Thursday, November 5, 2009

LotRO: The Road Goes Ever On

I bought the Mines of Moria expansion for $10 yesterday, and I started downloading the most recent client so I can maybe/possibly get into the game this weekend.  I say maybe because I need $30 for a 3-month subscription so I can get Siege of Mirkwood for free.  That's $10 a month, and I'm pretty sure I'd actually be playing it for that long in my spare time, but I need to make sure I have the $30 to toss toward it first.  Stupid first half of each month always has that niggle mortgage payment to deal with, hence my hesitation.

But I'm really quite stoked to get back in, as you can see over at ITG! I've got a level 38 Champion to use, but I also really want to play a Warden.  Apparently they've revamped the elf and human starting areas, so I'll probably start off with that before acclimating myself with my old Champion again.  That's a feat I'm not sure I can accomplish really.  It's been since August of 2007 that I last played the Champion.  How long is too long to go back to a character?  Will I have any clue what I'm doing?  How much has the class changed, and how will I know where I need to go to quest?  I guess I'll find out.

I hear the entire leveling curve from 1-40 has been decreased, much like what WoW did with 1-60, in order to help new players and alts catch up to the end-game content.  So I'm sure even if I did have to or decide to play a new character it wouldn't be long before I was out of the early stuff and into the Lone-Lands and Evendim where I last remember playing. 

I'll be posting a sort of re-review of the game over ITG! once I've had some decent time to get reacquainted with LotRO and all that's chaned in the two years I've been absent.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Borderlands First Impressions

I managed to snag Borderlands for the PC over the weekend, and I have to say I'm just as impressed as I thought I would be.  This hybrid of games is something I can't believe hasn't been done until now.  Like Genda over at ITG! states, it's got a certain something that makes it just plain ol' fun.

The things I noticed at first that I didn't like were that even with the hardcore aiming in place (as opposed to dice rolls determining if you hit an enemy or not) the accuracy of certain guns means you can still miss an enemy who's just standing there even if you're trained right on his torso.  But in my short time playing it, I got a much better gun and this little annoyance went away.  Also, enemies have that weird "twitch" when you hit them with a bullet which doesn't give the best feedback for shooting someone in the stomach.  It's not very believable, but then neither is hitting them with ten bullets before they fall down.  It's a videogame with a cartoon art style... I shouldn't be so picky.

But the world seems huge, the quests varied, and the gameplay and RPG elements are going to make for a very addictive game.  I'm gonna roll solo for now, but once I feel comfortable with the mechanics, look for me as JoBildo on Steam.