Welcome, welcome, and welcome to another outstanding edition to the Gaming Update blog series..... thing, where I ramble on and on about video games to the 3 or 4 people that actually read my blogs! Yes, it is Friday night, and yes, I did say last time that I would post up my blogs on Sunday instead of the original schedule of Monday. Well, I changed my mind once again and I have decided to post my blogs sometime during the weekend. Well, today isn't technically the week end really. I just felt like writing something. I tend to contradict myself a lot, as you've probably noticed.
What I've Been Playing
Surprising, I didn't play Halo 3 this week. Well, I tried to play Halo 3 this week, but the lag was so astoundingly bad that I just couldn't do it. So instead, I played an insanely large amount of Left 4 Dead throughout the week. I managed to break the 30,000 kills mark, which means I only need over 20,000 left for that achievement. I'm also pretty close to getting The Littlest Genocide achievement, which requires you to kill over 5,000 zombies in the Crash Course campaign. So it's safe to say my week was full of 'peelz.'
What I Want To Play
We're getting closer to BORDERLANDS!!!!!! I remain excited for this game, as I have been for quite a while now. Oh, and it WENT GOLD. MEANING IT'S FINISHED. I guess? Modern Warfare 2 also looks great, and I can't wait to play that on November 11th. Joining those two is Final Fantasy XIII, which looks cool. I've also added another game to my current wish list, and that game is Left 4 Dead 2. I think I got extremely interested in it all of a sudden due to my sudden addicted to Left 4 Dead. I looked up some gameplay videos on YouTube, and it's looking great. I don't see why the boycotters are complaining. The new weapons are awesome (I cannot wait to use the SCAR), the new Infected look vicious, and the maps are interesting and finally contain some color. I am a bit concerned about the new characters, however. From what I've seen, they don't seem to have as much charm as the first set did. Oh, and Rochelle's voice is obnoxious. When she gets downed and is being mauled, she literally SCREAMS at the top of her lungs. I can see myself leaving her behind when she gets downed, because I don't want to have to deal with my ears spewing blood. That would be..... nasty.
Threads You Should Check Out
I feel obligated to post this thread, created by TJSmash, because it's about Borderlands.
TwoOneFive posted a thread regarding NASA's bombing run on the moon. Discuss it here.
Raynate2022 created a thread containing about 20 minutes of Modern Warfare 2 related informer and footage. Bask in it's greatness here.
That's really all there is worth checking out. Come on guys, make something interesting!
Recent News
NASA officially endorses Giant Bomb by performing their own bombing run on the moon
Them Crooked Vultures album (possibly?) coming October 23. Titled "Never Deserved The Future"
New Modern Warfare 2 trailer released
Borderlands is FINISHED
Song Of The Week
I've decided to post in my blogs what I feel is the song of the week. Meaning, the song I listened to the most. Here's this week's song:
"In My Head" by Queens Of The Stone Age
Site Shenanigans
I would like to thank the staff for fixing the bugs that were plaguing Giant Bomb for a while. Specifically, the time traveling post bug, as well as a few others. I've been a bit behind on the Point Lookout section of the Fallout 3 Megaguide. To be frank, Left 4 Dead has taken up most of my time. I'll try to get on that sometime this weekend. I've also neglected my Batman: Arkham Asylum review, which I'm starting to lose momentum in finishing.... I'll make it a goal of mine to get that up by the end of this weekend.
Wow, that was a surprisingly short blog. If anything else worth mentioning happens this week, I'll be sure to update it. Anyway, hope everyone had a good week.
It's the cruelest joke to play I'm so high, i run in place Only a line, we separate, so
I keep on playin our favorite song I turn it up while you're gone It's all i got when you're in my head and you're in my head so i need it
You're the only thing i've got that i can't seem to get enough We collide for one embrace, so
I keep on playin our favorite song I turn it up while you're gone It's all i got when you're in my head and you're in my head so i need it Hurry up & wait forever Hurry up & wait for forever 7 Comments
Well, another week has passed, and I would like to welcome every to October! Yay....? If you haven't noticed already, I've decided to start putting up these blogs on Sunday rather than Monday. It's a bit more convenient for me to do so, because I can focus on schoolwork the following day instead of writing about video games.
