F.E.A.R.

Year: 2005
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Survival Horror
Website: --

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 13.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 5/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (11/15/2014): I started playing this one months ago.  Well before I started back into school.  A lot of why I booted this game up was actually that, when I looked up playthrough times on the interblags, I saw reports that people finished it in 5 hours or so.  I thought, "Well, that will work just fine.  A quick playthrough on an old FPS and another blog entry soon to come!"  I started playing.
  
  
  Four hours of play time pass.  I am about half way into what I figure is the second level.  “Hmm...” I think to myself, “This is either a really short game, or I am really bad at this.”
  
  
  Or people on the internet are lying to me.
  
  
  I eventually played on and found more and more levels.  I found some new guns and met some new enemies. In short, the game refused to end. 
  
  
  There were some points to this game that I feel are noteworthy.  First, I don't really enjoy the action/horror genre.  It just isn't my thing.  When something pops up in front of me I expect to be able to shoot it or punch it or however the game would usually allow a player to process foes. In the horror style it is all too common to leave the player impotent, for no other reason than raising suspense.  I am a bit high strung these days anyway, so more stress isn't probably the best.  (There was an event in this game with a ladder that kind of rocked my world…as in it scared me enough that I either jumped, squealed or peed myself a little.  I was then paranoid about every other ladder I had to interact with in that way throughout the rest of the game.
  
  
  Having particles blow into the air when someone shoots a wall is cool.  Having a little sprite of a bullet hole or crater is a nice touch as well.  Letting the player look around corners instead of just strafe into oncoming fire is a cool thing that I used a lot.  As for the ability to slow down time…Max Payne did it better.  I probably just say that though, because I kept forgetting that I could do that.  Blah blah blah, good job on a cool game engine, blah blah blah.
  
  
  My next point is that I HATE when a game takes away my guns.  I was going to call this “pulling a Half-Life” but I didn't know if anyone else would remember the point in the original Half-Life, when at about 3/4 of the way through the game, they take all of your ammo.  I play most games with economy in mind.  I go out of my way to save bullets and grenades and pride myself on doing so.  I will even avoid using my fun guns, instead just use the boring things for which I have more rounds.  Imagine my vitriol when instead of being rewarded for this conservative play I am left naked and violated.  Interesting consideration for any game developers out there:  Before you steal the shit that I have spent the whole damn game collecting, would you please offer me a fun place to “blow my load”?  Or, crazy thought here, HOW ABOUT YOU DON’T STEAL MY SHIT YOU FLAMING FUCKWIT!?  Finishing a game with piles of ammo is one thing.  Having to work through the last 15 minutes of a game while pissed that you could be using the cool shit that you collected earlier just pisses me off.
  
  So yeah.  That is what I came away with after working this game.  The story was fine, the gameplay had some cool stuff that was new when they made it, the heroes were likable, and they fucked it up at the end.  Good job, folks.
  

Borderlands 2: Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage

Year: 2012
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Action Role-Playing
Website: http://www.borderlands2.com/campaignofcarnage

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 5.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 10/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (8/25/2014): Before I played Assault on Dragon's Keep I played through Mr Torgue's Campaign of Carnage.  This was the first of the Borderlands 2 DLC that I tried actually.  I started it before I had finished all of the main storyline, which was a very small mistake.  There were a few small spoilers in this story that I won't post publicly because I try to not be a dick, when I can.
  
  The thing that struck me most was that I loved the Mr. Torgue character.  His childlike excitement for adrenaline is, in a word, awesome.  Things in this man's world were excessive by design and obviously took constant effort to maintain.  He is the personification of single-minded devotion to that which you love in a chaotic frontier full of murderers and psychopaths.
  
  The content in this expansion is much of the same that you can find in the base Borderlands 2 game.  That is probably part of why I loved it so.  The story was a nice blast.  There were one-on-one matches where things went wrong.  The writing was top notch.  The new weapons were... again, more of the same.
  
  I am short on words to describe how contentedly cheerful I felt when I finished this DLC.  I want to see the story again and interact with the characters more.  If Mr. Torgue was a real person I would want to hug him.  Then we could go out and blow up a car or something.

Left 4 Dead

Year: 2008
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Survival Horror
Website: http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/l4d.html

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 6.5
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

Lee:

• Platform: Xbox 360
• Hours logged: 5.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 10/10

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 5.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 10/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (8/1/2014): I love this game. It is one of my all-time favorites. When it first came out, I played many, many hours of it on my Xbox 360 (the vast majority of which is not represented in the “hours logged” line above). Single player is my favorite, but for a time, I even played this game with the scary, unwashed underbelly of the Intarweb on Xbox Live. In fact, I think this is the ONLY game that I played on Xbox Live. I was shocked when Shane told me that he had never played the L4D games, so when it showed up for super cheap on the Steam Summer Sale, I strongly urged him to buy it.
  
