Duke Nukem Forever by 2K Games

Recently I was lucky enough to take part in the Gearbox release of Duke Nukem Forever. I remember this being the first computer game that I played as a young 8 year old gal. My Dad’s best friend had it on his IMB/PC , and each time we paid him a visit I would beg for him to let me get my game on. This assembly of my body and his computer convened regularly till I was 11.

It was no surprise to me that a new Duke Nukem was coming out this year. I was excited, thrilled and quivered with anticipation at the fact I’d get to be holding my stick hailing to the “King???, once again, but in 3D!!

I agree with those who say that the palpability that DNF actually made it to my local game store is an attestation of the industry’s insistence. I’m all about games in 3D, assuming they’re done in the style I can enjoy. Well, after being at the release party, and playing this game before the general public I stopped quivering and started groaning with disappointment. Really, I won’t be dazed if this game is definitely remembered as one of the biggest let downs of this year if not years. Let me break it down with the whys:

Controls:
Anyone familiar with shooter games should have no concerns with getting right into the game. The basic button employments are alright in regard to running and jumping, but the aiming pissed me off more than ever. There’s an obnoxious lassitude with Duke’s aiming. I’m not braggin; but I do well with shooters, especially well and tend to be accurate. Using Duke’s crosshair aim is pretty pointless and anesthetized. I found this out in just the first few minutes of the game.

Gameplay:
The game seems to take place maybe a decade later with the aliens back to have their vengeance by pilfering Earth’s [presumably] hot women. It’s pretty ridiculous and this storyline lost my interest quickly with my want to push forward to the next level.

Speaking of pushing forward; instead of progressing on from one stage to another, the shooting segments are copiously separated and had me roaming around aimlessly trying to find the next clue. I hate that, it turned boring, fast!

Busy Gamer Gamette Taffeta Darling

Again I found myself forcing the momentum. There’s some subjection to awfully long loading times when Duke runs out of his “Ego??? [HP] during fighting sequences. Not to mention the hiding and waiting for those health points to power back up. I thought the fact that Duke has to run and hide to wait for his “Ego??? to boost up was pretty lame, not so fearless. Now, there are some interesting [not so much enjoyable] skirmishes, including the bout with the Alien Queen, which again, is pointless and tedious. However; it does lead to an awkward and unsettling lap dance. The rest I won’t spoil, I’ll let you pick out highlights for yourself, if you make it that far.

Art Design/Graphic Styling:
Obviously they’ve jolted the graphics up on this version, but it no way stands on common ground with the likes of modern day shooters. It preserves the visual aspect of first generation xBox titles. It reminded me of a motion comic that had little variation to the maps. Even the Titty City of Las Vegas failed in detail, most uninspiring.

The voice acting isn’t too bad. I mean, I met the guy who does the voice and I totally got into his shtick. He has good energy and passion for the role. But alas, the over the top one-lines are either lifeless or in bad taste.

Moving on to bad taste:
When Duke accidentally kills a woman, he makes a remark which I thought was inappropriate and somewhat tasteless. There is another stage when Duke stumbles upon two ladies and they beg for their lives. Instead of saving them, he gives them a stupid explicit filled pun and watched them explode. I’m no prude and can play hard with the rest of the ballers but there is a point at which my liberal mind says “Just stop, dude???.

It is my opinion, and it is only an opinion; that Duke Nukem Forever is for neophyte gamers looking for mindless play. After 15 years of anticipation, hype and months of facebook posting; this game finally dropped and I’m totally sorry that I picked it up.

Duke Nukem has become his own lampoon and I can’t imagine this “relic??? being good for any era.

The Taffeta Darling
www.curvesandcomics.blogspot.com
www.thetaffetadarling.com

Yeah, we fought one of these. They suck.

It’s possible you haven’t played Borderlands. If you haven’t, you’re missing out on one of the most addictive games ever. It’s also possible that even if you have played Borderlands that you aren’t aware of the latest of three DLCs for the game, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx. And it’s entirely possible that even if you are aware of the latest DLC that you aren’t aware that the DLC is currently available for the Xbox 360 version since it was launched without much fanfare.