What I've Been Playing
My new favorite vehicle Something extraordinary happened the last few days. I played Halo 3, and enjoyed it. I'm sure most of you know me as a chronic Halo-hater. Yes, believe it or not, but I actually like Halo 3. It's when I get angry at it that I start badmouthing it. I mostly played around in Team Slayer, but crunchUK recently suggested that I play Big Team. I did so, and I have to say that it is so much better than regular Team Slayer. Much more action, vehicles everywhere, and the maps are huge and fun to play on. And, holy crap, a short while ago I was playing Big Team Slayer on Avalanche, and I went 36-0. I stayed in the Tank the whole match, and ended up with a plethora of medals and a Perfection. Awesome.
I also played a LOT of Left 4 Dead. I downloaded Crash Course, which is, well, kinda meh. You can check out my review here. I'm still about 20,000 kills or so from the Zombie Genocidest achievement, so if anyone here has been playing L4D recently, hit me up so we can kill together.
A few days ago I downloaded Runes Of Magic, which is a free role playing game from Frogster Interactive Pictures. I was itching to play a good RPG, and wanted to play something that was free and not craptacular like Runescape. (On a side note, the wiki for Runescape on this site is absurdly detailed). Many people have said that Runes Of Magic is basically a World Of Warcraft clone, except it's free. I've never actually played WoW, so I can't confirm whether or not that statement is valid. But hey, it's a free game, and it's pretty fun. I was a bit overwhelmed at the start. They basically drop you into this town, and nearly every person you talk to will give you a quest. It's crazy.
What I Want To Play
BORDERLANDS COMES OUT THIS MONTH It's October, which means BORDERLANDS COMES OUT THIS MONTH! WOO! I cannot wait to get my hands on that game. Modern Warfare 2 continues to hold my interest, and that comes out in November. I'm also excited for Final Fantasy, despite the fact that I've never played a single game from that franchise. I think the Endurance Run kinda got me hooked onto JRPGs. We'll see.
Threads You Should Check Out
Al3xand3r recently posted an interesting thread about Jack Thompson suing Facebook for a large sum of cash. You can find it here.
Hamz constructed a lovely thread for new users to check out here.
Bwast threw up a thread asking you to nominate the Giant Bombcast for the 2009 Podcast Awards. Vote now!
I posted a thread near the beginning of the week about Obama's plan to lengthen the American school year. Is it a good decision? Discuss it here.
Site Shenanigans
I'm not sure what's up, but things have been weird here on Giant Bomb. First of all, there are bugs everywhere that have yet to be fixed. I'm not putting blame on the staff or anyone here, but it is a bit crazy how we've had to deal with time traveling demons making our posts appear before others for a week now. I've also noticed an increase in the amount of questionable threads that deserve to be locked, but took forever to reach that fate. Again, not blaming anyone here, but there never seems to be enough mods online to deal with everything that occurs. I suppose one could argue that the community is partially to blame for idiotic threads remaining on the site, because we constantly bump them. But hey, you can't stop people from posting in a thread.
I also forgot about the Batman: Arkham Asylum review I was writing. I'll have to get back on that.
And that concludes this weeks Gaming Update. I hope everyone had a good week, and I'll see you next Sunday.
Greetings fellow Bombers. 'Tis that time again for yet another gaming update. Not a whole lot has happened in the past week, which doesn't come as much of a surprise. I've decided to give my blogs some sort of format, as you'll notice below. Nothing to fancy, but a better way to organize things.
What I've Been Playing
Self-Explanatory On the gaming front, I managed to complete Batman: Arkham Asylum, which I rented about a week ago. Overall I thought the game was a lot of fun, and I'm currently working on a review as we speak that should be up sometime tomorrow (maybe?). I would highly recommend it to just about anyone who likes action games. The atmosphere is very deep, and you can't help but get sucked in to the environment. The game uses free flowing combat, and it's a lot of fun bouncing back and forth between thugs as you punch them in the face and knee them in the groin. Visually, the game looks great, and the voice acting is phenomenal. You can check out the review later for my full opinion on the title.
I also got a chance to dive back into Call Of Duty 4's multiplayer, which continues to be awesome. I started playing it again in preparation for the bombing run that was hosted by Sweep on Saturday. I destroyed everyone, as expected. I'm only 2 levels away from hitting 10th prestige, level 55. Looking back at my forum posts, I saw that my first ever post on Giant Bomb was stating what level I was at. I believe it was somewhere in the middle of third prestige. Just a fun fact.
