A Minor Delay
Sorry about that delay. With the recent release of games in the past week and amount of actual work piling up, I've had to put reviews on hold. Fortunately, I've been given some time off, so I can sit down and bullshit a review or two. Unfortunately, I don't have any consoles or game-worthy computer, so these reviews might be a little weak in credibility.
Also, keep on the lookout for upcoming posts on current anime episodes. I might be late coming into the game with anime reviews seeing how half of the fall season has already gone by. By now, you should already know what anime you like and dislike. I, myself, have only been following a handful.
How Do Bullets Even Work in Space? – A Shattered Horizon Review
When I was young, I wanted to become an astronaut, to go into space, to walk on the moon. Every kid has that wild fantasy of what they wanted to do when they grow up. While I would like to experience zero gravity and walking on the moon, after playing Shattered Horizons, I don't think I could stomach it.
Shattered Horizon is a first person shooter fought in space between space marines of the East against the space marines of the West where the only difference is the colour of their spacesuit. Everything is about this game shouts "potential". Futuremark tries something different by letting the player feel like they're actually in space, fighting in an actual battle...in space. The generic FPS puts you, on the ground with ability to move up and down, forward and back, left and right. Add in the ability to change your pitch and yaw angle and you have Shattered Horizon.
I could nitpick at the flaws in controls, but that would just be me being a dick and raging that I can't snipe. You have one gun, a machine gun with an attached grenade launcher. Of course, no gun would be complete without a scope. However flying through space does make sniping a challenge. Sure you could stick to an asteroid or to a side of a building, but that's just camping. And don't try to crouch or prone. Those don't exist in space. If you can master the horrible control, you can try to master the massive recoil when you fire ten bullets. The sniper rifle has been reformed into a machine gun with a scope that fires ten bullets.
To be honest, the game is very generic. You're either fighting in an asteroid field trying to capture certain parts of satellites. Or, you're in an asteroid field defending against the attacking faction. It seems the developers put all their time into making the player feel like they're in space, which is okay. They're probably banking on future map releases, new game modes, more factions, more variety of guns...you know, a typical multiplayer FPS.
Shattered Horizon is a game that doesn't allow Windows XP support. So you people who are still behind the curve, you get to sit this one out. With only supporting DX10 graphics, many computers might struggle running this game. But this is game is to remind us that games are moving forward and so should we.It's cheap for a pretty game with multiplayer that COULD keep you engaged, or engaged long enough to delete it. If you're into physics and free floating space with space marine shooters, give this game a try.
Boredomlands – A Borderlands Review
One of the entire reasons I've started reviewing video games and putting them up publicly is because of Borderlands. This game has been the bane of my existence since release. Seeing the previews for a First Person Shooter Role Playing Game made me almost wet myself. It's just what I wanted. The action of a first person shooter combined with elements of character building and stat modification would be my favorite game type. You could call me a nerd, but we're all nerds, right? I've heard people grumble at the fact that Borderlands was a cell-shaded game. I'm no stickler about graphics, but cell-shaded games just look bad. It seems like I could playing this game in Maya or any hammer program. But we don't want to hear how bad it looks, because the game play must be great.
You start off on a bus travelling with three others to a shit hole town called Fyrestone. This is where you get to decide which character you want to play as: a giant ape who is pumped full of testosterone, the black man who is apparently camera shy, a French pussy who you could call a sniper, or the jailbait siren who glows. However, it doesn't matter which character you pick, they all equally suck. The only thing different is the skill they receive after grinding for a few levels.
The preview mentioned about Borderlands having 87 bazillion guns. While it does have a vast amount of weapons, there are only seven types: pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, shotguns, and the alien Eridian weapons. Having that many weapons makes the player feel overwhelmed, looking at every single weapon and comparing them to the ones he has equipped or stored in his backpack. I eventually found myself using the same weapon for ten levels. Other guns looked nice, but they either had six bullets per magazine, or had a ridiculous reload time. Of course, you can change other aspects about your character, like your shield generator, or type of grenades, or skill enhancement devices. Even these felt like you had to compare every single one with the you had equipped.
The story is very lacking. There is this Vault. You must find it because it holds something you want. You can use your imagination to what's inside. However to get into the vault, you need to find a key. Through the aid of the locals who are, for a lack of a better term, crazy, you do quest after quest to find pieces of the Vault key. Unlike Fallout 3's story, Borderlands' story is almost missing. You could give someone the objective, "Find Vault", and you would have Borderlands.
Because everyone has asked me if they should buy Borderlands, the game is and somewhat fun and could keep you entertained for hours. I say "could" because of the constant repetition. Get quest, shoot everything along the way, find guns, complete quest, level up. Unless you're like me who grows a hard on for FPS/RPG games, Borderlands is a good way to kill some time before other, better games out. If you were a fan of Fallout 3 and its sandbox gameplay with role playing elements, give Borderlands a try. It won't be near as fun or immersive or a challenge, but it has finer points. I just can't see them.
But what is Silhouette?
Don't judge this by its name, Silhouette. I couldn't come up with a better title at the time I was creating the webpage. If you somehow stumbled upon this page, you're probably wondering what this is all about. I don't know why but people have often asked me for my opinions on video games, especially those that are fresh, new releases. But it's not like two or three people who ask me for an opinion. Oh no, it has to be more along the lines of ten or more people. It's cool telling a couple people my opinion, but my patience quickly runs out when instant messages pop up left and right. So I've decided to use my knowledge of the English language and produce amateur reviews of video games, or anything that I feel needs to be reviewed. I'm relatively new to critical reviewing, so my review could be very dry and straight forward. I'm sure everyone would want a humourous review like Ben Croshaw, or better known as Yahtzee, and his Zero Punctuation reviews. I'm not Australian, and I'm sure as hell not putting together animation that could probably be done by 15-year olds. However, I can't bash on him. Looking at his fanbase, his approach has proved very successful. Anyway, I welcome you to Silhouette. For more information, check out the "About Asmodeus" page.