Twenty Two Token Nutshell

Well it's time for my one and only post for the year, the one time I even try to attempt some sort of writing and keep my blog alive.

Actually its kinda funny, one of the podcasts I've been listeining to have been talking about how, with the implosion of twitter and his typical outsource of creative talk, he has decided to return back to his blog and revive it there.

It's part of what got me jumping back this year, and then the numerous other posts I've half written up and drafted because I can't seem to keep my own subject focus. i'm barely able to keep my own sentences here going, having to backspace every few words just to make it sound "right". i just deleted the word unquote becaue I couldn't be fuckin arsed going back and typing quote.

anyway, I want to talk about video games. there's been a bunch I've played and I've had thoughts galore that are just drivels on epiphanys and just wanting to rave about games Ive had fun with.

Like Metroidvanias. so I've had little experience with them growing up. i didn't have a Nintendo so Metroid and the like weren't in my pervue. So when I started playing Hollow Knight and having the time of my life, which is fair because it's a beautifully crafted piece of work, I wanted to delve more into the genre.

I now have a Switch Lite, combined with a relatively cheap comfort grip, I grabbed a few of the popular and interesting Metroidvanias available: axiom verge (1 & 2), Blasphemous, and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom.

I'll start with axiom verge because they are the most like the original metroid game, literally taking the 8 bit style and going gangbusters with it. the black backgrounds with weird tiled platform environments; tunnels circling about and confusing me until I happen to find one tile that isn't quite right and either shoot it or use a weird wave gun that changes a bunch of walls and floors because everything seems to be a biological but digitally real. It's a weird kinda game, where your character is thrown into a weird dimension of gigantic automaton trying to save themselves from another human who killed almost every other living creature. naturally you're tasked with fixing the issue, while also futzing about killing off minibosses that dont do an easy job of dying.

I havent said anything about the plot twist, because frankly that is something I was really confused and surprised about, and you should too.

Axiom Verge 2 is much the same, but jumps up to 16 bit era, and really pares down on faff. the first game had like 16 weapons, whereas now you've about 4 to work with, and maybe a few more tools after that. But again, the plot twist and the surprises, the fascinating levels and designs, just kept me going until I finished it off and moved on to the biggin.

Blasphemous is a fascinating game. It's a hard 15+ game because throughout the game, including the first few scenes, are very gorey. After you kill the first boss, you cut open his belly, pour the blood into your helmet, and put it on as the red pours down your bit-art body.

the appeal in it is that it's an interesting take on religion, and this in particular is a very old and spanish catholic art style, doused with literal examples of what are called miracles, like a boy the size of a building having the face of an old man growing in his chest, and as the game progresses the old man grows more and climbs from his chest until the one are two and they both die In The Name Of The Lord.

Weird and strange and horrific things that people and creatures allow to have happen to them because their faith demands they do it. Its a heavy theme and because it's so obscene in how it goes, it's fascinating to discover and learn, to read stories found by collecting bones of different saints across the world, to speak to different characters who are dumbstruck by everything out of the ordinary. It's a curious and gorgeous world to explore. genuinely, the art is phenomenal for something that could have been on a sega 32x.

Then there's Monster Boy. I actually haven't played much of this, truly about 3 or 4 hours in? Even that feels optimistic. And the reason is incredibly petty: I'm jaded by a related title.

So one of my favourite games from my Sega days is Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap. It's a fun game that has you changing forms to solve puzzles and reach different dragon bosses to return your character to normal. It's really the closest thing to a Metroidvania style game that I can attest to playing, because it has a hub area and a bunch of regions you can branch out to explore from there. It's more like a star than a series of infinity loops, but you get the idea. I'm going to have to find a name of that type of loop now, a magnus loop or something?

Anyway, a few years ago a company made a remaster of it and I fucking loved it. The core game is exactly the same, I could play the game on both a Sega Master system and whatever modern consoles side by side and I would literally have the same results. What's changed is the visuals and the soundtrack, all perfectly crafted for the game, adding so much more character to levels that weren't much more than plain blue backgrounds, but all the while making them feel like they were always there. Like they had built rose tinted glasses for this game, to make it feel in every essence the same game I played when i was a kid.

as such, Monster Boy is related in that it has the same ideas as The Dragons Trap, but sets it in the future of the characters life and allows him to change into different monsters on the fly, and having a whole new world to explore and delve into.

And my petty problem is that it's just not a similar game except by name. The controls and feel are different, the art is more of an anime cartoon style than the slightly gritty style of The Dragons Trap, and the soundtrack is just... so yeah, it's really surface level things that I don't like, and nothing I can really do about because it was all made by a different company.

All it really makes me wish is that The Dragons Trap gets a DLC addition to tell a story they want to tell, but after so many years I assume they're onto bigger and better things.

there's been a lot of that lately, last year brought in a good handful of blockbuster games that I was keen to get my hands on except for a few, and for the most part i was left disappointed early on.

Halo Infinite is really the biggest heartbreak. It's my own fault, I set up expectations that it was going to be a lot like Destiny, with having an open world that becomes incredibly deep and complex and interconnecting and having secrets in any nook and cranny you care to gawk at.

it wasn't that. it felt like a halo game, don't get me wrong, and it was super pretty in a lot of places, but... it really just felt flat.

part of that I blame on the grappling hook. that's been a big gimmick of late, to launch a grappling hook and traverse levels and encounters constantly. And it's a good thing in combat, you spot a vehicle running past and you grapple hook yourself to it and board it with ease. or you can pull an explosive barrel to you and launch it away into an enemy pile just to see them scatter.

But if you can use it to travel about, you're about to find that everything is easy to reach and youre going to spend a fair chunck of time just ninja roping your way around town.

But knowing that, you work around that. there's a bunch of different collectibles across the world and good handful of them are designed for that consideration. One type of collectible that didn't is the High Value Target (HVT), an individual enemy that carries a specially designed weapon you can pick up and use. So when Im about to cross a Jackal who carries an alien sniper rifle, standing at the top of a long slope littered with cover, brutes, shield jackals, and grunts, I would expect to run the gauntlet while he's spamming shots at me and driving me mad with each headache. Not reverse abseiling behind him and clocking him with the scifi equivalent of a boxing glove with nails in it and calling it good.

Its been a year and I havent really returned to it, partly because my Game Pass sub ran out and I havent renewed it, partly because I'm not even sure I want to yet. They have online coop implemented to the game, but I'm not finding it worth the time until they add something new or different to the game.

In the same vein, I keep thinking about Borderlands 3 and just came to the conclusion that they should just give in and become an RPG. They have all these characters, and these whole worlds they wanted to introduce, and all you're doing is just dakka dakka dakka. Which is cool, but for whatever reason it just isnt fun.

That's why I want a Tactics RPG, so you can get both hand in hand. Fix their writing, expand everyones story, have your Combat that you delve harder into to build stronger strategies than "this has big DPS", and have a god damned campaign the setting deserves that isn't just a bunch of popular memes strung together.

And while you're at it, take a look at the Mario and Rabbids games and build from that. They tackle, they slam, they shoot the shit out of stuff, all things you can do in the FPS, so why the fuck not?!

Tactics games have been pretty good of late. They re-remastered Tactics Ogre again and put them on every console available (actually I should check if it's only available on Playstation and Switch or not); Mario and Rabbids is actually pretty good, the sequel I'm playing has a LOT of improvements, especially in the free roaming where there are puzzles galore; I rebought Darkest Dungeon on my Switch so I can run that while something plays in the background on TV; Also rebought XCOM 2 when it came to the Switch because I do like a lot that it has to offer.

I did grab up Warsaw, the Darkest Dungeon-like rpg, and I've been bouncing pretty hard off it, mostly from information paralysis. It doesn't exactly ease you into the game very well and I want to learn more about the occupation of Warsaw more through this like i learnt about World War 1 from Valiant Hearts, which is getting a sequel on mobile through Netflix's service, which is a bit hurtful.