Well, here’s the scoop… The Secret Armory of General Knoxx has landed on Xbox Live and is available for download and play. If you got bored with “Playthrough 2.5″, conquered Moxxi’s Underdome, and survived the undead horrors of Jakob’s Cove, you’re in for a treat with this one.

The Reckon Crew has been playing through this latest DLC and we have to say that we like what we see so far. Raising the level cap from 50 to 61, Gearbox and 2K Games is billing “Secret Armory” as the “largest DLC for Borderlands to date”. Weighing in at a hefty 1.6 GB, it’s certainly one of the largest DLCs to date, period.

Picking up where the main storyline left off, “Secret Armory” contains more of the outrageous humor, fantastic voice acting, and beautifully rendered graphics we’ve come to know and love in the Borderlands universe. It introduces more powerful weapons, the raised level cap, several new vehicles and some vast new areas to explore.

We ran into one of these as well. They suck, too.

From what the Reckon Crew has seen so far, there are also new beasties to fight. We’re not talking about old skins slapped on old models but entirely new critters and baddies who do their best to rip your virtual face off. And while some old enemies make new appearances, you’ll be well pleased with the amount of new content this DLC has to offer.

You can count on our review of the new content to be up and running as soon as we’ve had the time to more fully explore it but for now, we’re already giving it our thumbs up.

Gritskrieg – End of Line

The New Borderlands (3rd DLC installment) entitled ‘The Secret Armory of General Knox’ is en route to your download station this year. Gearbox states that this package is “bigger and better than the previous two installments” and is aimed at levelling and skilling out your level 20-50 pandora stomping toon. Gearbox is also promising a level cap rise, but have not yet indicated how high, and expects to deliver “brutal, never-before-seen enemies in a huge new environment complete with tons of brand new missions, entirely new weapons and items.???

Rumors are also floating around of a new ground vehicle to roll around in (see pic), and possibly even a new character to power up. Either way, the last episodes have well extended our fun at BusyGamer, and we are certain this one will too. Still no price or confirmed date, just some gnarly press screen shots.

Check out our BusyGamer review of Borderlands while your here.

Borderlands earns a Busy Gamer 3

First Glance:
Gun down some baddies in a futuristic wasteland, level up, gun down bigger baddies.

The Short Story:
Borderlands doesn’t try to do everything all at once. At its core, it’s an FPS with role-playing elements and it seamlessly combines those elements for a thoroughly enjoyable experience. You take missions and bounties as you wander the Borderlands as one of four classes. Level up as you shoot your way to your goals, making your character more powerful for the bigger fights. Team up with up to three other players to get the full experience.

The Score:
This game has quickly become a Reckon Crew favorite and even made it into our top five picks for 2009. Hardly a night goes by without a quick round of Borderlands being played. Cel shaded graphics bring the world of Pandora to light and some of the best voice acting in any video game to date helps to unfold the story of four adventurers who have come to this world to search for treasures beyond imagining. There’s a well told story here and it’s worth the time investment to see it to its ending. The multi-player feature of Borderlands allows for short play sessions and the controls are easy enough to learn and not forget after an absence from the game. Unfortunately, it is ultimately the length of the game and the necessity of some form of time commitment to see the game to its end that bring down the score. An utterly fantastic game, sadly Borderlands scores a Busy Gamer 3.

Body of review:
I’ve mentioned on occasion that there are games I shouldn’t be allowed to play due to their ability to make me lose track of time completely and utterly. Borderlands may very well be added to that short list of games in the very near future.

I had seen the commercials back when the game was released and I knew I was going to pick up a copy eventually. When I did, I was expecting the gorgeous cel shaded graphics and FPS controls. What I wasn’t expecting was how engrossed I would find myself with the game after only a few hours.

