Steam Sale, Crysis 2, and GW2 Final BWE prep

As pretty much everyone knows, Steam is having their annual summer sale right now, which has given me the opportunity to pick up some titles I hadn't previously had the chance to and also give me some entertainment to fill in the time gap between Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekends.

Most importantly, I finally got Crysis 2 (and at 70% off, that's a pretty big steal), and combined with the fact that I also now finally have a computer capable of running it in all the DX11 glory it requires I couldn't be happier. It's extremely satisfying. And totally mind blowing. 

Sure we've all seen Crytek's promotional stuff, and DX11 showcases, for CryEngine 3 but watching videos and playing the game are two totally different animals. Mostly it comes down to the fact that when I'm immersed in the game I can actually notice why all of these little details like bokeh, realtime reflections, and tessellation make a difference. Their tech is totally mind blowing, but Crytek could surely use some better writers. 

To say it plainly, the plot feels like it was written by monkeys. But really, I don't play this game for it's complex and involved story (there isn't any), I play it to experience the power of the game engine they designed. I mean... just look at it.

I'm not even running the game at max settings. It's simply Gorgeous.

Finally, we're all waiting with eager anticipation as the final Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend starts in 2 days. Getting to play the Sylvari and Asura will be totally amazing. I can't wait!

Borderlands. I'm an SMG Bulletstorm

Borderlands is a pretty old game, but if you're not familiar with it I'll preface this with the basic idea.

Kill things. Get Loot. Be a Badass.

I've been playing it on and off since the GOTY Steam sale back during the beginning of 2012. You could say, it's been my go to game when I need a quick fix of brutal satisfying carnage. Initially I didn't buy it when it came out because I was too busy with Starcraft 2, and other things, but since Borderlands had always been on my list of games to play when you add in the sale price it was pretty much a no brainer. I love future apocalypse landscapes and Gearbox's marketing is simply genius.

A Gazillion guns? Oh yes please. Don't mind if I do.

So here's the situation. I've been playing for a while and building up an SMG Siren. I don't typically go to wikis or walkthroughs unless I really find something impossible, so little to my knowledge a SMG Siren is really quite good. I've been seeing my fair share of good drops, orange pistols, 'holy crap it shoots rockets' shotguns, and various elemental SMGs but nothing really spectacular. The loot was good enough to get me through my first playthrough, including all the DLC, without much trouble, so I wasn't really complaining much.

Then at the end of my second playthrough of the normal story, just before you finally get to the Vault, BAMMO!

This crap is bananas! And that's putting it lightly. If you don't quite understand what's going on here let me break it down for you:

It's an SMG. My Siren uses SMGs.

It has an 82 round clip. Yay bullets.

It shoots HELL OF A FAST. Yay more bullets!

It shoots 4 BULLETS EVERY TIME A NORMAL GUN ONLY SHOOTS ONE

Essentially. A HX 4 Double Anarchy SMG is capable of unloading its entire 82 round clip in roughly 2 seconds. That maths out to one bullet every .024 seconds.

Here's a video. I think that describes it best.

Borderlands just got fun again.

Portal 2 Lessons in Perpetual Testing

A few weeks ago Valve announced the Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative and ever since the Initiative launched I've been neck deep in figuring out new and unique ways to kill my friends. That is, of course, what Portal 2 is all about. I actually now realize how Wheatley feels (spoilers?) as I build my very own test chambers and then send my friends to their certain peril while I look on and chuckle manically at their deaths or praise them for their successes.

The trick to building test chambers can sometimes get lost in the journey. It's all about simplicity. I've found that some of my chambers, while clever, unique, and challenging, are much too complex for people to grasp. A problem that one wouldn't often think about while building the chamber. The solution always seems obvious to the one who designed it. The challenge is making it complex enough that the solution isn't obvious at first but becomes clearer as the subject learns your chamber. You're aiming to reward your test subjects with the 'Ah! HA!' moments. When suddenly everything clicks together and they just get it. Sometimes death is a very good method of encouragement. I really like it, but as my friends have told me my chambers are vicious and unforgiving, so maybe I enjoy killing them a little too much. I also like to force subjects into uncomfortable situations. The feeling of knowing that there's turrets aiming at you and no way to get at them can make for some interestingly tense moments.

So if you're interested in a challenge, and are more than comfortable getting stranded, gunned down by turrets, and flung into deadly goo by all means check out the Foundry. I built it, so you know it's going to be tough. 

Here's a teaser I put together so you can get an idea of what you'll be getting yourself into.

RNG Achievements. A rant

Achievements for me are a love hate thing. I love them because it's a fun way to know how much of a game I've finished. I hate them because it's a terrible way to remind me how much of a game I haven't finished. Thanks Xbox for eternally changing (ruining?) the way people play games.

Why do I bring this up? And what's the significance of RNGs here? Well it's taken me quite some time to get around to it, but I've finally queued up Borderlands in my wait for my next Guild Wars 2 hit (tip of the hat to Ravious over at Killtenrats for helping me realize I'm a GW2 drug addict), and generally Borderlands is 100% superfun. I grew up on Diablo so dungeon grinding and loot whoring is familiar territory for me. Also I sure do love me some good ol fashioned FPS frag fests. Borderlands delivers on that end, completely. So combined all that together and you've got yourself a recipe for one awesome game, and it is awesome. The killing, murdering, exploding, hilarious vulgar humor, and spectacularly great gun design.

But then they just had to go in and add totally retarded achievements. I've probably killed the entire Claptrap population twenty times over and I have yet to get all my goldfish, or panties, or pizza, or oil cans, or .... whatever. Heck I'm certain I've made the Hyperion corporation mine out an entire sector of space to build, and rebuild, all the Claptraps I've blown to bits over my search for stupid robot fish. The worst part is that even after you've collected all your pointless 3D glasses they continue to drop. It's like the Claptraps, even in their death, continue to taunt me, "Look, here's some more 3D glasses! Too bad what you really need is our panties!" The worst part is, naturally, that there's no Achievement tracker. I don't even know, for certain, if I've already collected all the panties I need and since they keep dropping I keep picking them up because maybe with the next one I'll finally ding the achievement over and be done with this torment in RNG robot hell.

Oh yeah, on a final note, I hate you stupid robots in Portal 2. Why can't you be better at rock-paper-scissors. I swear from now on I'm sticking to fantasy titles. It's obvious robots aren't good for my health.

Page Questing

I feel like I'm on a quest, but all the objectives are hidden. I have this overall goal, talking about gaming, or MMOs,  or something... Though, there aren't exactly any flagstones that say what to do, so I'm just going to talk about whatever I feel like, and maybe it'll be worth reading (maybe not... either way the content will probably be interesting). Hopefully I can keep this updated with some kind of frequency.

I sure do play enough games, mostly MMOs but I'm also huge into StarCraft, as well as various FPS titles (Portal, TF2, Borderlands, Halo...), so I'll probably have a little bit of a unique gaming perspective given that I pretty much try to play everything I can so long as it's fun. I've spent the most of my time divided between WoW and Guild Wars, but my entire highschool life was deep in StarCraft: Broodwar and Warcraft3 so I have a fairly good grasp of the RTS genera as well, especially on the competitive end.

Recently I'm starting to lean heavily towards Guild Wars 2, so that's definitely going to be a primary focus around here once it goes live. It's an awesome game, definitely go check it out if you haven't already. Though if that's not your fancy don't worry I plan to discuss a lot more than just GW2.

Deckard Cain said it best, "Stay a while and listen."

You might get rewarded.