I’m really excited this morning because the latest DLC for Borderlands is finally out. It’s called “The Secret Armory of General Knox” and costs 800 Microsoft Points. Along with the new story, you’ll also be able to break through the previous Level cap of 50. I’ve been told you can now level up to 61, but I haven’t confirmed that yet.
I downloaded and played through “The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned” – a previous DLC for Borderlands – and it was fantastic. Great, new story. Lots of new, bad-ass enemies. And well worth the money. I just hope this DLC is going to be as good. I have it downloading right now (it’s 1.66 Gigabytes) so I plan on finding out tonight!
Some of my friends on Xbox Live are outright achievement whores. I never have tried to boost my gamerscore outside of the normal games I was going to play anyway. Then I happened to run across this post on gamesradar.com. They list the top 10 games of 2009 when it comes to obtaining easy achievement points. Be prepared – your pride is going to suffer a bit if you go after some of these games (Who can live with Hannah Montana showing on your completed games list??? Some things in life are just not worth it.)
I rented Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. Now this game had ratings that ranged from a 5 to a 6 out of 10 which is pretty damn bad for a video game. For that reason, I never even considered playing it when it came out. I decided to suffer through it anyway since the author says they gained nearly 800 points on their first playthrough.
It turns out that Eat Lead is sorely underrated – at least in my opinion. The gameplay and mechanics are indeed a bit off, and that mainly revolves around the cover system. But once you get the hang of things and realize you can’t just spray and pray in every room you enter, the game’s story takes over and gives you some genuinely intriguing plot lines and pretty funny one-liners.
I finished the game in about 8 hours and gained 815 achievement points. And I actually had FUN doing it. So if you’re looking for a decent shooter that’s unlike the other clones out there, then pick up Eat Lead. Go into it with an open mind and some patience, and I think you’ll find it’s a lot of fun.
Anyone notice there are a TON of great video games out right now? I’m currently playing Dragon Age and Borderlands (second play-through), but there are so many other great games to play that I wouldn’t even begin to have enough time to play them all. Here are some games I’m jonesing for:
Mass Effect 2
Bioshock 2
Assassin’s Creed 2
Darksiders
Army of Two: The 40th Day
New Super Mario Brother
Bayonneta
I guess I’ll be patient and wait for them to come in one-at-a-time from my Gamefly.com, but I’m fighting the urge to go to Target and just load up one of those little red baskets.
I can’t remember the last time I played online multiplayer on my XBox 360. I just haven’t been very social online for several months. For that matter I haven’t spent a lot of time playing video games at all. But that may change on November 10 when Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 comes out. This video makes me giddy like a school girl.
I have a lot of books and video games that I won’t ever read or play again. For books, I had ventured out to my local used book store a couple of times, but the way the credit works usually makes me not want to go back and actually use that credit. For video games, I either sell them on e-bay for anywhere from $5 to $20 or trade them in at the local Gamestop.
I figured there had to be a better way of recycling these items so I went looking around and found swaptree.com. Swaptree allows you to trade books, video games, music and movies with others for free. After signing up, you enter in UPC and ISBN numbers to populate the list of things you have and are willing to trade. You can also search for and select things that you want in return. These are your “have” and “want” lists.
Swaptree finds matches with other people and sends you both an email to setup the trade, and both parties can either accept or reject the trade. Swaptree will also not propose a trade for two items of unequal value (like a book for a recently released video game). If both parties accept, you’re then given a link to print a shipping label. The shipping cost is then charged to your credit card. So far it looks like normal shipping costs range from $2.50 to $3.50. But it just depends on the weight of the item. I’m sure shipping an encyclopedia would be more expensive than $3.50.
I’ve accepted 5 trades so far and shipping out all my items this morning. I have 3 new books and 2 new video games coming in, and I’ve spent about $15. Not bad considering the books and games I traded were sitting on the shelf for months collecting dust.
Do you know of any other sites out there where you can trade these kinds of items? How do they stack up against Swaptree.com?
I’ve been playing Resident Evil 5 with a buddy on Professional difficulty in order to beat the game and get the 70 points for the War Hero achievement. We both have unlimited ammunition on several weapons – including the rocket launcher – so we were pretty much going through the chapters like a hot knife through butter. That is, until we reached the battle against Wesker and Jill in chapter 5-3.