  It took a while for Shane and I to develop a rhythm for playing together. I was very used to playing the game on single player mode on the Xbox, where, when you jump out in front of the AI-controlled characters to dive into the fray, they don’t shoot you in the back of the head...or yell and swear at you. Sorry, Shane. We got it figured out though. I would still dive into the piles of zombies with pistols blazing, but this time, I would crouch so he could shoot zombies over my head with his assault rifle. We also got pretty good at communicating about our systematic approach to clearing out the nooks and crannies of each stage, while still keeping the group together. In L4D, sticking together is key. If you go off exploring on your own and a Smoker grabs you with its tongue or a Hunter pounces on you, you're dead.
  
  In the latter part of each chapter, the game allows you to choose an advanced weapon: auto-shotgun, assault rifle, or hunting rifle. For whatever reason, I am most attracted to either the hunting rifle/dual pistol combo or the auto-shotgun. I tend to stray away from the assault rifle, likely because it requires you to be somewhat accurate over a longer period of time as you dump several bullets into each zombie. My favorite “strafe + fire” approach to killing in first person shooters involves sweeping the crosshairs across what I intend to kill, then squeezing the trigger at the right moment. This technique lends itself well to the use of a shotgun. Because of this, being required to put my crosshairs on something and hold it there, all the while firing as fast as the gun will spray bullets, isn't something that I’m particularly good at. Using pistols is somewhat similar, but at least pistol ammo is unlimited! Back in high school and college, I dumped cubic man-months of my life into playing Counter-Strike and Half-Life Deathmatch, and during that time, I became pretty handy with a sniper rifle. I got pretty good at crouching, drawing a bead on someone, and then squeezing off a single, high-powered round into an unsuspecting skull. As strange as it is to say, I still find scoring a solid headshot to be one of the most satisfying experiences in gaming.
  
  I suspect that we will end up coming back to this game from time to time, and we may even log some time playing as the special zombies in multiplayer mode. But for now, I would like to move on to Left 4 Dead 2, since I have only played that game once all the way through. Zombie clowns!

• Shane (8/25/2014):  Damn Lee, I didn't realize that you had posted this one already.
  
  It is almost true that I had never played this game, with the exception of one afternoon at your place after I drove over for... it had to have been a brewfest.  Winterfest maybe?  That would have been the trip where I met the three very cute social workers on the plane, talked with them on subway then met up at the beer tent.  Hmm... We were a sort of friends for a while after that.  A person should try to reconnect with old friends.  We can all use more friends these days.
  
  That aside, I loved this game.  The graphics haven't quite held up and there are other quirks that I hollered about while we were playing (A level with a fence as a map border that allowed zombies to run directly through but was impassable to players.)  One control quirk took me quite a bit to get a handle on, specifically alt fire not being a zoom type but instead allowing a push or melee strike.  All told though, VERY satisfying play experience.
  
  Lee was right with the descriptions of playing together.  It took some practice limiting our friendly fire.  And I did yell at Lee quite a bit.  I would position myself to look down an alley, take a bead on a zombie down the way and promptly put three bullets into the back of Lee's head as he ran in front of me.  His willingness to crouch as he passed my line of fire was one point that helped but it also taught me to communicate my intentions better.  We both got good at hollering "Clearing left.  Left clear.  Sweeping right hallway.  Smoker in second window." and that manner of thing.
  
  It struck me while reading this that Lee considers our play to be currently done on this game.  I have a few other sections (Campaigns?  Movies?) I would like to complete before I can say that it is officially time to move on from this game but I will also happily follow along to L4D2.  Squad based FPS play actually IS fun when you have people with whom you are used to playing.  Go figure.

Left 4 Dead: Crash Course

Year: 2009
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Survival Horror
Website (PC): http://www.l4d.com/crashcourse/

Website (Xbox 360): http://marketplace.xbox.com

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 0.5
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 7/10

Lee:

• Platform: Xbox 360
• Hours logged: 0.5
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 1.0
• Playthroughs: 2
• Rating: 8/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (8/12/2014): When I first purchased Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360 a few years ago, I quickly played through each of the four basic scenarios. Then I played through them again. And again. Then I played them with the scary people on Xbox Live. While playing the game online, I noticed that a few people were playing a new scenario called "Crash Course." Needless to say, I was excited for new content for one of my favorite games of all time, so I shelled out the necessary Microsoft Points (so irritating...don't get me started on that bullshit) to buy the DLC.
  
