping out of the woodwork now that Halloween is coming around again. Brain Alien over at What the Photo brings this pic to my attention again. It brings back memories. No, not those of Sith Vixen in her Femtrooper outfit, which by the way is one of my TOP incoming links on Google (currently ranked #1 for image search).
The memories it brings back to me are those of my first Nintendo games. Every once in a while I get nostalgic, and feel the urge to play my old games. Metroid and Legend of Zelda were my first two “console” games. I earned the money for my NES and games through my own sweat (TRUE, I lived in Phoenix, AZ) and blood (not so true) delivering newspapers in the summer during my spare time. OK, that’s a story my wife’s heard way too many times, so I’ll move on. I still have my original NES and all of my games boxed up in long term storage. If I feel the need to play, I whip out my trusty emulator, but not everyone has access to the ROMs or the patience to get and emulator working right.
I knew that a few years ago the Nintendo’s patent on the NES expired in the US around 2006 or so. Since then a site called VirtualNES popped up. I didn’t realize it, but according to some very sound arguments, their site is legal. . Consider it a free online arcade. If you’ve never played Metroid, check it out!
The guys over at Sylien software have recently released Tradewars Rising v1.1. At first glance, I can see that this newer version is much more polished. The only downside I saw was that the built-in macro system has been temporarily removed. I’m not sure exactly why this was done, but it will be returning later in a more streamlined form. There are several “BIG” games started by the developers to spark interest in the new version, but I find myself without the time to use up all of my turns by hand. If you’ve never heard of or tried this game, please follow my link and join me! For a little bit more information, please check out my initial post about the 1.0 version.
I’m not sure how many of you remember the good old days playing online games through a BBS (Bulletin Board System). In1994-1995 I ran a small one line BBS called The Black Lodge back when I lived in Phoenix. Among other door games I hosted a small TradeWars 2002 game on my BBS and played quite a few other games on other boards. About 1996 or so I migrated to mainly using this new thing called “The Internet” and rarely dialed into a BBS anymore. Sometime around 2001-2002 I ended up discovering several telnet boards that were hosting Tradewars 2002 tournaments. I got back into my grove and actually competed in the 2001 Battle of the Elite (BOTE). The gameplay through telnet was quite a bit different for me than back in the BBS days. Much of the work I did in my corp was through REXX scripting. I had a 2nd computer that was logged in 24/7 defending our bases ready to photon torpedo any attackers and destroy them in less than a second (if possible). I lost interest for a few years and started playing again around 2005 or so, then didn’t really have the time to dedicate to the game to compete well.
Sometime after that I learned about a new browser based game now known as TradeWars: Rising. I’ve been following this game since developement was announced and am impressed with how much it has progressed. Version 1.0 has been released and 1.1 looks like it is just around the corner. The games are split into two categories: Turn Based and RTS. The turn based games are closer to the classic TradeWars gameplay. The RTS games are a little different and last only an hour or so. There are free basic accounts, but you can get more option for paid premium accounts.
If you want more information, please check out the forums.
One of my friends sent me an IM today saying he was reading a funny article about a Star Wars Galaxies CSR/GM. It’s been a few years since I’ve played, but I still have fond memories of my time in that game (2003-2005). Anyway, if you currently play, or did in the past, check the article out. On a related note, I’ve been following the SWG EMU project, and it looks like they are coming along quite nicely. Former players that enjoyed the days before the Combat Upgrade or New Game Enhancements, should check it out.
Ok, I’m going a little bit Battlestar Galactica crazy this week. This made me look up an old project that I found during Season 3. Just over a year ago I ran across an amazing new demo of Beyond the Red Line (BtRL). This flight simulator uses the revamped Freespace 2 Engine and a TON of fan made models and mods. There are only 3 campaign missions, but there is multi-player support. I played this a lot back in November/December of 06. Sometime after that I moved on to other things, partially because it became harder to find good multi-player games to join. It looks like the developers have kept up their hard work, and have been rewarded with the #1 Independent Game of the Year for 2007 over at ModDB. Continue reading »
I just ran across an interesting post about free to play MMORPGs. These are on about the same level of retail pay to play games. The game model for these includes ways to purchase items or other things with money, but you can still play for free. One that caught my eye was Space Cowboy Online, which would give me a chance to use my Saitek x52 joystick and throttle. Archlord also looks pretty good as a fantasy style game. Check out the full post here.
I figured that I should add a review for Star Wars Galaxies because I played for two and a half years. I can’t really remember when SWG was announced, but as soon as it was I signed up for the beta. I didn’t get invited until Beta 3, but I was still thrilled. A major thing that set SWG apart from other MMORPGs was the ability to dabble in different professions, or even surrender skills to start a new template fresh without starting a new character. Also, there was the fact that we could build our ships with custom parts and battle against each other in space. Unfortunately, the space portion was not finished by released and was later released as the expansion Jump to Lightspeed. Continue reading »
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