Border your Land Twice. It's good for Business.

 <--- [Now, while your Ranch-hands gripe about putting up a redundant fence around your property. Let's grab the bull by the horns and dive straight to the meat of the matter. The, subliminally implied "Real" title of the post]





Borderlands 2. [Ah, but wait! I told you I'd get back to this... and you thought I lied. >.> Well now everyone can watch as I proudly wear my |NOT BURNING| pants around town.] This is the great coming that GearBox studios [Based in Texas! Yee-haw!] Boasted about.  Creative Director Mike Neumann had this to say on the matter. "Borderlands 2 seems like a no-brainer to me."

And a No-Brainer it was... despite the abundant use of said brains for the actual creation. Borderlands 2 Cometh; riding on the back of a thousand stampeding CL4P-TR4Ps who are a Dance'n.

What you'll get is a once again glorious "Loot" hunt'n, Gang pop'n, Explosion-Appaloosa that you enjoyed the first time around. "Borderlands 2 - NOW WITH MORE EXPLOSIONS!"
You're going to get to see a whole new side of Pandora in this up and coming rock'em sock'em title.
The first time through, you got a quick look at four possible Players. Each bringing to the table their own unique skills and abilities.

You had the Soldier who was qualified and proficient at shooting every firearm with a marksmen like quality. That and he was more than happy to shoot whatever was classified as a gun. Next you had a Sniper with the cold blooded tenacity to grease a flea off a space-camels arse at 500yrds. [Dat be skill holmes!] Then you had the lady of the bunch. a "Siren" as she was called. A stealthy minx with the attitude and claws to rip you to shreds, while invisible. [Not to shabby with an SMG either] Finally you and a Berzerker... and there's really only one was to show you what "Brick" brought to the table.

 

[So.... Yeah. OK, we'll move on while Brick get's a glass of water.]

Borderlands had a great cast of potential choices, but other than clothes and their unique powers and abilities. That's almost all you got. Except for Brick, you could tell he was insane. [How could you not?] 

<----[ It's the Awesome kind of insane. ]

So, other than screaming, the voice actors were set up to record a repertoire of randomly generated One-Liners that gave you just the briefest glimpse into the characters you inhabited.
Borderlands 2 is making a push for Story, and character Depth. They also want you to get a look at the four "Vault-Hunter" Hero's. So in Game 2; You're sporting the New-Hotness of four new "Hero's". While the original cast of playable characters slip into a supporting cast roll that will allow for massive character development. [Don't worry, you'll get to see them often. They play a big part.]

Right now GearBox is only promoting their Cover-Art Poster Boy known as Salvador. He's the beef-cake of the Dwarf world and somebody you don't wanna cross in a dark ally. ['Cause for a Dwarf, he's kinda huge! Especially in the muscle department.]

[Go ahead, call him short... No that's OK. I'll wait.]
--->


Salvador is a "Gunzerker" [I know, I like that class too] A Gunzerker, when his ability is activated can dual-wield any weapon. ANY weapon. So lets say you have two rocket launcher. Why not use them at the same time?! [Well now you can] Say you're out kill'n Gang members or combat Mechs and you're feeling fashionable. You may wish to make a statement to the bullet sponges you're about to soak with lead, not with clothes but with pain, Then you can mix and mach your load out. So you could got for the Shotgun, Uzi combo. Maybe the Assault-Rifle Sniper mix. You're choice, it's just a lot of shoot'n.

One of the greatest features of the first game was the ass-load of guns. I mean it. There were roughly a million variations of firearms in this single title. [Amazing.. I know.] Game two is boasting a whole new set of sparklie toys for you to explode/shoot/burn/melt/freeze/and shock crap with. Each weapon with a unique quality and each manufacture has it's only theme. You'll know who made it and just how powerful it is by just looking at it. Instead of reading through the clutter on the P.I.P. or in the Pause Menu. You know a gun is good by the crisp clean lines, and maybe even gold plating's, while the rundown, weaker firearms will be, bent, bruised, burnt and scratched.

Pandora also got a makeover. Instead of that gigantic desert you spent almost the whole game in. You're going to get a wealth of environments to play in from grassy fields to the frozen tundra and everything in between.

New monsters, new bad guys, new robots to smash. It's look'n good.
Borderlands 2 is also focusing a lot more on story. In the first game NPC's (None-Playable Characters) mulled about like lobotomized, human mission dispensers . The people of Pandora have lives, they move about their day-to-day business and react to your actions. They'll even offer some conversation now.