That battle was by far the most excruciating and frustrating experience I’ve ever had in gaming. I don’t know how many times we played through that battle. I lost count at 26. I’m not kidding you.
The infuriating part is that getting rid of Wesker is simple. Run over to the door on the right and hit ‘X’ when prompted to investigate. Wesker will then kick you through the door where you can run up the stairs. Catch Wesker coming around the corner and fire a rocket at him. When he catches the rocket just shoot him with a magnum and it explodes and stuns him. Then just unload on him with your weapon of choice. If you use a powerful weapon like the L. Hawk magnum you can actually get rid of him after this one attempt. If not, run away from him and hide behind another corner so you can hit him with another rocket and repeat the process.
With Wesker out of the way, all you have to do is remove the gem from Jill’s chest in order to save her. To do this, you maneuver around behind Jill and restrain her when prompted. Your partner can then shoot the gem on Jill’s chest (don’t shoot Jill!). Use a pistol for this because anything else is too powerful. Jill becomes stunned after you shoot the gem, and you can throw her to the ground. Try to tear the gem from her when prompted.
The problem is you have to do this 6 or 7 times before the gem will come off. In professional mode, one good kick from Jill puts you on the brink of death. If your partner can’t heal you in under a second, the game is over and you get to try again. And again. And again…
Here’s how we did it:
Both of you get a pistol with plenty of ammunition and fill the rest of your inventory with first aid spray
After the cut sceme, chase Jill to the center of the room and get behind her in order to restrain her before she shoots you
The other person shoots the gem and stuns Jill
Throw Jill to the ground and let the other person try to tear off the gem
The person who is still standing should immediately equip their first aid spray and stand at Jill’s head while she’s lying on the ground.
When Jill rises, she’ll try to kick your the person tearing off the gem. If she connects, the other person needs to IMMEDIATELY use the spray
Back off but not too far or she will shoot you. One of you keep her busy while the other tries to maneuver around and restrain her again.
The key is to always keep spray ready because it’s almost inevitable that Jill’s going to connect with one of you. Here are a few other tips:
When Jill jumps upstairs, stay downstairs and run under the balcony until she jumps back down. If you stay in the middle of the floor she’ll shoot you.
Try to time Jill’s jump from the balcony and get close to her as she hits the ground. You can quickly get a restrain prompt this way.
Never stray too far from Jill or she will pull out her automatic pistols and level you.
Communicate – make sure one of you always has a first aid spray equipped and ready.
I loved Resident Evil 4 on the Nintendo Wii so I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Resident Evil 5. I’ve become a huge fan of co-op gaming and the prospect of playing Resident Evil 5 with a friend made it even more exciting. At my urging, my brother went ahead and purchased the game as well, and we set forth on our mission to rid the world of infected zombies and genetically manipulated animals sent out to cleanse the world of its evil.
I’m going to go ahead and get the disappointing stuff out of the way. First, I just finished playing Dead Space, and it showed us that moving while aiming is a much better experience than being stuck in one spot. I’m guessing that Resident Evil 5 is trying to make you more frantic since you can only do one thing at a time, but it really only serves to make you feel as though the game mechanics weren’t finished.
Second, I wish the weapon upgrade system allowed for a little more creativity. While powering up your shotgun and watching its effects in the game are OK, there should be a bit more of a “wow” factor when you “max out” a weapon. Or they could at least allow you to replace or add to certain aspects of the weapons and ammunition. Maybe hollow point rounds for the magnum or slugs for the shotgun. Maybe you could fit it with a new stock or design – kind of like in Army of Two. At the very least, give me a reticule for the hand grenades. Yeah, I know that’s not realistic but neither is me running around Africa killing zombies. I hate guessing on how far my grenade is going to fly…
Now on to the good stuff. First of all, the addition of co-op play makes the game. Yes, I love co-op so I’m a bit bias. But my brother picked this game up, and so far we’ve played each level about 5 times each and some many more. It’s just extremely fun to take on the infected masses with a buddy.
