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Borderlands.  Easily one of the more highly praised new(ish) releases.  It offers a little bit of everything:  a unique art style, big guns, vehicle combat, a splash of humor, first-person shooting and roleplaying game elements.  Oh, and psycho midgets.

At first I was skeptical of the game, having heard very little about it.  I also tend not to rely on previews written by people who are paid to play videogames, the same way as I don't read reviews written by people who are paid to watch movies.  So I went in blind.

From the beginning, you get a very quick introduction into what kind of game this is going to be.  Through that introduction movie and the sequence that follows (neither of which you can skip), you are welcomed to a world that is very much in the a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max, dystopian state.  You are offered a selection of one of four characters and off you go into a brief tutorial.

Combat is interesting.  There's a bit of a learning curve involved if you are not familiar with FPS mechanics.  There is no option for target locking seen in some other FPS/RPG hybrids, so you are on your own with the aiming.  There is, however, a aim assist feature which I found got in my way more than it helped.  There's plenty of bullets and grenades and blood to cater to the most gun-happy player, and the way a critical hit (head shot) makes the head leave the body is absurdly amusing.

The RPG elements are at the core of the gameplay.  It follows the standard formula:  Get a quest, complete the quest, turn in the quest, get your reward, get a new quest, rinse and repeat.  All of the weapons, grenades and shields have stats and "enchantments" as all RPG items should, and they drop out of enemies like candy from a papier-mâché donkey.

The story is, as most others have said, lacking.  If you play RPGs for the compelling story and the character development, look elsewhere.  However, it does free you from having to sit through hours of voiceovers or reading lines and lines of text.  With this, it allows the player to get more action and less waiting.

The game world is broken up into zones/regions, which extends the loading time a bit but otherwise means you'll be moving from place to place less often.  The "dungeons" or "lairs" within are also quite large and oftentimes elaborate, almost always leading up to a fight with a big boss at the end (depending on the quest and/or your reason for being there).

My biggest gripe is the way the quest system is handled in multi-player.  Everyone must be on the same active quest as the host of the game, so there is very little in the way of independence.  It does force everyone to work together (which is kind of the point in a co-op game), but it makes it complicated for people who don't have characters of the same level and/or on the same quest line.

Ultimately, the game is very fun.  It stirred up some nostalgia for the Diablo games, as it feels a lot like them...  except in first-person, with mutants instead of demons, guns instead of blades, and vehicles with rocket launchers.

So I was a little late to jump at Resident Evil 5. I found the demo to be exceedingly frustrating, as there really wasn't any guidance as to how to play the game. Even as a veteran of its predecessor, I was familiar with the controls but the overall experience seemed... more difficult.

Months later, I finally sat down with the game. My friend and I, both fans of the series, sat through a couple hours of the game and became immediately hooked. The graphics are fantastic, the storyline intriguing and the action exceptionally intense. The controls have some getting used to (I admit that I did better on the Wii version of RE4 than I did the 360 version of 5), but once you have it down it's all good.

After that initial few hours, we sat down at the 360 later in the weekend and played through the rest of the game, nonstop, for 10 hours. Dear. Lord. I would have kept going, but I had stuff to do that day and the final boss was being a bastard.

Having finally completed it a day later, I must say that I'm quite pleased with the end-result and my original misgivings about the game based on the demo and the negativity that surrounded its setting (Africa) were definitely misplaced.

All in all, a very solid game that I would recommend to any fan of the series.

If there's any modern-day Real-Time Strategy series I'm fond of, it's the Dawn of War series. The Warhammer series in general has a tremendously deep library of lore, a broad spectrum of characters, races, and all of the other tasty giblets that make it a perfectly robust multiverse to build a game from.

Dawn of War II's predecessors, spanning several expansion packs, take you into the Warhammer 40,000 universe with science fiction concepts leaking from every orifice. The game is presented in the typical model: Build a base, gather resources, train units, expand. Fight. Lather, rinse repeat. Infantry are delivered in squads that can be reinforced, weapons that can be upgraded, and with accompanying specialists and/or hero-class units to make it a micromanager's wet dream come true. They had very distinct races/factions to choose from, some with drastically different play styles that would appeal to several different tastes. All in all, it had a little bit of something for everyone.

Dawn of War II arrives soon, but is currently available as a beta through Steam. As an owner of the final expansion of its predecessor, I was able to access the beta a week early and I dived right into it. My roommate, being an even bigger of a fan than I, also jumped in.