After that I have The Banner Saga which I hear is really good, it looks absolutely Captial-G-Gorgeous, but Im having trouble hitting that epiphany point with the combat. You have Armour and Strength, Strength Doubles as your Health, but the less Strength you have the less damage you deal, and you can counter it by having higher armour, which the enemies tend to have along with matching strength, so when I'm having my hard hitters get attacked first from either ranged enemies or just getting the first strike, I end up being on the back foot the whole match. I know the game is supposed to be a bit hardcore, but I just need that epiphany moment.

What I've learnt through the last few years though is that my Switch is an MVP. There's a lot of people ragging on about how it needs a hardware update and Nintendo should try to rival Playstation and Xbox in capability, but I don't really think so. It's become an Indie machine and it'll play just about any Indie that gets thrown at it.  

Speaking of Indies, Sega should let others get involved with the Sonic IP more. Sonic Mania when it came out was absolutely lourded for being a fantastic rendition of the Sega Mega Drive games made into one fun package.

i enjoyed it for the most part, some of the new levels felt a little too goofy and I didn't particularly like them, but that's a small complaint compared to the positive. Really, it's a fun game and I hope those teams dip into more of the Sonic games. Rather than the latest collection they put out.

So Sonic Origins is a bundle of the Sega Mega Drive games including Sonic 1, 2, 3 & Knuckles, and Sonic CD. Only Sonic CD I haven't actually played, but it's nice to have such a collection of games available. The problem is that they put out their purchasing options and they were Horrendous, items clearly for a cheap cash grab on top of an already fairly expensive game. Background menu Items? The option to move cosmetic things around? A Hard Mode sounded good but should have been part of the base purchase. Same with Remastered Music.

I had a plea written out that if you're going to release a remaster bundle and then offer up downloadable content, why don't you just keep remastering other games? Get the Sega Master System games and remaster them, use the Mega Drive Assets to zhush them up into something more interesting to the eye and tack it on! You'd get more than your moneys worth with remastering those underappreciated classics than you would trying to offer up the same fucking music played on a better synthesizer.

The only other big thought I had this year was of Elden Ring. It came out early 2022 to mass appraise, even got game of the year I think, and it kinda has me curious to get into it. It's a hardcore game and I can think that the only game I've played similar to it is Monster Hunter World, which I had a bunch of fun with. Next down would be God of War, but that is very much a Souls-lite, not to it's detriment though.

About a month or two later a Final Fantasy game came out called Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. A strange name for sure, pun not intended. It had a cool idea, a prequel to the first Final Fantasy game played out in an Action RPG, running around with your party and casting spells between whapping away with whatever weapon you had equipped. There seemed a pretty good variety of options at its core, some pretty environments as you would expect of its ilk. But it fell flat at it's writing. It was dreadful. Not because of the translation, but genuinely just... just terrible. I only watched a few hours of it in play, watched the scenes on youtube, and laughed with pity at the memes generated from it because it's really that bad it's not particularly funny.

Well, to circle back, quite a few of the reviewers I follow were comparing this game to Elden Ring, saying it's Square Enix's answer to Elden Ring because of the style and combat. I couldn't agree any less. Actual gameplay in hand might be different, but looking at it I was immediately thrown into thinking of Kingdom Hearts. It may not be as zippy and floaty as Kingdom Hearts is, but I would rather that comparison than with Elden Ring.

Thinking of a Final Fantasy Soulslike just puts Vagrant Story front and centre: A single character running around a labrynthian city; using different weapons and equipment against a variety of enemys, large and small; a dark mystery surrounding all characters involved in the world. It all adds up and falls short when the combat comes and you're showing the difference between a strange turn based game, and an action game.

I think that's a wrap up. My 2022 thoughts that were half baked in the first place and just didn't have much more point than what they do here.

Borderlands Legends 2, my Elevator Pitch

Borderlands Legends was a simple game.  You dragged and clicked/tapped your way through these static maps at enemies railing from the side of the screen, in between even more static menus that had a cockamaimy comparison to the original Borderlands and Borderlands today.

I come to you to propose, or even do myself if need be, as you did unto the Original Borderlands: by reincarnating it, rebuilding it from the ground up to celebrate everything there is to love about Borderlands.

Where did it go wrong?
It was slimmed down and simplified immensely, to the point of feeling like Borderlands as a Scouring Pad feels on your genitals on a dry day.  It didn't have the hectic panic while having all these unnecessary tapping bits. It didn't have enough depth to make a little kid want to think twice about wading in, let alone pee in it.  It was as insipid as making conversation at a party with that forty year old used car salesman still living his college football life.

It was cheap, if you're looking for the shorthand there.

So why BLL2?
Because I believe in trying again, and so do you.  Borderlands 2 was a reinvention.  Every little thing was improved upon to a point where you can only recognise the two from the details put down on paper, because it was evolved enough to be a mew identity.  NPC AI changing how they attack you making it an incredible pain in the arse without having to be a tank race; Weapon Characterisation making manufacturers incredibly unique; Conversation!  You don't get a text box blurb and a few lines from someone making a cheeky remark, you get several lines as you advance making every character you see a new friend of yours who has made an impact on you.

In saying that, why not do the same for Borderlands Legends?  We can improve or change it in two ways depending on what direction it's agreed to go.

Direction 1: True to the frantic gameplay of Borderlands.
You had the right idea at first.  Top down, enemies everywhere, doing everything you would normally do in a Borderlands game.  But the controls were janky, the scenes were stagnant, and frankly the whole thing reeked of inexpense.  The game was so pared down that saying it had RPG elements feels overblown.

So I propose a halfway point: Twin Stick Shooter.  Have your characters raid an old Dahl research base or arcology, explore and delve their way down through psychos and Dahl Automated systems; deviate through an adjacent Atlas station to uncover secret equipment; all along the way you unlock equipment and weapons for you to use.  Drop the levelling system, make all weapons and enemies static, and earn your new abilities and options with each and every run.

Direction 2: Frantic in a different fashion
Playing BL, you don't just sit and shoot.  It isn't Gears of War, where parking your arse in place as you suffer wave after wave of enemies.  It's more like Halo, where cover is only used while you're waiting for your shield to recharge, if you even need to do such a thing.  You spend your time dodging rifle fire from Hyperion, backtracking from Psychos, and trying to circle around Spiderants to shoot them up the clacker.

Since we're not creating another FPS, the closest one could come to similar style is a Side Scrolling Shooter.  One stick moves while the other aims, jumping about on platforms, again dodging rifle fire and attacks from whomever is around.  For an easy comparison, see Metal Slug.  Lets face it, that's a fun fukkin game.  Why not add in that little spin by adding more Customisation of characters, and the art style of Borderlands to it.

Direction 3: Where BL Legends probably should have gone by Taking Its Goddamned Time
This significantly changes Borderlands. Instead of a top down drag and click, why not a tactical rpg?  An opera, with a large cast of characters that you can not only interact with, but control on the battlefield.

This changes the game from the hectic style that epitomises Borderlands into the complete opposite, but that's where the first BL Legends probably should have headed with its pace.  You took cover to help defend from attacks.  You tried to take advantage of what pitiful terrain there was to gain any sort of Defence from oncoming baddies.

So send it on the right track and make it a tactical game.  Keep key features, like guns and elemental effects, action skills, and skill trees, and change them to suit the turn based environment.  Introduce an initiative system individual to characters and classes.

Atop that, rather than just leave it at just a progressive story line, throw in an MMO portion. Allow players to interact with each other, helping through story encounters, or challenging each other in an arena, whether it's live or a play by mail.  Maybe there is potential in choosing a faction in a gun corporation and then taking on opposing factions?

