Endless Bag of Games

The Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot DLC for Borderlands has been released a while ago, but since the fourth DLC is already in development, I decided to make a review for each DLC Borderlands already has. In short: Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot consist of three small 5 round tournaments and three large 20 round tournaments. Smaller tournaments take about 30 minutes each to complete while the bigger tournaments requires hours of gameplay.

The tournament structure is the same in all tournaments. It consist of 5 waves of enemies ending in the “Boss Wave” where you face one of the bosses from the main story of Borderlands with few sidekicks. Between each wave, there is a supply drop of health and ammo so you can prepare for the next wave and after the boss wave, you’ll receive some goodies from Moxxi in the middle of the arena. The items for me has been mostly useless during my first playthrough, but the items tend to be more better at the second playtrough. Moxxi also adds some flavor to the waves in the form of modifiers. These modifiers range widely and include bonuses such as stronger specific gun type or stronger and quicker enemies etc. While these modifiers make the waves more interesting, these waves still just shooting enemies and hoping for a good loot after the boss wave.

If you happen to die in the Underdome, you’ll go to the penalty box for the rest of the wave or until all of your team members are dead. The penalty box is at the top of the map and you can still shoot enemies, but your movement is restricted to the box. If all team members die, you are forced to start back one round earlier; you die in round 8 wave 3, you’ll start at round 7 wave 1. It’s a little time consuming, but the gameplay still continues.

There are benefits some benefits for compliting the tournaments. You receive a skill point if you pass all three smaller tournaments in the game so if you play two playthroughs, you’ll receive two skill points. The later tournaments only unlock some achievements and are way more challenging, but doable nevertheless. They just take time. The complaint here is: who has time to play about four hours straight without checkpoints of any sort? Especially since there is not much variety in the waves. One additional benefit of the Underdome is that you have a bank here to store your items. If you have lots of guns you’re fond of and don’t wish to sell them. Just deposit them to the bank.

The Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot is all about shooting enemies with small variety. It can be fun, I liked it in general, but the other DLC packages have missions and variety in the landscape if you’re looking for that kind of expansions of Borderlands. Still, it is a nice addition to the game if you like the FPS part of Borderlands.

I know that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to create a good game. That is why we tend to see games copying each other’s ideas resulting in a flop or a success. But when a game combines different game genress together, it is risky business, but sometimes the risk is worth it; such is the case with Gearbox’s Borderlands.

Following a story of four treasure hunters set in a wasteland called Pandora, Borderlands is a loot-driven first-person shooter with role-playing game hooks throughout the game. The game has different zones to roam in and the in-game mechanics include a working log where you can track your quest and side-quests easily. This and a mixture of leveling up, skill-trees and gazillion guns (loot) winds up in a experience that will captivate most of the players for hours. It offers a lot of different ways to eliminate everything that stands in your way. The main theme song summarizes it well: There ain’t no rest for the wicked.

If you’re enjoying the story elements of a roleplaying game, I have bad news for you. Borderland’s story is shallow since all the good bits are more or less focused on the action bits, rather than in the story development. Personally I like good story within a game, but playing a game such as Borderlands, you don’t waste tears on the story cause everything else seems to be superb. Borderlands is about action and action shall it be, with a mild addiction to the game of course. We could say that in the case of Borderlands, the story is satisfying enough.

A good action game requires both; a solid sound presentation and great visuals. Borderlands has both. The visuals of the game are very nice, the cel-shaded graphics work especially well supporting the wasteland atmosphere the game has and I bet you won’t be complaining when you punch someone’s head in to a pulp for the first time. The sound presentation is exactly what to expect. There is a good amount of dark humor in the game with all of the crude jokes and entertaining one-liners. So tell your wife to go and see her friends and pump up the volume and enjoy some Borderlands action.

Now that we have covered the story and the visuals, it is time to move to the nice stuff: The actual gameplay. The character creation is a simple process. You have four characters to choose, each with unique style. You have Roland (Soldier/Medic/All-around-style), Lilith (Magic&Weapons-style), Mordecai (Sniper/Hunter-style) and of course Brick (Brute/Explosions/Melee-style). Luckily however, it really doesn’t matter what kind of weapons you’re going to prefer since you gain experience also in guns according the amount you use them. So you can create this brute huge melee smasher Brick with excellent skills on sniper rifle, if you wish to. And when it comes to weapons, Borderlands provides endless amounts of random generated weapons which all differentiate from other. With more than 17,000,000+ weapon choices, I sure do believe that you need more than a few playthroughs to see the same gun.