One of the notable drawbacks for most people was that many missions were "Fetch Quests." Get this, get that. Kill him, bring me a piece back. [One Eye Jack's one eye looks so could. I just gotta have it!] This is why I demanded payment upfront. These people be crazy!
Now with a more story rich environment, you'll get more variety and you'll get mission that shift and alter based on your action; sometimes it'll even change depending on how efficient you are.

All'n all, this is looking to be the best possible next step in the franchise. I'm excited. If you'd like a wealth of more in depth information on Borderlands 2, you can check out the awesome guys at Joystiq, Game-Informer, or any other popular Gaming website you enjoy visiting. You could even go Borderlands 2 Official Site .

Later!
-Fox

Kinect to Steel Battalion for Full Enjoyment.

<----[ Some of you may remember a game called "Steel Battalion." Well this isn't it, you would know this by realizing "Heavy Armor" was written at the bottom]







Steel Battalion. Now there's a title that saw explosive populatirty the moment  they dromped the bombshell that was it's title. [C'mon, admit it. It's got a ring to it] But what hooked people was what the game was all about. It's a "Mech" Simulator. You may also remember the ridiculous controller for the game.

             [Ridiculous Controller] ---------->

Even though the controller was huge, and had a ton of buttons. It wasn't really that complicated.
It just looked complicated. What kept you from it was the price. Sucker set you back a C-Note.






See, Steel Battalion was shooting for the undone. They were building a simulator for Mech warfare unlike any before them. So. First off, they put you in a small building sized tank with legs.

  <-----[Building sized Tank with Legs. "Don't get under it's feet Timmy!"]



When you look at war machine of that caliber you think power, or possibly you see absurdity at the concept... or both. Well the developers saw power, but they also looked deeper. What would it take to drive one of those? So they built that mega controller, then they did this to your screen and gave you one amazing H.U.D.

                [Heads Up Display] ---->


Look complicated? It was, but a good complicated. If you had an attention span longer than three seconds and the willingness to work through the learning curve, you could master a monster tank with legs; and then shoot crap with it.

For most people, the price was a no sale. Or the difficulty in just "WALKING" was too much, once again, maybe both. If you didn't watch your center of gravity. Your Mech dropped to the ground like Godzilla on an oil-slick. [Aww... Did the Mech Fall down?] So watching your gyro was just one tiny piece to the puzzle. You had fuel, and arms expenditures to monitor. If you didn't, you're Mech no longer worked. You were out of gas, or out of bullets/Rockets, Or both. That made you the largest punching bag in history for any A.I. or apposing player in the game; and they loved to full you full of lead. [Besides, who did enjoy the sick pleasure of shooting the crap out of some noob who can't stop falling over....]

<---- [Op... well there goes Timmy.]


With the culmination of the game's price of around the standard $60 bucks, plus the Ben Franklin friendly Remote; [I.e. $100 dollars]
On top of that the difficulty in basic movement, then people go and shoot at you. You've got one of the toughest Simulators on the market for the average gamer. It was fun for those who master it, frustrating for those adept enough to crash; and downright infuriating for those who couldn't even manage to crash properly. [Because they couldn't figure out how to turn the Mech ON] Seriously, there was a Start-Up sequence many didn't figure out right off, or even later. They had to buy a strategy guide and read the section under. "How To Turn On Your Mech."

So yeah, ambitious. Awesome, and Hard. It just didn't pull people in enough and Steel Battalion went to the way side while games with far less complicated control schemes soldiered on. Most people don't want to go to school to learn how to play a single title for their computer.

Well, they heard you're cries. Microsoft is trying to help out. "Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor" is coming to the X-Box 360 and will utilize the standard Xbox Remote in-tandem with the Kinect. You'll be able to mix operations and commands in a more simplified way by mixing direct manipulation of the remote and visual gestures the Kinect will read and act on.

I'll tell you right off. I haven't jumped on to the Kinect Bandwagon and I'll tell you why. I don't want to be a human remote. I don't want to stand in my room and flash my hands and body about to make the Avatar do junk...
I don't have a problem with a controller and I don't understand why so many want to desperately remove the controller from the players hands. [Even a Baseball player still has to hold a bat, and a Foot-Ball payer still needs pads.] That's just me though. Aside from that the Kinect had little glitches and errors and it doesn't allow for rapid, high action game-play with the accuracy a Mouse and Keyboard or Controller offer. But maybe the Pacing of Steel Battalion and the right programing and you could have yourself one of the sweetest simulators on the console to date.