What do you want to keep in BLL2?

Vault Hunters, obviously
The first four characters should be Vault Hunters, new and/or old. All Characters will have Skill Trees each with their distinct styles.  In the case of Direction 2, there would be a number of additional characters that won't necessarily be Vault Hunters, but would have skill trees nonetheless.

Lasers and Cryo, and even Nuculear
While they may not have appeared in Borderlands 2, and it has been written in the reasons why, I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to have someone on Elpis to start their own moon cannon and shoot down the equipment for the vault hunters.  Shit, they could email it to them and it would digistruct at their whim.

Kickslides, Mantling, and Power Slams
Borderlands 3 introduced all of these together.  So why not add them with gameplay.  Kicksliding enemies as you move, finishing move/sprint with a devastating power slam. Couple all of that with elemental artifacts and melee weapons, and you have game changing effects.  To boot, use those abilities to create puzzles.  Slam on this, kickslide under that, mantle up on that and boom: access to the raid dungeon.

What additions or changes would or could be made?

The return of S&S Munitions/Accessories
In Borderlands 2, they had up and disappeared to be essentially replaced by Bandit guns.  And that's fair enough.  S&S weren't just characterised by large magazine sizes, though.  That was a benefit.  They were aftermarket gun manufacturers, pulling pieces from here, there and everywhere.  So how about a customisation station?  Dismantle the innumerable guns you pick up and make your own.  Alternatively: Return of the Grinder; or custom gun mod shop

Location, Location, Location
We've explored much of one side of Pandora, so much so that Borderlands Pre-sequel moved up to the moon.  Beating a dead horse is far from appropriate, so this is where the player is put on a new continent or, and this could be a better choice, a new planet.  There are many more vaults out there, so why not explore those locales?  And in addition to that, there would be new enemies and challenges to take that on.

More Action Skills
While it's nice to have an action skill to activate in the middle of a fight in Borderlands, only one is a terrible idea in a Turn Based Game. Sure, have an iconic action skill that can change the flow of battle, and improve upon that as well.  But have a little more variety.  Special attacks with certain guns, or general action abilities that could help but not change the game significantly.

New skill system
Fuck skill trees.  I know its a staple, but so is first person.  Lets start collecting skills like Baseball cards, or S&S Non Fungible Tokens, or echo carts and build a sega tower of power.  Why not all three?  Have different characters collect in different ways, with Sirens collecting Baseball Cards of their favourite siren characters, and the soldier doing a tower of power.

Go Medieval on their arse
It's been a thing since the start. Everyone has some sort of melee weapon on them, whether it's a weapon attachment or an actual weapon the character has.  So why not expand on that?  Swords, hammers, daggers, axes.  Exemplify them all in their own equipment addon, or even in their action skills.  Put in a series of Bows and crossbows as new weapon classes from certain manufacturers.  Shields are suddenly more powerful from a particular facing and become cover.

Then go Artillerist on their Arse
If theres one thing everyone loves, its heavy weapons.  Heavy machine guns, rocket pods, gauss cannons, grenade launchers.  Im sure Dahl has never stopped at just personal arms.  Bandits sure haven't, what with their barrel lobbers mounted on the back of off road utes, and their hulking goliaths slinging Chainguns at you.  Where would they get that aside from the underside of an abandoned Dahl Jet?  And why the hell can't I do the same goddamned thing?

“Siren Six”?
For the turn based game, the siren character can be the narrator, with the added bonus of being the rewind button, sending players back to the last turn (before everything went bad)

Or be Ava, fleshing out her own story leading into other games.

Monetary Value
Cash in the game is nigh useless.  I collect it, i sell weapons, i do this and that an end up with a phat bank account that literally can't tally how much I have.  Let's use it as an EXP gauge.  Bigger enemies drop bigger cash value and we can make the EXP bar a bit flashier.

Manufacturer HUDS
As the player cycles through their squad, each character has a different menu hud themed to their affiliation, or applied based on their shielding or echo device, and/or are individually customisable.

What stories would you involve your characters in?
The base story would follow our primary Vault Hunters, having them counter the next big threat on or from Pandora.  With the Siren Twins gone, and the Pandora Vault key permanently closed, there is always bound to be a new rival to rise up.  Maybe its something in the distance.  Maybe its a lot closer to home.  But enemies don't ever stop at one; Psychos may be an ever present problem but so are corporations: Atlas' Crimson Lance, Hyperion, Dahl Lost Legion, Maliwan Katagawa Family.  All big Corporation Armys that can be coming down to rain hell on Sanctuary at every angle when your rag tag squad of misfits aren't wrecking their plans from the inside out.  Or maybe supporting, depending on your diplomatic relationships.

Then when you aren't bringing down God from their Throne, every expansion has to have its own story arc involving unique characters that "need" to come along to tell their story.  And you know what, there is a lot of story that just isnt covered.  Take Commandant Steele.  She died without even a fight.  So lets do some time travelling to find out how she came to be.  Surely someone somewhere has found some sort of time travel.  Let's toy with that.

So whats the moral of my pitch?
Do more for your games.  Tell more stories in a world you love.  Play the tactics game you want to see in the world, a game that a portion of the world wants to explore.

My Year(s) in Video Games

Well lets deal with the obvious.  I haven't posted here in what feels like an age.  Last post I made was about how I was excited about the Notorious High Tier Assassin Sorscha was being made into a new Warcaster matching my Favourite Theme of Steam Powered Heavy Armour Soldiers.

Sadly I've kinda fallen out of love with Warmachine through my lack of play and interest, feeling very "back in my day, we had fun with our game" about it since I really began lurking and watching from the sidelines, and wishing I could play the Iron Kingdoms RPG instead, mostly because I got a Humble Bundle Deal that got me about 99% of the RPG books for a song.

From that I made a bunch of cool characters, all with little back stories and parties they've formed together, loose motives for their future so that any DM's have something to fuel their own narrative.  Yes I realise that means I should DM my own campaign, but I have every excuse in the book that puts me off of that.

I actually thought about doing a Play By Mail campaign with people, but I just get myself overwhelmed by trying to find some definitive answers from the internet.  I've gotten very Anti-internet for a while and now my Facebook feed is pretty much just a continuing roll of memes and tags.

So I fill in my own time with Video Games, and the last few years have been pretty hit and miss for video games.

Like Xcom 2: War of the Chosen, a fantastic expansion to the game.  It added a bunch of new stuff, like new classes and enemies, new gameplay options, new maps, even a whole new enemy type which is more hassle than they're really worth, but hey you can't get everything right.  Especially when it comes to getting a port fully working.

For ages though I've had a want to make an Xcom Campaign, something more focused on an individual party and having a bunch of encounters based on the different mission types you'd normally encounter in the Grand Strategy games, just more in depth with characters and strategy.

The more I think of it though, the cooler I think it would be as a proper video game taking inspirations from a bunch of games, starting with Xcom: Apocalypse which is focused around a singular Megacity, to Nier Automata, which seems like a far stretch but bear with me, the inspiration comes from the gameplay mechanics which changes style as you go.

For example, one minute you could be fighting in a 3D open arena with enemies coming from all around, to a classic 2D platformer style as you progress through to other map regions.  So from that, I would like to take inspiration from other turn based games and implement them into minor missions or encounters.

The more I think about it though the more I realise I kinda would use features of Mutant Year Zero, a game I really enjoyed, as short lived as it was.  If I were to nitpick it, the tedium of silent takeouts was a little grating, but still it was fun.  It could have been a little more than what it was.

