Been playing more good stuff lately. The year is finishing pretty strong I think as far as games go.

Modern Warfare 2 is at the top of the list. It seems like most people either gobbled this game up at release or are avoiding it like it has an incurable disease. I really liked Call of Duty 4 (is it Modern Warfare 1 now?), so I decided to give in and get this one.

The good news is I liked it almost as much as 4 and it stands as one of my fave games so far this year. The bad news is it only took me about six days to play through the bulk of what I wanted to do with this game -- two playthroughs (one on veteran difficulty, which was nowhere near as hard as 4), some messing around in multiplayer, and a chunk of the special ops. And this was all with a very busy 60-hour work week last week.

So in other words, unless you are planning on grinding away at multiplayer for months to come, this game is a short one.

There's a lot to like about it. You can't really think too hard about the story because it starts to become more implausible the more you consider it, but the campaign undeniably puts you in some intense and even epic combat sequences. The multiplayer's got a really gigantic list of rewards and unlockables that players can pursue (even if it did rip off the title system from Street Fighter IV hehe). The soundtrack is terrific, which is always a big plus in my book. The special ops is a welcome addition. It's just overall a really high quality package.

Dislikes? Well I already mentioned the length. I don't regret spending $50 on it (I had a coupon for $10 off), but others might. Even with the addition of special ops, it seems a little thin in the single player department. There's also still enough respawning enemies and enemies that kill you from behind to drive you crazy from time to time. I was impressed with the multiplayer with the exception of a couple of maps I didn't like at all, but it's not for someone of my limited skills and noobery. I wish I was better at it but I don't really have the drive to get to that point as there are other games to play.

Can't make my mind up about... the infamous controversial airport scene. Whether you think it was disgusting or a blatant "look at me" moment from Infinity Ward like an IGN staffer wrote, or not as big of a deal as it's being made out to be, I can understand either point of view. It fell into a gray area for me where I felt as if I had definitely seen and played worse but at the same time did make me feel a little bit uneasy. I'm also not sure it had much of a payoff story-wise as it could have had... I can't really get into detail about that thought though without getting too spoilerish.

I also had the good fortune of deciding to get Forza Motorsport 3. This was the first racing game I had bought since the criminally, insanely difficult F-Zero GX for GameCube and Burnout 3 (which I didn't like). So I'm not much of a racing game player and as such can't really say for sure how good of a racing game this is. I can say though that I'm having a lot of fun with it and am impressed with the overall package that this game delivers. It's got a lot of tracks, a lot of cars, a lot of options, and has a terrific way of adjusting the difficulty to exactly what you want as you can enable or disable a number of features that will switch the challenge and raise (or lessen) your cash reward for winning. And I'm loving the online store and seeing what other users create... like this. I don't know if it will win any overall Game of the Year honors, but it deserves to be in the discussion.

Next up... I think I will get Assassin's Creed II, even though I didn't play the first one. I like what I am seeing from that game. I also want to buy Trine as I downloaded the demo the other day and was pretty floored by it, which doesn't usually happen with me and demos (although I guess the last demo I was floored by was Braid, and I wound up hating that game). Demon's Souls is still waiting for me and calls my name every once in a while... I played it for about 30 min and wanted to keep on going, but I had to tear myself away because I want to give it my undivided attention, which it wouldn't have gotten with Modern Warfare on the horizon. And Dragon Age... I'm on a quest to upgrade my computer so that it will run that game. I pretty much have decided that I refuse to play the console versions since they are supposedly clearly inferior. Plus I still have Halo ODST and Brutal Legend sitting around waiting to be played, and I might decide to get New SMB Wii too... my feeble mind has fallen victim to all these video game sales that have gone on recently, so now I have more games than I have time to play. Oh well. There are worse problems to have. 

I spent all day yesterday trying to decide whether or not to buy Borderlands. I already have a backlog of games from just the past couple weeks -- Demon's Souls, Brutal Legend, Tornado Outbreak (hey, I kinda like it), and Halo 3 ODST, with Dragon Age, New Super Mario Bros., Modern Warfare 2, and possibly Assassin's Creed II (don't know, never played the first one) and Tekken 6 (never played a Tekken game either) to join that list.

(Uncharted 2 isn't helping the backlog situation much as it has made me want to go back for seconds and thirds and multiplayer and all that stuff... but that's ok, the other stuff can wait because Uncharted 2 is that damn good.)

For a while, I thought Borderlands would be the odd man out -- the game on my wish list that I'd end up skipping in favor of other games. I was hoping reviews would help make my decision and that either they'd be so good that I had no choice but to get it or so bad that I wouldn't, but they were neither. After watching a video of the gameplay, I decided to break down and get it.

It turns out that it's a pretty cool game. It does the FPS combat well; even though the game is a hybrid FPS/RPG/MMO type of thing, it doesn't scale back the combat at all for an RPG player who might not play much FPS. At the same time, it doesn't scale back the RPG elements for FPSers who aren't into RPGs. If you aren't good at FPS, you're probably going to get killed quite a bit, and if you don't have a clue about creating and building a character and how to tell a good piece of gear from a bad one, you're going to be behind the eight ball a little bit.

It should be noted though that even though there seems to be this notion floating around that Borderlands is a game for "hardcore" gamers, it is quite possible for a wide range of audiences to enjoy it. The game is not "casual" (casual vs. hardcore is silly anyway, but that's something for another time), but at the same time, I've played stuff that is a lot more "hardcore" than this. It's simply an effective mix of genres, and it certainly helps to have experience in each, but it's not so advanced that you can't learn if you don't.

