Borderlands: No Heaven
First off, if the title of this article doesn't make sense and you haven't seen the original gameplay trailer for Borderlands, go check it out. The music is the song No Heaven by DJ Champion. It's not the kind of music I usually listen to but the trailer had it stuck in my head forever.
Now then, it's been a couple months since I mentioned looking forward to playing Borderlands, so I thought I should post a follow-up. I played the game pretty intensely for a while, running through two playthroughs on my first character, a Siren, once as a Soldier, and a little as the other two classes. Most of my gameplay was single player but I got in quite a few multiplayer sessions with a couple of my friends that were a blast.
From skag hunting to fighting off the denizens of the Eridian Promontory, the game as a whole was extremely fun. It wasn't without its issues but unfortunately that seems to be standard for PC games nowadays. Regardless of some of the minor issues, I got more than my money's worth on Pandora.
Hero Quest: Return of Zargon
Half the dungeon, post-smite.
Since my Sunday gaming group is waiting for after Christmas to kick off our upcoming campaign, Hardarian Blackleaf, Ale, Mr. Wizard Nickelbane III, and Elfin John continued their Quest (tm) to become Heroes (tm). The story was thin but the cardstock terrain was think as... well... cardstock. And so the smiting commenced!
We ran through a couple more pretty generic quests this week - find a good wizard then go kill the evil one. Considered we played Are You the Traitor? beforehand (which features a good/evil wizard mechanic) I suppose there was a theme running throughout the evening.
Nostalgia Night: Hero Quest
The Heroes(tm) on a Quest(tm)
While my role-playing group is between campaigns, we're filling our weekly sessions with boardgames and one-shots. Last week was a blast from the past: Hero Quest by Milton Bradley. I couldn't find the doors and a few figures were MIA (the elf in particular) and had to be proxied, but the old school charm remained.
Matt took on the role of the vile Zargon for the first two quests, leaving Chad, Wayne, and me to take on the mantles of the Elf (Elfen John), Wizard (Mr. Wizard), and Barbarian (Thud). The Dwarf (Ale) was thrown in for good measure. For the third and final game I took over behind the screen and Matt claimed the Dwarf.
We fully embraced the camp of the game, with "Zargon" reading the boxed text before each adventure with as much melodrama as could be mustered. As casually as we treated the game, our role-playing roots came through and there were a few more descriptions than dictated by the adventure book as we stomped around the dungeon, hacking up orcs, goblins, and other minions of Chaos.
Anticipation: Borderlands
Due in no small part to the obsession of Ravious, our resident representative of Spugnation, I've started getting excited for the upcoming release of Borderlands on the PC next week. The group of friends with whom I play online games typically enjoy both RPG and FPS style games, so this seems like it should be right up our alley.
Borderlands has been described as a FPS version of Diablo II, which is a fairly accurate description. You are given a choice of one of four classes, each of which has three skill trees which you can choose from to customize your character to your liking. Loot seems to be a big part of the game, and the constant variety keeps you engaged by ensuring there's always the possibility of something better than what you have dropping from the next enemy.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. follow-up
I wouldn't even pretend that I follow video games as close as I used to. I knew about Clear Sky, the prequel to Shadow of Chernobyl, but I only recently became aware of the development of Call of Pripyat, the latest sequel currently due out this fall.
Looks like Clear Sky is going to move up my to-play list.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer, Robber
I while back I finished playing through S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. I picked the game up when it was on sale on Steam and have thoroughly enjoyed it.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. takes place in "The Zone," the area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant where a second nuclear disaster lead to the appearance of physics-defying anomalies and the artifacts they produce. You play as an amnesic Stalker plying your trade (artifact retrieval) while trying to piece together your past. Along the way you'll have to contend with anomalies, radiation, hunger, military forces trying to lock down the Zone, bandits, and mutated... things.
A Night of Zombie Pirates
Well, zombies and pirates I suppose. Last weekend with our gamemaster out of town my gaming group decided to have a board game day instead. We started out with a team Pirates game where Pat and I took on Wayne and Chad. After that one of Chad and Wayne's co-workers stopped by and we played a few games of Flying Frog's Last Night on Earth. The evening was a good lighthearted diversion from an otherwise intense role playing campaign and I wanted to take the opportunity to make note of some observations regarding the games we played.
Monsterpocalypse Revisited
It's been a little over six months since I first tried out Privateer Press's Monsterpocalypse collectible miniatures game at GenCon 08. Although initial reactions showed potential I decided to hold off forming a definite opinion until I played the game more and got a better feel for it. So now that I've had the chance to do so and have reevaluated the game I've determined that my opinion hasn't changed much, and that really isn't a good thing.
Hey, Check Out My Junk!
My junk is tiny
Most weekends I host a weekly roleplaying game at my house, but this week instead of getting out the rule books and character sheets I got my junk out and set it on the table.
I game with the hosts of the Fear the Boot podcast, and after mentioning Wizkid's Pirates pocket model game during a recording a fan donated a ton of ships for them to use at Fear the Con 2, the upcoming local convention here in St. Louis that they're hosting March 6th - 7th.
We started out picking out a few ships (each of which has a points value) to throw into a few test fleets to learn the game. Each ships have a different number of health/speed/cargo capacity and a point cost so you can mix and match to create a strategy that favors one goal or the other if you want. I'm not going to give the game an in-depth review here - it's been around a while and there are far more detailed descriptions out there on the intertubes by far more experienced players - but I will say it was a fun little game.
Le Loup Garou
After learning the basics we all chose a nationality and picked a few ships to have small personal collections. Then we sat down and put together over sixty 40-point fleets from the rest of the collection. These fleets will be taken to Fear the Con and put at an open gaming table for attendees to grab, assemble, play the game, and then keep if they want them. Should be a good time so if you want to swing by and try a game and get some free plasticard ships, please do!
Overall the game was good clean fun. I don't think it's the type of game I'd want as my primary game but I foresee enjoying having a small fleet around to bring out for random games with my gaming group. The game is collectible and so you could easily fall into the trap of victory through fatter wallet but you'd probably get a lot of millage out of picking up a few packs to serve as a community pool for you and your gamers to build fleets in to play as a side game.
I need to ram more stuff with my junk!
Game Scribe
A couple of friends of mine have started a blog called Game Scribe which chronicles their exeriences is (primarily) online gaming. In the past they focused on Lord of the Rings Online and Team Fortress 2, but with the imminent release of Warhammer Online that game will be getting more and more attention in the near future.
I haven't really kept up with the video game hobby in a while so when I was asked to contribute I had to think a while before I came up with something I could actually write about. In the end I wound up agreeing to write an intermittent series on some of the older PC games that I've played as a sort of "blast from the past," starting with Deus Ex.
With the launch of the Iron Agenda keeping up with Game Scribe posts (let alone here) is going to be a challenge for me, but Moondog and Ravious certainly maintain regular updates. If you're interested in following a few gamers' romp through their virtual playgrounds be sure to check out their site!
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