There are many ways to enjoy Borderlands. You can just run through the game if you wish to with all of the action packed charm of the game or spend hours running the side-missions which are quite numerous. There are about 30 main missions and 130 side-missions to go through + you can refight the bosses again and again if you wish to. Numerous side-missions are a nice addition, since it allows players such as myself, to properly level up my character. The missions itself are somewhat simple; you either kill someone, activate something, find something or do a combination between those three. Still, these missions are enjoyable (sometimes little boring if you play alone), helping players to prolong the game, find some serious loot while scouring through the wastelands of Pandora.

While the game doesn’t have a good story, it covers it with the actual game play and that is: Action. You will find yourself numerous times in the middle of the action, even if you were planning to snipe out each monster you face because there are always few monsters who manage to get through even with sniper style of play. One option is to embrace the action and play as Brick hurling melee punches to colossal monsters and brutes of the wasteland. Each style has its advantages and disadvantages, but there really is no “golden way” to play the game. So don’t worry about which character you’re going to play or are some weapons better than others because you will do fine anyway. With the handy new-u stations, you can even redistribute your skill points if for some reason, you choose poorly. The game has been built so, that you can easily find your own style of playing the game.

The best way to play Borderlands is nevertheless, to go online. If your friend is thinking about buying a new game, buy Borderlands together and it surely does the trick. With each character having their own specialties, having support from different character helps a lot. The best thing in online co-op is, that even the “dull missions” turn out to be more interesting, since you have a lot more options and tougher enemies to face. Tougher enemies also provides better loot! Driving a car with your friend sitting in the gunner turret is a real pleasure. While many multiplayer games offer somewhat different amounts of experience points to each player, Borderlands divides the experience equally. If you get 300xp, your friend gets 300xp. If they find 50$ you find 50$. The only difference is the guns, but so far there has not been no arguments since by playing together, you survive better if both players have good equipment. The difficulty level is always determined from the level of the players and of course, the host of the game. While the online is well balanced you must remember, that joining a lvl 50 game with lvl 1 character is still going the get your ass beat. All in all, the multiplayer aspect of Borderlands is impressive and entertaining despite it has few bugs. Occasionally the voice of the other player dropped or the online mode just simply argued to start. With good amount of patches underway, these problems are a disappearing slowly.

Borderlands has positively surprised me, since I somewhat missed the game when it was released. Every game has it small faults, but as a summary; Borderlands is a rock-solid gunplay experience with good amount of rpg elements in the game. It is a blast and I find myself going back to Pandora surprisingly often, especially if my friends are around to help me out. Considering how fun I’ve had so far with this game, you will be seeing reviews about the DLC in the near future. What I would also like to see is a pen & paper version of the Borderlands setting.

Deathspank has been available few days now on Xbox Live and PSN and thus Endless Bag of Games has many hours already spent on the game. This satirical action RPG from the creator of Monkey Island and gives you quite a unique gaming experience with few laughs. Here is why:

Hero is always willing to do the bidding for the others. Our hero: Deathspank, is one those heroes. Deathspank’s goal is to find “The Artifact”, only known as “The Artifact” but finding it requires him to help others along the way. So there is plenty of stereotypical RPG tasks available from killing nasty monsters (like chickens) to leveling up and gaining better equipment to wreak more havoc.

First things to notice is DeathSpank’s unique visuals. The world and characters are three dimensional but the actual scenery is not. In addition, DeathSpank uses a lot of pastel colors so you will be seeing some wacky scenery with wacky monsters. The results are vibrant and whimsical. Personally, I liked what I saw.

Deathspank is not only hacking and slashing unicorns, but instead you might be surprised when you learn that the dialogue takes a big part of the spotlight. With this, I mean that there is some good humor in the game, just what to expect if you have played Monkey Island series. The dialogue menu works similarly to Monkey Island as you see a list of conversation options to choose from. I cannot deny the fact, that some of the dialogues are really hilarious.

In Monkey Island games, there are some tough puzzles to solve, but here the puzzle-centric quests are somewhat absent (allthough there are some) and side missions more or less fetching ingredients or items by slaying some monsters. In fact, even in the menu, these missions are named “Unimportant Things I Need to Do”. The main quests follow the same pattern so there isn’t so much of a depth that you might be looking for if you compare it to the Monkey Island games. The game however is not, and is not indented to be a comparison to Monkey Island, but instead it is a satirical roleplaying-hack’n’slash experience which does its job well.