What else..... I downloaded the new Red Faction: Guerilla maps a few days ago. Since then, I have not touched that game. I'm starting to wonder if those 560 points went to waste. The maps seem alright, but the new game mode I thought is not good. At all. And, imagine that, the new maps can only be played in that game mode as of the time of this writing. I'm seriously doubting whether or not I'll reach 100,000 XP. I'm only in the 14,000 range-ish.
What I Want To Play
Self-Explanatory I continue to be hyped for Borderlands, as I have been for the past few weeks or so. Jeff recently posted an article containing multiple gameplay videos, which made my day. The only thing I'm concerned about is how loot will be handled in that game. I'm not to crazy about the idea of "Who get's it get's it" and the fact that the only way to trade with others players is to drop your crap on the ground and hope to god they don't pull off a classic MMORPG style scam. Hopefully some of the people on my friends list get the game so I can play with people I can (somewhat) trust.
When I heard about some of the recent changes in Modern Warfare 2, I was enraged. Triple health after dying three times in a row!? Are you insane!? This game is going to suck!!! Well, I'm down with that now. The game looks awesome, and I can't wait to get it. I'm sure Infinity Ward will make it right so it doesn't completely break everything. They have yet to make a bad game, so I have faith in them.
I think that wraps up this week's blog. The purpose of the redesign is to not only make it look pretty, but it also makes it much easier for me because I'm not sitting here thinking "What should I say next?" So, 'tis all I have for this week.
Now I'm starting to realize how difficult it can be to keep up a consistent user blog. As some of you may or may not have noticed, I disappeared for yet another week or so. The reason being is that my mom's laptop, which I had been using due to mine being killed by a virus, finally met the same fate. This is terribly ironic, as my mom is always telling me to not download stuff because I'll get a virus and that all Giant Bomb is somehow destroying my computer. Our neighbor took her laptop to get it fixed, and we finally got it back. The cool thing is that one of the tech dudes or whatever for the Senate fixed it. We're sending mine in to get fixed next. Eat Boot Anyway, I'm trying to remember all of the things that happened during the time that I was gone. Probably the biggest thing was that after 2 weeks of school (because I'm incredibly spoiled) we went to Gamestop to spend 60 bones. I got 4000 Microsoft Points, respectfully pushing away Giant Bomb's recommendation of Batman: Arkham Asylum. With it I downloaded Shadow Complex and Mass Effect. The former I've been wanting to play since I watched the demo at E3. The latter of which I hadn't played in a year due to the fact that I had borrowed it from a friend. Both games are great, as I had expected. I never thought that I would play a game like Shadow Complex. I didn't think 2D (or in this case, 2.5D) games would interest me, but this game did , and it rocks. The story is kinda meh, and after about 30 minutes of playing I completely forgot about it. I beat it in just under 7 hours I believe. I started a second playthrough to try and collect 100% of the items, but after spending 3 and a half hours getting 50% of them, I totally screwed myself by doing the quick ending where you abandon Claire. Now I must start that all over again..... I still have 2000 points left, and I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new Red Faction: Geurilla maps coming out Thursday. That release day is great, because I don't have school Friday. I'll have three days to play them. Sweet.
Hey, I know what that is! Mass Effect is still a great game. Back in '08 when I had it, I got to level 54 with my first character, a Soldier, and beat the game. I then started another quick playthrough where I played as a Renegade. Now, I'm on my third character, a Vanguard, and I'm trying to complete the majority o f the game and reach level 60, although I'll probably have to start a New Game+ or whatever in order to do the latter. Right now I have quite a lot of side quests completed, and my next main mission is Virmire. I know that after that mission, I get grounded on the Citadel, so it's been difficult trying to find every quest and beat it before heading there. I actually screwed up pretty bad on Feros. After the colonists turn against you, I ended up killing 2 or 3 of them because I ran out of Thorian grenades. It just so happens that the 2 or 3 that I killed were quest givers, which means I am unable to complete some of them. Lame. Anyway, I really love the whole atmosphere of that game. Everything about it is just......splendid.
Yesterday, we were at Gamestop once more returning Ace Combat 6, which my dad had randomly bought a few days prior. Because it was used, we got a full refund, and I ended up buying Crackdown for $17. This was another game that I had borrowed from the same friend and hadn't played in a year. I managed to beat it in a hour due to me being so close to the end. I've decided that sometime during this week I'm going to trade that back in and get Batman: Arkham Asylum. I can't wait, because that game looks like the sex, yo.
