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?
 

I thought about writing a review for this game, but I figured that there will be so many to be posted that it would just get lost in the shuffle, so I'm going to do a blog entry instead with a few thoughts.

I might be wrong, but I feel as if while this generation of games has had a whole bunch of very good games, I've kind of felt as if none have really reached that rare status of all-timer. You know what I mean -- games that have a lasting impact, are influential, are still talked about ten years from now, make appearances in the top half of all-time top 100 lists... things like that. Last generation had its share of those -- Grand Theft Auto III, Star Wars KOTOR, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft (hate if you must, but you can't deny its impact), Resident Evil 4, probably Halo, off the top of my head.

I kind of feel like we haven't seen that too much this generation, at least prior to last Tuesday. I think Call of Duty 4 probably came the closest, given its quality, impact, sales, etc., and you could probably make an argument for a couple other titles. But IMHO we've been waiting for the really special games to come out, and now with the release of Uncharted 2, I think they're starting to hit. 

Uncharted 2 did have at least a couple of blemishes for me... mine started to get glitchy over the last 25 percent of the game, and even though a lot of the people won't be bothered by this, I really began to wish as the game went along that there weren't so many moments where I said to myself, "Oh, they borrowed this from Movie X or Game Y." Plus I've noticed some stability problems with the multiplayer connections.

But let's not dwell on that stuff because really that's piddly poop compared to what the game accomplishes. I came away feeling like Uncharted 2 quite simply raises the bar for action/adventure games, setting a new standard of quality that future entries in the genre are going to be compared to. It might be the closest thing you can get to feeling like you're on an adventure in your own living room. It also is one of the foremost examples of a game successfully integrating film and video game. It strikes a perfect combination of storytelling, action, and cutscenes and weaves all three together seamlessly. The pacing is terrific and doesn't let one of those overwhelm the other two.

It has to be said though that the action might be what shines the most. The game's shootouts and action sequences are second-to-none; they make you feel at times like you are actually on this adventure yourself. It's this aspect where I think the game succeeds the most and what players are going to be demanding from games in the future -- can this game make me feel like Uncharted 2 did?

The characters are terrific as well. It's very obvious that the Uncharted games have been influenced in part by the Indiana Jones movies, and you can see that on the surface with certain scenes and sequences in this game. But one other thing that those movies do well that you can see happening in this game too is making the hero seem vulnerable and human. Drake's just a guy. Other than the fact that he can seemingly climb walls, swing from ropes and hang off cliffs almost as well as Spider-Man (admit it, it does get just a tad bit far-fetched at times, but that's okay   , Drake just seems like a normal person, unlike a lot of video game heroes. That's what Indiana Jones was too, and why he is such a likable hero. And it's not just Drake -- the other heroes in the game are lovable as well, while the villains are guys you can't wait to see get their comeuppance.

The game also sweats the details. The voice acting is spot-on. The game's jokes are often genuinely funny. The scenery and artwork are great. The soundtrack is not only terrific, but you'll notice that it seems like the right music always seems to kick in at the right moments.

And that's just the single-player. I think that if the game was just a single-player experience that it would be an instant classic, but the multiplayer is fantastic as well -- a flawless transition of the single-player combat into multiplayer form. It is most reminiscent of Gears of War, but does not play second-fiddle to that game.

It's going to be very difficult for any game from this point out to knock off Uncharted 2 as the game of the year. I'd have to think that its only competition at this point might be Modern Warfare 2, although we will see. This game is more than just a game of the year though -- it's quite possibly the best game of this generation so far, and it is one that people will be talking about for quite a while. Hopefully you will get a chance to play it.