  To be honest, I was disappointed with Crash Course. First of all, it was too short, adding a mere two chapters of new content to the L4D universe. Second, those new chapters weren't overly interesting. Each of the original scenarios had a unique and intriguing setting, but this one took place mainly in or around warehouses in a town's industrial district. (Hmm...a bit like the Portland Marathon...) Kind of boring. BUT...Crash Course is better than no L4D DLC at all, so I won't complain too much.

Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep

Year: 2013
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Action Role-Playing
Website: http://www.borderlands2.com/dragonkeep/

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 10.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (7/24/2014):  I am really glad that I played all the way through this DLC.  I wasn't exactly tempted to NOT play through it but the first play session in this story was dissapointing.  I had just finished Campaign of Carnage DLC and completely fell in love with the Mr. Torque character.  Then I launched into a world with skeletons that were a bitch to kill.  Eventually I decided, what Campaign of Carnage had in Glee and Optimism, was displayed in Assault on Dragon Keep as Authenticity and Heart.
  
  The general story here, as one might expect from the whole "Dragon Keep" bit, is that the NPCs are playing a tabletop roll-playing game.  Full disclosure:  I LOVE tabletop roll-playing games.  My weekly gaming group ran for the better part of 10 years, playing through D&D, Earthdawn, Star Wars, Ars Magica and many others.  (I long ago stopped counting my books, as measuring poundage is more efficient.)  This experience may be part of why this content was so hard for me to get into.
  
  Here is where I get nitpicky.  In the regular Borderlands 2 world, you play as a Vault Hunter.  A distinct person, with its own existence and story and ability to do stuff.  When you set foot on the Unassuming Docks for the first time, suddenly you, the same character you have been playing through the regular campaign, are just a figment of the imagination of the NPCs.  Compounding the confusion is the apparent assertion that all three NPC players are controlling one player character through this campaign...  It is recursive, which is awesome, but it isn't internally consistent to the Borderlands 2 universe.  They even have another Vault Hunter show up in one of the cut scenes!  So the other Vault Hunters DO exist in this wacky world outside of the RPG being played, but they are a PC controlled by NPCs within a game where you control the PC that is the avatar of the game...  Ugh.
  
  All of that aside, I liked the story.  It made me feel warm and how they referenced the main story was really rewarding, for the kind of people who enjoy that in their games.  Give it a whirl if you have 8-12 hours to kill.  After you finish the main game, of course.  Playing this before that would confuse the hell out of you and spoil some pretty cool stuff.

Dungeon Keeper 2

Year: 1999
Genre: Real-Time Strategy, First-Person Shooter, God Game
Website: http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper_2

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Shane:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 15.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 8/10

Lee:

• Platform: PC
• Hours logged: 1.0
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: --/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Shane (6/22/2014): Back in the day, circa year 2000, I played the hell out of this game.  I remember well, my Pentium 166 from Micron PC and the Voodoo 3 card that constantly overheated and shut my system down.  I would sit in my room (probably avoiding homework) and grab the toughest unit I had.  Then I would run around and attack the enemy, often with just an imp, though I preferred the Mistress.
  
  I still prefer the Mistress it turns out.  I managed a playthrough recently after playing a number of hours of the Android version of Dungeon Keeper.  Nostalgia was a strong force here.
  
  Things that I loved then that I still love now:  Taking a Mistress and walking backwards, away from enemies, hitting them from just outside of their attack range.  Keeping every possible enemy unit in a prison and amassing an intimidating army of skeletons!
  
  Things that I loved then that I don't have time for now:  EXHAUSTIVELY filling in every block of the map and making sure I had collected EVERY hidden item.  Taking on the enemy one at a time, all the way through the game.
  
  Things that I didn't understand then and I love now:  Leading a well formed group of leveled up units into enemy territory and cleaning up.  Hell, leveling up past 4 was something I couldn't bring myself to do when I played it 14 years ago either.
  
  (To complete this list) Things that I didn't understand then but didn't do much of this time: Converting enemy units in the torture chamber, thereby pissing off all of my units by making them spend time "with creatures they hate."
  
  I wanted to give this game a 10 as I played it through this time.  The problem with that became how long it took to get through.  I think that this new world of low price independent games has changed the way that I look at gaming as a whole and the old AAA titles now feel blunt and drawn out.  I intend to add a few more old-school cool games to my list as I can scratch together time to play them.  It will be interesting to me to see if that feeling persists or if it is more a matter of training myself to appreciate what I am playing most.

• Lee (6/23/2014): I will add more thoughts here after I play this game some more, but I do want to say for now that I felt a similar sentiment regarding Shane's comment about older games feeling drawn out while recently playing Dungeon Siege. I got tired of killing thousands of the same enemies over and over, with the only gameplay changes being made to the textures in the surroundings of the seemingly endless levels. Oh, look, another fucking cave...

