Review: Chime

While you can’t play your music, this game has more playability than BIT.TRIP BEAT. Chime is an amazing game featuring amazing music (just ignore the fact Moby is in the game). The trailer for this game does not do it justice. You really should just buy it yourself and play it.

Plus the money from the game goes to charity. Do it for the childrens.

Verdict: BUY

Review: Borderlands

Borderlands is the definition of timewaster without paying for a subscription (also joining this game is the Oblivion series). The DLC is pricey and the game’s missions are very meh.

You’ll probably get sucked into this game if you love guns, have completionist syndrome or like to explore forever and not find anything. Enemies are jerks, but sooner or later you’ll find that god gun and everyone will fall in less than two shots. I found the god shotgun (same one from Mass Effect) that fired from across the room and took out bosses in a single blow.

The game is not balanced and wants to be a “tough game for REAL MEN” but it doesn’t do a very good job at this. Explosions aren’t all that great and the world is desolate and can be very boring. Networking is meh and everything is powered by “blast from the past” GameSpy Arcade. Borderlands is prone to really bizarre errors.

That said, people will tell you that “YOU NEED TO EXPERIENCE THIS”, but Borderlands nowhere near your expectations.

Verdict: DEPENDS.

Additionally, a lot of this game is just hype. It’s great for wasting time in, but sooner or later it will lose its appeal.

Review: Bloody Good Time

This is basically an updated version of The Ship with the exact same objective: Try to kill as many contestants as possible without being seen or killed yourself.

The game is a tad short with only three maps, but it’s still an interesting game. Gameplay is long (you can not play a game for any time less than 15 minutes), so you have to preallocate quite a bit of time beforehand.

Techwise, BGT is built off of the Source engine, so if you can play L4D, HL2, Portal, or TF2, you can play this. There’s some unique mechanics that you won’t find in other Source games, but it is nothing that is cutting edge or that will blow your mind.

But Bloody Good Time is cheap and it’s a good time waster.

Verdict: BUY

Review: BIT.TRIP BEAT

BIT.TRIP BEAT is just musical Pong. That’s it. There is nothing more to this game. You cannot use your own music and there aren’t very many modes. The only difference between this game and Pong, are the flashing backgrounds and that Pong is more fun.

You will get tired of this game within 20 minutes. If you play any longer, the game gets so boring it will blast cheap enemies at you so that you’ll die before you die of extreme boredom.

Verdict: PASS

Review: Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

Few people still play this game, Vegas 2 old but it still is a blast if you can ever find a match. The campaign is really cool and the multiplayer is fantastic when you find people.

The single player levels are rather expansive for a game this old and they contain advertisements for current trends (thank Massive for that). Co-Op Campaign makes this a fun blitz into the game and you can both split up and control portions of the squad together. Unfortunately, the game does have bugs with the voice communication (everyone had to use text chat, which is not a helpful option in a game that demands a large amount of precision and concentration). That said, the experience is well worth the wait.

There are probably 200+ people who still play this game, and this is something you don’t want to miss. Plus, Vegas 2 is cheap.

Verdict: BUY IT

Review: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Bad Company 2 is a fun game. However, it’s not the same Bad Company as the 2008 shooter by DICE that I loved so much.

The lovable characters, the somewhat cliché (but totally done tongue in cheek) story, and the unseriousness of the game were awesome. They are also completely dead in the sequel. DICE ended up throwing out the original story and all of the settings. Now you’ll spend your time in desolate snow, jungle and sand with enemies that completely hate you (and are much tougher from the first game). The game has frame tearing issues in campaign to top it off. I am saddened that the game lost a lot of its humor in order to compete with Call of Duty. If I only reviewed single player, this game would get a B-.

The multiplayer is really good though. It’s very hard to get into but after a while the game becomes bearable. However, BC2 doesn’t support 360 controllers, so those who played the last game are pretty much screwed over and as a result they lose 80 bajillion points. You lose EA.

Verdict: MAYBE

Review: Poker Night at The Inventory

The majority of us got Poker Night for the TF2 items. This was to be expected. But if you step back a bit and start playing the game more, you’ll notice that Telltale Games has put a lot of work into making the game fun to play (and this comes from someone who doesn’t play Poker as much).

Now, there is a ton of dialogue in this title. It’s nice but it can get pretty annoying (there is a setting for this). You may call this game fan-service. It kinda is but PN doesn’t bludgeon you over your head too much.

Even after getting all the items (which you can do in about an hour), you might find yourself playing the game more. PN@TI actually really well done. And for only $5 dollars, it’s not a bad deal but you probably won’t be playing it very often.

In the end it’s cheap,  funny and it has TF2 items. If you don’t want to spend $5 dollars, you won’t be missing too much.

Verdict: INDECISIVE

Review: Left 4 Dead 2

L4D2 is an okay game. The characters are not as great as the last installment and the daytime levels feel like a drone (a lot of the music does not help this fact). The story actually follows a narrative arc, but there are only a couple of maps that are any good.

With the sequel came about new guns and new zombies, the majority of which can be filled under the “ZOMG BS JOCKEY WON’T DIE!!!!!” The melee weapons are a welcome addition as well as the SPAS combat shotgun (my favorite).

In my eyes, the only thing that make this game better than L4D1 is that it seems like more people are playing L4D2, and the mutations. Scavenge isn’t all that great and Realism is really a try once, but get bored and never play again.

In the end, unless you get both L4D 1 & 2 for the price of ~20, then you might as well just skip this version.

Verdict: PASS

Review: Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 is a TON of fun. If you get it for the PC, you are making the right decision. The console versions just suck (played the 360 demo). The world size (while several MMOs beat it) is GIGANTIC, but still navigational.

The story is good enough and keeps the missions in check, but outside of that there isn’t much there in that department.

When you do beat the campaign, there are plenty of areas to explore and tons of easter eggs. I’m probably 53-80% done with the game and there are still things to do. JC2 is a time investment, but it is a fun one. Plus the mods are great.

This is a game to mess around in. You are given tons of guns and vehicles with the simple objective of “GO NUTS”. There is never a real dull moment in this game. You should get this game.

Verdict: BUY

A bit of an update

Awhile ago, Steam introduced a feature where you can “Recommend” a game to friends. I’ve been using it to review games in a three paragraph setting. I’ve written a lot of reviews, and I’m going to cross post a few to this blog.

The majority of the reviews contain sentence fragments, primarily because Steam limits how many characters you can have, so I most likely went back and just removed words without re-reading the sentence. So just ignore any spelling or grammar mistakes I’ve made. Very few posts were updated for the site.

Browse the Xbox 360 Marketplace from your PC

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away, Microsoft created a site called the Xbox Live Pipeline which allowed players to browse the Xbox Live Marketplace from your Computer. It was mainly just a way to look at pretty pictures, and not much else. The site closed in the beginning of 2007, and started redirecting to xbox.com.

Today, Microsoft announced the ability to browse the Xbox 360 Marketplace from your PC that will be implemented around the time the new dashboard releases (November 19th).

Players will be able to browse the Marketplace and queue content to be downloaded automatically the next time the Xbox is turned on.

Additionally, players can purchase content from the site. However, there was no mention if the site will accept additional online methods of payment (like Paypal), besides a credit card or Microsoft Points.

This move is a pretty cool move for Microsoft, though it is somewhat redundant. Beats browsing via the Xbox 360 sitting right in front of you….right?