How I felt after a Gears 2 Horde Run or ODST Firefight game

I enjoyed playing Gears of War 2.  I really did.  Right up until the point that I completed a full Horde run.  A few friends and I got together one Saturday afternoon and went through the full Horde run.  It took us about eight hours to complete.  After that, I don’t think many of us have even loaded the game up again.  It seriously ruined the fun factor of the game.  Every time I think of playing Gears of War 2 now I think of that one single marathon gaming session and how I felt afterward.

Last fall Bungie Studios released Halo 3: ODST.  The game was thrown together fairly quickly by a small development team.  As such, they decided not to implement a full multiplayer matchmaking system like they did with predecessor games Halo 2 and Halo 3.  They did, however, include a new multiplayer mode called Firefight.  Essentially, it was a copy of Gears of War 2′s Horde, in that a team of gamers faced off against wave after wave of increasingly stronger enemies in an attempt to gain a higher score.  Once again, I got together with some friends one day and we played through the Firefight mode.  Although not quite the marathon length of Horde mode, it still took us over two hours to get through.  Just as with Gears of War 2, I never really have enjoyed ODST the same since.

What is it about these marathon endurance modes that ruins the gaming experience for me and probably many others?  I think it has to do with the challenge difficulty.  The whole point of these modes is to see how far you can go, how far you can push yourself.  In order to do that though, you have to set aside the fun part of the gaming experience and turn it into something most of us are trying to avoid by playing video games – work.  In order to succeed you really do need to view it as work.  It takes planning, leadership, and a team effort to succeed.  You can’t screw around and just goof off.  You have to take it seriously, otherwise what’s the point of even doing it?

Just today I sat down and played the latest DLC content from Gear Box Software for Borderlands.  Some friends and I managed to get through the first three arena challenges.  These are five rounds of five waves each, facing stronger and stronger enemies each wave.  It took us probably five hours to complete those three challenges.  After beating those three, we find out there are three additional larger challenges.  We went into the first of those challenges just to see what ‘larger‘ meant.  They are twenty rounds of five waves each.   Twenty!

I’m not sure how long before I attempt those later challenges in Borderlands.  Right now I really enjoy playing the game.  I guess I should learn from past experience and just know that once I sit down and force myself to play through them (which I know the perfectionist inside me will eventually make me do) that I will probably not feel like playing the game anymore after that.  Then again, maybe if I actually do it before Gearbox Software releases their next DLC, maybe that DLC content will make the game fun again.  Either way, I still wish developers would move away from these marathon gaming modes and find newer, better ways to make gamers want to play their games for hours on end.  One that doesn’t require gamers to play it hours on end just to actually play it.

• GAME OF THE YEAR
  UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog)
• STUDIO OF THE YEAR
  Rocksteady Studios
• BEST SHOOTER
  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Publishing / Infinity Ward)
• BEST RPG
  Dragon Age: Origins (Electronic Arts / BioWare)
• BEST FIGHTING GAME
  Street Fighter IV (Capcom / Capcom/Dimps)
• BEST INDIVIDUAL SPORTS GAME
  UFC 2009 Undisputed (THQ / Yuke’s Media Creations)
• BEST HANDHELD GAME
  Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Rockstar Games / Rockstar Leeds)
• BEST GRAPHICS
  UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog)
• BEST MUSIC GAME
  The Beatles: Rock Band (MTV Games / Harmonix)
• BEST DRIVING GAME
  Forza Motorsport 3 (Microsoft Game Studios / Turn 10)
• BEST ACTION ADVENTURE GAME
  Assassin’s Creed II (Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal)
• BEST TEAM SPORTS GAME
  NHL 10 (Electronic Arts / EA Canada)
• BEST SOUNDTRACK
  DJ Hero (Activision Publishing / FreeStyleGames)
• BEST XBOX 360 GAME
  Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve)
• BEST Wii GAME
  New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo)
• BEST PS3 GAME
  UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog)
• BEST PC GAME
  Dragon Age: Origins (Electronic Arts / BioWare)
• BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
  Halo 3: ODST (Microsoft Game Studios / Bungie)
• BEST MULTI-PLAYER GAME
  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Publishing / Infinity Ward)
• BEST GAME BASED ON A MOVIE OR TV SHOW
  South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! (Microsoft / DoubleSix)
• BEST CAST
  X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition (Activision Publishing / Raven Software)
• BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN MALE
  Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition (Activision Publishing)
• BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN FEMALE
  Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen / Activision Publishing)
• BEST VOICE
  Jack Black as Eddie Riggs (Brutal Legend / Electronic Arts)
• BEST DOWNLOADABLE GAME
  Shadow Complex (Microsoft Game Studios / Chair Entertainment)
• BEST COMEDY GAME
  Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (D3Publisher / Vicious Cycle)
• BEST DLC
  Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Rockstar Games / Rockstar North)
• BEST INDEPENDENT GAME FUELED BY DEW
  Flower (ThatGameCompany)
• MOST ANTICIPATED GAME
  God of War III (Sony Computer Entertainment / SCE Studios Santa Monica)

