Armored Core 4 (Xbox 360) -- I loved the original Armored Core so much that I actually bought another Playstation back when they were still $200 a pop just to play the vs. mode in full screen with my friend Amiga-Bill. That's dedication! Things started to go sour in this series when FROM Software (the developer) neglected to keep up with emerging trends (i.e., analog control systems) even into the late PS2 era. Even after they included it, they tweaked the gameplay to actually make it harder to play, not more fun, and those things are pretty much mutually exclusive in my book. AC4 actually infuriated me because they implemented analog control flawlessly, then limited the size of the mission worlds to ludicrously tiny parts of a bigger-looking world and gave the player next to no idea what the mission would be, making it a very trial-and-error experience. I got angry every time I attempted to play this game, and it had to go (Chromehounds, FROM's other mecha game, might not have the cool designs but plays much better all around anyway).
Armored Core 2 (Playstation 2) -- See above.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360) -- I was looking forward to this game at first; I liked some of Call of Duty 2's gameplay, though I was sick of the WW2 setting, so this seemed like a good compromise. Unfortunately, what I got instead was an FPS that passed itself off as hyper-realistic, but when I've wasted all of my ammunition staking out a house that apparently has over 100 terrorists living in it (the must be Mexican-Iranian) there's something fishy in the game engine. Multiplayer didn't fare much better, because in the mode that lets your level up your character anyone with a high-level mod can just waste you even if you manage to kill them (grenades are insta-death, and there's an option that will automatically allow higher-level characters to drop grenades when they die), and you have a formula for frustration. With the new Modern Warfare and its more-fun-looking zombie mode out in stores, there didn't seem to be much point in playing it anyway.
Transformers the Movie, the Game (Xbox 360) -- Bravo, Traveller's Tales. You somehow managed to make a game that actually surpasses the Michael Bay movie in craptacular-ness.
Iron Man (Xbox 360) -- I have to say that this wasn't as bad as Transformers (I purchased it at the same time for next to nothing), but it was still a horrible game if only for two things: It completely butchers the spectacular movie's story, and you have to hold down a button to stay aloft and hover while flying. If it eliminated the latter, I could have forgiven the former.
Rayman Raving Rabbids (Xbox 360) -- The offbeat humor in this "game" can't make up for the fact that it's just a slow-loading collection of piss-poor mini games. This Xbox 360 game is just a port of Wii Shovelware (trademark pending, as Nintendo seems to be intent on cornering the market).
Transworld Snowboarding 2 (Xbox) -- I played this game once, then went back to playing Amped. I don't know if that actually has anything to do with the quality of the game or my own preference. I like my snowboarding games with as little loading as possible, and Amped still shines in that respect. Transworld did not.
Capcom Fighting Evolution (Playstation 2) -- So, apparently evolution can move backwards too. This is hands-down the worst Capcom brand fighting game I have ever played, Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha not withstanding. As I already have Street Fighter Alpha, Super Street Fighter 2, and Darkstalkers for the Playstation, and the fact that they're all much better, I didn't see the need to keep this around.
Pokemon Pearl (Nintendo DS) -- Wow. Someone managed to find a way to package and sell boredom. That someone is Nintendo. Seriously, this is almost the exact same game as Pokemon Red, which I purchased over a decade-and-a-half ago. How is it even possible that they added color and nothing else. Oh, they changed the character's names and added some monsters. How about adding some fun?
Animal Crossing (Nintendo DS) -- This one wasn't completely terrible, but without the promise of unlocking old NES games like its GameCube counterpart, I felt far less of a need to keep playing it.
Star Fox Command (Nintendo DS) -- So, Nintendo once again takes a franchise that I once loved, changes the gameplay, breaks the controls, then forces me to vigorously rub my screen with my stylus insuring that not only will I be damaging my system in a manner that will require speedy replacement but also so I will begin to question why I loved the series to begin with.
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (Nintendo DS) -- I beat all of the Sudoku puzzles, and the actual brain training portion of the game punished my score with unreasonably stupid handwriting and voice recognition. Note to Nintendo: If you're going to make software that exists only to judge me unfairly, at least make sure the damn thing works! Incidentally, I apparently had a brain age of 22 before I deleted the files.