When two world collide
and really support each other

Speaking of games that were more than what was expected: DOOM.  Jesus Christ that was a good game.  The speed, the fun, the exhilaration, the ripping and tearing.  The sequel is coming out in a months time and I'm excited for it even though it looks extremely arcade like in its play.  Lots of double jumping, swing bars, and wall climbing.  I saw a Youtube Card of someones review with the words "Best Mario Game Not Made By Nintendo", which feels conflicting, but hey I'm still keen.

Speaking of Nintendo, Jenny got me a Switch Lite.  It's more or less like a Playstation Portable but bigger and lighter.  I still want to get a grip case for it, maybe something that extends its battery life as well, but that has to wait until I get back to work again before I make any more.

In the meantime I have a handful of games that came with the Xmas present.  Jenny had asked around and got me The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Civilization VI, Sonic Team Racing, Mario and Sonic Olympics, and Nickelodeon Kart Racing.  The two biggest ones I wanted to play though were Breath of the Wild and Civ6.

Civilization is a game I haven't really played much in my life until this point.  I had Civ 2 or 3 when I was in high school, my mum got it as a group package with Sim City 2000 and The Settlers 2: Veni, Vidi, Vici.  I faffed around with it a lot, but never really sat down with it to understand the rules.  I gave Civ a fair crack of the whip, but on top of the rather awkward UI on the small screen I still don't really know what it is I'm accomplishing.  I do need to spend more time with it though.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a very different kettle of fish.  I'm far from finished on it, having only accomplished one of the four mechanical beasts that help in the fight of Calamity Ganon and largely only explored the bottom half of the map between getting my arse served by a new high level monster that I happen to snag the attention of.  It's a good game, don't get me wrong, but I think once I get that grip case I will have a better time fighting thanks to more flexibility in my hands.

While we are on the subject of Nintendo I've been watching a series called Game Makers Toolkit.  My mate Andy pointed me in Mark Browns direction while we were talking about certain games and their mechanics.  Mr Brown had covered the subject quite well and since then I have the occasional playthrough of all his available Youtube videos (Sorry Mark, I can't spare the dosh for your Patreon) while I play a game or sleep.  He's very soothing.

But the ones that really stood out were the series on Metroid.  I have never played a Metroid game in my life.  I think there was a period where I was using a Gameboy emulator and I may have tried to start off one of the Metroid games available but never stuck with it.  His retrospective series gave me a really good insight into the games and piqued my interest into Hollow Knight.

Hollow Knight is about a small Bug Soldier exploring an ancient kingdom called Hollownest.  You explore this hive of networked environments, meeting insects and grubs, defeating rabid bosses, and discovering secrets and history of this fascinating and magical world.  I'm 77% of the way through according to the little meter in the corner of my inventory screen so I have plenty more to find and achieve.

My favourite part of the Remaster

The style of the game has me fascinated though.  The closest I can say that I've played to this is Wonder Boy: The Dragons Trap, which has a beautiful Remaster that threw me back to my Master System days so easily that when I turned on the Retro Visuals I almost thought it was a gag.  That was the closest I came to a Metroidvania game though, and I kinda want to get into more of that style of game now that I've dabbled into it.

Speaking of Re-something games, there was Sonic Mania.  Everyone and their Mother knows that I love Sonic the Hedgehog.  He's my favourite.  I want to get a Tattoo of the Sonic and Knuckles logo on my shoulder because Sonic 3 and Knuckles is my favourite game of all time.  I wouldn't be able to tell you how many hours I've sunk into it, but I know I've deleted and restarted all of those save slots until they were all 100% several times over.

Sonic Mania was really fun though.  I wasn't a big fan of some of the newer Zones, some of them stuck out as being out of place, but its still a really fun game.  I haven't been able to sit myself down to max out everything yet but I want to get a Genesis Controller for my Playstation just so I can really get back into how I used to play, which weirdly had my right hand turned over so I'm using my digits instead of my thumb to jump.

My other favourite game that came out was Borderlands 3.  A good game overall, but sadly their antagonists weren't particularly encapsulating, especially when they were following one of the best arseholes to kill off at the end of his story, Handsome Jack.

I keep seeing people on Reddit going "Bring back Handsome Jack!" which is depressing because that's really just beating a dead horse.  I love Handsome Jack, he's a great bastard to hate, and there are a few references to him, particularly in one side mission that really brings to light how malicious he can be, but he's done.  He has died in all but a Gun that plays voice clips of him.

The new Antagonists are nowhere near as hard hitting.  I said in an old post, that I'm going to redo an elaborate on one day, that there was a turning point.  That you have him playing in your ear and you don't really take him seriously until you reach a real turning point, and suddenly you have it in your heart that you need to take him down.  You need to go after him and really kill him off.

You can't go wrong with a Robot Beast Tamer

That doesn't really happen in 3.  It could be because they stumbled upon playing the same card as they did with Handsome Jack in 2, or because they just aren't that impressive, there just isn't that turning point in the story where you're motivated to stop them.

Thankfully they still have DLC coming out.  The first was a fun tribute to Handsome Jack's Stunt Double and Moxxi where you raid a Casino.  Good value.  The next one is going to be really fun as well, but I have no idea what that'll be.

Another game that really changed things up is Gears of War 5.  Or Gears 5, as they are want to go with now.  Largely, the game is still the same.  Cover based shooting and encroaching against Mutants that emerge from the ground, occasionally with a Gigantic Monster to accompany them.  But what I liked about it was the change from just straight mission after mission to a semi-open world setting, travelling on a Kite Sled between notable locations and regions that lead into missions.  Something a bit more freeform in play.

Which can be bad, such as the case of Wolfenstein Youngblood.  That was not a good game.  A lot of ideas going for it, but just so poorly executed.  A lot of cool stuff for it, the levels are pretty, the combat is fun, the super powers are always a fun addition, but... god everything else was as shallow as a Kiddy Pool.

John Carmack, one of the big Doom Guys, said "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."  Well that's all well and good, but if you really treat it like that you get this game, where you have so little direction for your players to go that you flounder what you want them to do and encounter.

So that's what I mean by hit and miss.  There's been really good games and there have been really bad games.  I'm keen on what 2020 has to offer for games, but there's still the matter of all the games i"m yet to play.  Like Prey, Outer Worlds, and Dishonoured: Death of the Outsider.  And I haven't even finished talking about all the games I've played, really, but hey, I gotta stop this at some point.

Insert Token Self Deprecating Meme

Borderlands the... Post Sequel?

S

Randy Pitchford.  Charming; Handsome; Fun Loving.  A pittance of pleasurable features on his business card.

He's also the head of one of my favourite Shooter series, Borderlands.  So I was rather happy to hear that they are prepared to make their third iteration, and are eager to hire people on.

So I sent in my email and simply said "I'm not an industry badass, I have no technical qualifications, but if you need anything, AND I MEAN ANYTHING, from this dislodged Australian, then please give me a bell."

It won't amount to anything, but you can't say I didn't put my 2 cent in.  But thats what this blog is for, to turn that copper into a shiny gold dollar coin.  So here we go for a list of things I want to see in Borderlands 3.

Random Setting for Skins and Heads 
Ive talked about this before, and i want to talk about it again. Because aesthetics is a null point for me, especially if they dont serve a purpose aside from the matter of collecting them.  So i would happily like a random setting for them so I can show off my collection without scrolling through and picking how i should be tarted up today.

Rare Currency Auto-Collection
This is the most frustrating thing ever. Toddling around and searching for purple bricks or Lunar rocks only to have realised I've left something in the oven and have to plod on with the little niggling feeling that I've left something behind, specifically the respective currency.

Background Downloads
Just last night, i fired up BL1.5 and had to download a couple of things, namely the first of the four upcoming DLC, Lady Hammerlock, and a Compatibility Pack.  It took the better part of an hour to download the lot of them, leaving me there to twiddle my thumbs at 2:30 in the morning.  So some background effort would be nice.