To me, the video game awards are starting to become more and more like the Oscars are for the film industry–where the awards rarely reflect actual fan preferences and work on a flawed voting system.  With the Oscars the problem is that too few people select the winners.   With the video game awards, it’s the opposite problem–too many.  The voting is done through internet website voting, which as many geek knows is far from impervious to manipulation and spam voting.   When something wins an internet vote, all that tells me is they had the most people spamming votes and/or hacking the website to get extra votes counted.

Some of the awards I agree with, while many others I was surprised won (ex. Left 4 Dead 2, a virtual expansion pack).   I kind of felt this was going to be an off year for the awards show ever since I saw the nominations.  I still can’t believe they didn’t have Halo 3:ODST nominated for the Best Cast or Nathan Fillion nominated for the Best Performance by a Human Male.

My personal preference for what games should have won would have been these:

• Game of the Year: Dragon Age: Origins – Not a ton of pre-release advertising for this game, but because it’s made by BioWare, I went out and bought it.  Wow, this game is awesome.
• Studio of the Year: Gearbox Software – Brought us Borderlands, probably the most innovative RPG-Shooter game ever.  Not only that, but in the short time this game has been out, they’ve released one DLC package and have announced a second one.  How many other game studios take care of their customers like that?
• Best Xbox 360 Game: Borderlands – Great blend of the shooter and role playing genres.  Witty dialogue coupled with fun shooting gameplay.
• Best Shooter: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Probably the most anticipated video game ever.  This will be where I’ll spend most of my multiplayer gaming time at.
• Best RPG: Dragon Age: Origins – see above
• Best Action/Adventure Game: Brütal Legend – Great adventure game that brings the heavy metal music to a new medium – video games.  It’s got Jack Black in it too.
• Best Cast – Halo 3: ODST – A game that has Nathan Fillion (Serenity/Firefly, Castle), Adam Baldwin (Serenity/Firefly, Chuck), Alan Tudyk (Serenity/Firefly, V) and Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice)?  Yes please.

Congratulations to Marty O’Donnell for winning the Best Original Score for Halo 3: ODST.  That game had some awesome music.  I’d recommend the soundtrack to anyone, even non-video game players.

Borderlands

You start off as one of four possible characters arriving in the town of Fyrestone on the planet Pandora.  You have a choice of selecting either Brick, Lilith, Mordecai or Roland.  Each of them has different characteristics.  Brick likes to use his fists to pound things.  Lilith is a siren with a special ability to phase walk where she temporarily travels through another dimension.  Mordecai has a pet bird, Bloodwing, that can attack enemies.  And last is Roland who has the ability to throw down an automated gun turret.  As you level up your characters you get points to place into different skills.  Depending where you place your points, you can get some pretty helpful bonuses, such as Roland shooting healing bullets at teammates.

Skill Trees:

• Brick
• Lilith
• Mordecai
• Roland

Your characters are on Pandora in search of a mythical Vault, left behind by an ancient alien race. The Vault supposedly contains treasure, weapons, magical items, or anything else people can imagine and throw into the legend. Most legitimate governments and corporations have given up on searching for this vault. Pandora is now just a frontier planet with little to no government to speak of. The towns are run by bandits and criminals. As you search for the Vault you need to fight different enemies such as wild beasts, criminal bandits and private security forces that have claimed territories as their own.

As you play through the game you get different missions from different people.  The more missions you complete, the more experience you get, and the more you level up.  In a multiplayer game, these missions go by pretty quickly.  Experience gained seems proportional to individual players skill.  Difficulty is scaled up during multiplayer matches as well, so going in with four players doesn’t necessarily make the game that much easier, but it can make it more enjoyable.  The looting system in Borderlands isn’t even for all players.  If an item drops, it’s a first-come, first-serve on who gets it.  This can be frustrating unless you’re playing with friends who can play with an honor system of who gets what.

While playing through the game with a friend, he remarked on how campy the game is.  Throughout the course of the game we noticed many pop culture references that developers scattered here and there.  There are the boss fights against insanely large creatures Skagzilla and Mothrakk.  There are the mini-boss enemies you have to beat later in the game, Hans and Franz, who, after you defeat them, leave you feeling ‘pumped up’.  There’s even an entire mission of the game that references an episode of the television series Firefly.

