A Belated Review of Borderlands 2

The reason I didn't post much for the first three weeks of October was because I was too busy playing Borderlands 2. It's fun, it's addicting, it's better than the first game, and I couldn't pull myself away from it to do much of anything else. I'm still playing it. I've already clocked way more hours in BL2 than I have in Skyrim, and I still feel invigorated to continue farming loot and replaying with new characters and other friends. That alone should tell you how good of a game it is.

If the first Borderlands was an imperfect experiment, Borderlands 2 is the refinement of that formula. Everything that was great about the first game is back in the sequel, with all of the bad parts trimmed out and replaced with something new and interesting. This is how sequels are supposed to be done, and it's no wonder BL2 has sold so much better (and faster) than BL1. In the full article I'll look at how well BL2 stacked up to my prior hopes and expectations, as well as detailing the extra things I've liked and (in some cases) disliked.

Impressions of Fallen Earth

Fallen Earth is a game I'd been interested in for a while now, ever since I read player comments describing it like a multiplayer Fallout, crossed with hints of STALKER. I'd been very wary about playing another MMORPG, however, because it seems like every MMO out there insists on being a huge waste of time. But since Fallen Earth went free-to-play a little more than a year ago, I thought maybe I'd at least give it a shot. The promise of a post-apocalyptic MMO was fairly interesting at first, but then it quickly bogged down to usual MMO nonsense; tedious level-grinding via repetitive tasks in a laboriously over-stretched world.

The game starts out with an instanced tutorial sequence that explains the premise, tells you a little about the backstory, and shows you how to perform basic actions within the game. It contains an awful lot of cutscenes and dialogue which lend the tutorial a compelling narrative thrust, unlike lots of other MMOs I've played that just dump you aimlessly into a starting town. Once you're through with the tutorial sequence, it's clear that there's actually a main questline to follow -- with an actual story -- but that's also when it turned into mindless MMO-style content and lost its appeal for me. Continue reading for more of my early impressions of Fallen Earth. 

Viel Dinosaurier in 1916: Der Unbekannte Krieg

1916: Der Unbekannte Krieg is a free indie horror game by students of the Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment. Set during World War I, you play as a German soldier trying to escape the creatures that hunt you through the narrow, claustrophobic trenches by reaching the ladder at the opposite end of the territory. The creatures hunting you are dinosaurs, and you have no way of fighting them. You just run, using whatever tools you can find in the death-ridden trenches.

The game is ultimately fairly short and simple -- it only takes a few minutes to beat if you know what you're doing -- but odds are it'll take you several attempts before you really start to figure it out. The main criticism I have if that it takes too much trial-and-error to learn the basic mechanics of the game, which may turn people off, but once you understand how things work and what you're supposed to be doing, 1916: Der Unbekannte Krieg is a really tense, heart-pounding experience.

You Can't Escape From Nightmare House 2

Nightmare House 2 is one of the coolest horror games I've ever played. What's even more remarkable is that it's a free source mod for Half-Life 2. A first-person shooter with a light emphasis on action and a heavy emphasis on horror, the game begins with you gaining consciousness next to a wrecked vehicle in front of an abandoned house. Which also happens to be haunted. After escaping the house, the rest of the game takes place in the Never Lose Hope Hospital, where you regain consciousness in a padded cell only to find that something else has gone terribly wrong. 

For comparison, Nightmare House 2 feels a lot like the original F.E.A.R. with hints of Condemned: Criminal Origins (both by Monolith), both in terms of quality and content, if you were to take those games and condense them down to about 2-3 hours. NH2 features some very good attempts at horror as well as some decently enjoyable puzzles and action, all tied together with an interesting story. There are a few hiccups in its design, which I'll discuss in the full article, but it's a great game that's definitely worth playing.

Team Fortress 2: Halloween 2012

I'm not a very big fan of Meat Fortress 2. I play it very infrequently, basically only coming back to it whenever there's a major, game-changing update (or whenever friends try to drag me back), and then quickly lose interest all over again. It's like an old acquaintance whom I occasionally speak to out of a sense of obligation, but I don't really enjoy doing so. But since Halloween is approaching and Valve released yet another seasonal event, I figured I'd check it out.

I never bothered with any of the previous Halloween events so I don't know how this one compares to events in the past, but this one just seems like a clusterfuck, full of rage and confusion. Speaking as someone who doesn't enjoy Steam Fortress 2 that much in the first place, the stuff in this event makes me like it even less. More of my pseudo-review of the Scream Fortress 2 Halloween 2012 event after the jump.

The Slender Man is Always Right Behind You

Slender is a free indie horror game based on the mythos of the slender man, an abnormally tall, faceless man in a dark suit and tie. Occasionally spotted in the background of photographs, people reportedly go missing and disappear in his presence. He is an entity of pure fear, silently stalking people until they go mad. And then he takes them.

The premise of the game is pretty simple: you're alone in a pitch black wood with nothing but a flashlight at your disposal, tasked with collecting eight pages scattered about the woods. Who you are and why you're searching for these eight pages is never explained; it's just an arbitrary goal to give you something to do whilst being terrorized by the silent madness-inducing presence of the slender man.

My review continues after the jump.

Erie: Somewhat Eerie, Not So Scary

Erie is a free first-person horror game made by students of the University of Utah's EAE Master Games Studio Program, using the Unreal Development Kit. You play as Oliver Victor, a Red Cross investigator circa 1966, sent to search for missing workers after a nuclear power plant suffers a partial meltdown. Once in the facility, you become trapped and have to flee from the mutated horrors and escape with your life.

In terms of horror, Erie is competently designed at first, with effective (albeit somewhat crude) audio and visual effects contributing to the game's immersive atmosphere. For the first several minutes, that's basically all the game is: atmosphere. Your walk through plant provides a basic tutorial for controls, which should be perfectly familiar to anyone who's ever handled a keyboard before, while providing a few atmospheric scares to put you just a little on edge. Bats fluttering out from a vent in the ceiling, a woman crying behind a locked door, sudden noises, monsters darting past a window, and so on.

My reviews continues after the jump.