Shared World Shooter, ala Destiny
Destiny is a good game, right?  But it has obviously been wasted.  So why not show them how to fuggin do it properly.  Get your massive areas, new regions and everything, and go have a blast runnig around like mad with a couple of guys and gals you pick up along the way.  Throw in random encounters, and periodic world special events that you dont have to fuggin pay for (thank you, Destiny DLC) and you'll have a beauty of a game.

Divergent Stories
Every character you make will go through the same story.  But that can get stale very easily.  So why not encourage different characters not just with different play styles and a few unique callouts in dialog, but with unique experiences and encounters! Have their ulterior motives a bit more proactive and go off on their own!

Events

Have your daily events. Have weekly events. Have monthly events. Have Quarterly Major Events.  Just dont charge for every single one of them.

Companion Game
A lot of games have a Companion App now, and they usually serve little purpose than to make up a resume to show how hardcore you are about whatever game you're playing.  So how about giving it a purpose by making a side game that can influence the main game?  Do some base building, sending associates out on missions, and playing out another story on top of that using side characters that you dont normally get to play.  I admit i would like a TRPG, but whatever.

Thats my Dollar.  Dont spend it all in one place.

Borderlands Online

Familiar.  Even in Mandarin.

This little bombshell just dropped and I'm wondering where the hell that came from.  And why from China?  No offence to China 2k, but isn't this is a rather... western game?

My apparent confusion in culture aside, I'm very curious about what this game will be like and how different it would be, so I'm going to run off some questions I would like answered.

How big will the world be?
That's my first big question because this is a step up from the typical Borderlands game.  I considered Borderlands the poor man's MMO, because you didn't have to pay a subscription to play it over the years, and the world was rather large and expansive.  It felt like an MMO, gathering missions and completing them in your own time, and occasionally you would be shooting your way through a series of corridors, and they would always end in a big boss.  So with it being an MMO how big an area would the Borderlands world be expanded out to?

Destiny comes to mind.  What makes it unique is that it's regions are very intertwined.  You can literally drive a circle around the Cosmodrome, though a little squiggly.  I think the only dead end is where that Devil Walker sits, and there's a chance that will expand out into a another region someday.  Will maps be designed similarly?  That a player can explore and end up back where he started?

Will there be a crossover to old locations and characters, or will it be an entirely new environment?
While I can appreciate a tip of the hat to history, and maybe even a cameo appearance from someone like Lilith or Zero, I wouldn't expect them to be available for the player to approach at will.  Especially in the environment of an MMO where there could be dozens of players crowded around her at one time in the Crimson Raiders Headquarters, trying to get a quest from her, or trying to dance with her.

In saying that though, I can appreciate if they decided to move the central focus to a completely different region of Pandora, where a new revolution was starting, or the Crimson Raiders have begun recruiting new Soldiers/Vault Hunters for the field of battle.

Will the players be able to side with a faction?
This is an interesting one.  There has always been a Manufacturer that the player has been fighting against.  Whether it's Bandits, Atlas, Hyperion or Dahl, they are all a faction the player has been shooting at.  So why can't there be the option for players to unite under the same flag of a weapons Manufacturer?  I'm sure a group of Torgue players would look outrageous.

What is this Mobile game thing?
Is it the same shooter on your iPad?  Or is there a minigame you can play using alts to send on secret missions; or a home base you can build up and expand, which you can eventually visit and benefit from?  There's gotta be a purpose to all the money you gain selling all the guns you retrieve, after all.

That's an issue of Borderlands: There's almost no point to money.  You lose some each time you die, but you regain that in the guns you pickup.  And it scales down based on how much money you actually have.  Otherwise, you don't have any incentive to spend it at the vendors.  You don't even need it for special events since there's the rare currency for that.  So why not put it to actual use?  Get some money in the shooter, then go on your Tablet and level up a base of some sort?

What comparisons will you have to other MMO games?
This is what I mean about building up a base.  World of Warcraft just implemented "Garrisons" into their game, where a player has his own customisable base of operations to fight off the Iron Horde, a new enemy faction in the expansion.  While this is only within World of Warcraft itself, why can't there be a Mobile Counterpart?  Have your own Gunshop, where you can after market your rifle parts; get a barracks or something, where you can get other vault hunters to do your bidding; etc etc etc.

Then there's the superfluous skills.  WoW has things like Cooking and Fishing, things like that which can be cool when leveled up and focused on, but ultimately aren't necessary.  Will there be anything like that, where you can make your own guns, conveniently in your Gunshop you made in your base?

Will there be further characters?
This is an Obvious Question.  Four different classes does not a long life make.  Some people like a bit more variety to their game, changing up what toon they want to play as today to refresh their experience; or testing out new skills and abilities to learn their role in a fight; or finding an entirely different story in the game they could travel through.  All very different reasons, and all give enough reason to add more characters.

How deeply will you be able to customise characters, on an RPG level and a on a visual level?
Borderlands visual customisations have always been pretty simple.  First it was just three colours changing details on your character to make them a little more spiffy.  Then they went to extremes and made Character Customisation a collectable thing, picking up patterns and headgear at random and making yourself look awesome or outrageous.  Will BLO continue the tradition of Skins and Heads changing the look of your premade Character, or will you be able to have a uniqueness all of your own?

Then there's the RPG side.  When it came to stats, the game was pretty straight forward.  You didn't have Scores that affected your capabilities, you had Badass Points that gave you percentage bonuses, you had whatever your equipment gave you, and whatever effects your Skill Tree provided.  So will it roll over just the same?  Or will there be a new system in place?  Will we still have Skill Trees?  Will we even have stats on our guns?  And even action skills, will they still remain a thing?

What differences will there be in Equipment and Weapons?
Borderlands has a tradition of having 8 pieces of equipment.  Four Gun Slots, a Class Mod, a Grenade Mod, a Shield, and a Special.  So what changes could be made?  The Special is a miscellaneous item, so it can be whatever is appropriate to the story or region.  But will shields remain as kinetic pushing bubbles?  Will Class Mods and Grenade Mods be the same?  What about weapons?  Will it always be guns, or will Swords and Shields be brought into the mix?

Will there be more Manufacturers in the MMO release, or planned in the future?
This is a big one.  With a new Manufacturer, you get a new style of weapon.  If the series keeps with the Manufacturer distinctions, then they'll have to make a new consistency between the guns and stuff...  It sounds like a hassle, and it very certainly is, but it would be worth it to start playing a little differently with new guns.

My own personal Multi Game Pileup

OH THE HUMANITY

I've seen a backlog of games as long as my leg, thanks to Scotty.  He's a very dedicated purchaser of games that pique his interest.  Needless to say, he has a wide range of interests.

But I never thought I would have a backlog of games myself.  Sure, I have games that I have bought for the occasional time I'm feeling the mood, like Quake II or Endless Space.  And there are games I just own for the sake of owning, like Commander Keen.

But then there are games that I really want to play.  And given the discount, or enough incentive and motivation, I would snatch that up quick smart.  Like Fallout 3 that I picked up the other day for $5.  Or The Orange Box that I picked up for $5.  Or the numerous games that I have gotten for free over the last month.

It's starting to get a little out of hand, and I think I'm going to have to start a Schedule on what games I'm to play before it gets out of hand.

I know there are those who scoff at me, for my relative handful of games that I've left unplayed or unfinished.  Like I said, Scott has a pile as long as my leg.  Probably longer since I last saw him.  Lets hope I won't let it get that out of hand, and before I get more games.