Overall this is a great game that will undoubtedly take up many hours of my gaming time.  While the vehicle control could be better and the looting system improved, these are such minor issues that don’t really take away from the fact that Borderlands is easily one of the better games to be released lately.  Do yourself a favor and go pick it up if you haven’t already.

And They’ll Tell Two Friends – Play in a co-op game with either an employee of Gearbox or someone who has this achievement.

I guess we’ll see how fast this Xbox Live equivalent to a chain letter gets spread amongst Borderlands gamers. In order to facilitate that, the folks over at Gearbox Software have arranged a community game day where they will play Borderlands co-op with anyone. Here are the details:

Date: Friday October 23rd
Time: 6pm-9pm eastern time
What to do: Send a friend request/message to any of these gamertags listed below

• GBX BrianT
• GBX Madjack
• GBX Strobelight
• GBXSirMarksalot
• GBX Zero
• GBX Dogbert
• GBX Tralfaz
• GBX LordALF
• GBX ennui
• GBX Skagblaster
• GBXPiratehearts
• GBX Simon
• GBX Dev 1
• GBX Dev 2
• GBX Dev 3
• GBX ShootMan
• GBX CShedd
• GBX DaveC
• GBX Graeme

Recap:

I was able to get in on a game with GBX ennui, who is the head of their community development.  During the short game I played with her we talked about the title update Gearbox is working on concerning the bug in the Siren character skill tree with ‘Phase Strike’ and a planned upcoming DLC which will introduce a zombie component into Borderlands.  We also discussed this blog and how folks at Gearbox enjoy reading smaller, less commercialized blogs where they know the authors aren’t beholden to anyone for their opinions and can freely say exactly what they think about a game.  So, any of you out there who have played through the game can feel free to submit a review of Borderlands or any other game you’ve completed and want to tell others about (whether good or bad).  Now that I have this unique achievement, feel free to hit me up for an invite so you can get it too.  I’ve already been able to share it with a few people so it will spread pretty quickly I think.

Story Preview Video

The story is set on a remote, sparsely settled planet Pandora.  The player plays the role of treasure hunter, looking for some alien vault said to contain, well, treasure.  You get to fight your way past or ally yourself with bandits, settlers and indigenous alien lifeforms in your efforts to find this vault.  The four characters (yep, four player co-op) you can play are Mordecai, Roland, Lilith and Brick.

From wikipedia:

• Mordecai – Mordecai came to Pandora in search of a man from his past named Demosthenes. Upon learning that Demosthenes has died, Mordecai sets off to learn how he died and what he was carrying. Mordecai’s play style is that of a lone ranger, preferring to snipe enemies from afar. Some of his special abilities can augment the party’s damage from headshots or give accuracy boosts and is a hunter class. Later in the game, he will befriend a bird-like creature named Bloodwing that will assist in combat.

• Roland – Roland is a former soldier of the Crimson Lance, a sort of highly trained private military that disregards law and order. A decade-old vendetta is rekindled when Roland learns that the leader of the Brigadiers has a suspiciously similar name to a man he has sworn to kill. Some of Roland’s abilities are meant to supplement and support the party. His Leadership skill can boost the party’s experience gains, while his Medical skill will increase health regeneration, and Support will increase weapon damage or regenerate ammunition for the party, Roland is a soldier class and the only class that doesn’t have to worry about ammo as a special backpack produces an infinite supply.

• Lilith – Once a human, Lilith at one point was turned into a siren. One of only six Sirens, they are a group of people with unbelievable powers, but no way to control them. She comes to Pandora in search of another Siren, in an effort to find out more about herself. Lilith is essentially the mage of the group, using her Siren powers to support the group and attack the enemy. Some of her powers include the ability to increase the group’s rate of fire, as well as the power to create temporal bubbles, which she can manipulate to slow down enemies and hostile projectiles or speed up allies.

• Brick – A massive specimen of a man who likes to use his fists to smash the enemy above all else. He wears a necklace adorned with the paw of his beloved deceased dog. He fills in the tank niche and can take quite a beating as well having the ability to chug berserker-state inducing pills for short bursts of power.

Gearbox incorporates a lot of good features from other games into Borderlands.  The game will have a myriad of weapon combinations, which will be very familiar to a lot of RPG gamers.  Gearbox says there will be over 3 million possible weapons to use in the game due to their content generation system.  Most FPS campaigns are pretty static.  Gearbox is implementing a Diablo-like system of randomization into the game so that each time you play it will be a different experience with the maps never being exactly the same.

Borderlands appears very different from a graphics perspective when you first see the artwork.  Instead of using polygons and pixel shaders as most other games do, Borderlands features a combination of hand-drawn textures with traditional rendering to give a very comic book feel to the graphics.

The game releases on October 20, 2009 on the Xbox 360, PC, & Playstation 3.