Second, the atmosphere is a great departure from the other games. It’s still gritty and gives you that survival horror feel, but at the same time it feels more open and more about discovery. The environments are great. You get to explore varied levels from mountainous mines to a swamp-like area that you use an air boat to navigate.
Two words – chainsaw zombie. They’re back and just as bad-ass! Early on in the game – before you’ve started upgrading your weapons – these guys are truly tough to take down. And once they touch you it’s over.
The boss fights are more about fun than unbelievable luck. In most cases, it’s pretty obvious what you need to do. It’s just up to you to make it happen. I hate those bosses that you have to play 12 times before you hit upon the secret formula for finding their weak spot.
Headshots are fun! The headshots you can score in Resident Evil 5 aren’t as good as – say – Gear of War, but they deliver a very satisfying feeling nonetheless. I never get tired of making a special effort to aim at an enemy’s head.
Resident Evil 5 is definitely a game you’ll want to buy. The replay value is very high, and the co-op is so well done that it’ll give you and a friend something to do for a long time to come.
I’ve been playing a lot of Left 4 Dead lately, and I always say the same thing. “Man, I really wish they would hurry up and give us some new maps”. The very nature of the game lends itself perfectly to a continual rollout of new maps and modes.
It looks as though Valve is planning to give us what we’ve asked for – a new map named “Lighthouse” and a new “survival mode” where you can play 16 maps taken from the games peak moments and finales.
Valve sat down with gamesradar.com to show them the new map and survival mode.
This past weekend I finally got around to completing the main story in Fallout 3. After reading this hilarious description of the plot in Fallout 3 (spoiler alert!!!), I decided the end could wait and had been mainly running around completing side quests and generally exploring the Wasteland. I now see why the author of that analysis was so confused as the ending does absolutely no justice to such a great game.
SPOILER BELOW
Basically, the Brotherhood decides it’s time to go wipe out the Enclave and unleashes a huge robot to decimate everything in its path. The first 10 minutes of the final sequence has you walking along behind this robot as it lays waste to Enclave soldiers and anything else in its way. The only challenge is staying close enough to be protected but not too close so that you get hit by debris from explosions or stepped on by the robot itself.
You then leave the robot outside and enter the gift shop of the Jefferson Memorial and kill a few Enclave soliders. You then make your way to the Rotunda. Inside you simply kill Colonel Autumn or send him away and then decide if you want to enter the purifier code, have someone else enter it, or do nothing and just watch everything explode. Everything fades to white and then the credits roll.
DUDE! I was really expecting some final large-scale battle where I had to unleash every weapon in my arsenal to survive and battle my way to the purifier. Why in the world would a huge robot come in an steal my thunder?? That’s BORING.
Fortunately I still have many side missions to go so I’ll be starting back up from a previous save and going back to what is truly the best part of this game – exploring, collecting, and killing stuff.
I’ve been waiting for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ever since I completed the original Modern Warfare well over a year ago. Developed by Infinity Ward, Modern Warfare took the success and evolution of the previous Call of Duty games set in World War II and gave gamers an updated, more polished experience that put more modern weaponry, strategy and tactics in our hands.
Now Infinity Ward is using social media to solicit feedback for Modern Warfare 2. Robert Bowling has setup a Twitter feed where you can reply with your suggestions and requests for the game. Activision has said that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be released near the end of this year so go on over and let Robert know what you want for Christmas! I’ve already asked for a bigger sniper rifle with an even longer kill shot mission.
Here’s a list of the top 10 games I’m looking forward to playing in 2009. They’re in order of release date and not necessarily reflective of my level of excitement around each game.
I was reading an article in the New York Times this morning about Danny Johnson -- a 14 year old in Grapevine, TX who set a world record in Guitar Hero III in a Best Buy on Feb 4. The article mentions that Danny sometimes streams his sessions online. I figured the videos must be on YouTube so I did a quick search and found his page.
This kid is SICK. Never could I imagine being able to do this. In this video, Danny screams through “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” on Expert Level and hits EVERY NOTE. I can barely follow the notes flowing down the screen -- much less achieve the massive hand-eye coordination that it would take to play this song.
. Go into it with an open mind and some patience, and I think you’ll find it’s a lot of fun.