It really comes down to how you feel about it, but even I, a skeptic over the actual quality of fun you can gain from what feels like a gimmicky gaming mechanic, see potential from this. With constantly improving technology, it can only get better.

Below is a the debut Trailer for the Game. Just remember it's a Sim. They're going for mechanics and controls. Not Micheal Bay quality CG. Now where that'd be nice, we're just talking about "feel."

 

 Later!

-Fox

This Post is FarCry from being short.

[Can... can I have my knife back?] -->













FarCry 3. It's a completely different world from the original game; despite a return to the eye candy that's these tropical islands. ["But those tropical islands don't friggin exists on the globe." It's a game, it's pretty, go play it and shut up.]

Seriously though. FarCry 3 and the Original FarCry share many thing that FC2 just lacked. Don't get me wrong, the Sahara was and fantastic, expanse of twisting rivers, grassy planes. Malaria infested mosquitoes, a paradise really. But when you break it down, FarCry has an iconic location and FC2 didn't have that.

The first game was pretty linear in it's world design and set up that subtly told you to; "Go here, kill him, go there, kill them." They'd guide you with invisible walls at the far end of the gameplay zone and would give you the illusion of great space. Inside this illusion they gave you focused choice.
Here's the problem, these are your options. It could come down to skirting your foe and skip the ordeal all together. Or, you could go Sam Fisher and stealthily M.D.K. anny doofus with a rifle or a pistol that dared to enter your sights. Then there was the age old Rambo approach and you could go "Murder Face" and murder everyone... in the face... with a bullet. [D'em be some good choices Kyle!] And good choices they were. Let's not forget that the Hero "Jack Carver" [Sweet name] of the story was used as a test toy for a super serum and became a beast of a man. [Literally] Being able to tear foes limb from limb with inhuman strength, speed, agility and cunning of a feral beast was beyond awesome.

FarCry 2 had almost none of this. The location while expansive... was kinda boring and felt like a weed infested dust-bowl. The Characters in the 1st game were solid, funny, you cared about them.
Not so much in FarCry 2. You were so focused on not dying from Malaria/ [Which was irritation beyond all belief] You had "Allies" [I use the term loosely] you didn't really give a rats backside about and later, you're only friends turns out to be an A-Hole and they betray you. So yeah, all warm a fuzzy.
Don't even get me started on the "We wanna keep this quiet that your helping us... so I'm NOT going to tell my faction you're helping us and they'll shoot at you too when you try to complete your mission."   OK? What the hell?! How does that even make sense. Where was the "F.U." button?

[Counts to 10] Okay, so. FarCry 2's story was a little bit lackluster and the reasoning for some action was pot induced. But the action was fun and the world was HUGE. That was nice, but the Sahara was kinda boring and not that pretty. [IMHO] The weapons were cool and all but they broke down really quickly. Not to mention that damn Malaria wouldn't GO AWAY! and would wait until the worst moment to turn your arms in to noodles and reduce you to a cripple until you stuff your face with pills. [Does this seam like a bad subliminal message to anyone else?]

When it comes down to choice. Man you had it all. You had a target and a location. You could hit them from wherever you want, whenever you wanted, and however you wanted. Night or Day, Rain or Shine, Bazooka or Salience Pistol. It didn't matter. You were allowed to, even encouraged too mix things up. Talk about sweet. The down side was even though the map was huge. You'd pull a "Scorched Earth" on a fort and if you walk more than 600 feet from the place it'd refill with bad guys and guns and they'd be all. "Who the heck is that guy five hundred and ninety-nine feet from us? Let's KILL HIM!" [Not to say they were overly aggressive at times with super human eyesight] <---- That's Sarcasm.

Over all. I really really enjoyed FarCry and it's expansions. FC2 was fun at times but over all annoying. Especially with a saved file corruption bug that kept forcing players to start from scratch regularly. They had great ideas and ambition, but they changed too much. Threw away everything but kept the name.

And this brings me around to FC3. It talk'n the talk right now. It's got the looks, the action, the choices that feel like that openness of FC2 but with the beauty of FC1 and those popping Tropics! Even the story looks like it's got the potential to rock. Weapons look solid and Ubisoft says they won't breakdown like gun shaped "Paper Mache' " this time. You've got so much choice it'll affect the way the story evolves. I even hear they ditched the debilitating disease feature of FC2. [Seriously, who thought that would be fun game-play mechanic?]