Now to the actual hack ‘n slashing part. I usually get bored if I’m forced to use the same weapons for a long time or the combat system is too simple. In DeathSpank, the combat system is easy enough by different weapons assigned to the controller’s face buttons. This means that you can equip like four different swords at the time or a combination of crossbows, hammers and swords etc. Whatever suits you best and leaves the minions dead. As you brutally make your way through the levels, the Justice Meter fills up and you can unleash a more powerful special attack to wreak more havoc. With enough customization options and combinations there is pretty much to do and the battle stays interesting through the game. One more thing: There are quite massive repertoire of loot in form of weapons, armor and items to choose from and each of them have their specialties (and funny names). In fact, getting new weapons and armors becomes quite a thrill because of this.

All this can be shared with a friend and you can have your friend to join your game locally at any time as Sparkles the Wizard. Sparkles has few rechargeable spells to choose from (like healing, self-cloning and fire). However, you cannot deny the fact that Sparkles is a sidekick, in the co-op mode both characters share the same health bar and Sparkles actually isn’t customizable like Deathspank is so that might not appeal to everyone. There is no online possibility to play with a friend, but I wonder who would even bother to play online as a sidekick… *shrug. Two customizable heroes would have been too awesome, but we’ll have to cope with this for now.

All in all, if you enjoy some good loot, good humor and hacking things to a pulp, you might want to try DeathSpank. The game has its pros and cons, but it does offer you fun time adventuring and exploring with few bursts of laughter. Check out the trailer below.

Six years ago I finished Red Dead Revolver and thought that we should get more games like that. We’ve seen a few now, but now we can enjoy from the sequel Red Dead Redemption. While in this sequel, almost everything is different from the first title, it is still one hell of a game. Maybe all those delays in the production were worth it after all, since Rockstar San Diego now has managed to captivate the feeling of the Wild West.

Story revolves around John Marston who has arrived to the setting to track down a man and many questions are left unanswered. When Marston arrives, he eavesdrops fellow passenger’s conversations and thus you are provided with details and background of the setting. After that you’re off.

In the first few missions you’ll be racing horses, herding cattle and roping wild stallions. You also have opportunity to throw horseshoes, play poker etc. just like in the wild west. These opportunities really enrichens the world around you and you really can get more into the character of John Marston. Once you can get a taste of vast and open landscapes, the game truly begins.

The visuals are stunning, the land is open and barron. The landscape would be boring to look at, but the game randomly drops events that can commence throughout the game. From duels to outlaws and farmers harrassed by wolves. It keeps you well entertained even if you are bored to continue the storyline all the time. You’ll be seeing damsels in distress, tracking bounties and even putting tied people to the train track, if you wish, I mean. There is a whole pack of variety included so the game almost screams “explore me”. I’ve already spent many nights in the wilderness, skinning animals and sleeping under the stars.

Then you have the multiplayer opportunity. RDR includes what you could expect; all-out and team deathmatches have been covered. They take places at various locations from the game. You can also capture the flag (or more precisely, the bag of gold) from the opponent’s base. Since the horses are available, it brings a nice addition to any of the matches. One nice addition is the free roam mode, where you can work in posses with other players. There are various missions to take from mowing down rival gangs, hunting beas etc.

Despite few small bugs ingame, the Red Dead Redemption is a success. Taking time to wander in the wilderness rarely has been so much fun. This way the game is not about jumping from mission to another, but instead a more deeper and solid experience alltogether. Red Dead Redemption offers a good solid amount of opportunities to explore. Endless Bag of Games recommends!

Mario Kart has held the throne for Kart racing games for a long while now and many attempts has been made to usurp Mario Kart from its throne. Few months ago, Endless Bag of Games gave a review to a decent attempt: Sonic & SEGA All-Stars racing, but the game shared some minor mishaps since the online feeling was not quite there (tournaments and cups missing from online). Modnation Racers however is a different story, the game shares not only excellent gameplay and online play, but also “Play, Create, Share” mantra, the same first outlined by platformer LittleBigPlanet which made it a hit.

The use of UGC (User Generated Content) is a feature which is becoming more common among the game developers and I cannot blame them. UGC allows flexibility and freedom to interact with the game thus multiplaying the game’s lifespan. Few million levels in LittleBigPlanet made by gamers is a good example of this. Modnation Racers is a title, which will do the same to racing kart genre as LittleBigPlanet did to platform genre. Modnation Racers thus could be called LBP on wheels and the potential is substantial.