What else..... I've been incredibly lazy the past few weeks or so. Catching up on Giant Bomb can take some time, you know? On Saturday, I took the time to type up a quick review of the film Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage. You can find it here. Wanna know something mind blowing? I think he's a pretty good actor. Besides that, I've made very slow progress on my Left 4 Dead Versus Guide, which I suppose I can announce publicly that I'm making one. It's been in the making for probably 2 months now. I've been slowly putting stuff into it, and it's actually looking pretty good so far. I'm surprised I haven't deleted it.
Surprisingly, that's all I can think to write at this time. Weird, because I've been gone for over a week and then some. Oh well.
EDIT: Oh, and I laughed myself to sleep last night listening to Marshyd13 harass people on Xbox LIVE. Fantastic.
As you may or may not have noticed, I did not blog last Monday simply because nothing interesting happened. I played some games....and that was pretty much it. A few things of note happened since my last.
90 degree weather + humidity = uncomfortable Baltimore in all it's glory Last Friday (the Friday before the 21st) my sister and her 8 year old son Andrew (my nephew) came up from Maine to Maryland to visit us for over a week. We had a lot of fun and did many things together. On August 19th we went to the national aquarium in Baltimore. The worst part of this trip was that we had to wait outside in the 90 degree weather for probably 10-15 minutes before we were allowed in. That wasn't fun. The actual aquarium was pretty cool though, and we saw many different types of fish, rays, sharks, jellyfish, etc. We also went to the dolphin show which was a lot more educational than I would have liked it to be, but it was pretty neat watching the dolphins jump through the air to hit a ball hanging off the ceiling and do different stunts. Afterwords, we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe, which is a pretty good restaurant. I'd eat there again.
I have yet to upload pictures onto the computer, so here's a photo courtesy of Giant Bomb Yesterday, we did something I've always wanted to do: Go to Washington D.C. I figured that I would know my way around pretty well having spent 150+ hours in Fallout 3. The first thing we did upon arriving was visit the national zoo. It was alright, I suppose. Let me tell you one thing: D.C. is hot. And walking around a zoo in the open heat with animals and feces everywhere isn't the most enjoyable thing ever, but the animals we saw were pretty neat. They even had a spider exhibit that was literally open, and because I'm pretty afraid of spiders you can only imagine how appealing an open spider exhibit was. After sweating all of the liquids out of our bodies at the zoo, we finally went into the heart of DC and visited some museums. We went to the National Museum of American History and some other museum with dinosaurs and fossils. Unfortunately, these were only mildly interesting to me. The National Archives interested me the most. We took a look at ancient and historical documents, from the Articles of Confederation to several World War II era documents to a 22 size shoe from Shaq (signed by him) to the granddaddies of them all, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The writing was so faded on the original documents that it was ineligible, but being able to see something so old and so important to the United States of America, and being able see John Hancock's actual signature (what was left of it) amongst others was very, very cool. Andrew, who's eight, failed to realize the importance of such things and whined the whole time about his feet hurting and begged us to take him home. After that, we stopped by the gift shop featured in National Treasure (where Nicholas Cage quickly runs in and buys a replica of the Declaration). I wish we could have gone to some more places, but because we were so tired from the day we ate at the Red Robin and went home.
Today, I officially started High School. Yay.... I guess? The day went well.
Surprisingly, I spent very little time playing video games since my last update. I've spent most of my free time either swimming in our pool or watching the Endurance Run (I'm on Episode 51 now). If you didn't catch my thread, I get to pick up any game I want after 2 weeks of school regardless of price. I'm leaning towards getting 4000 Microsoft so I can pick up Shadow Complex and Mass Effect through Games on Demand.
Well, I think that's all I have to say for now. I'll try to get to playing some more games so I have something to talk about that's actually game related next time. I'll leave you with this:
So today I came to the realization that the game I am most excited for is not in fact Modern Warfare 2. It's actually Borderlands, the upcoming shooter/RPG (or RPS as the developer says) from Gearbox Software. I was so excited for Modern Warfare 2 that we went out and pre-ordered it and got the sweet poster which is hanging in my room. (Yes, we pre-ordered from Gamestop. Sue me). Last night I was watching some gameplay footage of Borderlands and dude......this game....
Let's say we take a look at the things that have turned me on to this game.
New Art Style
New art style indeedI remember my reaction when I heard about the change in art style. I was all, "Wow, how stupid is that!?" This is ironic, because I wasn't even interested in the game at the time. Even more ironically is the fact that the new art style is what got me watching the game a short while ago. It just seems so.....sharp. In a good way, mind you. I'm loving the cel-shady feel to it, and it really gives the game a unique feel and a nice change from the other shooters/RPGs out there.