Zombie Gunship

Year: 2011
Genre: Arcade, Action, First-Person Shooter
Website: http://www.limbic.com/

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Lee:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 17.0
• Playthroughs: 1
• Rating: 9/10

Shane:

• Platform: Android
• Hours logged: 4.0
• Playthroughs: 0
• Rating: --/10

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Notes and Discussions:

• Lee (5/7/2014): Holy crap! This game is ridiculously cool. Initially, I was unsure what to think about it as I learned the controls and the capabilities of the three available guns, started upgrading my gear, and began completing objectives. I enjoyed mindlessly slaughtering the lumbering zombies on their way through the desert to the bunker entrance, but I found it to be quite challenging to avoid shooting the humans. Wait...I don’t mean that I was compelled to shoot the humans... (Actually, there is one objective that required you to lose within the first 10 seconds of the round, and the only way to do that was to quickly slaughter three humans. Hmm... This is vaguely reminiscent of the “optional,” controversial level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II where you are tasked with walking around an airport killing civilians to gain the trust of the terrorist cell. Or any of the Grand Theft Auto games.)  As a bonus, I quickly discovered that one of the beautiful things about Zombie Gunship is that you can knock out a few rounds while sitting on the can at work. Yup.
  
  The premise of the game is that you are a gunner for an aircraft circling one of four key locations. You must switch between three guns of varying sizes to take out waves of zombies approaching the selected map’s bunker. But care must be taken to not kill the civilians that are also making their way to the bunker. After killing a couple hundred zombies, the big zombies start showing up. Then the zombies start moving a little faster. Each round is over when either: 1) a zombie enters the bunker, or 2) you gun down three civilians. You gain money for each zombie killed and for each civilian rescued. This money can be spent on equipment upgrades or to unlock new maps. The goal is to complete a list of objectives, which will enable you to move up the military ranks. When you reach the rank of Captain, you win!
  
  One feature of the game that kind of annoyed me was the ability to watch a short video advertisement to gain in-game money. On the first playthrough attempt, I clicked that button more times than I care to admit, and each time, a little bit of what’s left of my soul disappeared. So I started over!
  
  After starting again from scratch, I was able to utilize one very important strategy that I learned somewhere on the intarweb: DO NOT upgrade the damage radius of the 25mm Gatling gun. This allows you to more easily snipe the zombies that are fighting the humans without accidentally murdering civilians. Several objectives put this ability to the test. Other objectives involved taking out many zombies with a signal shot. Upgrading the damage radius of the 105mm Howitzer cannon helped a lot with these. Another incredibly useful strategy that I read somewhere was to use the 25mm gun on the big zombies. My instincts told me to nuke those bitches with the 105mm, but it’s true, they actually go down much faster if you put a shitload of 25mm bullets into them.
  
  As I played, I didn't really have any indication how much further I had to go, so I kept working at knocking down objectives and moving up the ranks. Zombie Gunship gives you three objectives to work on at a time, so when I found one that I thought would be impossible for me to complete (given that I'm not a particularly skilled gamer), I focused on one of the other two. Much to my surprise, I was eventually able to work through almost all of the objectives! There were two or three near the end that completely stumped me, but the game awesomely allows you to spend some of your hard-earned money to buy your way out of completing any given mission. Fantastic!
  
  This is game joins Kingdom Rush in the category of my all-time favorite Android games. Somehow Zombie Gunship managed to extract 17 immensely satisfying hours from my life. Nice work, Limbic Software!

• Shane (5/7/2014):  I also played this game.  In fact, I think it was the first game from this Humble Bundle pack that I loaded.  Back before I did my stint in the Air Guard I had learned of the existence of the AC-130 gunship.  A pair of videos had been released showing them in action in the middle east.  (I would link them here but they carry an emotional charge for some folks.  The fact that they show the little white lights of people go dark after an odd puff of mono-tone shadow covered their silhouettes had an effect on even me, and I embraced violence back then.  Those little lights probably didn't even hear the plane that made them invisible to the infrared camera...  Huh... even now it makes me pause for a moment.  The death you can't see coming.)  So when this game popped up I thought of those videos.
  
  Lee talked about a scene in Modern Warfare 2.  The Airport scene.  Interesting that he didn't pick the Gunship mini-game.  That was also firmly on my mind as I loaded the game up for the first time.  The fact that I was hunting Zombies was a fine diversion from the swirl of memories I was juggling.
  
  When the game loaded up... well... it was fun.  All of that history faded away and I was chasing small dots and big dots and switching which puff of shadow I sent down.  I was the collector of Zombie bounty.  I was that death from above and I liked it.
  
  If you have a couple bucks to spend and a couple minutes to kill, give it a whack.  Just... don't think too hard about it.