After putting hours into the game, trying out the different skirmish modes, poking at the four basic factions (of which we only get one new one to start), neither of us really know what to think. The game's formula has changed entirely. Gone is the concept of building a base, which essentially leaves you with a single building from which all of your units are trained. Squad reinforcement also seems to be a thing of the past, save for 1-2 weapon upgrades and a single squad leader that can support each group. Finally, the heroic characters are also very specialized, which is kind of cool on the surface but I found myself unsure of exactly what to do with them, at times. And finally, the resource-gathering rate is so mind-rapingly slow that I felt that I was moving too quickly for the game, leaving it a slow, droning pace and making getting back into the fight very time-consuming.

Not to say that the game is without cool additions, mind. The environments are very destructible, vehicles pose even larger threats in this iteration, and the graphical overhaul is very nice. But for all of its flashiness and sharp new look, it still makes me wonder if this is some kind of sick joke. I have heard only good things from publications regarding their single-player campaign, but if this is what can be expected of the multiplayer experience, I think I'll sit this one out.

I was originally going to go into how absolutely awesome Left 4 Dead is, and then roll around on the floor proclaiming my love for zombie-slaying goodness, but there isn't anything I could say about the game that hasn't been said by the majority of the players.

I do feel, however, that the game still plays as if it's missing something. Versus mode still feels gimped, thanks in part to only half of the campaigns being available (at time of writing). Valve has promised new weapons, new campaigns, and the SDK for custom content since mid-December. Not seeing it yet. C'mon now...

The lack of expansion and custom content may not have that large of an impact on its popularity since the game is incredibly infectious, but it's only a matter of time before people start getting really impatient.

srsly valve we need moar zombees

Okay, so this was a long time coming. I went into a fair amount of detail about Fable 2 in my previous post, but now that I've completed the main story arc of the game (and started a second character), I'm ready to finish my review.

The game itself, in all of its greatness, is rather simple. As a player, you aren't as forced into the physical development of your character as you were in the original Fable, but your customization options are fairly limited. You have handful of adornment selections which are only vast if you decide to make your character a cross-dresser, your character's physical appearance ranges from anywhere between tall and rather bulky to short and fat with your wondrous selection of horns if you're evil and a halo if you're good (in their extremes). Dyes for your attire and hair are a nice touch, but attire is utterly useless except for minor NPC perception adjustments and overall, you are just as capable at defending yourself if you're naked as if you were wearing protective gear.

Combat is rather clunky at times, lacking any real sense of tempo or action outside of the occasional slow-motion view of a slain enemy flying through the air like a ragdoll against whatever it may have the unfortunate fate of colliding with. For the most part, you have three options for combat: Taptaptap the hell out of the X button, stand back and taptaptap the hell out of the Y button or Holdholdholdrelease the B button. The controls are simple and with that, comes the simplicity of the combat system. Many times, you find that the only reason you got hit by an enemy in the first place is because you put too much effort into developing your character to one or more extremes. For example, Will users will get hit a lot, especially if you're looking to cast the most powerful spells. Skill users are great at sniping, but some enemies have the purely sinister ability to dodge bullets and arrows (thank you for that realism). Lastly, Strength users can absolutely tear everything they come across apart, but they will perpetually block every attack unless you put enough points into abilities to let you 'flourish' and break through those blocks. All in all, it feels like a step back from its predecessor.

The quest lines and stories are, as always, golden. The comedy is ever-present in the majority of the storylines and for the most part, you find yourself right at home in the Fable universe. Hannah (Hammer), the first major character you encounter in the game, is made of pure awesome. The character's monologue (since your character never speaks) and dialogue with other characters is brilliant and entertaining. The others, however, not so much. Going into detail would spoil story elements, but I will say that introducing a character that we're supposed to perceive as a major asset to the storyline and then having them out of the picture within a few minutes' time is very bad form.

Lastly, the endgame story elements are garbage. Throughout the entire game, you are built up to believe that you will be engaging in a full-blown, knock-down, drag-out fight with the antagonist in this story, only to have the plot fall flat on its face by ending it with easily the most lackluster and thoroughly disappointing final confrontation I've ever seen in a game. I'll just say that the saving grace is the ability to continue with additional content after the main story line.

In closing, the game is very beautiful if not a bit limited, has a high replay value despite its short main storyline, and can easily eat up hours of your time. I would personally recommend it for a 1-2 week rental and leave it at that unless Lionhead decides to expand upon it considerably.