Current List as it Stands

• The Orange Box (Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2)
• Borderlands the Pre-Sequel
• Fallout 3
• Hitman
• Tales from the Borderlands
• Metro 2033
• Final Fantasy Tactics

List for Achievement Completion

• Borderlands 2
• Xcom Enemy Within

"Complete 10000 steps in 3 hours"

... Addiing this to Xmas List

Jenny got a Fitbit for her birthday, and she has been sporting the little pink wristband ever since. It's a cool device that tracks her activities throughout the day. Then she adds onto the app on her phone what stuff it can't track, like food and sleep. It's pretty impressive.

I don't have a fitbit. The closest think I have is Raptr, which tracks how much time I have in Video games. Which, in a way, can be a little embarrassing *Cough* Six-Hundred-Hours-On-Borderlands-2 *cough*

I started playing Fallout 3. I've tried a couple of times before to start it, and for one reason or another I just didn't get into it. Just couldn't, no reason why. Sometimes thinking that every little thing will change the entire future intimidates me into wanting to watch out for all the minuscule things that I do from start to finish.

But I've started again. Pushing through whatever consequences there are. I've already unintentionally killed off the Sheriff of Megaton, and I wonder if I could've stopped that sleazy guy wanting to blow up Megaton before he shot him. Now, for the most part, I'm exploring the world and learning how the game works.

For example, I knew there was a repair feature, but I didn't understand how it worked until one day I saw that I had two 10mm Pistols and could repair one using the other... but that was after I had sold a good 3 pistols to Moira. I really need to find somewhere to store shit.

It's pretty phenomenal how open the world is. I've played for a few hours and I've explored a portion of it, sneaking my way from landmark to landmark, dodging certain wildlife and Super Mutants with Miniguns (Mother Fuggin Bastards hiding in Bus Wrecks on the side of the road.)

Borderlands is open world. It's got area to it that's impressive. But you don't spend long periods of time looking for wildlife before you reach another landmark. You spend only moments before you have another fight on your hands. And I'm excluding driving in that example too. It's good because it's designed that way so that mission flow is fluid and not tedious to reach.

Then I thought about the 100-something-ish hours I've done in Skyrim.  Skyrim is a big game, the area it covers takes hours to cross from one side to the other (note: may not be multiple hours).  And I couldn't help but think about how much walking I've done in that.  Dungeons; towards new towns or landmarks; heck, even just wandering around town doing fetch quests.  Thousands upon thousands of steps.

If only I had a fitbit for my Video games.  And that it physically transferred to me.  That's every unhealthy nerds dream.

Self Blindness

What has been seen cannot be unseen

I was looking at a Kotaku post about the ideal shooter and it struck me as pretty true.  The points of being a shooter were spot on, and the biggest thing I agreed with was the lack of verticality that Valve apparently implored other developers in past interviews.

The thing that stuck with me was the point about Feedback, where shooting something did more than just an arbitrary "You hit" notice.  You had a visual impact, whether it was the shattering of a pane of glass, to the flinch and limp of an enemy on their last legs.  And it got me thinking about another post about Number Games.

I've been playing Half Life 2 and I've gotten back to actually tracking how much ammunition it takes to drop an enemy.  It's something I've done for ages, all the way back to playing Doom.  It made the difference between knowing I have the right weapon and having to back pedal out of dodge.

Some other games I've played don't have to worry about that because of Health Bars and Digits.  You get to know if you've clocked someone in the head and how much that should impede them.  If you get one lucky sniper shot into someone's head and it only takes off 25% of that bar, you already know you're in for a bad time.

So how much of a difference would it make to just drop the bar entirely?

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel is my latest game to have this.  They've always had the digits jump out on a successful hit and it's bothered me a little because it would get in the way of what I was aiming for, especially if I had a bee line for someone's head.

On top of that, it provided the information of what I could use to counter it. Red Bars required Fire.  Blue required Shock.  Yellow required Corrosive.  After that, you could explode them or freeze them.  Sometimes it was pretty obvious what was required to take down whatever behemoth or minion was throwing themselves at you, but occasionally it didn't.  That was what make me think.  If I had to figure out what I had to use, then that'd make the game very different.

Sure, the game provides those visual effects to show that "Hey, they've lost shield" or "this element is super effective against such and such", but it's a bit overshadowed by the cacophony of digits jumping out from the guy like hordes of rats from a sinking ship.  The only thing that doesn't is when the enemy is on about 15% health and is limping their way towards you.

I look back at Xcom: Enemy Unknown.  There's an option that I'm going to use on it's next expansion which removes the Health Bar from enemies, so you have to guess how hard you have to hit something before you move on.  It's a little thing that can change how you play.

Do I want that for other games?  Not necessarily.  But I would like the option.

Soft Hitting, or Complacency?

Probably more interesting than Handsome Jack... Probably.

Finally finished Borderlands the PreSequel.  And I feel... Unaccomplished.

Spoiler Alert! The following post contains spoilers of Borderlands The PreSequel!

The game starts us right in the middle of things with the invasion of Helios Station.  A Dahl corporation army is taking over all the right spots just so they can control the Eye of Helios, an inbuilt Superweapon, and then use it against Elpis to ultimately destroy the Natural, and Inhabited, Satellite.

Simple Plan, no?  Pretty quickly they get control and you are transported down to the Moons Surface using a Cannon and a Cargo container you're hidng in.  Jack, the subject of our story, remains on the space station to try to do his part in helping the players from on high.

Australian Lesbians and Scavengers (Scavs for Short) ensue, and the Vault Hunters are sent on a handful of tasks to regain control of Helios.

The game seems to drag in the start.  The players end up bounding (literally) across a lava and ice covered surface to reach structures of broken down battleships to reclaim Vehicle Digistructs, AI Intelligences, and a Robotics Factory before returning to Helios and doing your part to push back the incursion and reclaim the eye of Helios, then get to the task of finding the Vault on the Moon as is the original task.

The subject of Jack is a pretty quick (de?)evolution into what he is known as today.  As soon as you reach the games main Hub Town, Concordia, you see that he's a trusting sort of fella, and someone who does not expect to be backstabbed.  Unfortunately for him, getting literally shot in the back flings him into the spiral that is a life of mistrust and calculated anger against almost every single person alive.

The problem I find is that, while the moulding of Jack into Handsome Jack is the main subject of the story, it pulls away from the other characters too much.  And while it does a rather good job of rounding off his attitude pretty well, I still want to know more about these other characters.  Which, sadly, isn't a particularly large cast.

The main problem I have though is a lack of climatic events that change your attitude.  Halfway through Borderlands 2, I had a change of heart.  I felt a little lackadaisicle at first, feeling Handsome Jack was all bark and no bite.  But that quickly changed.  And not once, but twice.

Here, there weren't really any changes of heart.  And I don't know whether it was because I hadn't thought about what was going on, or because they weren't strong enough to actually make me feel something.

It first happened with Skipper, a computer AI that was commandeered for the purpose of creating a Robotic Army from a computer Tech who felt he needed a girlfriend, and could only get one through his floating computer chair.  He was also a boss fight, by the way.

Skipper was happy to have been taken away from him and be put to more use than faking a relationship, so much so that she changed her name to Felicity to symbolise her freedom.  She was so happy and excited to lead her new life.

Come the time where the players are in the factory.  They're walking through, clearing Scavs and Torks to reach the computer system to insert Felicity.  All the while Felicity is coming to the slow realisation that she doesn't want to be plugged into a machine and reduced to simple combat components.  While pleading for her life by providing the alternative of Copying her intelligence and reducing that, Jack took time as the priority and put forth the order, which threw Felicity into Rampancy, accompanied by her new experimental body as a Constructor.  It was a pretty obvious eventaulity that the player would win that fight, and she would become akin to a bloated Dalek, but I don't know why it didn't hit me so hard.

The second climatic twist was the Eye of Helios.  Being a Space Station, you easily think "Oh yeah, it's a giant laser the station powers".  But there are little hints plonked down that it isn't just any Laser.  Apparently the kind of power it's generating is actually something that a giant laser couldn't accomplish.

