Borderlands

Developer: Gearbox
Publisher: 2K Games
Released: 23/10/2009
Price: 28.99 Buy Now

This was one of the best games of late 2009 in my opinion. It is a SCI-FI First Person Shooter style RPG which to me sounds like an amazing combo, don’t know about you. Borderlands has a ceil-shaded look and feel and is based on the very popular unreal engine from epic, it was created by the same people that made ‘Opposing Force’ the mod for ‘Half-Life’ which saw you playing as the soldiers sent to investigate. The game takes place in the future on the planet of Pandora where legend tells of a hidden ‘vault’ full of treasure. You can choose to play as one of 4 characters , your choice here kind of determines what would be your class in a normal RPG. The options are light Melee , Sniper / Range weapons , standard all rounder and a heavy melee specialist. Each one of the characters have a special skill that can be gained early on in the game and then enhanced through earning skill points. I played through the game as the sniper characters who special skill is ‘Blood Wing’ a bird of pray that you can command to help you kill enemies from a distance. By leveling him up you also get him to give you more items when an enemy is killed or to attack multiple targets. I also better say here that apart from the first part of the game I played it in co-op with a friend on-line. The co-op aspect of the game is fantastic , having 3 options in the way that you play co-op ether connecting over the internet using the PSN , over a LAN not usual seen in playstation games or split-screen. Playing over the PSN was pretty effortless , you could ether choose to start the game in co-op where you host a game invite your friends to join you ether before or during play or you could invite a friend when you saw they where online and the game would start a co-op session for you. Though this did involve exciting then rejoining the game in co-op it wasn’t too frustrating. What was frustrating however was the fact that on some evenings for whatever reason the game would completely fail to start due to connection issues.

So you start on a bus traveling to the town of firestone on pandora. On arrival at firestone you get to choose your character from the 4 people traveling on the bus. Exiting the bus you meet clap-trap a small robot that acts as a guide and will run you through a relativly short tutorial. You also meet an outer body guide that appears to you as a vision to help guide you on your hunt for the vault. After customizing you characters name and appearance at a ‘new you station’ you can start on you adventure. Clap-trap will then guide you through using the controls, skill points, combat, quests as well as giving you the basic load down on the locals and introduce you to pandoras medic ‘Dr Ned’ you will then play what are group of static quests to advance the story and to get you use to how the game works, and unlock the car. The car is the 2nd fastest way to get around pandora and comes equipped with ether a light and heavy machine gun , or a light machine gun and a rocket launcher and can be occupied solo or in pairs. A nice feature is when you are playing multiplayer each person can have their own cars , or one person can drive and the other shoot which is very useful,

Once you start getting into the game it is very fun , the level of difficulty is such that the enemies in the current area of your quest are a fun challenge but never too hard that you are going to get frustrated and throw your controller at the TV. The side quests are interesting though can like so much of the game get a little repetitive but I do find this a feature of many RPG’s. The characters are well balanced but you can tell that the developers never really intended this game to be played solo as some characters are very specialist and lack the all round skills that you would need to play a solo adventure. For example the character I played as was a long ranged character and lacked short range skills meaning that if you were ambushed (and you frequently are ) you could quite easily end up dead on your own. The game basically consists of completing quests that can be found in a number of ways. Some quests will advance the main story and help you to find the vault, other quests will give you background information on pandora , its residents both human and non-human and some will give you nothing more than experience. There is a wide range of these human and non-humans living on pandora and for some reason they seem to want you dead so finding a good gun and upgrading your shield is a must. As with most RPG when you kill these enemies they give you a range of items these can then be used or traded. The games inventory system although a little complex to get your head around to start with especially with the special shields, gun, equiptment and character mods that you obtain does add an interesting and worthwhile aspect to play. Unlike other sci-fi RPG on a similar vain examples been ‘Mass Effect’ and ‘Fall Out’ borderlands does draw you so that you want to complete the quest , side quests and find out the secret of the vault. This is where I personally felt most let down, the ending to the story was shocking and at the same time very disappointing and made it feel like the hours that you had invested in the game had somehow been misspend. Saying that the game does make it feel worthwhile as you play and is very enjoyable adventure. I think that if you are a fan of RPG’s and of Shooters then Borderlands is definitely worth a play. I don’t think however that it has much replayablity , after going through it once I have not had the urge to go back to pandora this may change in time and I am playing to get all the huge amount of DLC that has come out for it.

Information on Screenshots

Developer: Insomniac Games
Publisher: SCE
Released: Out Now
Price: £12.99 Buy Now

I played Resistance Fall of Man in co-op mode over the weekend and thought I would do a mini review of it. I have had Resistance Fall of Man for a while its a classic but I came to the playstation party a little late so it was only recently. I hadn’t got round to playing co-op till this weekend when I went over my best mates house.

I’ll give you a short background on Resistance Fall of Man if for some unknown reason you have never played it.  The story begins in the early part of the 20th Century but we don’t jump in to the game until the 50’s. You play the part of an American Sgt. Nathan Hale and an unnamed solider when in co-op mode who strangely never gets refereed at all through out the game. Europe has been taken over by a virus that changes the human race into monsters called Chimeran. You have ended up in the middle of this joining up with british forces ( that have the most stereotypical british accents I have heard in a long time ) to try and find an answer to where this virus has come from and how to defeat it. Along the way you are infected ( actually its about 20 mins in ) but unlike the normally infect humans you don’t change into a monster you just get super human powers such as the ability to heal yourself. You then fight you way through missions using an array of period human and futuristic alien weapons. Guided along the way by a british intelligence officer called Captain Rachel Parker.

The game play is excellent. It is a basic FPS but that makes it all the more fun. You have to go through the game shooting the Chimeran , Picking up health packs and trying not to get killed. I have played the game in single player mode but when playing in co-op the game becomes a lot more fun. There isn’t much of a difference between the two modes even down to the fact that the second player never appears or is mentioned in any cut scenes. The biggest difference is that if one of you dies and the other doesn’t the game doesn’t automatically end you can ether wait a set amount of time 30 seconds to re-spawn  or your partner can heal you by standing over you and pressing the triangle button until the re-spawn bar is full. When you re-spawn you reappear near your partner which is a nice touch if you have ended up getting split up. The other nice touch is that when one of you picks up a new weapon you both get it and then you don’t both have to hunt it down. The biggest issue we had when playing it was that it doesn’t explain the controls at any point for the co-op mode although these are basically the same as the single player mode with the already mentioned heal button there is also a find your partner button. This would have been useful to know as for a good portion of the game we spent most of our time trying to work out where each other was because getting split up in a battle is very easy and although a icon does appear telling you where your partner is when they are dead it would have been helpful to have that all the time.  The other main issue I had with the co-op game is my pet hate with a lot of co-op multiplayer is the way the screen is split even on a massive 42 inch Widescreen HD TV it was annoying as your field of view is always limited compared to when you have the whole screen in single player. I do feel that maybe game developers could put more effort in to changing the game to better suite multiplayer co-op of even keep you both on the same screen though I understand that could be difficult.

All round though this is a fun and enjoyable multiplayer experience. It is great have the partner to back you up when you get into trouble. Although a lot the challenges seem a little to easy early on in the game with two they do begin to get more difficult as you progress. Once you have learned that all important find my buddy button you find that the game is fun. This is not a serious think peace it is a basic First Person Shooter but there are maybe too few of these now days especially on the Playstation 3. The Co-op mode does add another dimension to the game but if you have completed it in single player I doubt that the effort of going through it all again in co-op would really be worth it as it doesn’t really add anything new to the experience.