The game has a stylish look and feel, and it gets right the loot grind and questing that help make games like Diablo and MMOs so addicting. It's not too common for me to play a new game for two or more hours on my first play; I usually get my feet wet and then come back to it later. But after it got done with the tutorial, the loot grind/quest grind addiction started to sink in, and before I knew it I had hit that two-hour mark. So if you get hooked on the types of things I'm talking about, then you'll probably get hooked with Borderlands.

The big key to this game though is whether or not you want to do co-op questing and if you are friendly with or know people who are playing the game. It's certainly possible to go solo and have fun, and it is still indeed fun alone. But this game would be most fun doing group questing, and even though I'm only a couple hours in and could wind up being dead wrong, my early thought is that it won't work too well with strangers over XBox Live. Players joined and left the game on a whim before any quests could be completed, and since there's no loot rolling system, I'm left to wonder if there would be problems with loot etiquette and/or loot ninjas.

I also have to imagine that it will be tough to get three strangers together in this game who are at roughly the same spot level and quest-wise. There's no "looking-for-group" chat function like there is in an MMO where you can send out a tell looking for people who need to get a certain quest done, so you kind of need to do the best you can in the multiplayer lobbies. That might not be as much an issue if the community grows large, but last night, it seemed empty.

That last point is something to keep in mind. Like I said earlier, I very nearly left Borderlands off my buy list, and I have to wonder how many others will as well. Will this game slip through the cracks? Will there be enough of a community down the line to keep co-op going?

It's a good thing the game is still fun to play solo. Is it as fun to play without friends? Probably not. If you don't have people to play with, should it deter you from trying the game? Not necessarily. But if co-op is important to you, I think this game would definitely be better playing with people you know. Overall though, it's a pretty cool game... maybe not quite GOTY material, but I think most of the people who buy it will like it.

(I was a tank in WoW, so I pretty much had to pick this guy as my character)

IGN finished their
top 100 NES game countdown. I'm a big nostalgia nerd so I was excited to see this list being done.

I'm real disappointed they left off one of my very favorite NES games, Pro Wrestling. Yeah, it was silly and second-rate in certain areas, but I know there's a lot of people out there that
feel the same way about that game I do. It was so much fun to play and actually still is. Not seeing it on there made me want to log in and post something like ZOMG IGN NO PRO WRESTLING???!!!111!!1 U FAIL!!!!1!! but I held back. And no Tecmo Bowl anywhere in their top 50? Hmm.

I was a hopeless NES addict when I was younger, so I played I think somewhere around 75 percent of their top 40 as well as a good chunk of the rest of the games they have on there. So I can't resist giving some feedback on their top 40.

40. Battletoads - Kinda thought this would be higher. I didn't play enough of it to know for sure though.


39. Dragon Warrior IV - never played


38. Life Force - I remember liking this game a lot as a kid. I was hoping it'd be higher.


37. Jackal - I played and finished this game, but I'll be damned if I recall anything special about it.


36. Faxanadu - Sweet. I loved this game. I didn't think they'd have it this high. Great music too.


35. Star Tropics- never played


34. Gradius - eh Life Force was betta imo


33. Batman - I thought they'd have this higher too. This was a cool game.


32. Snake Rattle n' Roll - Never heard of it, I hate to say


31. Micro Machines - I think we rented this once. I don't remember much about it.


30. Mega Man - Fair enough


29. Adventure Island II - never played


28. Baseball Stars - Aw, I loved this game. Lots of memories of late nights with the other kids in the neighborhood making up our own teams. It was (I think?) the first sports game where you could customize your rosters. This game being ranked this low makes me a sad panda.


27. Kirby's Adventure - never played (cry)


26. Metal Gear - I think this is a fair spot for it


25. Castlevania II - A nice surprise as I've always thought this game was underrated.


24. Blades of Steel - A great old-school sports game, good to see it in the top 25.


23. Bubble Bobble - Honestly I can't remember if I ever played this or not.


22. Blaster Master - Should be a few spots higher, imo. Awesome game


21. Zelda II - It gets a lot of hate but I really love this game. I am glad to see it rated this high. It is one of my fave NES games probably.


20. Kid Icarus - Well... I really hate the word "overrated" and I usually shy away from getting into those discussions, but I guess I never understood what the big deal was with this game. It has cool music though.


19. Castlevania - Ah yes, the only game to ever make me break a controller. About where I thought it'd be


18. Super Mario Bros. 2 - I liked this game, glad to see it get some love.


17. Ninja Gaiden - I think this is about right. Thought it might be a tad bit higher maybe.


16. Mega Man 3 - Loved this game, good to see it so high


15. River City Ransom - Sad to say I never played this game.


14. Excitebike - I think this is about right, fun game.


13. R.C. Pro-Am - YES! I was so happy to see this ranked so high. This game was so fun. Maybe my favorite all-time racer.


12. Contra - Of course


11. Final Fantasy - See River City Ransom 


10. Duck Tales - Wow. I would have never guessed it would be a top ten game. This was a really fun game though. Still, to rank it above some of the ones listed here... not sure about that.


9. Bionic Commando - I'd bump it down a few spots but still a worthy game


8. Dragon Warrior - I don't know. Not sure how I feel about this one. I appreciate what it meant and what it did, and it introduced me to RPGs, but is it necessarily more fun to play than the games ranked below it?


7. Mike Tyson's Punch Out! - One of my personal favorites, still a blast to play.


6. Metroid - I thought this would be in the top three actually.


5. Castlevania III - This didn't cross my mind when trying to think what their top ten would be when they started this feature, but I guess it makes sense. It is a sweet game.


4. Mega Man 2 - Love this pick, love this game. A timeless clas-sic imo.


3. Super Mario Bros. - I assumed this would be number one. But I thought it'd be either this or one of the next two that would get the top spot.


2. The Legend of Zelda - I don't think anyone would argue here


1. Super Mario Bros. 3 - It's certainly worthy. 

What did you think of their list?