Turns out it's the Eye of the Destroyer, the Vault Monster at the end of the first Borderlands Game.  That was a cool twist.  The Destroyer in Borderlands 1 turned out to be a pretty lame boss in the first game and felt it was essentially left as a note in history, so it was good to see that it made not one, but two appearances in the game.  A side mission a little earlier on has the players search for a secret laboratory and find a genetic recreation of it, though much smaller and dismissed by Jack as being useless and thusly executed.

Though Jack should've been a bit more careful with that since Moxxi and Co ended up betraying him and destroying the eye.  Sure, he tried to get it back together so he could use it again, but telling a Vault Hunter to use a laser on it after it'd just been soldered back together is just a terrible idea in itself.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether it really was complacency in knowing what the future holds, or even sleep deprivation since I did a few stints in the middle of the night, that left me feeling unenthused about the events.  The cries of Felicity as her character was torn down to minimal instinctual programming; the roar of the Destroyer as it was pumped with poison to the point of exploding; the anger of betrayal towards Jack and the utter disbelief that they would turn on him: the Hero, a title he claims at every instance.

I do hope that the DLC's make more use of other characters though.  Sure, Jack was the big focus on the game, but there is more to the game than the focus on one character.  Because there are only a few other new characters that appear, Janey Springs and Nurse Nina, that expand the cast since every other character met through side missions are either recycled from other iterations, or are one shot jokes of Humour.  Like Captain Chef, a pioneer and discoverer of worlds who claims the Moon twice in the name of his King by saluting the Royal flag while you hoist it and fend off locals.

Who I'm really excited for is the Mysterious Guardian, though.  He makes two appearances, once at the beginning of the game when he defends Zarpedon from being attacked, and in a Teaser clip after the Credits when he defends Athena from the firing line and provides words of forboding, which put a little tingle in my pants for the next game, which a small part of me wishes it would be a Shared World MMO, like Destiny, only immensely more Interesting, though I highly doubt it.

Fragmented Fragtrap

I roll my d34.

Claptrap the Fragtrap.  He's a robot who has gone from a simple doorbot to a lean mean killing machine, complete with stair climbing protocols.

While that may not seem like much to a human, it's a life changing event to be a CL4P-TP and be able to roll up stairs.

With becoming a Vault Hunter, he can now grow in a trio of ways.  And I chose to go with the Fragmented Fragtrap, because I thought it was interesting and fun.

But after finishing the game once, I feel I should be frank and say that any player should leave this until higher levels.

Lets explain it.  The whole tree is based on Subroutines.  Every 100 seconds, or however many Frag Stacks you have on screen at the time, you change subroutines which increases a specific aspect and detrimenting every other aspect.

It starts with Gun and Shield Subroutines, giving you a bonus to Gun Damage, Reload and Fire Rate, or a bonus to Shield Capacity and Health Regeneration, but then expands out to a Melee Subroutine and Elemental Subroutines.  But the counter is that you suffer a penalty to Gun Damage, or Element Damage, of any other type.  So there's always a chance you'll be doing between 75-85% damage regardless of what you have equipped.  Mind, if you're equipped correctly, you'll be doing from 120-132% damage.  That's pretty sweet.

But therein lies the problem.  There are 7 Weapon Types, 5 Elements, and then you account Melee and Shield.  That means that you have a 1 in 14 chance you'll end up with the right weapon if it rolls up.  Do I like those odds?  Not particularly.

I have a regular setup for my four weapons to cover most instances.  I'll have a Fire, Shock and Corrosive weapon, and then a Miscellaneous in the fourth slot.  If it were Borderlands 2, it'd be a Slag weapon, but that's not discovered yet (Hence Pre-Sequel).  So lately I've assigned it to Cryo, because it's new and it's fun.

Then I cover my ammunition count by having different weapon types.  I prefer my Automatic weapons, so there'll be a Combat Rifle and an SMG in there off the bat.  I will be picky, but there will be a certain type of Laser Weapon in there too, because they're freakin awesome.  Then, by process of Elimination through the rule of Spray and Pray, that'll leave a Pistol in the last slot.

So I'll have 8 chances of having a bonus to weapon damage, 7 if I drop the Melee option (Which I may do since I don't do enough Melee to account it).  Fair enough, that's not too bad.  But since it's level 30, I can't exactly go about and pick and choose what weapons I want.  I have a variety to choose from but, and this is something I've noticed closer to the game, there are a shed load of white guns being dropped about.  I can't use Common guns.  And grinding is spending a lot of time on chances that probably won't happen.

It's what you would call a Dilemma.

But this will be an entirely different story at later levels.  Once I reach 50, and find where the best legendary weapons are hiding, I'll dive straight back into this and start really screwing everyone and everything over.

For now though?  I'll jump over to Boomtrap.  I do like the 1812 Overture, after all.

Exempting Language

Have a link to quotes

I'm a proud Australian. I think of home and I think of the long beaches, the mateship culture that epitomises my home, and the fun you can have going down the Main Street of Brisbane.  It puts a warm fuzzy feeling inside me that I haven't felt since I've moved to Murica.  But then again, that could just be the fucking cold weather here.

Being a video gamer, I have gotten accustomed to the Murican accents that are ever present regardless of the setting, whether it's Medieval Europe or the far flung future, where everyone might have some sort of translating device to accommodate the clicks and whirs of a strange insectoid race, but it still comes through the same if not in subtitles.

There are always a few examples of vocal multiculturalism and it always comes down to specific characters, whether it's the Bad Guy in an American action film, or an ally in a Class based shooter.

I've done a couple of aesthetic swaps in a few games.  Remember Me was set in Neo Paris so I changed the voices to French and added subtitles, because I can't understand Francais.  And I did the same with Metro 2033 with Russian Language.

Borderlands the Pre-Sequel is predominantly Okka, and I've been a bit excited about that. To hear an accent from home in a video game?  Bloody Oath!  And since it's in one of my favourite game settings, that just makes it better.

There are Australian references everywhere, from lunatics calling "lucky bastard" in his final breath, to a bloke called Peepot looking for his Swagman mate who found a bIllabong and tucked a Jumbuck in his tucker bag.  It's pretty funny, some of the lines are clever and the discussions with some of my Murican friends have brought out more and more laughs.

But with everything that ever is and was, there is something embarrassing.  Something that comes for the pierced midriff and muffin top of Australian Culture.  And they're called Bogans.

The item in Question: the Boganella, a shotgun that has an inbuilt voice chip with lines of a typical durry smoking, foul mouthed, Southern Cross Tramp Stamp Tart that would get into a fight with your common blue collar bloke in a pub because he wouldn't buy her a pack of smokes in trade for a dash up her crotch monster.

The thing is, the vocabulary of one of these yellow toothed charmers is vulgar.  It's downright shocking, and it's really unsettling to hear my character yelling out profanities like an episode of Jerry Springer had just been turned up to 11 as I bounded across the moon of Pandora.  No enemy spoke like this, they were relatively tame compared to this Muffin Topped Slapper of a Shotgun.

There is only one thing I can do and that's boycott the gun when it comes up again, which it will due to second playthroughs and multiple characters that I will surely be doing.  See the 600 hours I've spent on Borderlands 2.

"How do YOU like target practice? Huh? HUH?!"

So the other day, I had the biggest giggity goo I could have had for Borderlands the Pre-Sequel.  I'd watched the gameplay videos of Shmaptain Shmerica, WIL-209, and Clara Eastwood, and I thought "yeah, they're going to be fun to play."  And I even noted that the experience would be only slightly different because of the voice overs becoming more personal so replaying as different characters wouldn't just mean killing the same monster with a different class, it changes your emotional status towards it too since you get treated differently because of that class.

