Metal Reviews

Borderlands 2.
Anyone who liked the first one even remotely should GET THIS GAME.
You will put a lot of time into it. You get hooked immediately.

Tell me about it.

During my first big session over the weekend, I had one of those creepy experiences where time actually seems to disappear.

I got started, took care of the first few side quests, levelled up to about level 9, and then looked at my watch for the first time. What I thought had been about 2 hours....MAX....had been closer to 7 hours. That's always how you know you've got a keeper on your hands.

This MGS talk is reminding me I really must get that HD re-release collection. Having flashbacks to stinger missiles and cardboard boxes, loved the first so much at the time...

Lost Odyssey, a lame 2008 J-RPG. I already put 15 hours in that shit and I'm far too proud to quit, so I'm going to beat it, but boy it sucks. Well actually it doesn't suck, it's OK for what it is. And at least you can play with the Japanese voices if you like, which would be cool... if the lips animations were made at least half-correctly. Even fucking GTA San Andreas had better lip animation, and technically that game was horse shit even for its time (but the game itself was brilliant of course).

I'm going to do FF XIII-2 next. I'm sure I'm going to regret it but what the hell, it's cheap. J-RPG is so dead a genre. A pity.

And there's Batman Arkham City, Witcher 2 and Deus Ex HR that I have bought and still not really played. And I have Bioshock, Sleeping Dogs and Dark Souls on list too. Aw man, clone me already...

I am far too drunk to make a worthwhile post concerning Lost Odyssey.................... But I will. Tomorrow.

I hope DevotedWalnut isn't angry at me because I am critic.

Sorry to disappoint ya Goat, but I don't think the HD collection has the first one on it. It's a shame, I know. The only remake of the first one I can think of is the one on the Gamecube, and that's kinda already outdated as well.

I agree with Lost Odyssey being kind of bad. I don't know if it's the games that are getting worse of I'm just getting tired of playing console games, but I can't seem to put a lot of time into them. Same thing with Lost Odyssey, I played a few hours, but there's nothing making me want to start up the game over and over again. It's too predictable, not in its story line but in the way of game play. That's kind of the way JRPGs go though, so it might be time for them to rethink the formula. I don't think it's viable any longer to make games where you keep going from town to town where every story ends with a boss fight, there needs to be something to shake things up. And anyway, the JRPG style battles are getting really fucking tiresome, it's the worst type of turn-based combat.

In 2012, if you're playing a JRPG, with a few exceptions you're pretty much bound to be bored. There hasn't been nearly enough evolution in the genre. I'm sure some crafty Japanese developer will revolutionise the genre before long, but for now, American RPGs, specifically Bethesda and Bioware developed ones, are really the best way to satiate the RPG craving.

Yes, was already aware of that, a pity. Still, looking forwards to the others.

@Edge and Bar: yeah, agreed. Although I'd add Obsidian to that list, Bar.

J-RPGs are almost a thing of the past (well, except in Japan...), but I haven't given up on them yet and really wish the genre can be salvaged. Maybe in a few years we'll be invaded by Dark Souls-like RPGs...

My critic comment was directed at you you negative bastard.

Bruce I'm in season 2 now, approaching Christmas, and I'm killing it. 22-5-4. I barely scraped into the playoffs last year, measly 87 points, and bounced in the 1st round by eventual Cup champs Pittsburgh. Over the summer I shed some fat (Macarthur, Grbovski, Steckel..) and signed some key veterans (Dan Cleary, Tim Thomas, Troy Brouwer) promoted some young guys (Nazem Kadri, Matt Frattin) and picked up Michael Del Zotto with an offer sheet (only had to give up a 2nd). I'm laughing. 2014 cup champs, 2015 for sure.

Dev: Yeah, season 2 as well here. 1st one was a disaster (34 wins whereas boss wanted 44). A couple of moves (not many, as trading is way harder, tons of fun!), and I got 48 wins this year (boss wanted 45). Finished 4th in the East, lost the division win to fucking Leafs.
We'll see how I handle myself during the playoffs, boss wants a conf semi-final, doable. I played 21 games and simmed 61 during the regular season, and am going to play myself everything during the playoffs. Fun, fun.

I'm adopting a very agressive strategy towards draft picks. I'm collecting 1st round picks like fucking Pokemons (gotta catch 'em all). I have three 1st round picks this year. The goal is to have an extreme quality roster in the 5-10 years to come. We'll see. I may get fired before that though, the game is definitely harder (for me at least) than '12. If that's the case, I'll try the same strategy using a low expectations franchise.

Now, to Tompa: do you still play GW2? If so, do you still have fun? SWTOR is going (half) free-to-play next month, I was thinking of playing it again a little, not at all for the multiplayer content, but for the storyline of some classes I haven't tried (the only good thing in this game is the storyline). But then I thought maybe GW2 would be a better choice.

Or maybe I should just ignore MMOs entirely.

I still play it but mostly just when I want to listen to a podcast or some music and keep my hands busy. I don't really have an urge to play it, but considering the time spent and no subscription fee I don't regret my purchase. I can go back and play it anytime I'm in the mood. Exploring and levling up is great fun, even if you're alone because the entire server is like one big party (the word 'party' as in 'group', not 'celebration'). You'll never be mad if someone else is nearby because it's always helpful and you both get full experience for whatever you do.

You can borrow my account if you wanna give it a try.

Very nice of you, thanks for proposing. I only asked in order to have your opinion a month after release, I probably won't play it soon. Thanks again

In other news, I've given up on Lost Odyssey. Too classic. I'll beat the crap out of the bad guy and save the day, and something heartbreaking will happen (me dying in the process, my daughter coming back to life, or something like that). Been there before a trillion times. I'm out.

I was playing Borderland 2 as a Gunzerker, got about 15 hours in and decided I didn't like the options on the skill tree, which made trawling through the endless shooting missions pretty boring.

Started again as a Commando this time, we'll see how we go.

I'm playing as an assassin thinking I could just play as a hunter from the last game by maxing all the sniper stuff. But uh...the old hunter strategy of just throwing the bird and sniping from across the map doesn't seem to apply to this game. I miss my scopes.

I'm playing a Siren, putting all of my skill points into the "Cataclysm" tree and putting all of my Badass Tokens towards elemental damage. Christ my character is powerful.

Dishonored

Awesome.

Revisiting Brutal Legend. Worth it for that playlist. Fucking awesome.