Borderlands

Guns. Lots of guns. Worth: $25
based on 360 retail

This may be you sometimes when playing this game, but most of the time you make the baddies want to do this.

Plusses: guns, guns, guns! Built for Co-Op from the ground up. Mission structure. Game world packed with things to shoot.
Minuses: it doesn't look all that great, and the difficulty balance is all over the place. Confusing information layout.

There are a lot of good things about Borderlands, and I'll probably like it more as I get better at it. What I miss though is my Halo 3 control scheme, Bumper Jumper. My Borderlands character has the agility to avoid a lot of the damage I take, but the control scheme doesn't facilitate the Gypsy Two-Step and so I get the crap beat out of me.

A major disappointment for me was that the unique gun-generation system is handled entirely by the game code. I thought I'd be able to construct my own weapons, but sadly this is not how the game works. What does work is the shooting, the mission structure, and the game world. The characters you meet are barely two-dimensional, but they get the job done.

I'm ambivalent about a major design decision: the areas in the game world repopulate with baddies almost as soon as you clear them. In fact, I had one area respawn it's baddies while I was still standing in it. Not surprisingly, I got my butt absolutely blown off. The respawning allows me to churn my character's level very quickly, but it also means you have to fight your way _everywhere_, even if you were just there. Again, there is good and bad to this, so I have mixed feelings about it.

I think I'd notice these flaws a lot less if I were playing Co-Op. Once I get a chance to do that I'll revisit this review.

Mass Effect 2

In space, no one can hear you flapping your jaws. Worth: $20
based on 360 retail

All that time in hyperspace makes people really, really chatty.

Plusses: story, characters, art direction, sound design, control scheme, dialogue, relationships, combat.
Minuses: needs less talk and more rock, zero replayability.

Your story continues, literally. You can import your character from ME1 and live the results of the decisions you made in that first installment. This second game in the series shows many improvements and much more mission variety, but it is still a book on wheels that will come out essentially the same way no matter how you play it.

Yes, there is the notorious Suicide Mission, but having nailed that on my first try (purely by luck I assure you) why would I do it again?

Saboteur

Looks aren't everything. Worth: $17
based on 360 retail

Voulez-vous shoot Nazis avec moi?

Plusses: mission design, lots of stuff to blow up and shoot, surprisingly good driving, city-as-jungle-gym a la Assassins Creed, sprawling game world, palpable sense of being the underdog.
Minuses: story, voice acting, art direction, characters, character animations, graphics are totally last-gen.

This game is weird, but once I got the hang of it I had a great time. It looks and sounds like crap, but the controls and character handling are solid and consistent. I liked using dynamite to take out Nazi sniper towers and fuel depots. The variety of weapons is actually better than other WW2 games because the game designers made the decision to include some high-end fantasy weapons like the fictional MP-60 that spews bullets like water out of a garden hose.

Driving around Paris doesn't feel like the real Paris at all, but it was still fun to clamber around on the Eiffel Tower, Arc de' Triomphe, and Sacre Cour. The use of black-and-white to indicate occupied territory as opposed to full-color for the liberated areas was even more striking than I thought it would be. Once I opened up some of the city to the full-color of denazification, the black-and-white Nazified areas were positively chilling. I anticipate that this design feature will be heavily ripped off in future games from other developers because it did a great job of motivating me to colorize the entire city.

Assassin's Creed 2

Party like it's 1499. Worth: $60
based on 360 retail

Italians tend to be very nurturing, until the stabbing begins.

This is the best single-player game I've ever played. Everything about the experience is so polished that even titles from game-making giants like Bungie and Epic pale in comparison to this masterpiece of interactive entertainment from Ubisoft.

Plusses: story, graphics, camera, control scheme, dialogue, voice acting, art direction, game world.
Minuses: none (although a Co-Op mode would have made this the best game of all time for eternity).

Dragon Age: Origins

Chatty-Chatty Bang-Bang. Worth: $40
based on 360 retail - special thanks to the GamerGal

Warrior, Rogue, or Mage, tongues will flap and heads will roll.

DA:O is a terrific game, once you get the knack of it. The GamerGal has been instrumental to my hanging in there with this game. She's already got the hang of it from playing Knights of the Old Republic (1 & 2) and Final Fantasy (7, 10, X-2). I however, had a steep road to climb before I figured out how to have fun with this sprawling RPG from BioWare.

The following article is an intro to playing Dragon Age Origins, but it is not a walkthrough. It's a general guide for people who haven’t played this kind of RPG before. If you’ve played Knights of the Old Republic or Final Fantasy then you don’t need this. If you mostly play action games but have been sucked into this game by your friends, then you might get something from this.