Over Half A Million Guns
The concept of over half a million guns in a game is just mindblowing. Gearbox has created a program that actually creates weapons for them based on different factors. It will be incredibly exciting to go through the game 2-3 times and find new weapons over and over again. Even in the E3 2008 demo, Randy Pitchford was finding new weapons as they played. The idea of playing through the game and always wondering what this gun will do and that gun will do is something that is really appealing to me.
Loot! Loot! And More Loot!
I wonder what I'll find today?This game looks to have a very complex and compelling loot system in place. It was awesome watching enemies die and seeing all of their items fall on the ground, just waiting to be taken and used. I've always loved some form of loot in video games. One of my favorite parts of those games is searching the bodies of those I've slain and seeing what they were carrying and deciding whether or not it will be useful for me in the future. The loot also ties in with the half a million guns concept. In the E3 2008 demo, we were shown some sort of chest being opened by the player. Inside were a bunch of guns that the player could swap or instantly equip, as well as other items. Sweet.
Experience
I love leveling up in games. One of the most satisfying things in a game is gaining enough experience points to reach the next level, often times unlocking new abilities and weapons. This is what kept me coming back to Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and all the way up to 10th Prestige. I love getting experience. Borderlands seems to have a pretty neat experience system. Not only can you level up your character, but you can also gain experience for certain weapons. If I use the shotguns a lot, I'll level up my shotgun skill and will be more efficient in using them. Because there are so many guns, that part is really cool.
Cooperative Gameplay
Turn left! I mean right! No, left! LEFT!One of the things I'm most excited about in this game is being able to hop online and play with other people without having to manage two different characters. The game looks awesome enough when playing without other players, but I really like the way Gearbox is handling it. If I'm playing the single player and I come across an awesome weapon I want to show to my friends (or just show it off to random players), I can hop online and do so without loosing anything I gained from the single player. The same goes for multiplayer too. If I'm playing with a high level player and he takes me and some others through a dangerous mine and I get some outstanding weapons, I can switch back to single player and use those in that game. That's just awesome.
Pandora Is Huge
At least, that's what we've been told so far. If it's true, this game has the potential to hold people over for months. I really hope Borderlands is an open world game (can anyone confirm or deny this?) because I would love searching through mines and other settlements in search of different weapons and other items. Plus, it would just be fun to do.
It's Randy Pitchford
Dude, it's Randy PitchfordRandy Pitchford is one of my favorite dudes in the video game industry. I love his style and how passionate he is about his games. Anyone else notice how he has this grin on his face when talking about one of his upcoming titles? Lulz.
Well, those are my reasons why Borderlands has become my most anticipated title of this year, and why it has basically taken my interest away from Modern Warfare 2. Granted, I'll still get MW2, but I have a good feeling that Borderlands will be my game of the year.
26 Comments
So this weekend, we actually went somewhere! In case you didn't know, my family hardly goes anywhere, so this summer so far has been kinda dull. Thankfully, we actually did something Sunday.
We drove down to Virginia to go to the Luray Caverns. It's a large commercial cave that was discovered in 1878 that goes way underground and is filled with different cave formations (stalagmites, stalactites, mirrored pools, etc). It was simply awesome. It took us about an hour to get through the whole thing, and it was really cool seeing all of the different aspects of its interior. I've uploaded some photos below. I took a crazy amount of pictures while we were there, but most of them were pretty generic, and Giant Bomb's image editor is pretty hard to work with.
Besides that, I played some games. I got back into Oblivion, and I'm almost at an S rank for that game. Just finishing up the Thieves Guild, which is a pain. Also, I downloaded the Batman: Arkham Asylum demo, convinced I would hate it, and I was shocked to see how fun the game was. Combat was satisfying, the controls were easy, and the visuals were impressive. Voice acting was a little awkward, but other than that I was really surprised by the quality of the game so far. I'm considering picking it up later this month when it comes out. Finally, I spent 800 points on Map Pack 3 for World At War. The new multiplayer maps are terrible, but the Zombie map, Der Riese, is a lot of fun.
EDIT: Got featured review!
Pictures Of Luray Caverns:
There were many opportunities to impale your skull on the ceiling The lower half of this image is water This thing was really tall My dad and I One of the 50+ pictures I took 17 Comments
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