Pac Pix (Nintendo DS) -- Probably the only game on this list that I actually liked, even with its annoying stylus screen-scratching. It was just more of an oddity than an actual game.
I was expecting to get about $40 for all of these games, but I actually ended up getting about twice that, which was not only a relief but a boon - I managed to not only acquire Borderlands but also a 1600 point Xbox Live card which I used to finally purchase the superb 'Splosion Man.
So my collection got a little lighter, but I don't care. Borderlands alone is actually better than all of these games combined. It's sort of an odd game: It's not really a great shooter and not really a great RPG, but somewhere in the middle it excels.
From a shooter standpoint, there's not much to say. The controls are slow, the options are obtuse - you're pretty much stuck with a "Call of Duty" control variant - the "Angelic" (read: Halo) scheme has no "one click zoom in, one click zoom out" option, forcing the player to hold down the look-stick to zoom, and while you're trying to aim this is nearly impossible making this scheme worthless. Even with the sensitivity cranked up the controls feel unresponsive and floaty. The enemies don't seem to have precise hit points making shooting them a guessing game (far less than in Deus Ex, however). The game lacks relevant physics - environments aren't affected by your guns and explosions, only enemies. The map is somewhat plodding and empty, with (so far) only a few different enemy types of varying degrees of difficulty, some of which spawn far too frequently. However, I didn't seem to mind as much once I got the "runner," a vehicle much like the Batman Begins style Batmobile that can boost and shoot and run over most enemies with the greatest of ease. It's easy to drive and fun to squish things. Even so, running back and forth from the towns to the mission areas does get somewhat repetitive, though I haven't been able to explore all of the (allegedly) huge map by myself yet.
From an RPG standpoint, it's about as basic as they come. You get experience points (EXP) for killing enemies and completing missions, you can find and equip a VAST array of weaponry and shield units, and you can also put points into abilities (commonly referred to as feats) every time you level up, which usually center around a character's special ability (the soldier has a sentry gun, the siren can turn invisible, etc.). This adds a lot of variety, as one can specialize a character for single play or for multiplayer. Enemies get a little easier with each level, and weapons become a bit more varied as you go through the game. Those familiar with dungeon crawler style of gameplay will feel immediately at home, though there are small things with the interface (holdovers from shooting games, I suspect) that will throw you, like equipping items; it's incredibly easy to understand, but you need to approach it from a non-role-playing point of view for it to make sense quickly. There are times where I found myself running around for an hour looking for quest items, and only because they aren't shown with precision on the map. That was by far the most frustrating thing about an otherwise reasonably-paced game. Enemies do tend to respawn after awhile, which makes the game seem a little more unrealistic, but is a nice change from the empty chambers left behind in most dungeon crawlers.
Graphics: This one's a tough call. If you like cel-shading, it works. My only gripe with the cel-shading in this case is that the line work is designed to look like comic book art, though the farther back the object, the smaller the lines (a real artist has a finite size of inking brushes to work with). Animations are somewhat simplistic and sparse, but due to the sheer size of the game it's forgivable. The animations that are there are okay. The desert environment doesn't have any plants, and the only obvious moving scenery are the windmills that dot the landscape. It's very brown or purple (depending on the time of day in the game), but for the most part it works, and fits the "Mad Max in outer space" theme quite well.
Sound: It's excellent. I imagine it's even more excellent with surround sound. Enemies say some really messed up things sometimes, and it frames the setting nicely. The voice acting is tolerable and well-suited to script which has enough black humor to satisfy steam-punk sensibilities. Monsters are appropriately whiny, robots are clunky, and everything makes a satisfying squish when it blows apart. The music has a nice guitar solo feel, until you start to become overwhelmed by enemies, then begins to beat hard. While it certainly won't be nearly as recognized, it's the best interactive soundtrack (that is, it changes with the action) since Halo.
Control: See above
Gameplay: See above
Overall: This game has the value of 10 games! Take all of the good points and multiply it by the number of people you can get to play it together with (much better in co-op, and you can turn dueling off if you're playing with a "griefer" - I'm looking at you, Seth Moore), and that's my score.
Come to think of it, this game doesn't deserve a gripe at all.
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