Stuff you’ll always want to do:

Save. A lot. Save after every fight or transaction. Save before you open any door. I save every couple of minutes, sometimes every ten seconds depending on what I’m doing. The fights in the game are not leveled, meaning it is easy to walk your Level 4 party members into a Level 20 fight. Momma said knock you out.

Take the Coercion skill and level it up as soon as you can. Anybody in your party can kick ass. Only _your_ character can talk to people and persuade or intimidate them. Coercion makes the game a LOT easier and more fun.

Pace yourself. This is a long game, and while there is a lot of action, there is also a lot of talking and a lot of party management. When I need a balls-out action-fest, I play an FPS. When I want to relax and cool down, I play a big RPG like this.

Conversations

- Talk to everybody you see, everywhere you go.
- Especially talk to your party members (mostly in your Camp). Its good to get them to like you because they will fight better. Plus, you can take them back to your tent and fool around with them (the cutscenes are only PG-13).
- Faster conversations. If you can’t stand sitting through all the chit-chat, you can fast-forward by turning on subtitles so you can read what they are going to say, then hit the Skip button (Xbox = X). This speeds up the talking a lot.

Party Members

- Always take anyone who wants to join your party.
- Listen to your party members. They have conversations with each other that can be illuminating, entertaining, or both.
- Your party members have distinct personalities. Your interactions with them need to take this into account. For example, try to avoid saying anything to Sten that ends with a question mark.

Pay Attention

- Explore everywhere. BioWare loves to hide loot down back alleys or behind things. Peek at your map to see if you’ve explored everywhere.
- When something adds itself to your Codex, take a quick look when the notice "Added to Codex" appears in the lower left of your screen (Xbox = "back" button). You don’t have to read everything, but at least quickly skim it just so you know what it was.

Let yourself get the hang of it

- On your first time through, be nice to everybody. This opens up more of the game and generally makes things easier. You can be a nasty S.O.B. for your next character.
- Get used to the Action Wheel (Xbox = Left Trigger). This will pause the fight and give you time to see which party member needs health. Almost everything you "do" happens from the Action Wheel, including Poisons, Potions, and Traps. I tried using the short-cuts for a while (Xbox = X, Y, B) but since the Action Wheel holds _everything_ I find it easier to use that instead.
- Don’t run around too much during a fight. The characters can fight or move but not both. When you move you are not putting out any damage. Sometimes you have to relocate, sure, but don’t just run around for no real reason.

The Tactics Screen

Take ten minutes out of a gaming session and really figure out Tactics. Here’s a good starting point:
- Have the first Tactics slot be "If this character’s health is less than 25%, take a health potion."
- Have the second slot activate a sustained defensive ability, if available. Warriors can activate a Shield mode, Mages eventually can get Bone Armor, Rogues can activate Stealth.
- The rest of the slots depend on the character’s class. Warriors should use Taunt, then hunker down and draw as much enemy attention (aka "aggro") as possible (this strategy is known as "tanking"). This will draw enemy fire away from your lightly-armored but high-casualty-producing Mages and ranged weapon Rogues. Mages should Heal any party member whose health falls below 50%. Rogues can attack with bow and arrow.
- You could use one of your Warrior’s slots to say basically, "If an enemy is attacking my Mage (or ranged weapon Rogue), stop whatever you’re doing and attack that enemy."

What made this game fun for me

Here’s the number one thing that made this game fun for me:
Play as Morrigan. She inflicts more than twice as much damage as any other party member. She has so many great spells in her Action Wheel that it’s practically impossible to set up her Tactics to use everything, unlike a Warrior or Rogue who can be more of a fire-and-forget once you get their Tactics set up.

This meant letting go of my own character a little. I set up a Female Warrior Human (named "Jade") and have not leveled her up very well. This is typical for the first time I play an RPG. It takes me a character or two to get the hang of what’s important. For now I have Jade’s Tactics set up so she acts as a heavily armored Ranged fighter who hangs back and shoots at people. If an enemy attacks Morrigan, Jade's Tactics have her shoot at that enemy. If an enemy attacks Jade, I have one of my Warrior’s Tactics set to come and help her out.

Here’s the number two thing that made this game more fun:
Make a ton of health potions. Who needs skill when you can health up 75 times in a row? This has saved my bacon many times and let me avoid getting knocked out by Momma (see above). The merchant in your Camp has unlimited Flasks for sale, and the merchant in the Dalish Camp has unlimited Elfroot for sale (you need both). You'll need at least one party member with at least one level of Herbalism. Then you can crank out dozens of health potions for your party members to chug down during your fights.

Good luck!