But what has been left last was CL4P-TP (Pron: Claptrap) the Fragtrap.  And he has just made my day.

In times before he has been an Iconic character, a target for abuse and for ridicule.  Even in Borderlands 2, he was incredibly depressing with a cheerful voice due to a malfunction.  His birthday was incredibly sad.

At one point, he had power.  He was the leader of a Revolution.  He brought his kind to power, converting those who were against him into one of his minions.  Granted, he was brought down a number of notches due to Vault Hunters, but at least he got far enough that the subjugation came to an end.

Now, in the Pre-sequel, the bridge between his fall from grace to a lonesome and pitiful life as the last of his species, we see him try again to kick arse and chew bubblegum.  And he has no way of chewing bubblegum.

Claptrap starts as any other Vault Hunter.  He has his guns and he has his Action Skill.  But rather than do one super thing for a period of time when available, just like any other Vault Hunter in the game, his action skill begins a program: VaultHunter.EXE.  It determines parameters and from a list of options activates anything from Digistructing a Bomb that he can chase someone down with, to firing cannons to the melody of the 1812 Overture.

Once I heard that, I knew I had to do something about it.  I knew I had to restart the Robolution.  It was my destiny, and the destiny of my friends to join me in helping take over the Moon of Pandora.

I just hope they have a Che Guevara outfit.  My Partisans need to know who's boss.

Speaking Aesthetically...

Gobble Gobble, Bitches

One of the things about games lately is the customisation options. Sure, customise your equipment loadout and such, things that can actually change the way you play the game, but that's not what I'm going to focus on.

Jetpack Joyride has little more to it than it's Gadgets, outfits, and jetpacks. The player can play as much as possible, earning as much coin as possible just for the goal of changing outfits. Then you have the three options of "Random Head", "Random Outfit" and "Random Jetpack". Every time you load it up, you get random options out of what you have purchased.

I like that. I don't particularly care about the Aesthetics of my character, so long as they play that way. I've had Wonder Woman with an Indiana Jones Jacket and Whip with a Golden Pig Jetpack that propels the player with cash.

I don't see why it can't be implemented into something like Borderlands, where I have dozens of custom aesthetics for my characters, and I don't see why Axton can't rock up in bright Eridian Pink with a Head like the Ravenous Wattle Gobbler.

With something like the Halo series, then sure. It's a fair cop that there isn't a random armour generator since as you gain levels an achievements you unlock pieces, which makes it a sign of achievement. You could still look like a Recruit once you reach Spartan Rank 100, but you can always go ahead and change that look as you please.

But hey, I want randomness. I don't care about what Armour I rock up in. I could be in a Gstring and a smile and it would mean diddly for gameplay because the armour is all aesthetics. So send me in wearing whatever, even if it doesn't match.

Not that anyone can really care anyway, it's not that they're going to look down their Sniper Scope at me and say to their teammates "That chest piece with those leg braces? Bitch please."

Borderlands? Brought down to a pithy Bitmap game? PREPOSTUROUS

"The existence of the fizz gland explains why
certain games possess us in an inexplicable way"

Having become absorbed into what can easily be classified as my iPad, I have been playing many different iPad games that ask for regular attention.  Jetpack Joyride, Birzzle Fever, Angry Birds Epic, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach... just to name a few.

With my current Fizzyness with Borderlands and it's upcoming Pre-Sequel, I think about it's iPad game "Borderlands Legends".  A somewhat side story of the Borderlands game that is a bit... cheap and nasty, really.

You get your four characters, each with their specific favoured weapons (Snipers for Mordecai, SMG's for Lylyth, Combat Rifles for Roland, and Shotguns for Brick) and the role of the player is to drag each character into range of enemies that are coming from Ecks Direction.

That's all well and good, but for a US$7 game, I would've expected something a bit more in-depth than random occurances of enemies walking from offscreen on a randomly chosen Bitmap environment, between buying items from a Bitmap Vending Machine so you can do it all again.  So it makes me think of what I would do to make for a better Borderlands themed iPad game.

First of all, I would change the format.  Rather than a top-down-drag-click shooter, make it a Turn Based Tactical game.  Grid based?  Maybe.  It could be somewhat original to have a free movement tactical style.  Either way, cover would be of importance as it should always be in a tactical game, and in most Borderlands games too.

Units would be more than just a handful of, but not limited to, Vault Hunters themselves.  Get some generic units, like Ex-Atlas Soldiers and scrapped Robots.  I'm sure there would be characters from town that would throw in their 2 bucks worth as well.

Equip them as normal, giving them two, or even four, weapons to choose from on top of their shields and grenade mods.  Would there be Artifacts or Class Mods to choose from?  What about a new item to throw in the mix?

Then there's skill trees.  Vault Hunters, and maybe just named characters, could have the same options as usual, three distinct trees to change their playstyle.  Between fights you can reassign them as you would in Borderlands, paying to refund your skill points which would allow players to adjust whomever for and upcoming mission.

Currency would be pretty much the same as usual, your dosh as your base, make Eridium your secondary, and then something like Seraph crystals as your rare or trade in currency.

Generic Characters can have a single skill tree which players can pick and choose to customise said soldier as they see fit until they reach a saturation point, where they can maybe upgrade to become something like a Vault Hunter of their own right?  Or maybe just an upgraded version of their own class?  Or maybe they can have three trees as well to change what kind of soldier they are.  Atlas had a wide choice, after all.

Then we go onto the Pre-battle view.  You have your scene, a large map across a segment of Pandora, with Trails and Locations that the player can pick and choose to progress through.  Each battle containing individual bosses, or hordes of enemies, and the player would be required to wade their way through and progress along until they've done accomplished a feat of some sort in the encounter.

The missions may have some longevity, rather than just being one after another they may have to move on through a large corridor, or circle their way around an industrial site, picking up items dropped from enemies such as health packs and being that little bit cautious so that when they reach the final encounter they will be worn down or fully capable.

Have daily missions, where a player can go back and pick up some money or run through a dungeon or something for a chance at a super rare weapon from a boss.  Have previously cleared missions be raided by Bandits, or taken by a chosen enemy corporation/s that have been elected for the story.

Story?  Now that's a tough one.  I would like to warrant that it would be after Borderlands 1, just to keep with the setting of the devastation Dahl has wreaked upon Pandora and the Populace.  Possibly around the Pre-Sequel time?  While the Vault Hunters are going mad on the Moon, this game could cover the events on the Mainland, where Hyperion is taking over everything and Eridium is becoming a Commodity.

The game could eventually expand on to the events in Borderlands 2, the turn of the tide against Hyperion and the rise of the new Vault Hunters.  Further on, as more games come out, another update coinciding with them, featuring side encounters and possibly game linking.  What with this Shift Rewards setup, you could earn Badass Points in all three games and benefit from them, unless they drastically change the Borderlands series after the Pre-sequel.

It's an idea.  A pretty straight forward idea, but it's an idea none the less, and a better idea than what they had for Borderlands Legends.

While I'm on the subject of Borderlands, I read an article about how Gearbox are thinking about releasing the Pre-Sequel for the current generation consoles (Xbone, PS4 and WiiU presumably).  This calls for an update and remake for the previous games.  One thing I know about the Pre-Gen games I have is that they don't display as well as the PC versions do.  And while it's a little petty, I would really enjoy seeing the game get that little bit prettier.

But what I really want is a Borderlands 1 improvement.  While there are some good features to it, there are still so many simple improvements they made for Borderlands 2, such as the AI for enemies, the weapon cards, the general interface. Keep a similar style, by all means, but make those minor improvements that make Borderlands 2 such a massive improvement over it's predecessor.

I know this is a dinky little gamers bog, with little rhyme or reason to the thought process of the majority of it's posts, but damnit wouldn't I love to see those simple features implemented into that first game.