In the end. I've got high hopes for FarCry 3. I expect it to be a great next step in the series.

This Game's got the "Nitty" and the "Gritty" packed with all that FPS fun we expect from an experienced franchise. Like I said. I'm hopful. So cross your fingers. FarCry 3 currently has an early 2012 release date. So much of it is potentially in the air; but I'd say right now. They're on the right track.

Later!
-Fox

Back with Avengence!

I would try to eplxain my apbsence but it'd probably just sound like an excuse, and it'd take just far to long. SO, I'll demonstrated why I was gone with one simple image.

<--- [Use your imagination, I'm sure whatever you think of is going to satisfy you]










Onwards and up words! [He says while hoping you pretend he was never gone]
Let's just roll out Autobot style on the subject NUMBAH 1!

Borderlands 2! [Dude! Why didn't you tell me that was coming out?! That crap is AWEsome!]
Yes Scooter, it is, awesome. I'll share more insight on the new game later. [Uh-huh, sure that's what you said a few months ago...] Belay that remark! THIS is a video post. So make with the videos.

 Oooh the goodness! IF it got any cooler I'd explode. [The room shakes with a sudden explosion]

"Hey Ya'll, my names is Oda Mae Brown. Fox, uh... exploded, so I'm going to let his Ghost take over my body...*Grumbes* I hated it when Sam Wheat did this. *Puts on a smile* Anyway, he's going to use me to write the rest of this post."

Thanks Oda Mae! Now, that I've got finger again, let's move on.


MASS EFFECT 3!


Bioware dropped their first gameplay video of one of the coolest Sci-Fi [Not Syfy] series of all time. Look it!

Oooh man! I'd explode from that Awesome but this isn't my body and I'm positive Oda Mae would be pissed. [I would probably loose my deposit too...]

Last and certaionly not least a personal favorite. Schtuff on Uncharted: Drake's Deception.
Soo much goodness, how could one man take it?... oh, yeah... Right.

OK! That's it for this post. Uncharted, Mass Effect, and Borderlands 2. Man that's good stuff.

Later!
-Fox

E3 - Ghost Recon Future Soldier

[Future Soldier is in the spotlight again, and it's better than ever!]

I have the trailer below, but we'll get to that.

Ghost is going to boast the best of the story and campaign we all love, not to mention the massive multi-player. You remember, you and 10 of your buddies put'n the hurt on 10 more poor noobs, as you work like a well oiled machine....with guns.

But the title of this game ain't the only thing in the Future. Ubisoft is taking gaming to a new level with what could have been a gimic, and is now. DA BOMB!

You can play with the Kinect! Not in the, "Oh I look like an idiot right now, don't I?" kind of way.

nope, this is the Iron Man, build something Awesome workshop kind. The only thing it lacks is JARVIS.

under the "Gunsmith" name, in game you can tweak, rework, and build your gun, the way you want it! Down to the smallest piece. Gunsmith has the ability to let you customize and create over a million combinations of firearms. 

 With Gunsmith you can use your actual hands, and take apart the gun, down to the firing pin if you want, and customize it. Best part, is if your arms get tired, you can always do it by voice command!

Oh yeah, All future Tom Clancy games from now on, will feature this kind of teamwork with Kinect.

And now, that video I promised.

Ghost Recon: Future Solider. 

Yay video games!

-Fox

 

E3 - A RUMOR NO MORE!

[Yep, I ain't lie'n, you're life can begin now.]









We've been talking about it for years. We all knew it was coming. We all believed it was coming, and today, here at E3; We saw the double rainbow of video games. HALO 4 is official and out there for you to oogle at. Release is Holiday 2012 by 343 Industries. [I might cry.]


I do this because I love you. HALO 4 Link below.
[Awesome McLinkey]-------> HALO 4


Yup.
-Fox

E3 - Forza Motorsport 4

Racing to the Extreme. Forza is known for their real world driving, and top tier graphics.

Today and E3 They're boasting an upgrade with Forza Motorsport 4

Features to come are voice commands and controls with Kinect. [When you turn your head, the camera turns as if you were looking that way. Shifty might be weird though]

Have a look for yourself, link below.

[Racing McLinkey] ------> Forza Motorsport 4

As times passes, I'll bring forth more detail.
-Fox