Once you have unfolded the game and put it in your PS3 you find yourself in a kart driving through the track for your first MDR experience. The game teaches controls and all the necessary elements which help you to overcome what is yet to come. Once animation sequesences ends, you find youself in the menu, which is you sitting in the cart at Modspot and around you, you’ll be seeing other racers at the same spot. To selecting what you want to do, you drive to different stations and press square for options. There is also possibility to quickly “skip” the driving and press select to bring up the quick menu. So of you go to create your Mod, Kart or Track.

A substantial part of the MDR’s appeal comes from the character and kart customization. There are various ways how characters can be customised via different materials, colors and accessories. The combinations are virtually endless and the ability to download Mods made by others and rate them is fantastic. I’ve already downloaded a dozens of funny Mods including Mario, Spiderman the Monopoly guy and even Kermit, all exceptionally well made. The same goes for actual Karts and Tracks. The tools available to you here are very easy to use and you can always test your creations any time.

The customization enablers of the game really make the hours around the game worth your time.

There is a good amount of game modes available for you to choose from; online, split-screen (2-4 players), quick-play and single player career modes. The campaign mode is hard enough giving you some challenge to play the career mode. It also unlocks various parts and equipment to be used with the mods, karts and tracks. The racing itself is great even against AI opponents and the gameplay is good and similar or even better than in Nintendo’s finest. There are boost pads, power-ups and weapons to pick-up and unleash against your opponents.

Modnation Racers truly is a an online-game and you find enjoyment racing other racers online racing officiall or custom-made tracks. The only thing that I’ve found lacking in the online experience is the ability to have a cup in casual mode. Everything else is superb, if the connections are good that is.

Modnation has really been a Modtastic! experience being most enjoyable kart game that we’ve seen for a while. The more we play, the more we want to play since the gaming experience seems to become richer every time. Sonic and SEGA All-stars racing was a good attempt to usurp Mario Kart from its throne, but I really have to say that Modnation Racers was more than a simple attempt. Buy this game and try it out yourself.

It is time gouge out some eyes and diesebowel some mythic beasts when Kratos returns in the final instalment in the God of War (GOW) series. So now Kratos has returned and he is more brutal than ever before and buckets of blood are spilling once again. In fact, the brutal and gory graphics are occasionally on the verge of bad taste so it is almost disturbing… almost, but since it is done so well over-the-top that you cannot help but laugh. Plus, it is available in HD!

GOW is (Playstation only) single player hack and slash action adventure game for adults. The Mature rating is earned almost immediately when the game begins. The game takes place in ancient Greek mythology and the story follows Kratos and his tale of vengeange against the gods. In the hands of Sony’s Santa Monica studios it turns to GOW 3 which equals Brutality, puzzles, awesome finishers and epic boss battles. Plot is a lot simple and very straightforward which works well with these kinds of games.

When the game begins the visual scale hits the player to the face by its excellency. GOW is a visual parade starting from the beginning lasting until the end. As the gameplay is, the animations are equally amazing and I’m not only talking about animating the fantasy creatures, but the full animation of human being has also been breathtaking; male and female both. Each level is expertly designed and cut-scenes unfold very smoothly and there virtually are no loading times.

While the visuals are top notch, the presentation isn’t without its problems since the GOW3 shares the same problem that the previous two did. The camera sometimes gets bit lost, and there were times that left me somewhat puzzled because of the camera-angle. In overall it was not a big problem since GOW actually uses the camera to reveal Kratos’ path and enhances the gaming experience.

The combat is fast, furious, bloody and in short: excellent! Grappling system works like a charm for latching to enemies and recovering from knocks and closing the gap for combos. And sometimes it’s just fun to use opponents as battering rams! The ability to manipulate enemies brings enjoyment to the battle. And yes, like in the previous God of War games, Kratos has weapons to choose from to wreak havoc. This time he has double-chained Blades of Exchile, Claws of Hades, Nemesis Whip and gauntles of Nemean Cestus which are collected during the game play. Each weapons has their own perks and strengths and provide a somewhat different style of play which is great since it gives the player quite amount of variety to hack and slash foes. In addition there are various other collectibles during the game. These collectables include ‘Gorgon Eyes’, ‘Phoenix Features’ and ‘Minotaur Horns’. Collecting three of the same item either increases a player’s health, magic or special item meter.

This has been a short review, but games such as Gof of War 3 doesn’t need a long one. Every moment in the game (Sony sunk almost 44$ million to the development) counts. The series has never looked so good, the game play is polished to deliver a most enjoyable experience and the trilogy has received a worthy ending. In overall, the game is a sum of many factors and for the fans of action/adventure genre, this game is a must. Newcomers will also find plenty to enjoy from and have hands full with many memorable moments of awe and extras to unlock.