When beginning the game, you are offered the choice of four characters, the soldier, hunter, siren, and berserker. As we’ve come to see in games where you have to choose a class, each character has their strengths and weaknesses along with a unique special skill based on your choice. For example, the hunter, Mordecai, is primarily long ranged with the ability to summon his companion Bloodwing to help him fight for short periods of time while Brick, the berserker, is a terror in hand to hand combat and can, naturally, go berserk which allows him to heal rapidly and deal massive damage with his fists.

Our character finds themselves outside of a settlement called Fyrestone where we are brought up to speed on what our ultimate goal is and a brief tutorial which allows us the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with our character choice and then it’s straight into the action. The control scheme is easy to learn and the HUD provided is informative without being distracting. The inventory set up can be a bit daunting at first but once you’re familiar with it, you’ll breeze through it quickly enough.

As you progress through the beginning of the game, the tone is set quickly with the voice acting. Each character you interact with is voiced superbly and there is a humor to the conversations that is endearing. It quickly becomes obvious that the planet you are on is akin to the Wild West with the only law being one of might makes right… and most of the people who inhabit the backwater planet soon begin to contact you with tasks and bounties to complete as you make your way through the impressive landscape.

Where Borderlands truly excels is the multi-player experience. Setting up a game session is quick and easy and you can choose whether to allow just anyone to join or if you simply want to play with friends. The more people you have in the game (up to four) the more difficult your enemies become. At the same time, however, the more lucrative the rewards become.

The multiplayer is where Borderlands shines

The multi-player also allows for lower level characters to catch up relatively quickly to friends who may be higher level. While the lower level characters won’t be much help in the bigger fights, the experience awarded is substantial and may be the easiest way to help a friend get to the same point in the game as you.

Missions and bounties are typically fast paced though there are a few that have you wandering all over a map. Areas tend to scale to the level of your character so you don’t struggle when first entering a new map. The areas are self contained which means you can’t accidentally wander into another area without meaning to but the areas tend to repopulate fairly quickly so any place you take your time fighting into may mean you have to fight your way out again.

The weapons available in Borderlands are numerous and are pulled from “loot” tables in order to provide variance. The names of the weapons will typically indicate what traits they have while still managing to look and perform differently. There’s enough weapons to choose from that you will very rarely see the same weapon in a loot pile more than once, excluding unique weapons. And even with the unique weapons, there may be an elemental effect on yours that your friend’s doesn’t have.

Time constraints may become a factor as you start to enjoy the games. Typical multi-player sessions for the Reckon Crew often go longer than an hour as we help one another complete missions or just load up and go patrol an area and lay waste to some baddies. There’s a good sized world to be explored here and you may find one playthrough isn’t enough. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t play this game but you may want to postpone buying anything else for a while if you’re a typical Busy Gamer.

Gorgeous graphics, excellent voice acting and sound effects, beautiful scenery, and two DLCs since the launch of the game with a third on the way this month make Borderlands a solid addition to any gamer’s library, Busy or otherwise.

Gritskrieg – End of Line

Baseball FTW!

From 2K games comes a deal that you truly can’t refuse if you are a baseball fan! There have only been 18 perfect games pitched since baseball has been started to be played. The most recent was pitched last year by Mark Buehrle. 2K Sports Marketing Vice President, Jason Argent, wants to celebrate and highlight the first person who will achieve a perfect game in their new iteration of the popular sports game series. The game is due out March 2nd.

“You don’t see too many perfect games thrown in MLB 2K, but we’ve seen it happen. Our goal is to celebrate and highlight Major League Baseball 2K10’s superior pitching and hitting mechanics this season, while also giving one of our loyal fans the thrilling opportunity to be rewarded with a lot of money.???

There are a few rules that you need to follow to be able to collect the million dollars. First, you need to play the game in MLB Today Mode. Second, you have to record the whole game. The rest will go down in history with Twin Galaxies and the Guinness Book of World Records. Read below for the full set of rules.

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